In comments from a speech, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has said:
When we speak of a decade of national renewal, that is what we mean. As we did at the end of the 1970s, we stand at an inflection point, and as in earlier decades, the solution lies in wide-ranging supply-side reform to drive investment, remove the blockages constraining our productive capacity, and fashion a new economic settlement, drawing on evolutions in economic thought
So apparently, if Labour are elected, we will face a view drawing upon 1979 when Conservative Margaret Thatcher was elected. And, if you look at what Reeves has previously been pledging, the solutions are similar too. In a sense of the direction, Labour leader Keir Starmer praised Thatcher in 2023.
Thatcher did “remove the blockages” on the financial sector, helping enable the financial crash of 2008. But there are more ways Reeves and Starmer are on the same page as the former Tory prime minister.
Privatisation
Thatcher privatised swathes of our public institutions during her premiership. She sold off electricity and water utilities, British Telecom, and British gas.
Privatisation of essential services introduces a toll gate between us and what we need. Rather than just paying all together for electricity and water at cost price, shareholders milk profits from the service.
It’s surely a little short-termist to sell off the water supply. But Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer want to follow former Labour prime minister Tony Blair in continuing the era of Thatcherism. Thatcher said her ‘greatest achievement’ was Blair and New Labour.
Indeed, it turned out Starmer was lying when he pledged to bring essential utilities back into public ownership in his Labour leadership campaign. So him and Reeves support this Tory policy of creaming off cash for shareholders.
Foreign policy
Thatcher supported apartheid in South Africa and called Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) a “typical terrorist organisation”. Apartheid in the country eventually ended in the early 1990s after decades of activism including a boycotting campaign of South African products.
Continuing Thatcher’s legacy, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves support apartheid in Israel. Pro-Israel lobbyists have funded two-fifths of Starmer’s shadow cabinet.
Zionists colonised 78% of Palestine in 1948 and named it Israel. Today, the rest of Palestine – Gaza and the West Bank – is under Israeli military occupation. And Gaza is currently facing a genocidal military campaign.
The state enacts an apartheid regime for the Palestinians in these occupied territories and in Israel. This regime of racism for specifically Palestinians includes:
- Detaining children under Israeli military law and in military courts and convicting children without evidence.
- Restricting basic human freedoms including the Israeli military gunning down protestors, injuring 30,000 in one year in 2018-19.
- Lack of adequate essential services such as electricity, water, garbage collection.
- Discriminatory access to resources including farmland, oil and gas.
Rachel Reeves: scam artist
From backing apartheid to privatisation, Reeves and Starmer are on the wrong side of history. Reeves plainly admits she is eying a similar Thatcherite approach to the Tories themselves and Labour’s Blair.
Privatisation of the essentials is part of the glorified scam the establishment is running. Let’s end, rather than continue it.
Featured image via Sky News – YouTube and Thamestv- YouTube
