United Kingdom: the Autumn Declaration was an act of wishful thinking
Author: Julio Santana – LIS United Kingdom
The conservative government took measures to try to decompress the social situation. Actually, It is a plan at the service of businessmen and the City. Supporting the struggles and demanding a general strike are tasks that cannot be postponed.. Faced with the deceitful bipartisanship of conservatives and labor, a new left alternative is needed.
like a conjurer, Rishi Sunak wants us to believe that the Autumn Statement, presented with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, represents the compassionate side of conservatives. Actually, The United Kingdom is facing the biggest blow to people's living standards in many years, since Hunt established 30 £1bn in delayed spending cuts and 25 £1 billion in backdated tax rises. The Declaration revealed the serious economic situation of the country. The OBR (budget office) stated that the economy entered a recession that would last more than a year and lead the economy to contract by 1,4% in 2023. The Conservative Party made decisions to favor the powerful and try to conform the poorest with a little social makeup.
To shape financial markets
Hunt cut the budgets of the departments ofWhitehall , expanded the scope of the extraordinary tax on energy companies, extended the freeze on tax relief, reduced the threshold to pay the tax rate 45% of income tax to 125,100 pounds, gave local authorities the go-ahead to increase council tax and raised more capital gains tax and inheritance tax. These decisions are part of a plan to convince the financial markets, to which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak responds, of the government's intention to reduce its budget deficit.
To appease social moods
At the same time, Hunt postponed until 2024-25 most of his harsh measures in folder. Spending increased inNHS and in schools. He promised to increase pensions in line with inflation. Home energy bill help extended beyond April, for another year through the energy price guarantee. Since April, The national living wage will increase by 9.7%, with a rate of 10, 42 pounds per hour which implies an annual salary increase of more than 1.600 pounds for a full-time worker. The internal measures are in sync with the new conciliatory approach adopted by Prime Minister Sunak with the EU, Ulster and China at the level of foreign policy.
“Progressive” conservatives??
The measures were presented as a limitation to the enormous profits that large companies have been accumulating. Reality is pure makeup because the benefits are not touched. The increase in the tax burden for electricity companies can be taken as an example.. It was decided after assuring them of two things.: The first is not to touch the increase in 80% on the bills they imposed before Liz Truss' Mini Budget. The second, is that, beyond “aid” in the energy sector, the costs of the average annual bill increase from 2.500 a 3.000 pounds. More than aid to households, they are transfers to companies, that will reach your coffers practically free of tax on extraordinary profits.
The increase in pensions and the minimum wage is also a deception. VAT is not touched, the tax with which the people support the State budgets in any country and also, municipal taxes are increased. The harsh reality is that: “Rising prices erode real wages and reduce living standards by an 7% in total during the two financial years up to 2023-24 (eliminating the growth of the previous eight years), despite more than £ 100 billion additional government support. The contraction of real incomes, Rising interest rates and falling house prices weigh on consumption and investment, leading the economy into a recession that will last just over a year starting in the third quarter of 2022, with a fall in GDP 2 percent. Unemployment increases in 505,000 since 3.5 percent up to a maximum of 4.9 percent in the third quarter of 2024”. (Office of Budget Responsibility 17-11-2022)
The untouchable city, lacking health and education
In the article“A rich prime minister so that there are poor people” we said that the City, the financial and speculative heart of the United Kingdom, He was happy with the arrival of one of his men to the 10 de Downing Street. And we are not wrong. There is not a single measure that attacks the privileges of bankers. On the other side of the coin, The increases in the health and education system are absolutely insufficient and do not resolve the underlying deficiencies that these public services suffer after 12 years of conservative governments.
The Labor Party only waiting for the elections
Following its role in the two-party system like a shadow to the body, the Labor Party hopes the government will fall into its hands, how a ripe fruit falls from the tree, without shaking it. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, He said: «What people will be asking in the next general election is this: Are I and my family better off with conservatives?? And the answer is no.”
This is all they have to offer. A two-year wait with the Conservative government. They wait for the repeated alternation in power and then say: “The inheritance received is very heavy, “We will do what we can”. Or worse yet, They will repeat what the Labor Party did in 1997, when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown promised to stick to Tory spending plans.
For the general strike and a left alternative
Many unions are voting en masse to go on strike with the impetus of the bases, how it happens, for example, with: UCU (Union of Universities and Colleges), DHW (Communication Workers Union) y RMT (National Union of Railway Workers, Maritime and Transport) which announced actions for December and January after negotiations failed. It is a task of the workers and the people to support those who fight. There is also a need to discuss how to move forward, because it is impossible to wait two years, as Labor proposes. Why don't the leaders call for a general strike?? We must demand the coordination of the struggles and the call for a general strike with mobilization, for the salary and labor demands of the workers and for the capitalists to pay for the crisis.
The Conservative Party and the Labor Party are the two legs of a cheating two-party system, that alternates them in power to sustain thethe state, favor business profits and download austerity measures on the people. Break with Labor towards political and organizational independence, truly left-wing and anti-capitalist, it is a step that cannot be postponed in time.. It is necessary to build a new left-wing political tool, anticapitalist, to end the vicious circle of bipartisanship on the way to a socialist solution.
