KWASI KWARTENG’S U-turn on the top rate of tax is a humiliation for the government — and a victory for popular protest and resistance.

Tory media like the Telegraph and Mail which crowed about the virtues of his Budget for the super-rich stand exposed as outriders cheering on an extremist project neither Tory MPs nor City speculators believe the government can pull off.

Kwarteng himself is forced into an unusually open admission that abandoning the cut to the 45p rate of tax on earnings above £150,000 was a response to public anger — “we get it, and we have listened.”

The masses who joined the People’s Assembly and Midlands TUC demonstration surrounding the opening day of Conservative Party conference can be congratulated on their role in this government defeat. 

So too can the more than 100,000 who rallied at Enough is Enough demos in towns and cities across Britain on Saturday. 

The hundreds of thousands of workers currently engaged in strike action who have not allowed corporate and Tory threats to cow their resistance: and the leadership of militant unions which have exposed the role of corporate profiteering in driving the current crisis, and named beneficiaries as the RMT did with its “rail rich list” published on Saturday, have shown an ability to rally public support and scare politicians.

So it’s a victory. It is a very partial victory: the bulk of Kwarteng’s anti-people mini-budget remains intact, and a renewed assault on our battered public services is still the Tory plan.

But we should not allow that to detract from what has just happened. 

It is unlikely the Tories would have U-turned on the tax cut without opposition on the streets. 

Their media pals loved it, many of Kwarteng’s personal associates appear to have profited handsomely from his crashing the pound and even its unpopularity in polls could be viewed without panic by a Conservative Party expecting to lose the next election anyway.

What changed that dynamic was the sheer visibility of public anger in so many places: MPs who may not mind the idea of a spell in opposition are much more frightened when it appears they might lose their own seat.

This emphasises the continuing importance of protest — despite the Labour leader’s disdain for such vulgar activities — and of organising protest and resistance at local level, where pressure on politicians is most acute.

It will be essential to remember this as we continue to build resistance to the Tories — and to Kwarteng’s mini-budget, which remains largely intact.

Symbolic as it was of the priority ministers give to the super-rich while the rest of us are struggling, revenue-wise the 45p rate was a detail. 

The overall regressive effect of freezing the lower income tax threshold while reducing the basic rate — a combination which costs workers earning less than about £40,000 a year, so most workers, more than it saves — is still with us, meaning Kwarteng’s tax reforms remain a transfer of the burden of tax downward, from higher to lower earners.

And the majority of the total tax cut remains too, meaning if Kwarteng is to balance the books to calm the markets he will still seek to do so in the way top Tories have been hinting for days — by slashing public spending.

What does that mean for the wages of health and education workers who have battled through a pandemic to receive a below-inflation slap in the face as a pay offer? 

For the schools and hospitals warning that energy price rises mean they are going to have to cut staff to pay the bills?

It means disaster. So a movement which has seen off the tax cut for fat cats can’t rest on its laurels. We must gather our forces for the next round.