Keir Starmer has high hopes of becoming the next Prime Minister, unless he blows it between now and the next General Election or the Tory media attack-dogs really start to bite. However, his claim to deserve the office rests not upon any positive offer of real and meaningful change from a Labour party which he has taken so far to the right that a conservative American Republican senator has hailed the British Labour party as ‘reaganesque’ in its taxation policies. But rather in the moral, intellectual, and political bankruptcy of a Conservative party whose policies and style, Starmer seems to be eagerly adopting. Ronald Reagan, for those too young to remember, was the American president who ushered in an era of tax cuts for the better off, combined with the decimation of government programmes to assist the poor and the low paid. It should be obvious to everyone by now that so-called trickle-down economics have been a historic failure, but it lives on in the guise of ‘growing the economy’. It is beloved by its adherents on the right because it provides a fig leaf of intellectual cover for the greed and selfishness of the wealthy.
Reagan campaigned on the racist trope of the ‘welfare queen,’ blaming America’s economic woes not on the rich who refused to pay their fair share of taxes, but on poor, often African-American single mothers, who relied on government assistance to feed their families. Then, as now, many of those who were so demonised were, in fact, in low paid employment, but the poor were blamed for their poverty, not the employers who did not pay a living wage. The result was a widening of the gap between rich and poor and the mushrooming of shanty towns in American cities as homelessness exploded and the closure of facilities for people with mental health problems saw mentally ill people dumped on the streets with no support. Reagan’s economic policies were copied by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative party, with similar results. The Tories have sought to change the language so that the poor receive ‘welfare’ or ‘benefits’ – a handout graciously doled out by taxpayers - rather than ‘social security’ - a safety net to which all contribute and upon which all can rely in time of need.
The Conservatives have not only changed the language of social security, they have destroyed the concept of social security itself. Over the past couple of decades, we have witnessed the normalisation of food banks and the normalisation of homeless people begging in the streets of our towns and cities. Neither of these things is ‘normal’. A supposedly rich and developed economy in which citizens are routinely forced to beg on the streets or to turn to charitable handouts in order to put food on the table, is a society which has failed. There is nothing inevitable about homelessness or food and fuel poverty. They are the direct consequence of decisions made by successive Westminster governments. Our politicians have let us down.
Traditionally, after a bruising and brutal period of Conservative misrule, Labour has laid claim to the Buggin’s turn chance of taking over the reins of power by claiming that it will reduce and adjust the size and weight of the boot which the Conservatives have stamped down upon the neck of the poor and the low paid. But no one now seriously expects that a Labour government is going to get rid of the boot entirely. The Labour party, like the Tories, has a vested interest in the continuation of the dysfunctional Westminster system and the inequalities which it produces.
We have a Labour party which insists that it will not raise taxes on the wealthiest. Starmer has categorically ruled out any tax increases on the wealthiest and will not raise income tax on the highest earners or introduce a one off wealth tax of 5% on all individual wealth above £500,000, which would only be levied after mortgages and other debt had been taken into account and which could be paid off in installments over five years. This one off tax which could raise an estimated £260 billion which, at a stroke, would solve the funding issues blighting education and the NHS. But Labour is not going to do anything like this.
Labour’s claim that it’s not going to raise taxes on the rich but rather will focus on ‘growing the economy’ is simply code for the same discredited trickle-down economics which have caused such societal blight for decades. Labour is no longer promising to adjust the weight and size of the Tory boot on the necks of the poor. Instead, Starmer’s Labour party is saying: “Nah, the boot is just fine.”
The distortion of democracy created by Westminster’s first-past-the-post system – which neither Labour nor the Conservatives are willing to change – means that we are all held ransom by a minority of voters in Conservative-Labour swing seats. This in turn means that even policies which enjoy the widespread support of a clear majority of people across the UK have no chance at all of ever being adopted. For example, most people in the UK believe that Brexit was a mistake, but neither Labour nor the Conservatives will seek to minimise the damage and restore British membership of the European Single Market or Customs Union.
A major opinion poll published last week found that a clear majority of voters, even Conservative voters, would like to see the renationalisation of the gas, electricity, water and rail companies. The poll, carried out by Tory donor Lord Ashcroft, found that 60% of respondents across the UK backed these companies being brought back into public ownership. A majority of both Labour and Conservative voters supported public ownership. However, both Labour and the Conservatives are opposed to the move, so even though it enjoys clear majority support, it’s not going to happen. When neither of the two big Westminster parties feels the need to respond to majority opinion, it is a clear sign that the Westminster system has irretrievably failed.
And, you know what, there's absolutely sod all that you and I can do about it. But that shouldn’t stop us from trying.
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