photo Paul Mattsson

photo Paul Mattsson   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Budget cuts resignation: Tories split – Strike now!

Iain Duncan Smith’s ministerial resignation has revealed everything that is rotten about the Tories.

Speaking on TV, IDS blurted out the truth: George Osborne’s intended brutal cuts in disability benefits were to fund tax cuts for the wealthy, knowing that the victims of these cuts are unlikely to vote Tory.

So much for the ‘one-nation’, ‘we’re all in it together,’ Tory party. Instead, here we see the cold, class cruelty of the representatives of capitalism.

Of course, IDS’s departure has more to do with his breach with David Cameron over the EU referendum than his professed concern over widening class inequalities.

After all, he was the millionaire minister who, since 2010, has consistently voted in parliament to slash welfare while reducing taxes on the super-rich, along with introducing the hated bedroom tax and universal credit.

Nonetheless, just like their retreat over cutting tax credits, sections of the Tories are worried about the groundswell of people’s anger over continuing austerity and growing inequality.

IDS’s resignation and Cameron’s rapid retreat and U-turn over the budget’s £4.4 billion cuts to disability benefits yet again shows the deep divisions and weakness of this detested government.

Here is a massive opportunity for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the Trades Union Congress leaders to mobilise a mass demonstration and workplace action to drive out the Tories.

They should not let Cameron and Co off the hook by timidly demanding that the government eases off its austerity agenda.

They should also stop giving credence to Cameron’s campaign to remain in the bosses’ European Union.

Instead, they should insist that Labour councils stop implementing cuts, and pledge that a Labour government will reverse all the cuts, nationalise the banks and the tax-dodging, worker-exploiting giant corporations, and renationalise our privatised public services, in order to democratically plan the economy to meet the needs of the overwhelming majority.

Let’s kick out the Tories now!

Click here to download a Socialist Party leaflet: IDS Gone – Let’s kick them all out!


This version of this article was first posted on the Socialist Party website on 22 March 2016 and may vary slightly from the version subsequently printed in The Socialist.