Labour’s cynical recruitment drive normalises militarism, diverts attention from youth unemployment and public service cuts, and seeks to build consent for an increasingly aggressive defence agenda, argues GEORGINA ANDREWS
BRITAIN’S economy is in dire straits. New figures released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which cannot be accused of anti-capitalist bias, estimate that the UK economy will shrink by 0.3 per cent this year, making it the worst-performing G7 economy.
This will have disastrous consequences for ordinary people already suffering from the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades amid soaring inflation and declining real wages.
That the Tory government’s savage austerity policies offer no way out of this crisis — indeed, are a major cause of Britain’s economic problems — is an issue that is well understood and debated within the labour movement.
From 35,000 troops in Talisman Sabre war games to HMS Spey provocations in the Taiwan Strait, Labour continues Tory militarisation — all while claiming to uphold ‘one China’ diplomatic agreements from 1972, reports KENNY COYLE
While working people face austerity, arms companies enjoy massive government contracts, writes ARTHUR WEST, exposing how politicians exaggerate the Russian threat to justify spending on a sector that has the lowest employment multiplier



