Austerity won't work now

We are living through a wartime economic crisis. And our government is choosing not to act. Not because it can't. Because it won't.

The claim that the UK cannot afford to respond decisively to this crisis is a fiction — a deliberate political choice dressed up as fiscal responsibility. The UK government issues its own currency. It cannot run out of money in the same way that a household or a business can. The real constraint is not financial. It is political will. And right now, Rachel Reeves and the EU are choosing austerity at precisely the moment history tells us governments must spend.

Lord Keynes made this argument during the Second World War. The challenge of wartime mobilisation is not finding the money — it is allocating real resources effectively. That means rationing. It means windfall taxes on the energy companies profiting from this crisis. It means intervening to stabilise prices and guarantee every household affordable access to energy. It means accelerating the transition away from fossil fuel dependence so this can never happen again. None of this requires the government to find money it doesn't have. It requires the government to choose to act.

Instead, what we are getting is tightly constrained, temporary, means-tested interventions — austerity by design. The consequences are entirely predictable. Rising energy and food costs for households. Closures of smaller businesses that cannot absorb the shock. Deepening inequality as energy companies and large corporations profit from the chaos. And for the poorest — suffering that could have been prevented.

The crisis driving all of this was created by Donald Trump's actions against Iran. The economic fallout — rising prices, supply chain disruption, the risk of famine, the risk of refugee flows — was entirely foreseeable. The question was never whether governments could respond. It was whether they would choose to.

Rachel Reeves is making the wrong choice. This video explains why — and what the right choice looks like.