THE Tory government is in a state of crisis and near collapse as revelations pile up daily about the financial activities of Tory ministers who demand sacrifices from workers while making sure their own millions are safeguarded.
The latest damning indictment came last week when it was disclosed in the press that Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, held non-domicile (non-dom) status for UK tax purposes.
This status meant that Murty, daughter of a billionaire Indian businessman, was not liable to pay tax in the UK on foreign investments.
It is being estimated that she has, perfectly legally, avoided paying £20 million in UK tax while her husband has cut £20 a week from Universal Credit benefit for the poorest families in the country.
Sunak reacted to this disclosure with anger – how dare the press investigate his wife’s financial affairs and expose the sordid (but legal) schemes to avoid tax at a time when he is increasing the taxes for low paid workers and driving up energy bills.
His bout of righteous indignation over his wife being ‘hounded’ by the press was completely undermined when stories about his own financial wheeling and dealing began to see the light of day.
It turns out that Sunak, while an MP and Chancellor, had been classed as a permanent resident of the United States.
Last Friday, Sunak was forced to confirm that he had held a US green card (which permits a person to work in the US by declaring they are a ‘permanent US resident’ for tax purposes) for 19 months while he was Chancellor and six years before that as an MP.
Holding a green card does not confer any tax advantage on Sunak, which has led to commentators suggesting he was keeping open the option of jumping ship from a sinking Tory government and a collapsing British economy and seeking refuge in the US at his £5.5 million Californian home.
British capitalism has been turned into little more than a bankrupt ‘banana republic’ where sections of its political elite are actively contemplating bailing out and heading off to the safety of overseas boltholes to escape the wrath of the people left behind.
The fear that is stalking the ruling class, of workers rising up against the Tory government and the capitalist system, found expression in the Tory-supporting Sunday Telegraph at the weekend.
It contained an interview with the popular money saving expert Martin Lewis who admitted to being ‘scared for people’ as inflation shoots out of control.
Lewis stressed the desperation of households who cannot afford to pay for the basic necessities of food and energy, saying: ‘We need to keep people fed. We need to keep them warm. If we get this wrong right now, then we get to the point where we start to risk unrest. When breadwinners cannot provide, anger brews and civil unrest brews – and I do not think we are very far off.’
The day of reckoning between the working class and this Tory government that represents nothing but the interests of the billionaire capitalist class is most certainly not far off – and the ruling class knows it.
With a Tory government that is collapsing by the day under the impact of the world capitalist crisis and now demanding that workers pay for the billions being spent to wage war on Russia, the ruling class is preparing to dump the Johnson government.
The only force it can turn to is the police and military to impose the crisis on the backs of the working class by force.
But they face a powerful, angry and determined working class that is already rising up against a capitalist system that can only survive by attempting to drive them back to the poverty conditions of the 19th century.
This has forced the TUC to call a national demonstration in London on 18 June.
This demonstration must develop into a general strike to kick out the Tories and bring in a workers government that will expropriate the bankers and bosses, placing the productive forces under the ownership, management and control of the working class as part of building a socialist society.
Only a socialist revolution can put an end to bankrupt capitalism and the billionaires who leech off the backs of the working class.
