Labour’s woes over Brexit or No Brexit: don’t lose sight of the real problem - inequality!

Photo by ChiralJon

With all eight alternative options rejected by MPs tonight, the search for a way out of the Brexit impasse continues. As governing party, the splits in the Conservative party have been in the limelight, but Labour too is deeply divided. And positions become more entrenched. At local party meetings it is not uncommon to hear statements such as ‘if Labour backs a People’s Vote and betrays the electorate, I’ll never vote Labour again’ or ‘I would never forgive the Labour Party, if it ended up facilitating Brexit’. And yet, is there not the danger that we overlook the most pressing problem in this country, the exploding inequality in society?

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.

Unsurprisingly, child poverty is at record high level. Over four million children are living in relative poverty and the full introduction of Universal Credit, the new government benefits scheme, is likely to increase this number further (The Big Issue, 20 February 2019). With the country having been savaged by one austerity budget after another since 2010, more and more people are relying on access to handouts by foodbanks in order to survive. ‘The Trussell Trust’s foodbank network provided 658,048 emergency supplies to people in crisis between April and September 2018, a 13% increase on the same period in 2017’ (The Trussell Trust, 6 November 2018).

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