No austerity for war spending in Starmer’s government
JVL Introduction
We have published several articles about the fact that Labour is choosing to continue and even deepen austerity, despite its horrendous impact on the most vulnerable in our society and even its ineffectiveness at creating the conditions for a strong economy. However, as is made clear in this article, Defence remains one of the areas of spending to which this new New Labour government remains committed and, to increase the level to above what is required under NATO conditions and at a higher level than most of the other members of that Alliance. The continued commitment extends, of course, to the hugely wasteful, unusable nuclear weapons as well.
Making Defence one of the protected areas of public spending is a clear political choice, another bad choice that will add further cuts to other areas of government spending, such as local government, transport and housing.
Starmer and Reeves act as though the vote at the July general election gives them the mandate for this it may be worth them remembering that they received fewer votes than Labour received in 2019, when Corbyn was the Leader.
LL
This article was originally published by Labour Outlook on Mon 2 Sep 2024. Read the original here.
Money for War, but not for much else
“One manifesto commitment is absolved from scrutiny – the pledge to raise military spending to 2.5% of GDP. Keir Starmer’s military budget commitment remains uncosted – an irksome outlier amongst the Chancellor’s non-negotiable fiscal rules.”
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Our present rulers came in on the failure of the Conservative government, yet they are fixated on following a fundamentally Conservative mind-set. As has been said, instead of caring about vulnerable people, such as the elderly and the hard-up, the Starmerite false ‘Labour’ government is as if insanely mad about weaponry, which we observe being deployed in really silly ways, in a crazy continuation of chaotic Conservative non-thinking which will actually worsen the future security of our country. All really bad choices.
There is no fundamental difference AT ALL between the current Labour Party and the Tories on Foreign Policy and defence. It is about working with the USA to protect maintain US global dominance – US military strategy clearly points this out. We see what this means in Palestine and Ukraine: they are linked. If Russia prevails in Ukraine and ‘the west’ is forced to concede this will be the best way that the world can be changed and will benefit the Palestinians the most. That’s why we should ALL support Russia in the Ukraine: the US plan is obvious and was planned way before the current conflict began.
The domination of politics in the west by the interests of corporations and billionaires, manifesting as US policy, has allowed energy and industrial giants to take the planet to the brink of climate collapse. It is also facilitating the massive spending on “defence” to the benefit of the military industrial complex by cutting spending on useful areas such as health, education, infrastructure which is taking us to the brink of World War III.
I’m certainly glad I don’t live near London or any military targets!
Sir Worse Than Useless made a bad choice when he took a small subsidy of a few hundred pounds each away from elderly people. Although a wealthy man himself, through being enriched by the disproportionately high charges for legal work, Sir Worse Than Useless felt entitled to slyly take tens of thousands of pounds of posh clothing for himself and his lady wife. As we say, it is rich. However, Sir Worse Than Useless is wearing-out the knees of his tailored trousers in his regular performances of grovelling to the USA.
Keir Starmer has told us clearly what he plans to do, he intends to wage class war on workers on behalf of British capitalism. He has ordered the trade union leaders to stifle dissent to this in the name of “partnership” just as Wilson did back in the 1970s, which should also hopefully remind people that ‘Old Labour’ were no better. Time to stop romanticizing.