THE Labour Party, despite having a mandate in Parliament to deliver the much-needed change that the working class in this country need, is pursuing an agenda of austerity against the most vulnerable in our society.

One of the first acts of this government was to take away the winter fuel allowance from elderly pensioners and to vote to keep the Tories’ two-child benefit cap.

Just this week, the labour government has announced cuts to disability benefits of up to £5 billion, which will leave the poorest and most vulnerable in society without necessary financial support to live.

In addition, there has been no meaningful investment in our public services which are in crisis. In times of austerity at home, young people find themselves at the sharp end of these cuts.

Simultaneously, the Labour government has raised defence spending to an increase of 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027 with an ambition to reach 3 per cent by the next parliament. This is the biggest increase in defence spending since the Cold War.

Military spending is on the rise in the EU with the EU’s “Rearm” project to dramatically increase military spending and ensure that EU governments are buying EU weapons instead of US ones.

The government is clamouring to get its foot in the door with the EU arms race and continue down this path of increased military expenditure. This increase can only be funded through austerity in our public services and welfare.

When the Labour government was first elected last year, Keir Starmer’s first act as prime minister was to attend a Nato summit in Washington to assure the US that Labour were quite happy to continue supporting US imperialism and militarism across the globe.

Since then, with Labour’s complicity and active involvement in the Israeli war against the Palestinian people, and continued drive to war in Ukraine, they have solidified their place as the war party.

With Starmer hosting Nato’s B-Team in Downing Street, it appears they want to solidify Labour as the party that will lead Europe’s drive to war.

Despite the summit being pure political theatre, one thing is certain: the drive to increase arms production will be used to kill innocent children, men and women in the name of this Labour government’s commitment to Nato, which Starmer describes as the “bedrock of our security” but in reality leads us to a cycle of forever wars.

Some elements of the labour movement have welcomed Labour’s increase in defence spending by promoting the arms industry as a means of creating skilled jobs.

With the current job market being decimated and young workers being forced to accept low-paid, insecure work, the argument for well paid jobs could be seductive for Britain’s youth. However, we must be clear, this argument is not only wrong but used to justify the government’s arms race in which all workers end up losing.

Research shows that military spending creates fewer jobs than the same amount of money invested in more labour-intensive industries like our public services and clean energy. Investment in these services and industries create 50 per cent more jobs than the equivalent amount of spending on the military.

While the government is sucking the life out of our public services and cutting welfare in favour of war, our response as young trade unionists must be clear: we must robustly oppose this drive to war and increased arms production and fight for a renewed peace dividend of social programmes for the sake of our futures.

Britain’s youth need investment and well paid jobs, not bombs.

Capitalism tries to convinces the working class that war is inevitable, but it is not. Our country could play a role in working for peace and diplomatic solutions to war and end Britain’s role in the imperialist system.

As young workers, we must, as a priority, expose the current political system for what it is – callous in its pursuit of imperialist wars for profit. The increased militarism of this government can be summed up in this quote from Harry Magdoff’s book Imperialism: From the Colonial Age to the Present: “Imperialism necessarily involves militarism. Indeed, they are twins that have fed on each other in the past, as they do now.”

The youth of this country do not benefit from this governments’ imperialist interests which serve capital.

For the sake of our futures, trade unions must lead from the front, and oppose all increases in military expenditure and wars. We must demand an end to the military industrial complex, Britain’s withdrawal from the Nato war machine and for a truly independent foreign policy which has peace and social justice at its centre.

We must continue to raise the cause of peace in the labour movement, develop its understanding of imperialism and war and call for investment in our services and youth.

We must fight for a world where all people can live in peace, human dignity and justice prevails. The future is ours – let us struggle for it.  

Micaela Tracey-Ramos is a member of Unison's national executive committee.