War on Work

The Labour Government is attacking WORK!  

Our country is built on the dignity of work, and the current Labour Government is quietly waging a war on the very people it claims to champion: Britain’s workers.

Behind the rhetoric of fairness, Government handouts and opportunity lies a policy agenda that is eroding the value of work, burdening employers, and weakening the social contract that underpins our economy.

Despite promising to Smash the Gangs, the gangs who exploit those who wish to come to the UK illegally, the Government hasn’t denied that the number of new migrants to the UK could be greater than 500,000 this year alone.  Setting aside the PM’s rhetoric, perhaps we are being deceived into believing the Government wishes to reduce immigration, because without it, Prime Minister Keir Starmer will struggle to deliver his biggest claim: “The No.1 priority of this Labour Government is growth: growth, growth, growth.” The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which marks the Government’s economic homework, states in its most recent analysis that population growth (via net migration) accounts for about half of the UK’s projected growth.  The Chancellor not only gets rewarded for creating growth fuelled by cheap new labour, but the Government also benefits from an extra 440,000 new workers competing for jobs, driving salaries lower at the expense of British workers.  

One example, however strong, shouldn’t be sufficient to prove such a traitorous crime, as this Labour Government is intentionally attacking British workers.

The second flank of attack, which the Government is desperately trying to hide under Ed Miliband’s greenwashing crusade, is the Government imposing what may be the world's highest energy costs on British employers.  Ask employers, and they’ll confirm that sometimes spending more than 6% of their turnover on energy forces them to choose between energy and hiring more workers.

The third piece of evidence can’t be greenwashed away: the Government’s decision to levy £25 billion of additional tax on employers—a tax calculated on each employee's earnings. A tax that literally increases as workers earn more.

Now the Government will inevitably obfuscate and claim the new UK Employment Rights Bill will make everything wonderful for Workers.  Please, does the First Lord of the Treasury believe British Workers are so naive as to believe the Act will create jobs, when the Government’s own estimate is that the Act will force employers to spend an additional £5 billion each year on paperwork, processing, etc.  The Chancellor’s friends at the OBR couldn’t be clearer: ‘we assumed firms pass on 60 per cent of the higher costs to workers and consumers, via lower nominal wage increases and higher prices’. 

The evidence is compelling.  British workers are under attack from this Labour Government. The Office for National Statistics’s October report confirmed fears that we’ve had 39 consecutive periods in which the number of job vacancies has fallen compared with the previous three months.

As we look ahead—or perhaps fear—the 26th of November Budget, please do challenge my insights. Can anyone convince me that this Labour Government is not waging a war on Workers? In the meantime, we all endure the indignity of seeing British unemployment swell to almost 2 million.