British workers still paying price of Trump’s war

Editorial / 4 November 2026 Trump’s mid-term debacle compels a rethink of US alliance 4 November 2026 Editorial / 3 November 2026 Scrap plans to send troops to Ukraine 3 November 2026 Editorial / 2 November 2026 Why slavery and reparations are live issues globally 2 November 2026 Editorial / 1 November 2026 The youth of Europe demand different political choices. So should we 1 November 2026 Editorial / 30 October 2026 Lessons of Suez 70 years on 30 October 2026 Editorial / 29 October 2026 It’s time for the left to stand up to Burnham 29 October 2026 Editorial / 28 October 2026 The first Burnham Budget is miserably unambitious 28 October 2026 WORKING people continue to pay the price for the disastrous US-Israeli war in the Gulf.

That is the clear message behind yesterday’s rise in interest rates, which will badly affect businesses and workers alike in Britain.

The Bank of England was absolutely plain that the aggression against Iran, now in the ninth month of a war Donald Trump said should be over in days, has driven the rates increase.

Chancellor John Healey endorsed that view: “The Iran conflict is reaching deep into the pockets of families and businesses here at home,” he said.

The conflict has shut the Strait of Hormuz, leading to escalating energy prices worldwide and hence higher inflation.

Andy Burnham is correct to say that there can be no addressing the cost-of-living crisis without ending this war.

Yet the British government continues to back Trump’s war in practice, despite rhetorical calls for de-escalation. It is obvious that RAF Fairford was being used for US bombing raids against Iran.

And the RAF has been dispatched to assist Saudi Arabia in its closely related attacks on Yemen.

In the wake of the US elections, the Trump administration is weighing whether to restart attacks against Iran. Doubtless Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu, desperate for further conflict to help prolong his stay in office, will be pressing him to do so.

This despite Vice-President JD Vance conceding, accurately enough, that the war was the major single factor in the huge losses suffered by the Republican party on Tuesday.

It is ironic that a war begun by the US to effect regime change in Iran has had the consequence of changing the balance of power in Washington instead.

How much that will weigh in Trump’s calculations is imponderable — he is less interested in the fortunes of the Republicans than his own ego and image, as well as the monuments he is busy building to himself.

Further attacks will surely lead to even greater disruption to oil supplies in the region. Nor are they remotely likely to lead to a settlement.

So Burnham and other world leaders need to be applying all possible pressure on Trump to end, rather than refresh, his aggression. Ending all British military support for the operation would be a tangible sign of such pressure.

There is a wider lesson for the labour movement in this — imperialism is not in your interests, any more than it is in the interests of the peoples on the receiving end of its military depredations.

Wars in the Middle East are having a direct, and negative impact, on living standards here at home. Likewise, the massive arms build-up over the next decade to which Burnham remains solidly committed can only come at the expense of funding vital public services.

These considerations far outweigh any arguments about job creation through militarisation of the economy. Far more jobs will be lost as a result of the arms drive than could conceivably be created.

More generally, the movement needs to take war and imperialism far more seriously as a systemic challenge, rather than a series of discrete moral judgements.

There is no way out of Britian’s prolonged crisis that does not involve eventually breaking with the whole apparatus of imperialism, and without challenging the social forces which sustain it.

These include the City of London, the arms monopolies and the mega-profitable energy giants. A comprehensive anti-imperialist approach would prioritise socialising these key sectors and breaking their influence on government.

Opposing Trumps’s wars is of course an imperative of internationalist solidarity. But it is also a vital bread-and-butter issue for workers here. Those links must be made day-in, day-out.