Scott Hunter, Swindon Socialist Party

Among the greatest criminals in history shall surely be remembered the architects of austerity in Britain.

334,327 excess deaths in England, Wales and Scotland have been linked to the UK government’s pursuit of austerity policies – cuts to public services and benefits – in the period 2012-19, a new study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, has found.

This figure does not include the over 130,000 excess deaths due to Covid-19, according to the Office for National Statistics, a figure that is still rising.

If a foreign dictator had murdered some half a million and counting of their own people over a ten-year period, there would rightly be outcry from our politicians. But we, the people of Britain, are being murdered by our capitalist government. Instead of the gun or the baton, UK governments have chosen the slow weapon of poverty.

The Truss government now looks to implement a new round of austerity, to pay for tax cuts to the rich, and the energy bailout to maintain energy companies’ profits. Further austerity will compound what has gone before. At a time of rampant inflation and escalating fuel prices, it could kill another 300,000 and more in the years to come.

Only 11% of people think Liz Truss is doing well in her new job as prime minister, and the Tories are tumbling in the polls. Labour leader Keir Starmer is no doubt dreaming of himself as the next prime minister. It is telling that the Labour Party is not committed to an anti-austerity programme.

Starmer refuses to oppose austerity because he knows that, unless it took on the bosses, a future Labour government would attack workers and implement austerity itself.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We have already seen a rise in trade union membership and the ongoing strike wave. Workers are taking strike action to defend terms and conditions and to secure a pay rise. Many have won.

As well as decent pay and conditions at work, we also need a robust and publicly owned health service, safe and secure social housing, affordable public transport and much more. Pressure can be applied to stop and reverse cuts to our services. But the working class needs its own party that fights for a political alternative to pay cuts and austerity.

The Socialist Party calls on the trade union leaders to take the initiative by supporting and standing candidates independently of Labour who fight for the working class, as a step towards the development of a new mass workers’ party.