The Budget – A Class Conscious Response

On Wednesday March 6th the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, delivered the fading and desperate Conservative governments latest budget.  Here the comrades from the Class Consciousness Project react to this and what it means for the British working class. 

Jason 

The 2024 budget, the last budget before a General Election, will give little succour to working class families who have had to endure two years of inflation-driven price rises in the high street and skyrocketing energy costs. The whole budget amounted to mere crumbs from the table of the ruling class – a miserly reduction in National Insurance and an extension to the Household Support Fund being the only highlights in a decidedly underwhelming budget. 

Sir Keir Starmer claimed that the Tory Government had ‘maxed out the credit card’ of Britain’s finances – either a clumsy sound bite or a deep misunderstanding of how sovereign finances work – but the truth is that, regardless of which bourgeois party is elected as our oppressors, the British financial system is sclerotic and moribund.

The only option to restore profits for the capitalist class is a full-on attack on the living standards of the working class, including forcing them to work longer and for less money. This is where Labour makes its entrance: It can much better front this assault because it has the trade union bureaucracy in its jacket pocket, who will assist any Labour Government by running any working class resistance that can be summoned up into the ground.

The only viable option for the working class now is socialism: A planned economy which provides for all according to need, abolishes the crises of overproduction and gives dignity and respect to the real creators of wealth: The working class themselves. 

Terry

In the last budget before the next General Election, the chancellor tried to make out that everything was hunky dory in the economy.

This of course, as everyone knows, is an incorrect portrayal of the financial situation in Britain.

This is a budget to tempt the electorate to vote Tory in the election.

No income tax cuts which would benefit the poorest of society, instead a NI cut which obviously benefits the rich by, according to the New Economics Foundation, 12 times more than the poorest. The working class creates wealth and yet again under either of these two imperialist parties are ignored and mocked. Only a planned economy can eradicate the financial ills of Britain and the disproportionate benefits to the rich as opposed to the poor.

Rick

The slow decrease, with a view to ending, of national insurance can be easily linked to the death of our national health service. They package it off as boosts to the economy with more money to family households. In actual fact the long term effects of losing our health service will cost more in not only private health care, but as the service rapidly decreases in its effectiveness for the working class, untreated health issues will become more prevalent causing losses in working days or even the ability to work. The government will point to the £2.5 billion invested, which we fully understand will be pilfered by hospital rent and PFI’s. What tiny crumbs are left will be useless in bettering the service.

A levy imposed on the energy firms will have no effect on the exuberant charges that are enforced upon working families. British Gas profits have increased ten-fold to 750 million, so an extra 10% on the 25% that they are already paying will have no bearing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they pass the bill back onto us in the form of even higher prices.

This budget, like many others, is simply pitiful and will not help workers in this country increase their own wealth or boost the economy because capitalism is incapable of seeking anything but profit. Profit can not be made without pillaging the population, workers in the advanced capitalist countries will only see their lives made better by revolution that removes the capitalist dictatorship to be replaced by a proletarian one.

Chris

A cut in national insurance doesn’t benefit anyone as it is a tax that circulates amongst everyone who benefits from the state, be it the dole or a stay in hospital. 

Tobacco and vape tax are not going to stop people using those products and will just lead to theft and smuggling, which are justified under our present economy, but mortal sins under a planned one. 

Banning unhelpful products is the only way to go, but again only under a planned economy. 

Money from taxation is not being spent where it’s needed, as seen from council tax rises and cuts to council funding by Central govt. There is an obvious lack of proper funding in my area when you see miles of broken flagstones, potholes and masses of flytipping. It must be the same everywhere. 

Fuel duty has been capped again, whilst (under an “independent” body) train fares have risen 4.9% but militant motorist groups complain fuel duty hasn’t been reduced. 

Alex 

The British working class has been under a relentless attack from the capitalist class for decades now and this budget was merely the latest part of that. It did nothing to reverse any of the losses made by workers since the long depression began back in 2008.  The government may boast of bringing down inflation but any reduction never makes its way into the shops and workers continue to get ripped off as a result.  For all Jeremy Hunt’s claims about wanting to reduce the tax burden a symbolic cut in National Insurance isn’t really going to benefit workers at all when you consider that the projected saving of £20 a month is going to rapidly disappear into the pockets of the supermarkets or energy companies where most of our money gets spent.  

The ruling class clearly have no vision of making the country better in any sense. The most that they are aiming for is keeping things as they are. That’s what this budget means really and it would be exactly the same if Keir Starmer gets into office this year. The only way they can truly revive the profits of British capitalism is by continuing to attack the working class to the point where wages can be lowered across the board. Only by making the British working class cheaper to employ can the ruling class hope to truly restore the profitability of British capitalism and that is their ultimate aim. No matter who sits in 10 or 11 Downing Street or which 650 odd crooks sit in parliament the war on our class will continue and we must be prepared to pay the ruling class back in their own coin this time.