Reece Wilson, Basingstoke Socialist Party
The impact of sanctions on Russia is already driving prices up in Britain, and things are set to get worse. The Centre for Economics and Business Research predicts that households will be £2,500 worse off as a consequence, the biggest drop in living standards ever recorded.
The sanctions are supposedly aimed at oligarchs, but it is Russian and British workers that will be affected the most. British capitalists will pass on the extra costs to workers, and an economic crisis in Russia will be devastating for Russian workers.
What has the government done to make the oligarchs pay? For all the talk – it has simply frozen the assets of a small number of individuals. The much-trumpeted economic crime bill only seeks to tell us who actually owns wealth hidden behind shell companies, and gives billionaires six months to change their hiding place.
We say: don’t just freeze, but seize oligarch’s assets. Use the wealth, homes and land for the benefit of working-class people and refugees fleeing Ukraine. The ruling class cannot be trusted to use these assets for anyone’s interests other than their own. Instead, the mansions and money should be placed under the democratic control of the working class. And if this applies to Russian oligarchs, then it applies to other billionaires too! That’s why we fight for public ownership under workers’ control, so the resources of society can be used in a rational way for the benefit of everyone, rather than capitalists’ profits.
