THE drumbeats of war in Europe are now very loud. But they are not enough to drown either the tocsins that sound for the welfare state or the warning cries from a resurgent racism. Each of these are linked. Together they are sounding a raucous discord of attacks on workers, the poor and the oppressed minorities of Europe.
 
There is no question we are in a war drive. Political leaders in Europe lurch from one European capital to another, and from one “crisis” to another as they try to outdo each other about how much they will spend on rearmament. Ursula von der Leyen, who does not have to bother about the voters at all, tried to outdo them all with talk of €800 billion in military spending.
 
For all this spending, the citizens of Europe are entitled to some clarity, but there is none. Career politicians are now so disoriented that they seem unsure whether they are standing up to Putin or standing up to Trump.
 
In reality, they are doing exactly as Trump wants. On the campaign stump, Trump repeatedly boasted he was going to get the Europeans to pay more for their own defence. He is now implementing that policy and many of the European leaders are outdoing each other in how compliant they will be with his demands. After Macron’s and Starmer’s cringeworthy performances in the White House, we know that when Trump says “Jump!” they ask, “How high?”
 
Some of them, including Starmer, are now basking in a rise in popularity because of their Ukraine policy. Little wonder when the press pretends that being sent away with a flea in their ear, with no US security guarantee, is a diplomatic triumph.
 
Starmer’s approval rating of 31 (and a net approval rating of -28) is still some way off Jeremy Corbyn’s at its height. But even this may not last once it has to be admitted that the Anglo-French plan for boots on the ground is not going to be accepted, either by Trump or by Putin. Macron speaks about “pacifying” Russia using nuclear weapons.
 
In this context, both of them matter. If Trump continues to refuse a US security guarantee and/or Putin refuses to allow Nato member country troops into Ukraine, then British troops would have to fight their way to the front line. That is a very different proposition to peacekeeping “boots on the ground.”
 
But the preparations for war and the spending to go with it are in full swing. This can only mean a deepening of austerity here.
 
We already know that ministers are threatening to cut billions from the welfare budget. But it seems extremely likely that these punitive cuts will be part of a wider austerity package, doubling down on the measures in the October Budget.
 
It is not the case that “there is no money left.” All across Europe, governments which have imposed Budget restraint or outright cuts are suddenly finding that they can exempt military spending from their own rules, even as they push up the costs of borrowing.
 
We should not exclude the possibility that Rachel Reeves will effectively do the same, keeping the fiscal rules, and spending restraint on public services, investment and pay, but carving out an exemption to benefit the arms manufacturers.
 
In any event, it will be clear that all the mantras such as there is “no magic money tree” only apply to spending on social goods and benefits. Arms manufacture, one of the few industries apart from crime which produces no social goods, will be lavished with your money.
 
A recent article in the Financial Times raised the banner that what is needed is a warfare state, not a welfare state. This has been a repeated theme in the self-described serious newspapers for some time. But the trade-off they are advocating is clear and is age-old.
 
Sometimes there is a serious trade-off between war production and domestic goods for consumption, such as during World War II. But now is not one of those times. Britain is not facing an existential crisis from a Russian military power which has struggled to overcome a portion of one of the poorest countries in Europe.
 
Instead, war is the excuse to make cuts long desired but politically difficult to implement. Both the cuts to the international aid budget and the cuts to the welfare budget fall into this category. Ministers have been briefing on welfare cuts to come for months and the Chancellor first mentioned them in her October 2024 Budget. This was long before the election of Trump, and even longer before the current rearmament splurge.
 
It is something ministers have long wanted to do. In the more distant past, both the Chancellor and the Work and Pensions Secretary have expressed their determination to cut welfare, even to the extent of threatening to be “tougher than the Tories.” It was, though, heartening to read recently in these pages a string of union leaders and parliamentary colleagues express their anger and opposition to welfare cuts. We will need more of that spirit in the period ahead.
 
For now, it is clear that the price of war will be paid overwhelmingly by ordinary workers and the poor. Disproportionately, it is a burden that will be borne by black communities and others who already face discrimination. It is the way that austerity has already been working over the last 15 years.
 
We know too that in order to cover up or to justify that overt discrimination there is a racist offensive. It is both a practical and ideological offensive. This means we have already gone backwards substantially in all types of struggles for equality. On deportations, we have a Labour government boasting about policies whose advocacy got Enoch Powell removed from the Tory Party.
 
There has been the growth within the body politic of a cabal who claim variously that there is no racism in this country, or no institutional racism, or no longer racism. Newspapers report that one of them, Boris Johnson’s former policy adviser Munira Mirza, is now advising Number 10.
 
We have also witnessed the inversion of reality, with claims that there is “two-tier” policing or justice which discriminates against white people. Yet all the government data on these unarguably show there is huge racism in the policing and justice systems.
 
With a war drive underway, and austerity being deepened, it seems inevitable that racism too will be intensified. Standing up for ordinary people means the labour movement must fight all these reactionary policies.

Diane Abbott is Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington.