World Bank makes major reduction in global growth forecast

Nick Beams

The World Bank has made a significant cut to its global growth forecast for 2023, laying out what amounts to a disaster for poorer countries that comprise a major proportion of the world’s population. It warned that the global economy is on a “razor’s edge” and could easily fall into recession.

World Bank Group President David Malpass addresses annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022, in Washington. [AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta]

In its twice yearly Global Economic Prospects report issued on Tuesday, the World Bank revised down the previous forecast of 3 percent growth, made back in June, to just 1.7 percent. Excluding the contractions resulting from the 2008 financial crisis and the onset of the pandemic, it is the lowest level in three decades, and could come in even lower than forecast.

The impact on emerging markets and developing economies is devastating. The estimated size of their economies at the end of 2024 is now 6 percent less than the forecasts before the pandemic struck. The cumulative loss of output between 2020 and 2024 amounting to 30 percent of the GDP recorded in 2019.

Numerous factors are cited as bearing down on global growth, including inflation and the effects of the pandemic. However, the chief reason is the synchronised tightening of monetary policies and the lifting of interest rates by the world’s central banks, spearheaded by the US Federal Reserve.

The effect of this new interest-rate regime, instituted to suppress the upsurge of the working class demanding wage increases amid the highest inflation in 40 years, is pointed to in many parts of the report.

In its opening chapter, it said the lowering of its forecast by 1.3 percentage points reflected “more aggressive financial tightening, deteriorating financial conditions and declining confidence.”

Growth projections for “almost all” of the advanced economies were downgraded along with around two-thirds of all emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) for 2023 and for “about half of all economies in 2024.”

The downgrades mean that “global activity is now expected to fall even further below its pre-pandemic trend over the forecast horizon, with EMDEs accounting for most of the shortfall.”

In the advanced economies, it said, economic conditions had “deteriorated” with “one of the most aggressive monetary policy tightening cycles in recent history” in the US expected to “slow growth sharply.”

The risks to the growth outlook were “tilted to the downside.” In a situation of high inflation, with repeated negative supply shocks, there is considerable uncertainty about the impact of central bank policy, in terms of both magnitude and timing, and the persistence of inflation and interest rate hikes, which may be more than is currently expected, it noted.

“Financial stress among sovereigns [countries], banks, and nonbank financial institutions may result from the combination of additional monetary tightening, softer growth, and falling confidence in an environment of elevated debt.”

With global growth already weak, the combination of sharper monetary policy tightening and increased financial stress “could result in a more pronounced slowdown even a global recession [defined by the World Bank as a reduction in per capita income] this year.”

In the crisis of 2008, China rode to the rescue as its massive stimulus packages provided a buffer for many low-income commodity exporting countries, as well as some high-income countries, such as Australia and Canada. This is not going to be repeated as China is very much at the centre of the global recessionary wave.

The report noted that Chinese growth is estimated to have fallen to 2.7 percent in 2022, some 1.6 percentage points below the previous forecast, and, except for the onset of the pandemic in 2020, China is now experiencing “the weakest pace of growth since the mid-1970s.”

The situation is the same in two other key areas, the US and Europe.

US growth is expected to slow to just 0.5 percent in 2023, the lowest rate outside of official recessions in more than 50 years.

The World Bank has downgraded its growth forecast for the euro area to zero, from the previous prediction of 1.9 percent due to “ongoing energy supply disruptions and more monetary policy tightening than expected.”

While the worsening situation for EMDEs has been intensified by the pandemic, and now interest rate hikes, the trend was already evident.

The chief driving factor of growth is investment and, as the report noted, all the factors spurring it, such as strong output growth, credit expansion, rising capital flows and terms of trade improvements, have “seen a declining trend since the 2007–2009 global financial crisis.”

In the past, an increase in trade provided some limited relief for poorer countries. No longer. After falling to a low rate of 4 percent in 2022, global trade growth is expected to slow still further to 1.6 percent in 2023, reflecting lower global demand, with “the current post-recession rebound in global trade … on course to be among the weakest on record.”

While there has been some fall in the price of energy and food commodities over the past six months, in US dollar terms, this has not translated into lower prices for most of the world’s people because of the rise of the dollar against other currencies.

For example, the report said that while the price of Brent crude oil had fallen by 5 percent in US dollar terms from February to November, it rose in domestic currency terms by 7 percent on average in advanced economies (excluding the US) and by 5 percent in oil-importing EMDEs.

“As a result, commodity-driven inflationary pressures in many countries may be more persistent than indicated by recent declines in global commodity prices.”

With the US Fed insisting there will be no abatement in monetary tightening, this trend is set to continue.

The result is that 220 million people are confronted with “severe food insecurity” and this number could “rise further if upward risks to food prices materialise.”

Insofar as there has been a decline in commodity prices it is not a sign of “recovery” but rather an effect of the slowdown in growth and the development of recession.

In its executive summary of the report, the World Bank said “urgent efforts are needed to mitigate the risks of global recession and debt distress in EMDEs.” But it offered no policies to meet these growing threats.

Rather the report pointed to cuts in government spending, noting that “limited policy space”—the result of rising debt—means that policy makers must ensure that “any fiscal support is focused on vulnerable groups” while ensuring that inflation expectations remain well anchored and the financial system “continue to be resilient.”

These words, intended to give the impression that policy makers have answers, are thrown up as a smokescreen to cover the fact, as the body of the report makes clear, that all the institutions of global capitalism are confronting a situation racing out of their control.

But that does not mean they have no policies. They do. However, the measures they seek to implement are not aimed at alleviating the deepening crisis but at placing its burden on the backs of the working class in advanced capital countries and developing countries alike.

When the World Bank issued its June 2022 report, we said that, while it was not the intention, the content was “a major indictment of the operation of the global capitalist system.” That assessment is more than confirmed in the latest report and this raises before the working class the essential task.

Macron’s attack on pensions sets stage for showdown with French working class

Alex Lantier

On January 10, French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne announced plans for sweeping cuts to state pensions in France. The bill, which would raise the official retirement age by two years, resurrects the pension cut President Emmanuel Macron tried and ultimately failed to ram through in 2019-2020.

Macron’s attack on French workers is part of a global offensive against the working class, whose aim is to impose the cost of the capitalist crisis onto workers all over the world. Macron’s plan has been been hailed by celebratory editorials in big business newspapers in the UK and US.

Protesters march during a demonstration in Lyon, central France, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

The cut is overwhelmingly unpopular, with 68 percent of the French people opposed, and Macron was forced to shelve the pension cut in 2019-2020. It provoked a six-week rail strike, which Macron and the parliament waited out, adopting the reform after the strike ended. However, Macron then felt compelled to abandon it in the spring of 2020—even after it was voted for in parliament—as mass strikes in Italy, France and across Europe against state inaction on COVID-19 forced Macron to heed doctors’ calls for a strict lockdown.

The revival of this plan by Macron, a former investment banker known as the “president of the rich,” makes clear the financial aristocracy’s plans for the new year. It acts with utter class contempt for the social rights of workers. As France and other NATO states recklessly pour billions of euros into sending tanks and artillery to Ukraine for war on Russia, risking an all-out Third World War, they intend to finance war by slashing living standards.

Borne announced several key attacks on the pension system initially set up in 1945-1946, amid the fall of the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime at the end of the Second World War:
*Raising the minimum pay-in period to retire with a full pension one year, to 43.
*Raising the minimum age at which one can retire with a full pension two years, to 64.
*Canceling “special regime” pension plans offering better conditions to certain groups of public sector workers.
*Helping “retired” workers to return to work to supplement inadequate pensions.

Raising the pay-in period and the minimum pension age allows the state to slash pension spending. Broad layers of blue-collar workers are too worn out to work until 64. Workers who obtained higher education, or who spent time unemployed, cannot pay into the state pension scheme for 43 years without working well beyond age 64. The French state can thus apply devastating penalties, cutting up to 5 percent of a worker’s pension for each year missing from the pay-in period, or each year spent retired before age 64.

Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire announced that the reform would cut €17.7 billion from overall spending on pensions in 2030—roughly €1,000 per retiree per year. This is more than 5 percent of the overall French pension spending in 2020, of €332 billion.

Borne’s call to help retirees work to supplement their pension only underscores that the financial aristocracy intends to scrap the social right to a livable public pension altogether. Already in 2019, 400,000 retirees in France had to work to supplement their state pensions; the pensions these retirees received averaged only €772 per month.

The pension cut of Macron and Borne is so wildly unpopular that it is unclear whether they have enough votes to pass it through the National Assembly, where Macron’s Renaissance party has only 170 of the 577 seats. There have been many reports of a deal between Macron and the right-wing The Republicans (LR) party to support the cuts. However, there are still concerns that, after Macron took back his cut in 2020, certain LR parliamentarians might at the last minute decline to support him now.

Borne has therefore adopted the cynical and anti-democratic trick of putting the cut in the budget law financing shortfalls in Social Security spending. She can then use an arcane provision in France’s constitution allowing the president to force through the Social Security budget with only the support of the French Senate—a body not elected via universal suffrage, and in which LR holds a majority.

The ruling classes in France and internationally are fully aware that by proceeding this way, the Macron government risks provoking explosive strikes and social opposition. Last week, an IFOP poll commissioned by the SUD Radio station found that 79 percent of French people believe a social explosion is “possible” in the coming months. Moreover, 52 percent want such an explosion to take place.

Above all, as Macron tries to slash pensions, strikes are erupting across Europe and internationally against austerity, inflation and policies of mass infection with COVID-19 and war. Britain in particular has seen a wave of strikes or strike votes by transport, port, education, health and civil service workers. Strikes by rail workers are ongoing in Germany and Portugal, and by metalworkers in Turkey. Across the United States, strikes by health staff are mounting and calls for strike action are mounting in rail, auto, and other key industries.

The only way to stop Macron’s cuts is to link opposition among French workers and youth to this growing global opposition to inflation and war, organizing workers in rank-and-file committees independent of the union bureaucracies in a movement against capitalism and for socialism.

The French union bureaucracies, in constrast, have responded to Borne’s announcement of pension cuts by holding a joint meeting to announce a one-day national protest strike on January 19. They have received the support of the Unsubmissive France (LFI) party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who tweeted that Borne’s pension cuts are “a grave social regression.”

Philippe Martinez, the head of the Stalinist General Confederation of Labor (CGT) union, claimed that trade union unity created the possibility of building a powerful national movement through the existing bureaucracies. “The fact that all the trade union organizations are in agreement … will allow for trade union alliances in enterprises, professions, and establishments,” he said. He added that the CGT is “determined that this bill will not pass.”

The French Democratic Labor Confederation (CFDT), historically linked to the big-business Socialist Party (PS), said it had warned Macron in their discussion of the cuts that it would had no choice but to oppose the measure. CFDT President Cyril Chabanier said: “We had warned that if there was an increase in the pension age, we would go into the streets. So, we will.”

This perspective for nationally-based protests controlled by the union bureaucracies is nothing but a trap for youth and workers opposed to Macron’s cuts. The CGT bureaucracy has already stated its support for multi-trillion-euro bank bailouts to the super-rich at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as for the war in Ukraine. Committed to right-wing policies internationally, the union bureaucracies will prove hostile to any initiative mobilizing workers in France independently of their corrupt “social dialog” with the Macron administration.

Indeed, in 2018, Martinez responded to initial explosion of “yellow vest” protests for social equality by denouncing the “yellow vests” as a far-right mob, and isolating them by calling off solidarity strikes organized by truckers. The outcome of the CGT bureaucracy’s treachery was seen in 2019-2020: the CGT isolated and called off a powerful, six-week rail strike against Macron’s pension cuts, initially allowing Macron to write them into law.

EU Sakharov Fellowship 2023

Application Deadline:

29th January 2023 Midnight (CET).

Tell Me About Sakharov Fellowship:

The European Parliament’s Sakharov Fellowship offers up to 14 human rights defenders selected from non-EU countries the opportunity to follow a two week intensive training in Brussels and at the Global Campus of Human Rights in Venice. The empowering programme for human rights defenders has been organised annually since 2016 further to an initiative taken by the Sakharov Prize Community at the 25th Anniversary Conference of the Sakharov Prize.

Under the Sakharov Fellowship training programme human rights defenders will

• enhance their knowledge of EU and international human rights frameworks, policies and mechanisms and
• develop capacities to advocate for and effect positive change to protect human rights.
• Beyond the training, Sakharov Fellows will
• help grow the network of Sakharov Fellows to share best practices, disseminate the acquired knowledge and extend awareness of the Sakharov Prize and the Sakharov Community;
• have the opportunity to maintain links with the work of the European Parliament and continue liaising with EU Delegations in their respective countries.

The Brussels programme focuses on EU policies and tools in support of human rights defenders, accessing funding, developing communications skills, and raising awareness of specific security challenges facing human rights defenders. It further includes meetings with Members of Parliament, officials of the EU institutions and Brussels-based NGOs. The Fellows will also have space for individual advocacy and networking activities.

Training at the Global Campus of Human Rights in Venice combines academic teaching on international human rights law, instruments and mechanisms with case studies and provides practical tools for improving the work of human rights defenders to effect change on the ground. Lecturers include prominent academics, representatives of leading human rights NGOs, Sakharov Prize laureates and other outstanding human rights practitioners.

What Type of Scholarship is this?

Fellowship

Who can apply for Sakharov Fellowship?

Candidates should have a proven record in campaigning for human rights in a NGO or other organisation or in an individual capacity. They must have a high level of English, sufficient to follow and contribute to discussion groups and workshops in Brussels and Venice.

How are Applicants Selected?

The selection of Fellows is based on the above criteria and the need to ensure gender balance as well as the representation of a variety of geographical areas and human rights issues.

Which Countries are Eligible?

Non-EU Countries

Where will Award be Taken?

The programme will be organised in person in Brussels and Venice. It might be changed to an on-line format if sanitary conditions require.

How Many Fellowships will be Given?

up to 14

What is the Benefit of Sakharov Fellowship?

The Fellowship covers return travel from the country of origin, accommodation in Brussels and Venice and a daily living allowance. 

How Long will the Program Last?

2 weeks

How to Apply for Sakharov Fellowship:

The deadline for applications is midnight 29 January 2023 (CET). Successful candidates will receive confirmation by email, latest by 3 March 2023. Unsuccessful candidates will not be informed of the reasons why they were not shortlisted or offered a fellowship.

Apply via Link below.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Wells Mountain Education Scholarship Program 2023

Application Deadline: 1st March 2023

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries; Developing Countries

Accepted Subject Areas? All fields are eligible although WMF intends to favor helping professions such as health care, social work, education, social justice, as well as, professions that help the economy and progress of the country such as computers, engineering, agriculture and business.

About the Award:

Wells Mountain Foundation offers undergraduate scholarships to students from developing countries to study in their home country or any other developing country. The foundation hopes that by providing the opportunity to further one’s education, the scholarship participants will not only be able to improve their future, but also that of their communities. The foundation believes in the power and importance of community service and, as a result, all scholarship participants are required to volunteer for a minimum of one month a year.

Applicants are only allowed to select a university in a developing country. Applications to study in UK, USA, Europe and Australia will not be accepted

Offered Since: 2005

Type: Undergraduate

Who is qualified to apply? To be eligible to apply for this scholarship, applicant must be a student, male or female, from a country in the developing world, who:

• completed secondary education, with good to excellent grades
• will be studying in their country or another country in the developing world*
• plans to live and work in their own country after they graduate
• has volunteered before applying for this scholarship and/or is willing to volunteer while receiving the WMF scholarship
• may have some other funds available for their education, but will not be able to go to school without a scholarship

*Scholars planning to study in the United States, Canada, Australia, UK or Western Europe will not qualify for a WMI Scholarship

Number of Awards: 10 to 30 per year

What are the benefits? Maximum scholarship is $3,000 USD.

• tuition and fees
• books and materials
• room rent and meals

How to Apply: 

• Applicants must submit two letters of recommendation written by someone who knows you, but is not a family member, who can tell why you deserve to receive a WMF scholarship. What qualities will make you an excellent student, a successful graduate and a responsible citizen who will give back to his or her country? These letters of recommendation may come from a teacher, a religious leader, volunteer supervisor, or an employer.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Latitudes CuratorLab Online Residency 2023

Application Deadline:

12th January 2023

Tell Me About Award:

Latitudes CuratorLab is a practice-based, online curatorial residency for emerging curators in Africa. In 2023, ten aspiring curators will be guided through a facilitated online residency, designed to offer practical experience in the industry and to hone their curatorial skills. 

Here at Latitudes, we know that programmes focused on fostering professional practice skills for young curators on the continent are slim. For the second iteration of CuratorLab, we are extending our reach to offer the opportunity to Curators from not only South Africa, but Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria, Namibia and Mozambique too. No formal training is needed and practical curatorial experience is preferred.

What Countries are Eligible?

South Africa, Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria, Namibia and Mozambique

Who is Eligible?

• Curators from South Africa, Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria, Namibia and Mozambique.
• No formal training is needed and practical curatorial experience is preferred. 

What is Value of Award?

As one of 10 curators selected for the RMB Latitudes CuratorLab, you will be offered the following opportunities:

• Plan and conceptualise your own show, centred on artists from your community, that will be hosted on Latitudes Online
• 1-on-1 mentorship by a highly recognised curator in the industry as well as with Latitudes curators
• A curator profile on Latitudes where you may promote, exhibit and sell your own selection of works
• Networking and peer-review sessions with curators from the continent
• Curatorial professional practice sessions and handbook
• All of the above will be conducted in 7 online sessions hosted weekly

As part of the programme, you will be offered the following professional practice skills while curating your show:

• Understand the industry on the continent and the diaspora
• Curatorial professional practice; including proposal writing, the conceptualisation of curatorial statements, catalogue and pricing structures and managing relationships
• Getting out there, marketing yourself as a curator
• Digital curation development
• Key administrative skills

Latitudes provides:

• Free curators profile on Latitudes Online
• Comprehensive marketing campaign and exposure to our database of over 15,000 newsletter readers
• Commission on all artworks sold as well as logistic and administrative support
• R1500 stipend to cover data costs
• Plus you get to keep and update your profile as long as you like!

How to Apply?

Please complete and submit the application form by 12 January 2023.

Visit Application Webpage for Details

Britain prepares to send battle tanks to Ukraine as war against Russia escalates

Robert Stevens

The UK is considering shipping Challenger 2 battle tanks to Ukraine as part of a major escalation in NATO’s war against Russia.

Following talks at London’s Lancaster House last Friday with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said that sending tanks “may well be part” of the UK’s future support for Ukraine.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly meets Annalena Baerbock, German Foreign Minister for a bilateral meeting at the UK-Germany Strategic Dialogue meeting at Lancaster House. January 5, 2023, London, United Kingdom. [Photo by Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street / CC BY 2.0]

The talks were held the same day Germany announced that it will send Ukraine armoured vehicles and a Patriot missile system. The US Biden administration has committed to sending dozens of Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles as part of a further tranche of military aid.

Asked by a reporter if the UK would respond by upgrading its military support, Cleverly said, “We will continue to speak with the Ukrainians about what they need for the next phase of their self-defence and we will continue working with our international partners about ensuring that we provide that. Tanks might well be part of that.”

Britain is the second largest supplier of military aid to Ukraine, after the US, having already sent £2.3 billion in military hardware. This includes 200 armoured vehicles—with six Stormer vehicles fitted with Starstreak launchers—along with hundreds of missiles and maritime Brimstone missiles. The Sunak government is committed to matching or increasing its military assistance to Ukraine this year.

France agreed last week to deliver AMX-10 RC light tanks to the Ukrainian military. But Britain sending battle tanks into the Ukraine war would be a major step further and provocation against Moscow. While it is an aging vehicle, the Challenger 2 tank—used by British soldiers in military operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Iraq—has had several upgrades since the 1990s and is considered one of the most reliable tanks available. The Tory government decided to upgrade 148 of its Challengers (two thirds of the total fleet of 227) only two years ago, while the Challenger 3 is still in development in a joint venture with Germany.

Soldiers of 1 A Squadron, Queens Royal Lancers (QRL) patrolling outside Basra, Iraq onboard a Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank during Operation Telic 4. [Photo: defenceimagery.mod.uk/ for reuse under the OGL (Open Government License).]

Further details emerged this week of the UK’s plans in a piece written by Deborah Haynes, the security and defence editor of Sky News. Haynes has intimate connections with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and intelligence agencies. She wrote Monday, “Discussions have been taking place ‘for a few weeks’ about delivering a number of the British Army's Challenger 2 main battle tank….

“One source suggested Britain might offer around 10 Challenger 2 tanks, enough to equip a squadron.” The “source said this in itself would not be a ‘game changer’ but it would still be hugely significant because the move would breach a barrier that has so far prevented allies from offering up Western tanks to Ukraine for fear of being seen as overly escalatory by Russia.”

Haynes cited a Ukrainian source who said if the UK sent Challenger tanks, “’It will be a good precedent to demonstrate [to] others - to Germany first of all, with their Leopards… and Abrams from the United States’”.

“Ukraine”, the article noted, “has long requested the mass-produced, German-made Leopard II tanks, used by several European allies, including Germany, Poland, Finland, the Netherlands and Spain.

“Warsaw and Helsinki have already signaled a willingness to supply their Leopard tanks to Kyiv” but were unable to supply these to Ukraine as it “requires approval from Berlin because Germany holds the export licence.”

Sky and other news sources said that a decision on supplying Challenger and/or other tanks could be made as soon as January 20 at the US-led “Ramstein” contact group of defence ministers, comprising the 50 nations flooding Ukraine with ever more advanced, lethal weaponry.

The Sunak government is currently reviewing its overall defence budget, including the military aid it hands over to Kiev. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak insisted on a pre-Christmas visit to UK troops in Estonia—which along with Poland is the base for 1,000 troops deployed by London as part of the anti-Russian Operation Cabrit—that there would be no let-up in military support for Ukraine.

Tanks uploaded on military truck platforms as a part of additional British troops and military equipment arrive at Estonia's NATO Battle Group base in Tapa, Estonia, Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. [AP Photo/Sergei Stepanov]

During his visit he spoke to soldiers of the King’s Royal Hussars, an armoured cavalry regiment equipped with Challenger 2 tanks. He arrived in Estonia after addressing a summit in Riga, Latvia, of the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF)—a military alliance of anti-Moscow northern European states. There he announced a £250 million contract to ensure the supply of artillery ammunition to Ukraine throughout 2023. The JEF was also addressed by video-link by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

While Sunak has committed to being “all in” in backing Ukraine, even announcing a review of spending provoked a frothing response from the most pro-war sections of the media in the Guardian, who declared it a betrayal of the support offered by former prime minister Boris Johnson. Hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery was not enough when Kiev “is calling for a step-change in western assistance,” it complained.

Sunak has not yet committed to matching the increase in defence spending to 3 percent of GDP by 2030 (more than £150 billion extra in the next eight years) pledged by his short-lived predecessor Liz Truss.

Fearful of British imperialism missing out on any spoils, the most predatory forces within the political and military elite are demanding that the defence budget be ramped up well beyond the 2 percent of GDP insisted on by NATO. The Financial Times reported earlier this month, “In early December, Britain’s defence minister Ben Wallace and the head of the armed forces Admiral Sir Tony Radakin went to see Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at 10 Downing Street with an overarching topic on their minds: the UK military’s need for money.”

Wallace is a prominent supporter of Johnson, who said he would back him before Johnson decided not to challenge Sunak in last summer’s Tory leadership contest. Only days before meeting Sunak, he declared of the regular UK army, reduced by decades of cuts to 72,000 troops, “If we just want to stay at home and do a bit of tootling around, we've got an armed forces big enough.”

Wallace and Radakin’s intervention, according to the Daily Telegraph, secured a military spending “increase by more than a billion pounds to avoid a real term cut over the next two years”, with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt expected to announce the increase in his Budget this spring.

Hunt is on record supporting a huge increase to 4 percent of GDP on defence, international aid and foreign office policies.

The rise is to coincide with the publication of a new Integrated Review (IR) of the armed forces. The previous one outlined by the Johnson government barely a year ago and centred on a “tilt” towards the Indo-Pacific region, away from Europe, will be torn up. Hunt declared in his November budget that it “is necessary to revise and update the Integrated Review, written as it was before the Ukraine invasion.”

Ahead of the review, Radakin in the annual Chief of the Defence Staff Lecture to the Royal United Services Institute—the premier defence and security think tank—posed the question that while the previous IR “was correct to identify Russia as the most acute threat and was the first to begin to grapple with the scale of the challenge of China… How do we manage a weaker but more vindictive Russia over the long term? Are we going to remain committed to a global outlook? And if so, how much do we invest?” Britain could “not shy away from our status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, a nuclear power with global responsibilities and the 6th largest economy in the world.”

This required, “thinking big: accelerating the transformation of the Armed Forces to become even more lethal and integrated… Being even more global in our outlook.”

He proposed, “Might that mean an Army equipped with anti-ship or hypersonic missiles capable of striking the enemy thousands of kilometres away? Might it mean a British carrier regularly deployed in the Indo-Pacific at the heart of an allied strike group?”

Making clear the scale of the conflict the UK should prepare for, he continued, “Because the biggest lesson from the past year is to recognise that we are part of a generational struggle for the future of the global order.”

The immediate rise in the military budget just sanctioned is only a down payment. Everything else, above all workers’ wages, must be held at rock bottom levels as inflation soars so that the military budget can grow.

The plundering of social spending—including that required by an already collapsing National Health Service—to spend an extra £150 billion on the military this decade is a declaration of war against the working class. Public spending cuts will fund the £31 billion cost of four new submarines to carry the UK’s nuclear missiles and as many as 138 F-35 stealth fighter jets (£90 million each) to serve as the cutting edge of Britain’s aircraft carriers.

UK government brings anti-strike bill before Parliament

Robert Stevens

Conservative government Business Secretary Grant Shapps introduced the first reading of its new anti-strike bill to parliament Tuesday. Its main aim is to impose minimum service levels (MSLs) on emergency service workers, the transport network and then later throughout the public sector. Given the Conservative’s still substantial working majority of 69, the Bill is expected to pass later in the year.

The law will apply in England, Scotland and Wales, with Northern Ireland the only part of the UK exempt.

The legislation will allow the government to impose MSLs on six sectors of the public and private sector workforce in all the key industries. This would mean a significant proportion of workers (expected to be around 20 percent) across the economy would have to keep working during industrial action. The first three sectors to have the dictatorial measure imposed are the ambulance, fire and rail services. The legislation will then be imposed on workers throughout health, education, border security and nuclear decommissioning.

Under the new laws, the business secretary of the day will be able to unilaterally decide statutory minimum service levels throughout the public sector in the event of a strike being called.

The Bill will contain powers to sack workers who refuse to abide by MSLs during a strike. They will lose current employment protections forbidding dismissal during legal industrial action. Both trade unions and their members can be sued by private companies if they defy the legislation.

Britain's Business Secretary Grant Shapps leaves after a meeting in Downing Street in London, Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022. [AP Photo/Kin Cheung]

Shapps stated that the measures would be introduced and then broadened out via a favoured mechanism of the ruling class: “consultation”. He declared, “we intend to consult on what an adequate level of coverage looks like in fire, ambulance, and rail services. For the other sectors covered in the Bill, we hope to reach minimum service agreements so that we do not have to use the powers—sectors will be able to come to that position, just as the nurses have done in recent strikes.”

This voluntary element is bogus, as the government has already made clear the legislation will be imposed if not agreed by the trade unions.

Shapps cynically stated that MSLs were required to keep the population safe during industrial action, referring to them repeatedly as “Minimum Safety Levels.” He asserted, “The new ambulance strike [beginning Wednesday] will result in patchy emergency care for the British people – and this cannot continue”, adding, “We do not want to use this legislation. But we must ensure the safety of the British public.”

The reality is that the main threat to the health and welfare of the population is the ongoing destruction of the National Health Service by the Tory government. The health trade unions have provided cover during strikes, including during the first ambulance workers’ strikes last month. No one died as a result of the strikes, unlike Tory cuts.

The measures outlined by Shapps are part of the turn in the ruling class internationally to authoritarian forms of rule, which has seen the outright banning of critical strikes, such as by the Biden Administration in the US, and the frequent use of Minimum Services Levels in many countries.

Shapps told parliament, “The legislation will bring us in line with other modern European countries such as France, Spain, Italy and Germany, all of which already have these types of rules in place.”

Giving a clear hint as to where the policy is headed once the MSL precedent is set, he added in reply to a Scottish National Party MP, “If we go beyond Europe, he will be interested to hear that in Australia, Canada and many states in America, blue-light strikes, as we would call them, are banned entirely.”

Indicating the reliance of the ruling class on the trade union bureaucracy, Shapps namechecked the “International Labour Organisation—the guardian of workers’ rights around the world to which the [Trades Union Congress] itself subscribes,” which “says that minimum service levels are a proportionate way of balancing the right to strike with the need to protect the wider public.”

Tory MP Laura Farris said Shapps “could have added to that list South Africa, Argentina, Australia and Canada, all of which are members of the International Labour Organisation and have minimum service levels in essential services. In every single case, the ILO has reviewed the MSL and determined it to be a necessary and proportionate restriction of the article 11 right to strike.”

The picket line at Manchester Central Ambulance Station, December 21, 2022 [Photo: WSWS]

The opposition of the Labour Party—which has pledged to repeal the MSL legislation when in government—and the trade unions to the Bill is premised on the trade union bureaucracy’s proven role in suppressing every major struggle of the working class over the last four decades. To impose MSLs, they warned, would risk the class struggle breaking out of their control.

The unions have already allowed a battery of anti-strike legislation to pass, beginning with those of the Thatcher government (1979-91). These were all upheld to the letter by the Blair/ Brown Labour governments (1997-2010.) Party leader Sir Keir Starmer’s pitch for government is that Labour, the unions and big business must work in partnership to impose the necessary austerity agenda against the working class, utilising the authoritarian raft of anti-strike legislation already on the books.

Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner warned that “France and Spain … which he claims have these laws on striking, lose vastly more strike days than Britain.”

In its statement the TUC complained that “the proposed legislation would make it harder for disputes to be resolve…” and warned that “minimum service levels prolong disputes and lead to more frequent strikes.”

TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said, “If passed, this bill will prolong disputes and poison industrial relations – leading to more frequent strikes.”

Neither the TUC nor its affiliated unions representing 5.5 million workers proposes any strikes in opposition to the Bill. Nowak instead seeks to divert workers opposition into appealing to MPs to “do the right thing and reject this cynical ‘sack key workers bill’”.

Speaking last Friday, during the first of two more days of national strikes by members of his Rail, Maritime and Transport union, leader Mick Lynch—portrayed as a fighting militant by Britain’s pseudo-left groups—said, “What I think they’ll [the government] end up doing is making industrial disputes intractable, so we’ll have to resort to partial strikes, we’ll have to resort to works to rule, we’ll have to resort to overtime bans…”

Lynch was forced to make a pose of opposition, but the union’s campaign is based on pleas to Starmer, who instructed his shadow cabinet not to support picket lines on pain of disciplinary action.

Lynch stated, “We’ll fight them in Parliament. The Labour Party leadership have said they are going to oppose this and they’ll repeal it as soon as they can…We need to get a change of government and change of policy and then we need a new set of workers’ rights brought in as a priority [by Starmer after a general election in 2024!].

“We’ll oppose it in the courts and we’ll oppose on the streets as well. I don’t think we’ll get a general strike as people commonly understand it, but I definitely think we’re working towards getting coordinated industrial action across as many sectors as possible and across as many unions as possible.”

Lynch concluded that none of this had to happen if the government would only engage with the unions to end the strikes in talks this week, “We’re working for a settlement. We don’t want further strike action,” he said.