As austerity comes under fire across the European continent, the UK Labour Party can show that “another world is possible,” Jeremy Corbyn’s top economist said Monday—one that rejects harsh cuts while embracing a platform of fair and progressive taxation, living wages, and “a radical review of the national institutions that manage our economy.”
Corbyn took over the party leadership with a stunning election victory earlier this month, one largely ascribed to his anti-austerity stance.
“We are embarking on the immense task of changing the economic discourse in this country,” Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell told the Labour Party’s annual conference on Monday in Brighton.
As the Wall Street Journal notes, “Mr. McDonnell has been a trenchant critic of the drive by U.K. Treasury chief George Osborne and Prime Minister David Cameron to close Britain’s budget deficit by slashing public spending.”
On Monday, McDonnell said austerity “is not an economic necessity, it’s a political choice.”
BBC reports that McDonnell “set out Labour’s thinking and priorities in key areas,” including:
- Aggressively tackling tax avoidance and evasion
- Introducing a “real living wage”
- Cutting tax breaks for buy to let landlords in a clampdown on “corporate welfare”
- Restoring and extending trade union rights
- Tackling the gender pay gap and building more homes
- Asking ex-civil servant Lord Kerslake to review how the Treasury works
- Reviewing the Bank of England’s inflation mandate and the work of Revenue and Customs