Tag: military-industrial-complex

“Stock Up” Warnings Worth Heeding

Tony StauntonLeave a comment

My weekly Comment Column in the daily Plymouth Herald (15.9.26), emphasising the drive to war but without exaggeration. The piece underplays my personal distress at the sheer absence of any serious organised outcry against the rearmament and militarism encouraged by this, a Labour Government. I’m unsurprised given the role of Blair’s government in the illegal war against Iraq, but at least then we had a single-day demonstration of 2 million people including trade unions demanding “Stop the War!” Today, nothing. Governments in the pockets of the military-industrial complex taking billions from the taxpayer for their private profit. We’re being instructed to “prepare”. I agree – the working class needs to act for Peace before it’s too late. 

The unedited version below, or expand the picture (or buy the Herald) to read the published version: 

“Stock Up” warnings Worth Heeding

It’s the final countdown. “Britain will be at war with Russia by 2030”, warns Badenoch. You may take it with a pinch of salt – she’s a Tory! But when the hard-nosed Jonathan Powell, UK National Security adviser to government warns that Europe must be ready to endure “real hardship” this winter we should take note.

Immediately the question comes, what can we do? The Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting, issued an urgent warning last Friday, for households to stock-up especially with canned foods and water, and to put together an “emergency kit” of survival items. 

The UK government is hurriedly producing the “Prepare Campaign”, a multi-media public information message similar to the “Protect & Survive” booklet that went through every letterbox fifty years ago, telling people how to survive a nuclear attack. Pardon me?

Citing the threats from war and extreme weather induced by climate change which together are creating food and energy shortages, this warning of rationing is of historic importance. Yet day-to-day life continues with such a sense of “business-as-usual” as to defy both warnings and material reality.

The “carry on” brigade are championed by capitalist billionaires who need consumers to keep consuming and workers to keep working to maintain the status quo which creates their corporate profits. But the government warnings are a political recognition that social chaos is around the corner. Its an “arse-covering” exercise for politicians to say “we told you but you didn’t listen – you’re on your own” when the s**t hits.

Some capitalists are fast-funding the far-Right to ensure an authoritarian government that will protect their businesses during the deepening crisis. The rush to cryptocurrencies and Artificial Intelligence Data Centres represent the panic response of short-term speculators seeking the accumulation of wealth as quickly as possible before The Big Crash that is likely to dwarf 2008-9.

The military-industrial complex are rubbing their hands with glee – war makes money for the arms manufacturers. The rest of the ruling class, transnational corporations and nation states alike, are buying gold in the recognition of the potential for wheelbarrows full of Deutschmarks. The price of gold has increased by 145% and is accelerating whilst the real and hidden levels of inflation is devaluing our currency daily. Cash is soon likely to be worthless. Hoard your jewellery!

Today, the Trades Union Congress meets at our annual conference in Brighton, representing over 6 million paying members, an with some considerable recognition of the perilous state of things for the working class. With fewer than 70,000 UK millionaires able to protect themselves, the bottom seventy percent of the UK population are devoid of any personal wealth that could fund us through a crisis. 

Most are already unprotected from social upheaval, the 12 million elderly, 11 million under 18, some 17 million with a health disability, and the 5 million low-paid in work but requiring top-ups from State benefits, all face serious cuts to social support as the economy is turned towards war. Over 8 million of us are reliant on Universal Credit because wages are so low and RPI inflation which includes housing costs is rising above 5% per year. But instead of fighting for higher wages the unaffordable cost of welfare is the live debate, not the ludicrous and inhuman cost of rapid rearmament.

A vital proposition from the education trade union, UCU, is detailing the political demand for “Welfare not Warfare!” Housing, Health and Education are each already in crisis ahead of inevitable economic tremors this Winter and massive spending cuts next Spring. 

Socialists want to build on our current trade unions policy of social investment in people before profits, and peace not war. The trade unions with members in the arms industries will vote for jobs, their short-termism of “jam today” placing the funding of war preparations into competition with the many more jobs in the service sectors now at risk. This will be a fierce debate but a crucial vote. Will the unions fall-in with a war economy and military governance?

For the working class, the only power we have is collective. The question at our conference is why have the union leaders done so little to explain, agitate and organise for mass action against poverty as well as war. 

It is always the working class that pay for war. From the start of war we will be on our own – stock up now!Governments won’t protect us, but we are not alone while we have each other. We will need food sharing, neighbour-checking and community organisation, but most of all, right now we need collective trade union organisation and mass action to demand peace with social justice!

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Defence Investment Will Cost Us Elsewhere

Tony StauntonLeave a comment

My weekly Comment Column in the daily Plymouth Herald (30.06.26), having to address the mythology and lies of the government’s Defence Implementation Plan published the same day. It’s a huge document offered and fast military rearmament and the effective militarisation of society. I focus on the government lie in suggesting a doubling of military spending can relate the economy. Whilst not wanting to rely on outdated (to the point of equally mythological) Keynesianism, the very fact, across all sectors, finance investment in any sector other than armaments and soldiery creates and sustains more jobs, is a single point that demolishes the entire document. There is, of course, far more to say, such as the capitalist crisis driving war. But I’m simply answering the government foil of a headline. War doesn’t produce growth!

The unedited version below, or stretch the pic of the published article to read:

Here comes yet another dip in our welfare funding. Who said Austerity was over?

The DIP – the Defence Investment Plan, published this week – has been delayed by in-fighting between competing UK government departments and the heads of the armed forces. Tensions represent the politics of speedy rearmament versus social refurbishment. 

The Generals, Admirals and Corporate Executives of the western military-industrial complex have besieged UK governments with demands to quadruple, or more, arms spending as a proportion of the wealth Britain produces each year. Strict fiscal controls mean that money has to be found by cutting government spending elsewhere. Cutting our Welfare.

The argument, aside from warmonger’s thrust for ever more war, is that rearmament produces jobs and reflates the economy. This so-called “defence Dividend” is a complete myth. Cutting investments in civilian employment in order to fund a larger military budget harms growth. And in this climate crisis, the absence of funding for fast adaptation collapses our nations security.

Military procurement creates fewer jobs than the equivalent funding for transport, health, education, social care and even libraries and museums (congrats to The Box btw!). Spending £1million on military procurement, by government’s own figures, creates 9.4 jobs. The same £1m produces 12 jobs on the railways, 13 in healthcare, 15 in education, 20 in social care and 25 when invested in cultural activities! The jobs required to adapt to new climate and extreme weather dwarf these figures, if the investment should ever be agreed.

Military spending is capital intensive, with a shrinking workforce. Jobs in the military industry have plummeted since the 1980’s despite comparatively higher spending in real terms. Much of the tax cash investment goes to overseas firms and profits for the private arms companies. The billions do not trickle down into the general economy.

There is no defence dividend! Today’s DIP will mean another £15 billion for deadly weapons of war, paid for by cuts to critical public services and investment in action to halt climate breakdown. The new Prime Minister Burnham looks set to increase military spending even higher.

Why? In part it’s the political ideology of nationalism. Some bizarre drive to “Restore Britain” as the colonial military Empire of the 19th Century. Britain is directly engaged in warfare right now, billions in armaments going to Ukraine to attack Russia, and billions more spent in support of weapons for Israel’s devastation of Palestine, Lebanon and the US war with Iran. 

Ahead of next week’s NATO meeting, the UK Establishment want to show its power. There is competition for such rearmament across a fast-militarising Europe. Germany wants to be the primary military power in Europe. The US F35 jets delivered to France represent more power and influence to the French. The German rearmament is very serious, reflecting a far-Right section of the ruling class actively wanting military conflict with Russia – even arguing for the “righting the wrongs” of the outcome of the Second World War.

2026 has seen the highest amount of global conflict since the Second World War. Nuclear weapons clearly do not prevent war – they actually increase conflict. Yet the UK is investing heavily in nuclear weapons – unusable unless the intention is to destroy all human society. 

Truth is, the UK’s status in NATO relies upon nuclear weapons. The value is not in weaponry but in a seat at the big boys table: the P5 dedicated diplomatic forum where the five permanent UN Security Council members meet to discuss strategic stability and nuclear doctrines. UK consequently also sits on the NATO Nuclear Planning Group (NPG), dependent upon State alignment with US military policy. Nuclear War is the sum total of the “special relationship” with the United States of America.

The illegal Iran War has cost the global economy dear. The UN calculates that at least 32million people will be plunged into poverty as a result of the war, largely through its impact on energy and fertiliser supplies. We will suffer the consequences of shortages and price hikes this Autumn and Winter. 

Thankfully, the majority of the UK population do not want a war. But what does that mean? To stop war we need a show of demand for peace and against rearmament across the country.

It is clear that the warmongers are in power. We have to build a mass anti-war movement, challenging rearmament and militarism now, and placing our social welfare and climate security first and foremost!

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