Editorial of the Socialist issue 1377
Andy Burnham has now been prime minister for a week. The ‘King of the North’ has unfortunately quickly shown himself to be a master of making the most of very little. His ‘big’ announcements at the start of his ‘cost-of-living government’ included scrapping VAT on household electricity bills, capping bus fares, and cutting business rates for pubs, clubs and other music venues.
Even the smallest measures to lessen the cost-of-living squeeze will be welcomed by workers, but these are very small indeed. Burnham says that he wants to reverse the economic policies of the last 40 years, but so far – when it comes to measures that would really help with the cost of living – his government has spent the week explaining why they can’t be done! Both rent controls and an increase in the level at which workers have to start paying tax have been ruled out.
The serious capitalist press is so far giving him a vote of confidence. Financial Times commentator Robert Shrimsley, for example, said, “It is refreshing to see a leader who can articulate a cogent political argument” and a “clear theory of politics and a project” and that it’s good to see “the return of the political professional”.
The Financial Times and other mouthpieces of the capitalist class wouldn’t have written that about Jeremy Corbyn or any politician who really promised to stand up for the working class and young people! Burnham is going out of his way to make it clear that he does not pose a threat to their system, and he would not step outside its confines. His announcement of welfare reforms and making it harder for young people to claim benefits will be welcomed by capitalists.
Yet during his by-election campaign in Makerfield, Burnham said that his stand was the “last chance” for Labour. Just a week in, we know what Labour Party he has been talking about – the one that defends the interests of big business and the capitalists’ ‘national interest’. The makeup of his cabinet is another indicator of that.
If Burnham was serious about challenging neoliberalism, or being “close to people, close to the public”, as he said in his first big broadcast interview, he would come into conflict with his current allies.
The honeymoon, if there is one, won’t last
Any prime minister replacing the deeply unpopular Keir Starmer would be expected to receive an initial bounce in support. And there is hope that Burnham will be better than Starmer, who set the bar very low. He also had a very slight breathing space because the inflation rate is at a 15-month low of 2.6%. Of course, in reality, real inflation is much higher and the announcement offers no comfort to millions of workers facing the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. For working-class households, the real cost of essentials continues to rise, and the VAT cut on energy bills will be undercut by increasing energy prices.
Any optimism about the economic outlook will be short lived. In his first week, instability in the Middle East has pushed oil prices above $100 per barrel and back down again, while Donald Trump’s latest round of tariffs threatens additional inflationary pressures and increased disruption to global trade.
British capitalism is particularly vulnerable. Faced with economic stagnation, employers will seek to protect their profits by attacking workers’ pay, conditions, and rights.
For the bosses or the working class?
Pleasing both the bosses and the working class are mutually exclusive and Burnham already knows this.
When elected as Manchester mayor in 2017, he made ending rough sleeping a central priority. Despite his promises, homelessness was not eradicated by 2020, and rough sleeping remains a major problem across Greater Manchester. He now wants to bring ‘Manchesterism’ to the rest of the UK and plans to end rough sleeping nationwide.
But he has already ruled out rent control and Angela Rayner, housing minister, defends this position, stating: “I don’t think that rent freezes, rent controls, is a way forward at the moment.”
This highlights the limitations of Burnham’s approach. How is he planning to deal with the acute housing crisis? There are over 1.3 million households currently on council house waiting lists and 176,000 children living in temporary accommodation. Labour has repeatedly and consistently failed to kick start the housing sector. Fewer homes have been built since it came power two years ago than under the Tories.
Burnham’s says he is to build the most council homes since the post-war period. Reaching these aims means coming into direct conflict with the UK housebuilding companies, who are already putting on pressure to remove safety regulations so that they can increase their profits at the expense of safe housing.
Trade unions must organise action
The capitalists hope to use Andy Burnham’s premiership. They want Burnham to carry through their agenda of austerity attacks. Yet the majority of trade union leaders are trying to raise hopes in Burnham in order to hold back national workers’ action.
However, the state of the British economy and the fiscal constraints the government faces make this task impossible. Despite their best efforts, the trade union leaders are not finding it easy.
Anger at the cost-of-living crisis, while simultaneously bosses rake in record profits, is simmering away. Thames Water has increased its bonus payouts to £4.1 million for senior managers in the year to March, despite a ban on bonuses because of pollution failures.
The anger against the conditions facing workers is beginning to find an expression. The government pay offers in the public sector have been rejected by PCS, local government and education unions.
Workers rightly demand more. Britain has experienced the longest period of wage stagnation since the Napoleonic Wars. After adjusting for inflation, average earnings have remained largely frozen since 2008. This ‘Great Stagnation’ has left many workers thousands of pounds worse off compared to pre-2008 trends.
Socialist Party members have been central to the fight in the leaderships of the trade unions, not to allow Burnham to be used as an excuse to step back from strike ballots. Ballots of local government workers in Unison and Unite are currently taking place, and are planned in the autumn for NEU members in schools and UCU members in further education. In the civil service union PCS, the new left majority on the National Executive Committee has won agreement for a national cost-of-living campaign.
The PCS union is taking a motion to the Trades Union Congress in September, to “call and to organise a national Saturday demonstration this autumn for investment in public services, against austerity and for pro-worker policies”. For “the new Prime Minister and his government to reopen talks on public sector pay for 2026-27 on the basis of protecting workers from the cost-of-living crisis, and undoing more than a decade of pay austerity.” And “for all public sector unions to join a united campaign on pay, and, if need be, to plan for coordinated industrial action.”
The NSSN lobby of the TUC in Brighton on 13 September, which the Socialist Party is helping to build for, will lobby delegates to support those steps – and to make them a reality.
Faced with this massive pressure, his government can be forced to back down. But that will not be achieved by trying to sweet talk Andy Burnham. Only by workers coming together and fighting for what we need, can victories be won.
