My weekly comment column in the daily Plymouth Herald (17.3.26), where in lighthearted mode I would have liked to wax lyrical about St Patrick’s Day but, in all sincerity, have to stay concentrated on War & Peace. Crucially, our anti-war protests in Plymouth have been attacked and assaulted by self-identified fascist cadre who themselves are supporting the Iranian royalists shouting in favour of Trump and Netanyahu’s illegal mass murder. The racists are supporting the immigrants, you ask? Well yes, only for so long as they support the Zionist racists in Tel Aviv and Trump’s regime. The moment Tehran falls will be the point when the Britain First fascists demand all the Iranian diaspora are sent “home”, alongside the rest of the 4million muslim Brits. Ultra-nationalism kills. Who benefits from such inhumanity?

War Benefits Nobody but the Billionaires!

Why would anyone support War? Mass murder of innocent civilians. Prices going up again. The question is begged. Why does the working class have to pay for each and every crisis?

As a secondary consequence amidst the mass murder and destruction, Trump & Israel’s illegal war against Iran has bombed refineries and blocked shipping of fuel getting to the West. Those who own the big piles and shares in the fossil fuel companies have raised the price of oil and gas.

It is always the rich who benefit. War always offers a profits bonanza for somebody. The corporations who supply the fuels and sell to us increase their charges overnight and sometimes thrice in a day.

In other words, the consumers, we at the bottom of the pile, take the hit. We pay more because those who own production and supply expect their profits to stay the same or even increase, whatever is happening in the world.

There are many reports of companies putting-up prices even before any rise in their costs, profiteers exploiting crisis if not actively creating them. To add insult to injury then, the government (of whatever hue) releases publicly owned fuel reserves paid for by the tax-payer to keep supply prices from going through the roof.

Yes, our taxes and national resources are used to subsidise the super-profits of the corporations. We fund the war through our taxes but the working class are not the beneficiaries. Our services are cut, fuel bills increase, taxes diverted from social welfare. Right now we are supposed to be placated by the understanding that prices would be even higher without the tax-subsidies to the oil corporations.

British-based BP and Shell reported combined annual profits of approximately £26.2 billion in 2024. Globally the big oil corps collectively made roughly £467 billion in profits last year. That’s a surplus over and above any business costs.

To hell with them! Let them take the hit for a change! OECD data shows that the UK government provides an estimated £20 billion per year in financial support for fossil fuel companies which includes tax relief for producers and VAT reductions. That is tax income for our common wealth taken away from health, education, benefits and the essential climate adaptation required because of their destructive emissions!

Now we’re propping-up their war-profits by more support from taxes, just for the oil tycoons to get ever richer at our expense! You who shout-out against migrants in boats costing the tax-payer say nothing about the big corporate scroungers who are actually sucking the money out from our welfare state. Why?

The Financial Times, the Bosses own newspaper, reports that US oil groups are set to make $63bn extra profits from the war on Iran! Why do you think that’s OK? Trump, the President you choose to support to the hilt, boasts that the US is the greatest oil producer by far so, “when there’s war we make money”, adding that “bombing Iran is fun”. He’s a monster!

It’s not asylum seekers bleeding our economy dry, it’s overseas oil magnets. And in Britain, the 50 wealthiest families own half our nation’s resources, paying little or nothing into our system. Yet you blame the poorest and most desperate for all societies ills. Are you sick in the head?

Some governments have acted against this profiteering. The French have limited price rises to every-other-day, the Greek government has capped the amount the Corporations can increase prices by. Not so in Britain, because Britain was one of the first to adopt free-market neoliberal economics and, over decades has become allergic to any state intervention for price controls, rent-caps and profit restrictions.

That’s why the number of billionaires in the UK has risen from 15 in 1990 to 156 today. We keep them rich, paying our taxes to them in incentives and exclusions: Universal Credit to subsidise their high rental charges, UC again to subsidise their minimum wages paid at rates too low to survive on, and our taxes subsiding the filthy water companies to the tune of £76bn.

Don’t blame your neighbour for a crisis created by the top 1%. While our communities of every culture and skin colour struggle to keep the heating on, the super-rich have increased their wealth tenfold. Finance cuts and privatisation of our assets to make a profit from our essential needs only deepen our problems.

So why on earth are you supporting the war? There’s nothing in it for the ordinary person in the street. Demand Welfare not Warfare! Fund Peace! Tax the Rich! Stop Bombing Iran!