SIR KEIR STARMER is facing a possible Labour rebuke over his deeply unpopular plans to cut winter fuel benefits for pensioners.
The party’s largest affiliate, Unite, will try to force a vote on the issue at Labour’s conference, which opens in Liverpool on Sunday.
Unite’s motion also calls for the scrapping of the Treasury’s fiscal rules, which have placed the new government’s spending plans in a strait-jacket.
It urges Labour to borrow more to invest in public services and infrastructure and says that “workers and communities voted for change — a better future, not just better management and not cuts to the winter fuel allowance.”
Calling for a U-turn on the winter fuel cut, the motion added: “We need a vision where pensioners are not the first to face a new wave of cuts and those that profited from decades of deregulation finally help to rebuild Britain.”
The attitude of other affiliated unions will be critical to the success of the motion, which will have to leap procedural hurdles to be debated, something submissions from large unions usually accomplish.
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.
Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite trade union, leads steel workers down Whitehall last year to demand more support for the industry. She says the British economy is broken. Photograph: Guy Smallman/Getty Images
The demand from Britain’s second biggest union will test truce with Labour at next month’s TUC conference
Britain’s second biggest trade union is calling on the new Labour government to introduce an emergency 1% wealth tax on the assets of the super-rich to pay for 10% pay rises for public sector workers and fill more than 100,000 NHS vacancies.
The demand from Unite is in one of several motions to the Trades Union Congress, which meets in Brighton next month, that will expose tensions between Keir Starmer’s government and sections of the union movement. It comes as Rachel Reeves is preparing for her first budget as chancellor, on 30 October.
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Other key trade unions are preparing to press for further policy changes from Labour, including abandoning the two-child benefit cap, which Starmer has so far resisted, and the reversal of the recent decision to end winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners, which has been causing a serious backlash among Labour backbenchers.
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Unite’s plan is for a tax of 1% to be applied on the assets of those worth more than £4m, which it says would raise £25bn a year to fund investment in public services and avoid a return to austerity. Under the plan, someone with assets worth £6m would face a 1% tax on the £2m above the £4m threshold. These assets would include property, shares and bank accounts but would not include mortgaged property.
Unite points to research showing that the richest 50 families in the UK now have assets worth nearly £500bn.
Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, said: “Unite’s resolution to the TUC on the economy calls things by their real name. The British economy is broken.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves during a press conference following her statement to the House of Commons on the findings of the Treasury audit into the state of the public finances, July 29, 2024
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham calls for wealth tax
MORE austerity is on the agenda as Chancellor Rachel Reeves prepares a new clampdown on public spending in her autumn Budget.
In a move that risks sparking new divisions and struggle within the labour movement, Ms Reeves is set to prioritise reassuring global money markets over repairing the damage done by the Tories.
She is reported to have been spooked by figures showing public sector borrowing at £3.1 billion in July, £1.8bn more than a year previously and above most expectations.
However, borrowing has fallen over a longer time-frame, but Ms Reeves will pay more attention to the short-term figures and use them as a reason to impose more austerity.
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Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has called for a shift in priorities, saying: “We are the sixth-richest economy in the world, where the 50 richest families are worth £500bn.
“It is clear, irrespective of ‘black holes,’ that we need to consider a wealth tax.”
Northern Pride in NewcastlePhoto: Neil Terry Photography
LGBT+ activists protested on Saturday against the sponsorship of Glasgow’s annual Pride celebrations by firms linked to Israel.
Hundreds of protesters including members of Glasgow Greens, the Scottish TUC and Glasgow Stop the War formed a Radical Bloc calling out Pride organisers for so-called pink washing through collaborating with companies who simultaneously sponsor the event while “directly profiting from Israel’s illegal occupation and ongoing genocide in Palestine.”
The protest took place as Pride activists staged annual celebrations in towns and cities across Britain, including at Northern Pride in Newcastle, where the banners of trade unions Unite, Unison, Royal College of Midwives and teaching unions NEU and NASUWT were raised.
The Glasgow protesters said sponsors included energy company SSE, chemical firm Merck and multinational finance company, JP Morgan.
