Left MPs and trade unionists accuse Sir Keir of choosing austerity, pain and poverty instead of taxing the super-rich
LEFT MPs warned today that pain and poverty are on the way after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told the country that “things will get worse.”
Responding to a keynote speech by the PM warning of a “tough” Budget coming in October, the group of five independent left MPs warned that “politics is about choices — and the government is choosing to inflict pain and poverty across the country.”
And Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said “a bleak vision of Britain is not what we need now. It is time to see the change that Labour promised.”
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The left MPs, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, ridiculed this stance, pointing out that when “the government said it would lower energy bills, it cut winter fuel allowances for pensioners instead.
“The government said it wanted to reboot our economy, it wants to cut public investment instead.
“The government said it would put an end to 14 years of Tory failure, it voted to keep the two child benefits cap instead.”
Returning to the racist riots, Starmer said that these were unmistakably inspired by the far right (but no words on those who fanned the flames), but there was an element of opportunism at work – an opportunism born of the Tories’ dereliction of duty. Those who rioted knew the criminal justice system was teetering on the brink and prison places were at a premium, and acted as though there wouldn’t be any arrests, let alone jail terms. Thanks to Tory recklessness. And, to a degree, Starmer corrected his reluctant earlier response by condemning efforts at trying to burn down hotels full of human beings (a rare moment of humanising asylum seekers in British politics) and praising communities who came together in the riots’ aftermath to rebuild. Note he didn’t go as far as the King, but again thanked the police and first responders for their service. Starmer therefore condemns the riots as a failure of Tory statecraft, passes over the role of communities and anti-fascists in defending themselves, praises the spirit of resilience, and then returns to the agents of the state as the legitimate saviours of the situation.
The second part was focused on the state itself. Starmer talked a lot about the £22bn “black hole” in state finances which, in reality, only exists because of how the Chancellor has chosen to frame public spending. Hence the tough decision of scrapping the Winter Fuel Allowance for all pensioners not in receipt of pension credits. This is being taken away so the NHS can be fixed. Likewise, when challenged on above inflation pay rises for public sector workers and railway workers, Starmer’s defence owed nothing to the injustices these deals partly correct and everything to economic efficiency, getting the health service working, and so on. It was the right decision not by the workers, but by the state.
Student workers of Columbia organized in UAW 2710 participate in May Day rally. Photo: Wyatt Souers
On International Workers’ Day, workers around the world continued to join hands with the student movement to stand with Palestine
On May Day, workers around the world mobilized for the liberation of Palestine. “This May Day, workers of the world are called to declare their solidarity with Palestine, to denounce the Israeli Genocide, and to call for an end to all aggressions in the region and to all wars,” wrote the International People’s Assembly.
“Beyond the call for a ceasefire we must say no to the transportation of arms and arms caches to Israel. Workers in all industries – especially workers in the transport sector – that can withhold their labor in order to halt the continued slaughter of the people of Palestine are emphatically called to do so!”
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa released a statement calling on workers around the world to mobilize for Palestine. “The working class are the creators of wealth, and it is the united power of the working class that has the power to overthrow hateful, brutal regimes like Apartheid Israel,” wrote the union. “On this Workers Day, we call on workers of the world to unite in defense of Palestine so that its people can be free, from the river, to the sea!”
“The working class in South Africa must celebrate the defeat of Apartheid, because its destruction was due, largely to the unity of workers, who used their labor power to collapse the system through rolling mass action, strikes and protest,” the union added.
Several Palestinian union formations have called the people in the world to action against the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. This includes the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, which in March called on US unions in particular to “be our voice and advocate inside and outside America.”
“What our people are experiencing and what workers and unions in particular, are exposed to is the most horrific catastrophe known to humanity in recent decades,” the PGFTU wrote. “We ask that you convey our message and give voice to the suffering of hungry, starving workers and their families—not just to the American people, not just to your unions, but to the entire world.”
Palestinian trade unions have also responded in support of the student movement for Palestine that has taken the world by storm. “The Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) in Palestine extends our deepest solidarity to you, the revolutionary youth who are changing the world,” reads a statement of support from a prominent Palestine farmworkers’ union, addressed to the students movement around the world that is taking action in solidarity with Gaza. “We write to you from Palestine to tell you that your actions are resonating across oceans. In you, we see the echoes of our struggle, the echoes of our resistance, and the echoes of our hope.”
“Our people, along with all the workers and free people of the world, commemorate the first of May this year, at a time when they are subjected to the most brutal and fierce campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing, surpassing in savagery and bloodiness the fascists and the Nazis, at the hands of a group of murderers calling themselves an army for an invasive replacement entity, under the leadership, partnership, support, cover, and complicity of the American administration and the colonial Western imperial powers, the enemies of humanity,” wrote the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in a pre-May Day statement. “We send a salute of respect and pride to the university students all over the world, especially to the students at American universities, who are protesting against the crimes of the occupation and the support of the American administration for it, and who demand a halt to the aggression against the Palestinian people.”
Within the student movement in the US, university workers are mobilizing their unions to stand with their students in solidarity with Gaza. On April 29, within the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at the City College of New York in New York City, university workers organized under the Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) held a town hall meeting to deliberate on how to use their labor power to support the five demands of the student encampment. The members attending the town hall organized a wildcat sick-out, in which union members will call in sick en masse to disrupt business as usual at the larger City University of New York (CUNY) system. Workers in the United States face a variety of strike prohibitions, including a nationwide ban on striking for political reasons rather than economic issues such as wages and benefits under the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.
Nevertheless, the PSC faculty at the town hall voted overwhelmingly to stage a sick-out. “At UT Austin, faculty did a one day job action in support of their students. Palestinian trade unions, National SJP, and National Faculty for Justice in Palestine have called for a mass job action on May 1st,” faculty wrote in a statement. “Our students are taking incredible risks to support the Palestinian people. They have asked for our help. We must stand ready to struggle alongside them, and to take these risks.”
Workers organized with the United Auto Workers, which also represents many graduate student workers across the country, staged a rally in Washington Square Park on April 26 in support of their students staging Gaza Solidarity Encampments at NYU, Columbia, and the New School.
Workers engaged in mass mobilizations around the world on May 1.
Thousands took to the streets in major US cities including Washington, DC and Los Angeles. In DC, demonstrators marched to the Gaza Solidarity Encampments at George Washington University.
— Party for Socialism and Liberation (@pslnational) May 1, 2024
✊🏽🇵🇸RIGHT NOW: A massive May Day march is en route to the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at George Washington University pic.twitter.com/esXOVUrhqv
— Party for Socialism and Liberation (@pslnational) May 2, 2024
In New York City, unions such as the United Auto Workers and the New York Taxi Workers Alliance expressed explicit support for the Palestinian cause in a march of 20,000, which ended at the New York University Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
Havana, like every year, was flooded with huge crowds on May Day as President Miguel Diaz-Canel sent an explicit message in support of Palestine and the pro-Palestine student movement. “All our solidarity with the students in the United States, who have taken the side of justice, have come out to support the cause of the Palestinian people, and are brutally repressed on their own university campuses. Today our [May Day] is also going through Palestine,” Diaz-Canel wrote.
In Bogota, President Gustavo Petro made a special announcement during the May Day celebration in front of thousands of Colombians: the nation would officially cut all diplomatic ties with Israel.
The government’s standoff with public sector workers has escalated with plans for a coordinated “day of action” by unions, who have reacted furiously to proposed legislation they say could let ministers in effect ban strikes in some areas.
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There is anger among unions about the new anti-strike bill, which will apply in England, Scotland and Wales, and which ministers hope will become law later this year.
Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the RMT rail union, called it “an attack on human rights and civil liberties which we will oppose in the courts, parliament and the workplace”, while Sharon Graham, the leader of Unite, called it “another dangerous gimmick from a government that should be negotiating to resolve the current crisis they have caused”.
Paul Nowak, the TUC’s general secretary, said on Tuesday that the proposed anti-strike legislation was “undemocratic, unworkable and almost certainly illegal” and was a “sack key-workers bill”.
