THE mini-Budget sets out the clear intention of the Tories to further shore up the wealth of the richest in society at the expense of the rest of us.

Tax cuts for big business and the biggest earners, deregulation, attacks on trade union rights and social security have all been tried before.

It has led to a significant level of inequality and a rise in every social ills, including violence, crime, mental illness, addiction and exploitation.

The mini-Budget is a recipe for the gap in inequality to widen and for the fabric of society to break down. Living standards will plummet for many more layers of people and public services will be converted into money-spinning opportunities for big business while providing less to the public.  

In a particularly cruel part of the Budget, plans to announce changes to the social security system will make it for harder than ever before for the lowest paid to claim benefits. Low-paid women, those who work part time, will be at the forefront of these cuts.

Working mothers will find themselves between a rock and a hard place as they face the reality of being forced to increase their hours or drop out of the workforce while juggling childcare responsibilities and the unaffordable costs of day-care centres.

Many more women and children will slip into destitution as a direct result of the new barriers to accessing universal credit.  

The Tories will argue that forcing people into work is a good thing, that work brings wellbeing and dignity — and this can be true for those in the type of jobs where the employer adequately compensates the workforce and places a high value on staff welfare.   

Of course, it can be the case that the opportunity to be engaged in meaningful activity, to socialise and to feel connected to others is important for human wellbeing. It can be argued that encouraging people to come off benefits and into work can be a positive thing to do.

Unfortunately, it has never been the case that work is a universally positive, healthy or therapeutic experience for everyone.

Those who suggest that work is beneficial for everyone tell half the story — and completely ignore the realities of the modern job market in this country.   

The creation of a precarious labour market, the drive to cut and privatise the public sector, and the erosion of health and safety regulations have all had a devastating impact on the quality of work and the overall health and wellbeing of working people.   

We cannot ignore the fact that wages, terms and conditions have been sacrificed to enhance profit and that significant numbers of working people are paying the price for this with their health and wellbeing.   

People employed on the front line of the NHS and public services, the gig economy, workers outsourced out of the public sector or those struggling in the jobs labelled low skilled, increasingly find that their jobs are unsafe, highly pressurised and stressful.   

The day-to-day reality for many of these workers means toiling away under the type of mental and physical strain that breaks people and ultimately leaves them unwell.   

It’s clear that the plans in the mini-Budget are not about enhancing health and wellbeing through getting people into work and they will not enable employers to fill vacancies and raise productivity.   

The Budget is little more than a further attack on the incomes of the poorest families in the country. If employers were required to pay more and make work more attractive with decent opportunities for working people, they would have no problem recruiting into vacancies.   

Instead, workers are reliant on universal credit because they are forced to work in dead-end jobs with gruelling conditions, where pay is set very low and the hours are precarious.

Many working people are already juggling several of these jobs just to make ends meet.   

The idea that that these workers can just increase their hours when employers resist granting extra hours or secure contracts, shows that the Tories don’t have a clue how this low-wage economy they have helped to create actually operates.  

The explicit intention of the exploitative employers who have been allowed to proliferate without challenge is to pressurise workers to do far more work for less pay in order to swell the profit margin.  

These employers have rested on the fact that state benefits supplement low wages so mass unrest on the question of pay is likely to intensify even further in the coming period.   

The Tories are clear that it is their intention to go further and deeper than ever before in their last-ditch attempt to save an economic system that is mired in deep crisis.

Even though working-class people are about to come under further savage assault, what is developing alongside is an increased mood and willingness to fight back.   

This can be seen in the waves of strike action across trade unions and the huge crowds attending Enough is Enough rallies in towns and cities across the country.   

People are starting to realise that they don’t have to just sit back and take a kicking, they can do something about what is going on by getting active in their trade unions and the social movements like Enough is Enough and the People’s Assembly.

We are in a unique position to come together to demand a political alternative that will rid people’s lives of fear and instability.   

The role of the individual in history is very important, and good leaders always emerge via struggle — but it is only the decisive movement of the mass of the people, united around a common set of demands, that is capable of changing the course of history.

Helen O’Connor is GMB Southern regional organiser — Twitter @HelenOConnorNHS.