Model motion – Fund Public Services Not War

To Keir Starmer and the NEC

This CLP/branch opposes the decision of Keir Starmer to welcome the Government’s proposed additional increase in military spending.

We oppose the Tories’ plans, announced in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, to increase military spending by a further £16 billion in addition to its existing planned increases of 0.5% above inflation each year.

We also oppose the Government’s imposition of a pay freeze on over 2 million employees in the public sector, and its plans to cut the foreign aid budget.

Care workers, police, teachers and local authority staff have been in the front line in the war against Covid-19, maintaining essential services during the worst global health emergency for at least 100 years.

Reintroducing austerity to the public sector will threaten the well-being and morale of public sector employees and their families during a period of severe economic uncertainty.

This CLPs therefore calls upon the Leadership to strongly oppose pay freezes unjustly imposed once again on the public sector as a means to stabilise a deteriorating public deficit and economy. We also demand that the Leadership gives full support to workers in the public sector and in precarious low paid employment in their struggle to improve pay and conditions.

Furthermore, we call on the Leadership to oppose the Government’s recent proposals to increase military spending. Instead monies should be made available to maintain essential public services in the UK and to help people suffering abroad from humanitarian disasters, poverty and deprivation.

Some supporting arguments

According to the Institute of Strategic Studies the UK ranks as the 6th highest on military spending in the world.

Since the financial year 2016/17 military spending has been increasing in real terms.

Prior to the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, the Tory government had already committed to increasing the military budget by 0.5% above inflation for 4 years.

In the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, the Tory government announced an additional £16 billion increase.

This is biggest increase in military spending in 30 years – at time when the UK has a collapsing economy, contracting by the greatest amount in 300 years. Public services are crumbling and poverty is rising, the NHS is struggling, millions face unemployment and even more face pay cuts.

Additionally, given the current crisis of climate change the government ought to be substantially increasing resources to invest in a green economy – but it is not doing this. It is just announcing targets without providing the means to achieve those targets.

Because of the pandemic, the NHS desperately needs increased resources to protect people’s health. The government is only allocating a £3bn increase to the NHS for next year – much less than the £10bn a year more that the British Medical Association and Health Foundation think-tank believe the service needs to cope with the rising demand for care.

It is important that our current Parry leadership do not repeat the mistakes Labour made between 2010 and 2015 – not effectively developing an alternative narrative to the Tories that refutes the need for austerity, and in particular the attacks on workers living standards. If Labour fails to oppose the Tories’ wrong policies, such as their increases in military spending, it will prove difficult for Labour to win greater support.