The hard left discovered decades ago that no sensible electorate would ever vote for them. So they changed tactics and launched what they call a “march through the institutions”. Little by little, they’ve seized control of the state. Left-wing thinking now dominates the civil service, NHS, schools, universities, public sector, several police forces, almost every HR department and all of Labour’s back benches. Now the march is complete. And it’ll be a disaster for Britain.
At the last general election, Britain was desperate to get the Tories out. Keir Starmer sold himself as the sensible, competent alternative, but voters remained suspicious. Barely one in four adults turned out for them. They were right to be wary. Starmer promised tax rises totalling just £8.5billion, none of them hitting “working people”. Then Chancellor Rachel Reeves piled on £66billion, crushing the economy in the process. But that’s nowhere near enough for the left. Now Starmer’s out, and Burnham’s in. The left has won.
Burnham comes across as a moderate, blokey chap. But he’s weak as water, taking the shape of whatever receptacle he’s poured into. First a Blairite, then a Corbynite, and now in the embrace of what Labour calls the soft left, but the rest of us would label the hard left. How else would ordinary people describe the likes of Louise Haigh, Ed Miliband, Angela Rayner, potty-mouthed tax nutter Torsten Bell and Burnham’s extreme left policy guru Miatta Fahnbulleh? The Peckham MP says Britain is “screaming for change”. We’ll be screaming when we see what she has in mind.
You’ll never guess what change Fahnbulleh wants. Oh, you did. More tax. Higher National Insurance, higher capital gains tax, wealth taxes and all the rest. The Office for Budget Responsibility has repeatedly warned hiking taxes yet again will wreck the incentive to work and invest, crush growth and blow an even bigger hole in the public finances. The left will do it anyway. It’s what they always do.
Here’s a good example. What remains of our oil and gas industry after Ed Miliband’s deluded assault pays a marginal tax rate of 78%. That’s not enough for Fahnbulleh. She wants even more. Britain’s tax burden is already at its highest level outside wartime. Yet the entire conversation on the left is about pushing it even higher. They pretend it’ll only hit the wealthy. It won’t. Already, an estimated 17,000 millionaires have fled Britain to escape Reeves. Even more will now follow.
The left won’t care. The rest of us should, because we’ll pick up the bill. Our incomes, family homes, savings and investments are all in the firing line as the left lines up a spending spree. And it will never be enough.
Every day, left-leaning think tanks such as the New Economics Foundation, Resolution Foundation and the Institute for Public Policy Research pump out new ideas for taxing, spending and nationalising more. Their moment has come. And they’re determined to seize it.
Burnham has already bowed to them over Gaza. He’ll bend the knee again and again. It still won’t be enough. That’s why former Corbynite shadow chancellor John McDonnell, an admirer of Chinese tyrant Chairman Mao, was brimming with tears at Burnham’s victory. The left has worked for this moment for years. Now it’s finally here. And without a single vote being cast outside of Makerfield.
It happened by stealth. But when Burnham’s tax bomb explodes things will get very noisy indeed. Taxpayers have already had enough. The left will simply give them more.
