Iain Dalton, Socialist Party Yorkshire Secretary
Donald Trump unleashed chaos on the world economy by announcing massive tariffs on his ‘Liberation Day’ 2 April.
Workers across the world will be looking at market volatility and dire warnings from the media with dread, remembering the impact of the ‘great recession’ in which working people were forced to pay for the bosses’ crisis with cuts, job losses and many losing their homes.
The capitalist economy is at an impasse. The different capitalist classes around the world are split on how to protect and boost their profits.
But they do agree on one thing – that it should be the working class and poor made to pay for the crisis of their system. Working-class people will be faced with higher prices, attacks on pay and conditions, and job losses. That is what Starmer’s Labour has planned for workers in Britain.
When the government passed emergency legislation to take control of steel production in Scunthorpe it did so in the strategic interests of the capitalist bosses, not out of concern for workers’ jobs. Workers at the site took their own action to prevent company executives gaining access. Nationalisation is likely.
Why didn’t the government act to save thousands of jobs at Tata Steel in Port Talbot? Why can’t they rush through emergency legislation to take over the profit-stripping water or energy companies? When the next victim of the trade war faces the axe and workers’ jobs are on the line, trade unions and the workers themselves must fight for nationalisation to save jobs; for no compensation for the fat-cat bosses and for workers to have democratic control.
This is not a Labour government which is going to act to protect workers’ interests. As it is showing in Birmingham, where it is fully prepared to support union-busting as the Labour council tries to drive down the living standards of bin workers, many facing an £8,000 a year pay cut.
There is an alternative to the chaos-ridden capitalist system and the attacks on working-class living standards it demands. A socialist alternative in which the wealth and resources of society are in public ownership and democratically put to use for us all. And while Labour stands for the bosses, we need a party of our own that will stand for workers and young people.
