Labour – war hawks

An arms worker writes on the Labour Party’s headlong rush into upping military spending at the expense of working class lives.

Starmer and the Labour government are leading the drive to militarism and war in Europe. Alongside other European governments they want to increase spending on arms while talking up the threat from Russia. The attempts to equate the current situation with the build up to war in 1939 are bogus. Hitler at the time commanded the third largest economy in the world that was dedicated to building up its military forces for imperial expansion. Today, Russian military spending can’t match European levels. Its economy isn’t on the scale of France or Germany’s, never mind the combined European economy. The EU accounts for 14 per cent of global GDP, while Russia is only 1.9 per cent. The drive to greater military spending is based on lies.

Ahead of the recent summit, Starmer said he is ‘willing and ready’ to put British ‘boots on the ground’ in Ukraine. He said British troops should be part of a ‘peacekeeping’ operation after a deal is struck between the US and Russia. This is a sign of how Labour wishes to use working class British soldiers to maintain Britain’s role as a junior partner to US imperialism. He said he wants Britain to act as ‘a bridge’ between the United States and Europe, attempting to reestablish Britain’s position in the emerging imperial reconfiguration. While the latest crisis is a response to Trump’s withdrawal of support from Ukraine, increasing military spending in Europe only fulfills Trump’s desire to pivot from Russia towards China creating an even greater risk of war.

Arms spending & company profits

European arms companies’ share values have rocketed in response to the latest announcements. Profitability has been rising since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

At the beginning of the month, the FT reported:

‘Europe’s defence sector extended a blistering rally and the euro surged as investors raised their bets that governments across the continent will have to boost military spending and shoulder more of the burden for their security. Shares in Rheinmetall, Germany’s largest defence company, closed up 15 per cent while Leonardo climbed 17.3 per cent in Milan. Paris-listed Thales surged 16.7 per cent, BAE Systems gained 14.3 per cent and Sweden’s Saab was up 11.6 per cent.’

The chief executive of Make UK (formerly the Engineers Employers Federation) said that the increase in arms spending was an opportunity to cement Britain’s position as a global leader on arms production. To help shift the focus towards greater militarism, Starmer ‘is offering one of its highest ever pay packages to attract a new armaments chief, as the country tries to fix defence procurement […] The newly created post of national armaments director (NAD) will offer a salary of up to £400,000 per year, plus an annual bonus of up to 60 per cent of salary, meaning total package could be £640,000.’ 

Poor and vulnerable people pay for rearmament

The Labour Party was born to protect and on occasion advance the interests of working people and the poor within the confines of British capitalism. Now, it is presiding over one of the gravest attacks on working people and the poor in its history. The political party that birthed the National Health Service is now on the offensive against the country’s poorest and most vulnerable with the announcement it is to cut £5 billion from welfare benefits. Scope said Labour had just proposed the ‘biggest cuts to disability benefit on record’ – more severe than the ex-Tory chancellor George Osborne had attempted at the height of austerity.

So, Labour is determined to cut the benefits of some of the poorest people in order to spend more on building weapons. They boast that they are able to make cuts that even the Tories did not dare to do. The Tories spent decades trying to rid themselves of the ‘Nasty Party’ moniker. Starmer, Streeting, Kendall and their cohort wear it like a badge of honour.

Changes at work

However, increased costs to welfare are not down to a nation of malingerers as the media would have us believe. One of the key drivers on to benefits for workers who suffer from ailments and health issues as they get older is changes in the workplace and the growing intensification of labour.

For example, in the 1970s, a combination of full employment and strong workplace organisation meant that a lot of male ill health related to industrial accidents or occupational health issues, resulted in employers being more willing to hold onto workers who were not able to work so intensely and were frequently absent. A large number of these men were employed on ‘light duties’. At this time of working class strength and power, around 90% of men were in work and economic inactivity due to health problems was negligible.

The 1980s Thatcherite offensive led to the shakeout of manufacturing and assault on working class organisation. This resulted in much of industry being closed down. Across other sectors, employers took advantage of capital having the whip hand and shed large amounts of labour to reduce costs. Many older workers lost their jobs, while those living with a health condition or disability were pushed out of employment. These people initially went on to unemployment benefits, before many were pushed onto incapacity benefits.

But the current problems don’t just exist because of the end of light duties in the 1980s. The intensification of labour has made it impossible for workers to be employed in these kinds of roles today. Employers expect workers to be fully functional when present and only present when actually needed. This is reflected, for example, in the use of zero hours contracts and the growth of bogus self employment. 

Work ‘til you drop

So, workers who were injured, sick or just too infirm to meet the demands of capital found survival on disability benefits. Now, a Labour government is threatening to remove this basic safety net to force the infirm, disabled and chronically sick workers back into the harsher discipline of the modern workplace.

Beyond the false narrative about the need to increase arms spending lies another noxious drive to force disabled people into work. Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, recently said: ‘There is a moral case here for making sure that people who can work are able to work.’ Or as the failed Labour leadership candidate and current Work and Pensions Minister, Liz Kendall, said in January, getting disabled people into employment gives them ‘purpose’.

This idea, that we exist to produce and that growth trumps human well-being and freedom while reinforcing the misery that growing numbers of working people face, has come to define the essence of this Labour government.

Green agenda?

Reeves has also announced that the £28.7 billion National Wealth Fund (NWF) will be available for investment in the defence industry and that they will be ‘slashing red tape’ to make it easier for small businesses to benefit from increased spending.

The NWF was formerly known as the infrastructure bank, with a focus on decarbonising heavy industries such as steel. Money previously identified for infrastructure projects or the government’s green agenda is now being diverted to the dirtiest sector in the system – the military machine. All of this comes on the back of the announcement of a third runway at Heathrow.

Labour’s stated commitments to building a green economy and supporting the poor and vulnerable in society have all been quickly ditched as Starmer leads the drive to militarism that benefits the arms companies while abandoning working people and any attempt to decarbonise the economy. 

Where next?

One of the motives for the turn to national chauvinism and increased militarism is to divert attention from the unpopularity associated with economic stagnation and anger at the refusal to tax the rich while penalising the elderly, sick and vulnerable.

Despite growing disillusionment with the establishment, the current drive to war is endorsed by many on the centre left internationally and here in Britain. The Greens, the nationalist parties and much of the Labour left rightly oppose cuts to benefits and overseas aid but have apparently no problem with the increase in ‘defence’ spending. Both the GMB and Unite leaderships urge more such spending to protect members’ jobs while ignoring the fact that other public spending cuts are likely to affect their members in local government, education or health care.

Starmer has experienced his first revolt from normally loyal MPs who at least understand how some of these cuts will land in working class communities. This explains the retreat on freezing PIP payments, which give disabled people enough to offset the considerable extra costs involved in dealing with everyday life and work. However, the onslaught on the poor and sick will continue. This will be sought through further scapegoating and impoverishing of the most vulnerable in society, while pumping more resources into the military machine – all in the name of growth.

The economic crisis may not be so deep at the moment but we live in an increasingly unstable and volatile world. Living standards have not recovered from the 2008 banking crisis, and the British economy remains stagnant. If the economy experiences further contraction, Labour will attempt to drive through further cuts alongside increased militarism.

As Starmer and many on the left prepare the ground to support increased spending on arms, the radical left has to try and build an anti-war minority across society that firmly rejects the false narratives being developed to justify increased national chauvinism and militarism. Because these narratives demonise the sick and vulnerable, who will be expected to pay for their drive to war, any serious demilitarisation movement will have to link to campaigns to defend public services, workplace resistance, and the struggle for dignity and survival amongst the most vulnerable in society.

All major parties are backing the genocide in Palestine, urging massive increases in arms spending, and doing nothing to alter the record levels of inequality at home. All of this further undermines working class people. Without the development of effective opposition in workplaces and communities that can oppose these attacks, the alternative for the defeated and demoralised may well be Reform.