Responding to the Chancellor’s budget statement, Stop the War Coalition convenor Lindsey German said:
“This budget was entirely as we predicted: it hits the poor and rewards the rich. It was driven by self-imposed fiscal rules dictating tax rises on the low paid, which would have been entirely avoidable had the chancellor been willing to tackle the massive wealth gap in this country with a radical wealth tax and to resist the siren voices beating the drums of war and demanding still more military spending.
“When this Labour government was elected we thought it would at least put more money into public spending. Instead it presides over a country with a massive housing crisis, where schools and hospitals are crumbling, there’s a teacher recruitment crisis, a massive shortage of nurses and local councils are bankrupt. Yet we remain the sixth biggest military spender in the world.
“While removing the two-child benefit cap will undoubtedly help tackle child poverty, in reality the government is still punishing working class people while protecting the wealthy and the arms manufacturers.
“Anyone who says foreign and domestic policy are not linked are wrong. The chancellor made that clear today in her commitment to NATO and increasing defence spending still further. But the reality is much more than the 2.6% by 2027 she spoke of. Ministers still plan to increase military spending to 5% of GDP, having stirred the hysteria about security threats to justify putting obscene amounts of money into weaponry and building arms factories and warships instead of the infrastructure that creates real, sustainable and green growth and jobs for communities.
“Welfare not warfare, wages not weapons are the real security the people of this country need.”
ENDS
