The British Labour party suffered a humiliating defeat in the 1 May local elections, exposing the deep unpopularity of the Keir Starmer government. But far from cutting across electoral support for Nigel Farage’s right-populist Reform UK, Labour’s ‘Restoring control over the immigration system’ ‘white paper’ (a government report) ‘will lead many Reform voters to conclude that they have succeeded in getting the government to whistle Farage’s tune.
In the local elections, a section of the population picked up Reform as a weapon to express anger, not primarily against migrants, but against Labour’s cut to pensioners’ winter fuel allowance, attacks on disabled peoples’ benefits, and plans for yet more cuts.
The policies in Labour’s ‘white paper’ aim to scapegoat migrants for the crises working-class people face every day, made worse by this Labour government. Starmer’s press conference was full of divisive anti-migrant rhetoric, clearly put out to cause divisions between sections of workers in an attempt to undermine the united working-class fightback his government would be threatened by. His language of “take back control” otherwise Britain will become “an island of strangers” is appalling, outrageous and dangerous. It will embolden the far-right groups and parties.
Labour’s new policies to bring down net migration include abolishing the care visa route, reducing work permits for international students, and imposing levies on universities’ overseas student income. Migrants would have to wait ten years before applying for the right to stay. There are also further hostile policies designed to make migrant workers feel like outsiders.
Austerity
Nothing in the 82 pages of this paper, or anything else coming from this Labour government, offers a solution to the crises in social care, universities, and across our public services.
Decades of Tory and Labour austerity have left the social care sector in ruins. It, like the NHS, is suffering from chronic understaffing – approximately 70,000 domestic care workers have left the sector over the past two years. Already, a fall in the number of international students coming to the UK is a contributing factor to the university financial crisis. Even before any further reductions in numbers, 43% of universities in England are expected to be in deficit.
Trade unions representing members in both social care and higher education have responded, pointing to how the white paper’s policies would be disastrous for both sectors. The unions should be fighting to end low pay and casualisation in social care by organising action and demanding a £15-an-hour minimum wage for all, without exemptions, and for social care services to be brought back in to public ownership – fully funded and under democratic working-class control and management. Similarly, universities should be fully funded, with tuition fees scrapped and living maintenance grants made available to students.
A trade union-led struggle for these and other socialist policies, to address the needs of the whole working class, is what can end the race to the bottom. Linked to that, the trade unions should take steps towards developing their own mass political force as an alternative to Labour austerity and division.