A speech by Andrew Fisher at the Arise fringe meeting at TUC Congress, ‘For an Irreversible Shift in the Balance of Power and Wealth’

There have been two Governments in Britain that set out to deliver “An Irreversible Shift in the Balance of Power and Wealth”: Attlee’s and Thatcher’s.

They were in some ways the opposite of each other, but also had commonalities.

What was on offer from Clement Attlee’s post-war Government was best described by Tony Benn: “Democracy transferred power from the wallet to the ballot. What people couldn’t afford for themselves, they could vote for instead.”

That post-war generation of Tony Benn delivered that with the National Health Service, a mass expansion of council housing, free and universal education, strong trade union and workers’ rights, the nationalisation of key industries, and a social security system that provided a real safety net – with higher taxation to fund that social settlement.

The Thatcher Government had a very different agenda: the privatisation of key utilities, the sell-off of council housing, the anti-union laws, the deregulation of the finance sector and other industries – all while shifting the burden of taxation on to individuals on lower incomes from those on higher incomes and corporations.

Both legacies endure today. We still have the NHS, universal education, council housing still exists, and the social security system remains.

We are also living with the legacy of the Thatcher settlement: the banking crash and the stagnant growth that followed, the record number of families homeless – living in temporary accommodation, higher utility bills, and deep inequality consolidated by a grossly unfair tax system, weakened trade union rights and the lowest social security benefits in Europe.

Despite their differences, those two defining Governments did two vitally important things in common:

1) an understanding that who owns things matters; and

2) the ability to redistribute power and money matters – whether through taxation, social security or trade unions’ industrial power.

But let’s bring this forward to today and what are the prospects for such a shift today?

There’s a recognition that things aren’t working and that things need to change. So there’s an opportunity to explain the world.

It’s welcome therefore that Andy Burnham is saying Britain took a wrong turn in the 1980s and that he wants to end 40 years of neoliberalism. Contrast that with Blair who said, “My job was to build on some Thatcher policies.” He accepted the core Thatcher settlement and worked within it.

People can see they’re being ripped off on housing, energy, and they can’t make ends meet. But that doesn’t automatically mean these are opportunities for the left. The far right is on the march. They have a response to all of that: they will tell you migrants are taking your job, net zero is pushing up your energy bills, and you’re paying for disabled people and young people to claim too many benefits.

Now of course their narrative is a mixture of utter bollocks and bigoted malice, but it needs to be challenged not pandered to. And most importantly of all we have to put forward our own positive programme.

The right offers scapegoats, not solutions – from Jews in the 1930s, to single parents in the 1980s, to asylum seekers today. The message is always the same: Don’t look upwards at the landlord jacking up the rent or the boss keeping down your pay while raking it in himself – look at your neighbour, and blame them.

Our job as socialists is to offer real explanations and real solutions.

We need bold concrete policies that shift the balance of power and wealth in favour of working class people again.

It’s good we have a Prime Minister who recognises Britain took a wrong turn in the 1980s, and who says he wants to end 40 years of neoliberalism.

Now we need the policies that bury neoliberalism and create a new settlement in its place – and that means “an irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth.”

That requires Government to insource the levers of the economy and genuinely take back control – and that starts with ownership. A joined up industrial strategy follows, public investment to broaden opportunity, and all underpinned by redistributive taxation, a real social security safety net and strong trade union rights.

We need a new settlement that provides real security.

Thatcher and Attlee recognised that ownership mattered. They recognised strong trade unions, social security and taxation mattered.

That’s our starting point if we want “an irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth”. If that isn’t delivered, we’ve seen what is waiting in the wings.

Andrew Fisher was Labour’s Director of Policy from 2015 to 2019. He is the author of The Failed Experiment: And How to Build an Economy that Works (Comerford & Miller, 2014) and writes a regular column for the i newspaper.

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrew_fisher_2020_1.jpg. Source: How Starmer Became Labour Leader (12 Days of Tysky). Author: Novara Media,  licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.