Photo by ChiralJon |
Around 320,000 people are homeless in
Britain, representing an annual increase of 4 per cent or 13,000 homeless
people (The
Guardian, 22 November 2018). In whichever city you look, the homeless
huddle in the entrances of shops, desperately trying to find shelter against
the freezing wind. And it is not only the homeless and the unemployed, who
struggle to make ends meet. ‘More
than 500,000 British workers have been swept into working poverty over the past
five years, according to a report that shows the number of people with a job
but living below the breadline has risen faster than employment’ (The
Guardian, 4 December 2018). Overall, there are four million workers in the
UK, who live in poverty. Zero hour contracts and jobs with low numbers of hours
have taken their toll on working Britain.
Of
course, the outcome of the Brexit saga is not unrelated to inequality. A no-deal
Brexit would result in a significant shock to the British economy and make the
implementation of the Labour Party’s Manifesto almost impossible. Nevertheless,
whether we end up with a softer Brexit or even remain in the EU in the end,
what ultimately matters for inequality is a change in government. A Labour
government under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell is Britain’s
best chance to stem the tide of rising inequality. I hope my fellow Labour
Party members as well as the Labour MPs in Westminster do not forget this
during the heated exchanges over Brexit. This is not the time to endanger party
unity.
Andreas Bieler
Professor of Political Economy
University of Nottingham/UK
Andreas.Bieler@nottingham.ac.uk
Personal website: http://andreasbieler.net
27 March 2019
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