Hi John,
In the last few days Liz Truss’s government has sent the cost of borrowing spiralling and sparked a run on people’s pensions. And this is just the beginning! For her next trick, she wants to remove many of the rules brought in after the financial crisis of 2008 to try and make the banking system safer and serve society. What could possibly go wrong?
That’s why today we’re launching an urgent new petition to stop Truss’s plan to deregulate the banks through the Financial Services and Markets Bill. Can you help build this campaign by signing and sharing now?
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Since Friday’s mini-budget, I have been angry. But I also have hope.
It is clear that Liz Truss and her chancellor are hellbent on an extreme economic programme. The heart of it is the outdated theory of ‘trickle-down economics’ which claims that tax giveaways to the richest will spur growth and end up making life better for those at the bottom.
In fact, it’s a smokescreen to allow more and more public wealth to be diverted into the hands of corporations and the rich, and lay the ground for a new round of austerity cuts for everybody else. This is the kind of disaster capitalism we’ve seen employed across the global south over several decades, and today it’s being tried in the UK once again. But the mass outrage at this programme of deregulation is what gives me hope.
Yet if there’s one thing that could make this situation even worse, it’s sowing the seeds of the next financial crisis by deregulating the banks. From removing the cap on bankers’ bonuses to giving the financial regulator a mission to remove regulations, Truss wants to give even more power to the City of London to gamble with people’s lives. Can you join me in taking action now to prevent this?
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Friday’s bankers’ budget sent the pound into freefall and has made interest rate hikes all but inevitable - all of which has deepened people's worries about the cost of living crisis.
Meanwhile, those benefitting from high prices, like the fossil fuel industry, are free to return tens of billions of pounds in windfall profits to their City investors, and continue trashing the planet.
But this is only one part of a much bigger leg-up to the City. Through the Financial Services and Markets Bill, currently making its way through parliament, the government will remove rules on the very speculators who have been driving up food and energy prices in order to make a quick buck.
Under the trickle-down pretence that this will free up the ‘wealth creators’ to stimulate growth, Truss is handing power back over to speculators to gamble on the basics of life, making our economy even more crisis-prone and our society ever more unequal.
This is not just about Britain. The activities of British finance have a global impact. Speculation and tax avoidance in London fuels poverty, inequality and conflict around the world. What’s more, Truss has promised to scrap environmental protections that get in the way of financial ‘investment’.
But here’s where I derive some hope – the ‘banker’s budget’ has horrified people across the spectrum. The outpouring of anger and opposition has been overwhelming. Truss’s government has underestimated our ability to challenge and halt these policies.
Beyond efforts to reverse these tax cuts for corporations and the rich, our immediate priority is to stop the government removing the controls on food and energy speculation, and to gut the Financial Services Bill of its most dangerous elements. The bill has already begun its journey through parliament, and it’s going to take a massive campaign to sound the alarm. We’re working with a range of other campaigners to build pressure – you can help by signing our new petition now.
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Over the autumn, we must build new alliances to resist this trickle-down economic programme. For the sake of the whole world, we cannot hand ever more power to the financial sector. But I believe more confidently than ever that, together, we can stop it.
Thanks for everything you’re doing,
Nick Dearden
Director, Global Justice Now
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