Austerity not only drives the growing inequality in our society, it drives the divisiveness that demonises the migrant, the welfare claimant or the public sector worker.
Austerity not only drives the growing inequality in our society, it drives the divisiveness that demonises the migrant, the welfare claimant or the public sector worker
Austerity has hit the poorest hardest, increasing inequality and poverty. Homelessness is up under this government and nearly a million families needed to use food banks last year.
These horrific trends are set to intensify in the next parliament whatever form the government takes, with Labour signed up to Coalition spending plans in year one and promising further austerity to balance the books by 2020. It is in this grim political context that Class will be meeting on Saturday to discuss ‘What Britain Needs’.
Austerity won’t balance the books, as George Osborne is currently finding, because the books can’t be balanced on the backs of the poor – austerity will only inflict more pain.
Any serious economic analysis is not a necessary part of the austerity agenda. It is simply the cover for implementing a ruthless free market agenda that would not otherwise be possible. Part of achieving that agenda has necessitated shifting the debate from one about inequality, unaccountable and deregulated financial institutions to the alleged flaws in the public sector and the people who rely upon it.
The logic is inescapable. If you concede the ground on austerity, as Labour has, then as sure as night follows day you must capitulate too on scapegoating the poorest and least electorally potent. Any political party seeking to impose austerity on the scale envisaged will seek to justify its attacks – and that inevitably leads to the demonisation of those on austerity’s receiving end.
With no structural analysis of the UK’s economic failure and continued fragility, politicians offer no structural solutions. Instead they pander to the simple politics of hate. Tory minister Michael Fallon mis-speaks about our towns being “swamped” and “under siege”, while Labour’s frontbenchers have, even in this Parliament, described people on welfare as “shirkers” – a language echoed and magnified by the Conservatives.
But it is UKIP which articulates this agenda in its crudest form – blaming the EU, migrants, and welfare recipients with visceral divisive and dishonest attacks. Their propagandist rhetoric goes further than the other parties and so they are seen by those who have been duped by the narrative as being the more genuine. While the Conservatives and even Labour say it, UKIP really means it. They appear authentic, the others like they are simply trying to buy votes.
When David Cameron described UKIP as “a bunch of fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists” in 2006, he did not foresee that he would be talking up migration and welfare as the problem, to distract people from his dismal economic performance and the privatisation and cuts in the public sector. Cameron has unleashed a political force that more authentically articulates the concerns he espouses. His achievement in shifting the political debate post-crisis is now his Achilles heel.
New Labour tried the same tactics and it ended similarly badly. Rather than confront prejudice and ignorance it often sought to harness it for electoral gain. David Blunkett as Home Secretary talked about the UK being “swamped”, he never claimed to have mis-spoken and this week backed Fallon’s use of the term. Similarly, James Purnell ratcheted up the rhetoric on welfare claimants. All they did was shift the debate onto the Tories’ agenda.
Austerity not only drives the growing inequality in our society, it drives the divisiveness that demonises the migrant, the welfare claimant or the public sector worker. This cynical, cowardly and dishonest politics is the reason why so few have any faith in our political class.
The Class conference on Saturday will be about building a positive vision of a better society for all, shifting the political debate from one of hate and fear to one of solidarity and hope.
Mark Serwotka is general secretary of the PCS union
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33 Responses to “Austerity (still) won’t balance the books”
sarntcrip
someone realises the wealthy aren’t paying their share and that bankers kike carswell,farage and reckless caused the global financial crisisbankers are still being paid bonuses for their failures while costing the tax payer£billions in QE GOING TO FILL THE BANKS COFFERS BUT NOT COMING OUT THE OTHERSIDE TO BENEFIT THE ECONOMYINDEED LAST MONTH GIDEON ADDED ANOTHER 12.4 BILLION TO THE NATIONAL DEBT NO AMOUNT OF AUSTERITY CAN POSSIBLY PAY OFF THESE TELEPHONE NUMBERS TORIES BORROWED IN THEIR FIRST THREE YEARS MORE THAN LABOUR BORROWED IN 13 ONLY THE SERIOUSLY MYOPIC COULD POSSIBLY SEE THE CURRENT POLICY AS DOING ANYTHING OTHER THAN BENEFIT TING THE CORPORATIONS AND THE VERY WEALTHY AT MASSIVE COST TO THE REST SORRY CAPS LOCK ERROR
The_Average_Joe_UK
Load of lefty mumbo jumbo. You lot know f-all about economics. FACTS
After a labour government higher debt
After a labour government more unemployment
Mid june 97 there were 185000 households where no one worked, by 2003 that had grown to 330,000, all the time Labour were spraying money up the wall.
After a labour government more bureacracy
Someone has to clean up the mess…. and yet you socialists carry on.
Spraying money into an economy in the vain hope that the people YOU hate (us capitalists) start companies or grow companies doesn’t work, inefficient government spending is swallowed up in consumption not investment. Thats why you lot always screw it up.
You need to create the conditions for investment and all of your policies destroy that. You’ll never learn, because your ideology is stronger than your ability for rational thought.
Guest
…The deficit went from very small to very very small.
Any kind of reduction which is *statistically significant*…
Guest
That’s not austerity.
Austerity, as seen in Italy and Germany, shrinks the economy even when there is a primary surplus!
Guest
Keep spewing that only your far right can do rational thought, as you destroy investment, as the facts show.
Your resistance to spending and having a recovery is obvious, you prefer declining wages and the high deficit we have, you blame others for your hate, you rejoice as companies fail and can’t understand that government spending can be high-return in many areas.
You keep fighting the invisible socialists, as you rail against the NHS and schools, as you attack Britain. As you try and push the Bank’s crisis off onto Labour, when we are going to have more debt and less hours worked per-person at the next election than when Labour were last in power.
You are condemning pensioners and the disabled, of course, since long-term disabled (18+ month) was down to single-digit thousands by mid-2000, as you carefully pick your dates to show what you want them to show.
Keep saying that you know “less than f-all” about economics, as you try and double-down of failure, as you cackle over falling wages and your rising corporate welfare.