The UK’s International Investment Summit took place this Monday, and Starmer welcomed financial giants from the EU and beyond with palms outstretched.
Starmer’s latest song and dance about slashing red tape and increasing stability across the board won over many big business tycoons. For the small price of leaving the working class high-and-dry, Labour won around £63 billion in private sector investment.
To promise stability seems laughable after the first 100 days of Labour’s rule, which have brought about nothing but scandals, disgust, and rioting.
One of Starmer’s central pledges to the oligarchs and CEOs was to sweep away all the regulations in place to afford rights to workers, in order to make it easier for businesses to invest in Britain. So much for Starmer’s so-called ‘revolution’ on workers’ rights!
Former Tory billionaire donor turned Labour supporter John Caudwell candidly expressed the bosses’ views on workers rights: “I’m not very keen on that at all, as you can imagine. I think it’s a real burden on businesses”.
BBC News, “New employment regulations will make it more expensive to hire, and harder to fire new workers, worry some rich Labour fans”
John Caudwell, “I’m not very keen on that at all as you can imagine. I think it’s a real burden on businesses”
“But, it’s all about balance.… pic.twitter.com/97mT2kWKDh
— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) October 14, 2024
Well there you have it – straight from the horses’ mouth! That parasites like Caudwell and his chums are at home in the ‘Labour’ party says it all.
Despite paying lip service to workers’ rights, Starmer’s government is bending over backwards for big business, and has attacked workers every step of the way – most recently taking the axe to pensioners and poor families.
Also on the agenda at this summit was the return of P&O Ferries, infamous for sacking nearly 1,000 workers in 2022 with no warning, in order to replace them with low-paid agency staff.
Labour’s transport secretary Louise Haigh – whose colleagues clearly forgot to hand her the memo – labelled P&O “rogue operators” and called for consumers to boycott the company.
However, when P&O’s parent company DP World threatened to pull the plug on their £1 billion investment in British ports, Starmer fell over backwards to make amends, publicly rebuking Haigh.
No doubt Starmer hopes this scolding will send a clear example to any other MPs who are thinking of straying from the party’s pro-business line.
But with Starmer’s popularity tanking, and deep popular anger over his Tory-lite agenda, we expect that this won’t be the last frontbench bust-up…
Business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds proudly declared at this summit:
“Global investors should be in no doubt that under this new government, Britain is truly the best place to do business… We’re determined to deliver economic growth.”
But with the world economy on a knife’s edge, and British capitalism in the doldrums, how this growth will be delivered is anyone’s guess. Just like Starmer’s promise of ‘stability’, these honeyed words will soon leave a sour taste.
Just like the recent Labour conference, where Starmer warned of ‘tough decisions’ – tough for the working class, that is – this summit was all part of Starmer’s charm offensive to woo his corporate paymasters.
As billions are thrown around as favours by the cabal of elites at the top, workers and young people in Britain are left to wonder how none of that cash finds its way to the crumbling NHS, collapsing schools and universities, and welfare schemes – nor our payslips.
We say: Down with this billionaires’ government! Expropriate the rich!
