Don’t get fooled again… WHAT ANDY BURNHAM REALLY SAID… AND DIDN’T SAY!

 

REALLY? Don't be fooled by the rhetoric! 

We sit in that period between the much-hyped razzmatazz of Andy Burnham’s Labour Party conference speech in Liverpool and what we can expect to be a much bleaker set of announcements by his chancellor, John Healey, in the UK budget on 28 October.

It's a time when trade unionists, socialists and others on ‘the left’ should not abandon their critical faculties and fall foul of the ‘good vibes’ and rich rhetoric of Labour's new Messiah.

To say Burnham’s conference performance was like a breath of fresh air and far more emotionally relatable than his robotic, uninspiring predecessor, Keir Starmer, is hardly a huge compliment!

Of course, many people, utterly appalled by Starmer’s government, latched onto the conference slogan “Hope Again” and focused on the leftish-sounding language, the apparently radical phraseology, and some new-sounding measures - although the latter were mostly deferred until after a 2029 general election, not for the here and now.

Some of the liberal commentariat oozed raptures at this being “one of the great political speeches.” (News Agents podcast)

To avoid being fooled again, let us look at some of what Burnham actually said - and equally what he did not say - always bearing in mind the material class interests that will shape outcomes.

‘Public control’ is NOT public ownership

I've heard several people claim he called for public ownership, including of water and other utilities. He absolutely did not!

Burnham spoke of “greater public control”, including with reference to England’s rip-off, privatised, sewage-filled water industry. He didn't even mention nationalisation of the most notorious actor in this profit-driven debacle, Thames Water, despite overwhelming support for such a measure in the population – including even amongst Tory voters!

All he promised was “more public control”, including through the metro mayors in England “holding them to account”. What does that even mean? A varnished version of Ofwat, which in theory already plays that role? Look at the results! I’ll stick to the old socialist adage that “you can’t control what you don’t own”.

Very significantly, but never highlighted in media reports, he added “where private companies serve the public interest, we will support them.”

That one sentence encapsulates Burnham’s whole approach; the essence of his so-called ‘Manchesterism’.

Rather than public ownership and public investment for public need, he relies on inducements to profit-driven private capitalist firms and overseas states – just as he did during his period as Mayor of Greater Manchester, particularly with special deals being made with the dictatorial Abu Dhabi government, owners of scandal-hit Manchester City… and of vast tracts of the city of Manchester itself.

Neoliberalism in NOT dead!

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown called this ‘Public Private Partnership’, in their period of government which Burnham presumably would now denounce in conference speeches as part of “40 years of neo-liberalism” and “the wrong turn”, which should now be abandoned?

Burnham skips over the inconvenient fact that he was Health Minister in that government, presiding over the ruinous Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes in our hospitals (and schools), never once criticising his own (neo-liberal) actions.

PFI are profit-driven schemes which will drain Scotland of £1.25 billion this year alone – with another £27bn still to be forked out by the Scottish public to these corporate loan sharks. I never heard any hints from Burnham that he would cancel these PFI contracts, as part of his alleged turn away from ’40 years of neoliberalism’, did you?

Burnham has just added new, pretty embroidery to the same neo-liberal model, totally bereft of democratic public ownership and control.

Where’s Labour's solution to the housing crisis?

Burnham and Angela Rayner both denounced private landlords for “taking advantage of tenants” but reneged on earlier promises of introducing rent controls - which it's estimated could have put £2,400-a-year on average into tenants’ pockets.

They failed to address the fundamental, core problem of privately owned development land and building companies deliberately manufacturing a housing shortage to keep up the price of mortgages and rents.

Heaven forfend the socialist notion of democratic public ownership of land and construction, to build a million council houses (100,000 of them in Scotland) to the highest environmental standards, for affordable rent, as a means of tackling the horrendous housing crisis head on!!

We need a Public Energy Service

Some may think he took steps towards public ownership of energy; he absolutely did not!

Burnham's announcement that Labour would create a publicly owned ‘GB Grid’ is heavily qualified by two things: it was later ‘clarified’ that GB Grid’s budget would be a component part of the pre-existing GB Energy (not new state investment), which has done barely anything to create green jobs or tackle private energy profiteering. And GB Grid would run alongside and in competition with the privately owned National Grid.

The latter's failure to modernise and invest in the grid means copious amounts of energy generated by offshore wind-power in Scotland, for example, cannot be properly distributed to where it's needed.

Nor of course does it cheapen household bills, because electricity prices are still chained to those of the global spot market price of gas, not the far cheaper wind powered production - something Burnham didn't even mention, let alone challenge.

Full-blown democratic public ownership of all forms of energy production and distribution is required to rapidly transition to clean energy production – under the leadership, guidance and expertise of the real experts, energy workers, in a system of workers’ control – to create green jobs and slash household bills. None of that is on offer from Burnham’s Labour; we instead face a further hike in energy bills in January.

Jackdaw and Rosebank

Nor should we be surprised when Andy Burnham gives the go-ahead to production in the Rosebank and Jackdaw gas and oil fields. A government decision on that has been cynically delayed until after this week's Holborn and St. Pancras by-election, following Starmer’s resignation as an MP, but all the odds are that one or both will be authorised - despite Rosebank threatening to produce carbon emissions exceeding the combined total from the 28 poorest countries on Earth.

That’s the looming consequence of what Burnham called “being pragmatic about the North Sea.” Not a word about mass state investment, under public ownership with workers’ control, in a green industrial revolution that research proves could create at least 70,000 new green energy jobs in Scotland alone.

As we said at the time, the widely anticipated appointment of Ed Miliband as his chancellor was dumped by Burnham in favour of somebody (John Healey) who talks far less (if at all!) about ‘net zero’ than Miliband does, showing Burnham is quite prepared to prostate himself at the feet of the fossil fuel capitalists.

And indeed, at the feet of the military industrial complex, who add vastly to the climate catastrophe through (grotesquely profitable) wars… and have been gifted the warmongering John Healey as Labour's chancellor, after lobbying against Miliband by them and the Big Polluters of fossil capitalism.

National Care Service?

One of Burnham’s headline-grabbing announcements was his claim to be planning the future creation of a national care service, free at the point of use.

Stripped of the rhetoric, what he proposes only really matches what already exists in Scotland - personal and medical care of the elderly.

It fails to tackle the core problem of care homes which are overwhelmingly privately owned, profit-driven, often registered in offshore tax havens, and usually unfit for purpose.

This adds to the problem of bed blocking in the NHS, where on any given day, more than one in 10 beds are occupied by elderly patients whose medical condition has been addressed, but who cannot be discharged because there are no suitable care home facilities.

The SSP's longstanding campaign for a genuinely public national care service - publicly owned, fully funded by taxation of the rich, free at the point of use, with well-trained, well-paid staff making it fit for the 21st century - stands out in bright colours compared to the deceitful language of Burnham espousing something that falls drastically short of that.

Scrapping the pensions triple lock

Furthermore, his conference speech relied on the dirty myth that pensioners are well off, when he tied the promise of the national care service to ending the triple lock on pensions, which currently guarantees an annual increase to the state pension of either 2.5%, CPI inflation, or average earnings increases, whichever is the greatest.

Instead of making the super-rich pay for such a desperately needed care system, Labour intends to clobber pensioners, 2 million of whom already live in poverty, according to official figures.

No mention by Labour of a wealth tax!

The richest 50 families in the UK own more wealth than the combined total in the hands of half the population, 34 million people. Imagine what a 5% wealth tax on even just those fifty families could produce, as advocated by the SSP.

But no, Burnham dare not touch the pelf and privileges of the mega-rich, but instead plans to dismantle the pensioners’ triple lock, removing the guarantee of the state pension rising with average wage increases if that happens to be the highest of the three factors.

If his new formula had been applied when the triple lock was introduced in 2011, the state pension would now be £700-a-year less than it is, adding to the pool of impoverished pensioners.

And it's not as if Britain is generous towards its elderly. About 7% of GDP is spent on pensions in the UK, compared with 11% in Germany and over 13% of GDP in France.

Furthermore, because a very similar (and equally limited) personal care service already exists in Scotland, this plan to pay for Burnham’s mis-named ‘national care service’ in England will hammer Scottish pensioners, with a cut to their incomes totalling an estimated £4 billion by 2050 – over £2,000 each. Perhaps that's what he means by greater devolution of power?!

Chancellor Healey reveals Labour’s real agenda

Andy Burnham’s conference speech wowed the crowd of Labour delegates and has undoubtedly fooled substantial numbers who aren't even Labour voters anymore. But it was mostly style over substance, glorious rhetoric rather than really progressive concrete measures.

And in a neat division of labour, the starker realities of what people are likely to face were conveyed in the much less publicised speech the day before, by his handpicked chancellor, former Minister for Defence/War under Starmer, John Healey.

He delivered what the chief journal of capitalism, the Financial Times, succinctly described as “a stern lecture on the need for fiscal discipline.”

Echoing something we actually said when Labour was first elected two years ago, Healey warned “the money New Labour had in the 90s is simply not there now”, going on to add “policies will be built on a rock of fiscal discipline” - an exact repeat of the doom-laden strictures of his predecessor, Rachel Reeves.

Attacks on the young, the sick and disabled

At the core of Healey’s message was a softening up of public opinion for an assault on the benefits of the sick, disabled and long-term unemployed, with young people particularly in his gunsights as he prepares Labour's budget.

With all the moral tone of a priest concerned for our souls, Healey claimed, “we have a moral duty to help young people get off benefits and into work”, declaring the national debt levels “are an affront to our values”, telling us sinners, “it's not progressive to allow a bigger and bigger benefits bill in a system which offers comfort.” Comfort, on benefits??!!

Isn't it always the case that those who seek to compel people into work, however unsuitable or poorly paid and regardless of the impact on their mental health, on compulsion of loss of their benefits, make self-righteous claims to be helping the victims of their cuts to welfare – or social security, as it was better named in the past?

SSP on demo against genocide in Gaza, November 2023

SSP poster, October 2023

Labour’s ‘moral’ crusade for war!

Such claims of moral righteousness never apply when it comes to expenditure on warfare, as opposed to welfare.

The same Healey resigned as Secretary of State for Defence/War when Starmer wouldn't grant him enough extra dosh for warfare. As the new chancellor, he has repeated the blunt message that Labour needs to cut welfare spending to boost investment in weapons and the profits of the military industrial complex, which they euphemistically call ‘defence’.

Nor has Andy Burnham been shy to push the same priority; increasingly he has hyped up his talk of endless expenditure on the war in Ukraine, and of course Labour has openly granted the use of British bases for Trump's imperialist attacks on Iran.

Labour’s attachment to war, imperialism and profit

Labour’s ongoing attachment to the military industrial profiteers, and the (minor) imperialist ambitions of the British state, also means that whilst massive public pressure and electoral drubbings at the hands of pro-Palestinian forces has shoved them into the welcome but insufficient ban on trade with West Bank settlers, Burnham and his government still refuse to call a genocide a genocide.

They camouflage their ongoing trade links and arms sales to the Israeli terror state by focusing public attention on action against the West Bank settlers. Meantime back home, the same government is still empowering the police to arrest pensioners in their 80s and 90s for holding up cardboard signs saying they oppose genocide, want an end to arms sales to Israel, and support Palestine Action.

Capitalist Labour still in office

Labour’s undying adherence to the British state, the fossil capitalists, the military industrial complex, and the capitalist class in general, means that whilst Burnham will undoubtedly package Labour’s measures more attractively than Starmer did, the same fundamental class interests will be adhered to.

Warfare before welfare. Profits before public provision. Partnerships with profiteering private capitalists and overseas state investors before democratic public ownership for the common good. ‘Fiscal discipline’ before investment in public services fit for the 21^st century.

No, regardless of the rhetoric, Andy Burnham (and John Healey) do not offer a New Jerusalem, but continued capitalist inequality, exploitation, environmental desecration and perpetual wars.

Capitalist Labour remains capitalist Labour.

By your deeds ye shall be known, Mr Burnham!