Starmer’s own project chainsaw

As the Starmer government prepares to announce massive spending cuts, its relentless attacks on older people, the disabled, environmental protection, public services and democratic freedoms are part of the new world disorder ushered in by president Trump’s gang.

While the extreme version, for the time being, is being played out in the United States, the message this side of the Atlantic is the same: business and profits will prevail and the state will make sure they do.

Whereas the neoliberalism of the last 30 or so years presented the role of the state as a facilitator for the corporations, what is new is how the interests of the state, business and finance are now so closely aligned that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell them apart.

This is the road to outright authoritarian rule and, when that doesn’t succeed, to something more menacing such as fascism. Elon Musk’s Nazi-style salutes, while posing with a chainsaw as he went about wrecking the federal state, indicate the direction of travel.

In the UK, support for Starmer’s government’s support is evaporating, despite its efforts to outflank Reform from the right with anti-immigrant and law and order rhetoric.

As the right-wing Daily Telegraph noted:“On this side of the Atlantic Labour’s front bench, stymied by bureaucracy, have become jealous of the sweeping power of the Oval Office, and impressed by Trump’s ability to wield it. When discussion turned to Trump in a recent Cabinet meeting, one minister turned to their colleagues and simply asked: ‘Why can’t we be more like that?’”

Labour could and would. Within weeks of Trump’s inauguration, the chair of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) was ousted by government ministers who felt that he wasn’t  sufficiently focused on growth. He was replaced by the former boss of the anti-union Amazon UK.

Then civil servants who failed to deliver spending cuts were warned by cabinet office minister Pat McFadden that they face the sack for failing to perform. Starmer’s very own chainsaw was already taking its toll.

Labour has taken a match to planning regulations which, ministers claim, act as a block on housing and infrastructure schemes. Council officers will be given powers to bypass elected councillors and approve schemes. Targets will be imposed by Whitehall. Naturally, private developers and housebuilders will enjoy a profits windfall courtesy of the taxpayer.

The ‘Devolution’ White Paper proposes to get rid of all English local [district] councils and replace them with unitary authorities covering populations of half a million. The process is going at high speed without any parliamentary approval. Elections due this May have been abandoned.

Steve Leach and Colin Copus, both retired professors of local government, have called this proposed reorganisation “the worst White Paper for local government in living memory… Our system of local government is being broken and what results will be unfit to inherit the name ‘local government’.” That’s what the “radical restructuring” of the state means.  

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has given the green light to airport expansion at Heathrow and Gatwick and is pushing the weakening of planning rules. She insisted that growth was more important than net zero climate targets and promised: “We’ll make it easier for businesses to get things done, not caught up in regulatory systems that they are stuck in for years, or planning systems with judicial review after judicial review, where you have to spend £100m to build a bat tunnel.”

The Green Party’s co-leader Adrian Ramsay exposed Labour’s attack on the environment. He rejected the government’s “growth versus nature” as an attack on communities concerned about climate change.

The reactionary, pro-business stance found its way to AI, when the government proposed that tech companies could use copyrighted works unless artists opt out. Songwriter Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, said the proposed changes to copyright law would “hand the life’s work of the country’s musicians to AI companies for free”, adding:

“There is nothing intrinsically wrong with technology, if it is used properly for the benefit of all human beings and not if it becomes just a commercial means to immorally enrich certain small groups or individuals.” More than 1,000 musicians, including Annie Lennox, Kate Bush and Yusuf Islam, released an album that is mostly silent in protest.

Day by day, it has got worse. Some 30,000 jobs will go with the elimination of NHS England, the independent body that oversees the health service. Lord Darzi, a senior advisor to the government who is thought to have recommended the shutdown, failed to officially declare significant shareholdings in private healthcare companies. Is Labour preparing to privatise the NHS? Some experts think so. We should be told.

Then the most shameful action of all – the attack on the disabled, particularly the younger generation. The Resolution Foundation thinktank said the plan would see between 800,000 and 1.2 million people losing support of between £4,200 and £6,300 a year by 2029-30.

Starmer’s government is Trump-lite, I suggested to a senior politician. “Not so lite” came the reply.

We are living through the twilight of what is known as liberal democracy.  Broadly speaking, it once meant that you could elect a government that would act to improve society for the population as a whole. No more. The poorest will get poorer, services will disappear and living standards remain totally inadequate.

This is a pivotal crisis of the system as a whole, which is why we are supporting an initiative by Assemble to create a parallel power called the House of the People which is launching later this month. They publicised their plan with an action at the House of Lords, calling for people to replace unelected peers.

“This is a revolutionary institution to make the UK a proper democracy for the first time,” the call-out says. You can find out more and take part here. Assemble has set up a fundraiser and organised a Walk for Democracy through London on March 29, ending with a social.

Concerned about what’s going on? Then lend your support!