While "Winston" Starmer is posturing as peacemaker on the world political scene, by putting himself forward as the "bridge" between Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky and the EU, here at home he's declared war on welfare: a war on the working class poor, the low-paid and the unemployed. And he's aiming a ballistic missile at youth who're "not in employment, education and training" - an estimated one million so-called "NEETS".
Starmer said the current system is "unsustainable, it's indefensible and it is unfair, people feel that in their bones"... By "people", does he mean the working class? Because what workers feel deep inside their bones is a painful ache from the long hours, speed-ups and doubling of work without the doubling of the workforce! And they have a hollow stomach because of the starvation rates of pay compared to the cost of living - which keeps rising and rising!
NEETS rightly reject McJobs
Starmer added that it was the welfare system which was "discouraging people from working"! Well, we all know which planet he inhabits and it's not close to this earth. However, even Starmer should know that good jobs paying decent wages and offering high quality training aren't on offer. And that if a young person wants to work, he or she must invariably start on a probationary zero-hours contract on the minimum wage.
Anyway, to answer this most right-wing of governments, let us spell it out: youth aren't "discouraged" from working, they choose not to work for a pittance in jobs with no prospects. And if anything eats up the welfare budget, it's the tax credits which allow Scrooge bosses to pay starvation-wages! BTW, some of these Scrooges are running private, "for profit", substandard, elderly care homes...
The Living Wage Foundation says that "2024 saw the largest annual rise in the number and proportion of jobs paid below the real Living Wage ever recorded": 4.5 million! So as many as 16% of the workforce don't get paid enough to live on.
Starmer didn't attack the bosses responsible for this, even though some attack him, having not yet realised that the label "Labour" has nothing to do with being on the side of labourers! So they complain bitterly about the increase in their National Insurance and about the Employment Rights Bill, accusing Mr "Deregulation" Starmer of creating more red tape for them, when in fact this bill is so full of loopholes that these bloodsuckers will easily crawl through them. It should be renamed the Employers' Rights Bill.
Starmer goes on to explain that his radical welfare reforms will save £6bn, including by making it harder for disabled people who cannot work(!) to qualify for Personal Independence Payments. But never mind, he ignored that. He claims that paying "living" levels of benefit "runs contrary to those deep British values that if you can work, you should. And if you want to work, the government should support you, not stop you". As if! Back to the scoundrel's refuge: nationalism and a patriotic song. You'd think that a war was approaching!
Trump's and Macron's "British" values?
So what are these "deep British values" Starmer is on about? Because it seems that Donald Trump, the new German Chancellor Merz, France's President Macron and Giorgia Meloni share these values, exactly!
Every single one of them is, metaphorically speaking, taking a chain-saw - à la Elon Musk - to the public sector and civil service of their own states. They are all cutting welfare spending and bringing in increases to retirement age and cuts in pensions or pensioners' allowances.
And by the way, is it also a "British value" to be anti-immigrant and to preclude refugees and migrants from applying for citizenship if they've survived a trek over deserts and mountains and then risked their lives by making a precarious boat-journey across the sea? This is the latest contribution to anti-humanitarianism, nationalism and "keeping up with the Reform Party" from Yvette Cooper, Starmer's far-right Home Secretary.
And what about boasting about how many "illegal or undocumented" people you've forcibly deported (Cooper claimed 19,000 since July)? Is that a British value? Maybe it's Trumpian? It's certainly Churchillian. The real Winston was a documented racist and anti-communist who signalled the start of the Cold War in 1946. Did he even realise that Stalin was a deep nationalist, and de facto anti-communist, just like him?
Today, Starmer, alongside the anti-China Trump, is relaunching a Cold War. That certainly worked in the past to unite imperialist countries against a common Soviet enemy. So, first as tragedy, second as farce?
Anyway, at least workers are being reminded almost daily by the obliging Starmer that their values are about as far away as they possibly could be from his - and those of today's ultra-nationalist line-up in Europe and the USA. Our class, from Europe to Britain to the USA, can and must fight their reactionary agenda - against their wars, their attacks on migrants and their cuts!