Read SSP Co-Spokesperson Colin Fox on Labour’s upcoming budget. An abridged version of this piece was published in The National (25/11/2025).
‘My commitment to the money markets is ‘IRON CLAD’ vows Chancellor whose popularity is at -52% in polls
What can we expect from Rachel Reeves’ Budget tomorrow? Does anything remain, for example, from the promises she made in her ‘Pre Budget Statement’ of November 4th? How bad is Britain’s economic condition? And is Labour capable of digging themselves out of the terrible hole they are in? These are among the questions in people’s minds today.
Gone apparently is her threat to increase the basic rate of income tax. But her plan to freeze the personal tax allowance at £12,570 for another year remains, as does her proposed increase in National Insurance contributions for the seven million self-employed.
The premise behind her Pre-Budget Statement was, as you may recall, a three-pronged plan to protect the NHS, reduce government borrowing and alleviate the cost-of-living crisis. That will not change when she stands up tomorrow, we are told. Nor will her intention to raise other taxes or cut public services to reduce the National Debt.
Yet an opinion poll this week showed her popularity at minus 52%! That’s the same level Kwasi Kwarteng sunk to amid the fiasco that was Liz Truss’s premiership.
Reeves’ unpopularity stems from her decisions to cap child benefit, withdraw the winter fuel allowance and increase the basic rate of income tax – and then back down! Thanks to her and Keir Starmer [himself the most unpopular PM on record] Labour has plunged from last year’s historic election triumph to just 15% support.
There is, as the Scottish Socialist Party has highlighted, a widespread feeling that ‘nothing works’ and Reeves’ responsibility for that sentiment is central.
Meanwhile the British ruling classes have reconciled themselves to a Reform government. The industrialist Anthony Bamford of JCB for example – the Tories biggest donor over the past 30 years – is now backing them. And he is not alone.
At the same time Nigel Farage has abandoned his plan to raise the personal tax allowance to £20,000 for example as it is ‘too costly’.
‘Strong Foundations. Secure Futures’
The political landscape into which this budget will be delivered has shifted irrevocably. Most Labour MPs believe Reeves and her boss will be gone in weeks. The received wisdom had been that Starmer would remain until May’s elections as few would wish to inherent his ‘crown’ ahead of that looming disaster. But with Labour’s standing both catastrophic and unbudgeable, several contenders are said to be ‘on manoeuvers’ already including Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, Health Secretary Wes Streeting, and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
The government could hardly be described as exhibiting ‘Strong Foundations’ or ‘Secure Futures’. Yet those were the slogans emblazoned on Rachel Reeves’ lectern at her ill-fated ‘Pre-Budget Statement’.
If we step away from Labour’s misery for a moment to examine the bigger economic picture, it too makes for sober reading. Britain’s place in the league table of economic powers has been sliding for decades. And as with every Budget it is what the Chancellors doesn’t say that is often more revealing. Reeves cannot admit that British capitalism is in an uninterrupted spiral of decline. The latest ONS figures, though they should not be taken in isolation, nonetheless reveal UK economic growth at just 0.1% in the last quarter – symbolising the same weak picture reflected over the past half century.
The ‘crisis of UK capitalism’ is not critical, or unstable in character, merely locked into a prolonged pattern of decline. Ominously, unemployment is on the rise again and is set to increase further as Artificial Intelligence culls huge numbers of clerical jobs. [Financial Times 10/11/25 ‘Big companies prepare to cut 25% of white-collar roles in the year ahead’]
‘The British disease’ as international observers describe it, refers to chronically low levels of growth, poor productivity and an over reliance on financial services. British capitalism has also been renowned for its profit-taking instead of re-investing for the future in a fast-changing world.
UK inflation at 4.8% is hardly critical but it is still the highest in the G7. Similarly, government borrowing costs are higher and so too are energy prices.
The Chancellors ‘three prongs’
Meanwhile our public services are facing the worst crisis in modern history. NHS waiting lists and waiting times are at record levels with six million patients in urgent need of operations. Moreover, we are inundated with reports of poor clinical outcomes in A&E, maternity care, cancer treatment and mental health services. Post Covid staff shortages have worsened markedly. And costs have soared at the 80 PFI hospitals [8 in Scotland] that face crippling repayments running into tens of billions of pounds annually. Alongside all that we have the disgrace that is the state of social care provision across Britain.
SSP activists spent last winter drawing attention to the crisis facing the NHS and the fact that the service was being crippled by a combination of privatisation, chronic underfunding and leaders who do not support its founding principles. None of those challenges have been addressed and the situation threatens to be even worse this winter.
On government borrowing Reeves insists ‘My commitment to the money markets and to paying down the national debt is ‘IRON CLAD’. And there is the rub. Her ‘commitment’ to those who voted Labour last year desperately looking for help is by contrast ‘missing in action’.
And on the cost-of-living crisis, we can expect no improvement there either. Inflation is eating away at pay packets and the rise in unemployment poses another threat as workers at Grangemouth and Mossmorran can readily testify.
So, what should Reeves do?
Fundamentally Rachel Reeves must serve the interests of working people as she promised in July 2024 by investing in the green jobs of the future and a much-needed public housing programme. She should deliver incentives to young people trying to get into work. Labour is half-hearted in its commitment to all this.
And in a world where inequality has widened obscenely it stands to reason she should raise taxes on the wealthiest. But here we equally need to acknowledge that politicians of the ‘extreme centre’ like her lack the will for that task.
And Labour is not prepared to halt the widespread tax evasion, that is the ‘bread and butter’ of chartered accountants and lawyers, for example, who are paid handsomely to help the rich avoid their responsibilities.
Are there additional options that could redistribute substantial sums to those in most need? Yes, there are.
Public ownership of profitable industries like energy, transport and AI would generate far larger revenues for the Treasury than a wealth tax for example. The problem is Labour is ideologically opposed to that option. A true commitment to public ownership would see it take profitable industries under its orbit to redistribute the profits. Look at the example of Norway and what they did with their North Sea oil and gas reserves. Then compare it to what Britain did. Public ownership of valuable assets that belong to the nation led to the establishment of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Rachel Reeves should also cut spending on defence. Labour’s disgraceful warmongering in Ukraine has cost tens of billions of pounds. That money should have been spent elsewhere. Similarly, Labour’s capitulation to Trump over NATO expansion financially and geopolitically – increasing spending to 2.5% of GDP – was reckless and ill-advised. The billions spent on Trident nuclear weapons is another area where different financial/political decisions should have been made.
These commitments to profound wealth redistribution demand political leaders who will challenge the hegemony of the money markets and warmongers not lie down to them. Rachel Reeves, Keir Starmer and Labour has never had the bottle for that. We can therefore be sure that tomorrow’s budget will not make a blind bit of difference to the fundamental and profound crises facing working people in Britain today.