AT THE weekend, the Tory-supporting Telegraph newspaper published an article by its economics expert Jeremy Warner which carried the dire headline: ‘Few have woken up to the full horror of Britain’s diminished situation.’
Warner complains that ‘voters and large parts of the political class don’t yet recognise this dispiriting predicament, and are therefore still entirely unprepared for the hard yards needed to bring inflation expectations into line with the real world mediocrity to which the nation’s circumstances have been reduced.’
According to Warner, Britain ‘will eventually have to accept that many of the things we take for granted – from burgeoning entitlement and benefit spending through to low-cost mortgages, rising real wages, inexpensive food and cheap foreign holidays – will no longer be affordable or available in the way they once were.’
In his words: ‘A rude and politically destabilising awakening is in prospect.’
Warner describes the politically destabilising dilemma tearing the Tories apart when he writes: ‘Virtually all available options are fraught with political difficulty, for they either involve a climbdown from low tax objectives, or the kind of cuts in public spending that key elements of the party deem unacceptable.’
Warner’s warning that the competing sections of the Tory party are tearing it apart in an unprecedented bout of in-fighting was confirmed with the news of a revolt amongst Truss’s cabinet over plans to snatch hundreds of pounds from 5.7 million people on Universal Credit.
Truss has declared that she intends to break previous Tory pledges to increase benefits in line with inflation, currently standing at 10% and rising, and instead make any increase aligned with average earnings – which the Tories and bosses are determined to hold down.
According to the Child Poverty Action Group this will push 200,000 more children into poverty.
Truss’s plan was branded by one Tory backbencher as ‘ludicrous’ and ‘stupid’, warning that her ‘cruel’ policy will be blocked. Another Tory source told the press: ‘There is no way it will get through. The cabinet is leading the revolt.’
Yesterday, Truss met with her cabinet, and another screeching U-turn on the benefits issue is widely expected from a prime minister whose first four weeks in power has been one disaster after another.
The Tories are not just at war with one another. They are also desperate to blame the Bank of England, holding it responsible for spiralling interest rates and inflation, moaning that the BoE should have put up interest rates much earlier and higher.
This is the state of chaos that reigns at the political heart of British capitalism today – a Tory government torn apart, at war with itself and with the BoE, the very institution responsible for maintaining economic stability, an impossible task today.
Behind this chaos is the reality that Warner has identified in his article – namely that if British capitalism is to survive, it must force workers to accept benefits being just an ‘entitlement’ that can be abolished, along with wages being cut to poverty levels, and food costs soaring.
The working class, the most powerful force in society, are not passively accepting this as a future. They are already ‘awake’ as the unprecedented wave of mass national strikes demonstrates their determination not to have their lives and the lives of their families destroyed by a Tory government and capitalist system that is collapsing around its ears.
The only thing holding back the working class from resolving this crisis once and for all is the refusal of the trade union leaders to use the huge strength of the working class to put an end to the Tories and bankrupt capitalism.
On Tuesday 18th October, the TUC is meeting in Brighton. The WRP and its youth movement the Young Socialists are calling for a mass lobby of this meeting to force the TUC to immediately call a general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers’ government.
A workers’ government will expropriate the bankers and bosses, bringing in a planned socialist economy.
We urge every worker and young person to join the lobby and go forward to a general strike and socialism.
