NEWS that the British economy is officially in recession will come as no great surprise to working people.

It has been clear for more than 15 years that the economy is not working for them. Today’s figures showing a fall in output for the second quarter in a row — the technical definition of a recession — merely confirms what people have been feeling in their pay packets and their prospects for nearly a generation.

In fact, economic growth per head of population has shrunk for seven quarters in a row, the worst figures since records started in 1955.

The extent of the misery was further highlighted by two other sets of statistics released today. First, the number of households missing direct debit payments has risen, a direct result of the cost-of-living crisis.

Direct debit failure is now at the highest level since the data started being collected five years ago.

And housebuilding fell further and faster. New construction dropped 5 per cent in the last quarter of 2023, something which can only add to the housing crisis affecting younger people in particular.

The private sector performed especially badly, with its fifth consecutive quarterly drop, by 8 per cent.

This collapse in growth merely continues the dismal economic record since the bankers’ crash of 2008. Britain has never regained its economic footing since — a form of zombie neoliberalism has prioritised refurbishing the old discredited system rather than replacing, or even reforming, it.

The figures certainly belie the promises of Rishi Sunak and the Tories that they would get Britian booming again. The Treasury and the Bank of England were both whistling to keep their spirits up today, promising that with inflation coming down happy times would not be far away.

No-one will be fooled, even if the City gives the green light to interest rate cuts later this year. It is too late for anything like a feel-good factor to come to the rescue of the Conservatives in this election year.

While Labour’s Rachel Reeves made the most of the bad news today, it is very far from clear that Labour will do anything of any significance to address the crisis.

Reeves and Keir Starmer have boxed themselves in by pledging no significant tax rises on the wealthy or business, by abandoning their own green growth plan, and by promising the Treasury that they will bring down public debt.

These ill-advised and unnecessary commitments promise a continuation of the same course being followed by the present residents of 10 and 11 Downing Street.

The need is to break with the self-interested priorities imposed by the City on the economy. Private profit and appeasing the bond market come top of their list, with the requirements of capital accumulation, not the people’s needs, as the main regulator.

Changing that means more than simply adopting a better set of policies. It means addressing fundamental questions of class power.

Working people’s interests will only be prioritised by a system founded on their power, and by breaking the power of capital.

In 2017 and 2019 Labour offered a route to raising such questions, in the first place by breaking with the City-Treasury insistence on austerity and by outlining a programme of state-led growth.

That would have started to drag the economy out of its post-2008 ditch, but it could only have been sustained if backed by a serious assault on capitalist class power.

There is absolutely no prospect of Starmer and Reeves following that road.  But as the strike struggles of the last two years have shown, working people’s will to fight for change remains unbroken.