This is a draft editorial for the impending issue of Socialist Resistance.
- Leap in inquiries on how to sack staff
- British economy shudders to a halt
- Property sector points to deepening downturn
- Credit crunch takes toll on world’s rich
This selection of headlines from the Financial Times over a two day period in late summer leaves no room for doubt that the year ahead will be a hard one for working class families in Britain. Energywatch predicts that this coming winter more than 5 million household will be in fuel poverty meaning that they will have to spend more than 10% of their disposable income on heating and cooking. The average UK household gas bill has risen by 31% this year and by 160% since 2003. Electricity bills over the same period have risen by 22% and 96%. Combined with rises of 28% for petrol and 25% for food this has led to a fall of 15% in the average household’s disposable income.
Building firms and firms in the finance sector have made job cuts of 10 000 between June and early September and Marks and Spencers is seeking to reduce the redundancy benefits that it pays to staff. This can only be a harbinger of significant job losses in the retail sector.
All these facts combined make a compelling case that Gordon Brown was dishonest or stupid when he announced the end of “boom and bust” economics. Recession and economic collapse are eternal features of a capitalist economy and this is now the worst financial crisis since World War Two. The Bank of England’s deputy governor has revealed their cunning plan to sort it out saying: “We’ve got our fingers crossed that things will improve.”
Responding to this situation has to become a major focus of Respect’s activity as an urgent priority. Respect’s support is clustered in some of the poorest communities in Britain. These are the people who will have to choose between heating their living room or buying food as in late 2008 and 2009 New Labour presides over the deepening impoverishment of millions of working class people.
At the moment no party is offering a fighting leadership to defend working people. On the right the Tories and the Liberal Democrats accept the logic of the free market. None of the organisations on the left other than Respect is in a position to put forward a nationally credible strategy of resistance to the imminent deep poverty into which so many people will shortly be thrown.
Respect’s base in local government gives it an authority to start making the demands that have to be part of the fightback. Although local councils have no control over the economy they do raise their own budgets. This is a strong point of leverage to begin building alliances of trade unionists and communities as well as to drive a wedge between neo-liberal Labour and its voters. The demands can be focussed on realistic and achievable target such as:
· No rises in rents, council tax or service charges
· No cuts in council spending
· Pay rises to match inflation
To win these demands it is necessary to start reaching out into the communities that will be affected. This can be done by organising meetings which pull together new coalitions of activists and residents, raising the demands in the local press and street activity which calls on councils to refuse to add to the hardship so many people are already enduring. This has to be combined with an active support for and intervention into the wave of industrial action which will break in the next few months as trade unionists begin their own resistance to neo-liberalism.
A time of increasing industrial militancy, recession and impoverishment requires a party that is willing to give leadership to the struggles of working people, the poor and the elderly. The gains that the far right has made in some parts of the country show what conclusions despair can make people draw. Respect has to put itself in the middle of the struggle to protect jobs, income levels and dignity and has to start finding the partners who have the stomach for the fight.
Liam redux 
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