How we can fight back against the right-wing coup

For a better future the power of corporations and wealthy elites must be curbed and reversed

What ails Britain is a recurring question.

The evidence of ailment is all around us. The gross domestic product, considered by many to be an indicator of wealth generation, barely grew by an average of 1.5% between 2009 and 2023. Successive governments expect the private sector to investment in new and emerging industries, but that hasn’t happened. Despite recent record low rates of interest, inflation and corporation tax, the UK has languished at the bottom of the G7 league for investment in productive assets in 24 out of last 30 years. It ranks 28th among 31 OECD countries.  

A large proportion of the population lacks the financial strength to buy goods and services necessary for a vibrant economy. The average real wage has declined to the 2008 level, leaving 16m Britons, including 5.2m children, to live in poverty. 24m people, 36% of the population, live below socially acceptable living standards. The state pension is less than 50% of the minimum wage. One in every 200 households in the UK is experiencing homelessness, and the homelessness rate is the highest in OECD countries. The poorest 20% of households in Slovenia and Malta are better off than the equivalent in the UK. Meanwhile, the rich have got richer. The UK’s 50 richest families hold more wealth than 50% of the population.

The above isn’t an accident. It is the planned outcome of the right-wing coup that began in the late 1970s and continues to accelerate. The ultra-rich and corporations didn’t accept the post-war social settlement of a mixed economy, rising living standards, worker and consumer rights. They undermined the social settlement through obedient media, think-tanks, subservient politicians and academics. Trade unions and working class bought into the narrative of rising living standards, worker and consumer rights and rarely mounted an effective challenge to the rising power of corporate elites.

A major aim of the ongoing coup is to restructure the state to empower corporations and wealthy elites, and discipline the working class so that it would not challenge the new regime.

After the Second World War, the state rebuilt society by directly investing in essential industries such as water and energy, and emerging new industries such as biotechnology, information technology and aerospace. The coup stripped the state of its entrepreneurial role and transformed it into a guarantor of corporate profits. Privatisation of publicly-owned industries, outsourcing of public functions and private finance initiative (PFI) were early signs of the transformation.

Welfare of capital has become the overriding function of the state. Almost everything ranging from oil, gas, energy, shipbuilding steel, water, rail and telecommunications has been privatised at knockdown prices. Despite privatisation, vast cash subsidies continue to be handed to oil, gas, biomass, auto, shipbuilding, steel, rail, internet, semiconductor and other industries. This is accompanied by 1,180 tax reliefs, mainly to corporations and the rich. The full cost of subsidies and tax reliefs is not known. At the same time, successive governments have declared war on social security benefits for the poor.

Abuses and failures by big businesses are covered-up. The Post Office scandal and the Grenfell Towers fire are reminders of how the state shields corporations. Despite over 1,135 criminal convictions no water company has had its licence to operate withdrawn. Since 2020, twenty of the largest energy companies have racked up operating profits of over £514bn, directly leading to higher rates of inflation and poverty, and destruction of energy intensive businesses. Despite the 2007-08 crash and numerous scandals, the finance industry has been deregulated. Regulators in every industry are required to promote growth and competitiveness of industry. In the race-to-the-bottom consumer protection is diluted.

To increase corporate control of society, the state is dismantling vital public services. Large parts of the National Health Service (NHS) have been privatised. The NHS increasingly functions as a shell outsourcing contracts to the private sector. One study estimated that privately owned cataract surgeries had profit margins of between 32% and 43%. Children’s care has long been privatised since the 1980s. Now over 83% of children’s care homes are controlled by corporations, raking in average profits of 23% a year. The public purse cost ballooned from £3.1bn in 2009-10 to £7bn in 2022-23. In 2023-24, local authorities spent £32bn on adult social care, mostly provided by private sector with profit margins of up to 42%. The quest for profits pays little regard to the quality of service. 804 of the 816 adult care homes forcibly closed by the regulators during the period 2011 to 2023 were owned by for-profit organisations. 48 of the 53 children’s homes forcibly closed by the regulator during the period 2014 to 2023 were operated by corporations. Despite the failings, the state promotes privatisations and remains guarantor of corporate profits.

The second major strand of the coup has been to weaken workers and working class solidarity in the belief that insecure and impoverished people won’t challenge the social order. The Thatcher government legislated to weaken trade unions. It imposed stringent strikes ballots, banned secondary picketing and imposed financial penalties for taking strike action. The same didn’t apply to corporations for withdrawal of capital or secondary production. Workers increasingly faced insecure employment through ‘fire and rehire’ on inferior working conditions, and zero-hour contracts. Real wage cuts and freezes became the norm and the real average wage has hardly risen 2008. The Employment Rights Bill 2025 individualises worker rights and does not restore sectoral collective bargaining. Individuals are in no position to challenge the might of corporations. This was typified by P&O Ferries which knowingly illegally sacked 800 workers, but faced no action from the state.

The poorest 20% of households pay a higher proportion of their income in taxes compared to the richest 20%. Wages are taxed at marginal rates of 20% to 45%; compared to capital gains at marginal rates of 18% to 32%, and dividends at the rates of 8.75% to 39.35%. In opposition, Chancellor Rachel Reeves promised to tax private equity bosses’ remuneration as income instead of capital gains. As some of the wealthiest people, they would have faced a marginal income tax rate of 45%. But when in office she agreed to tax their remuneration as capital gains and an upper limit of 32%. Most Britons can’t fund political parties, hand consultancies and freebies to legislators, and cannot secure access to policymakers to have their voice heard.

People can take their anger to the streets but will face the might of the repressive apparatus of the state. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 criminalises protests on the grounds that they are ‘too noisy’ and inconvenience others. The Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021 enables the government to authorise state and non-state actors to commit murder, torture, rape and phone-tapping with complete immunity from prosecution and without any court order because it is “in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom”. The Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill currently going through parliament gives the state powers to snoop on benefit claimants’ banks accounts without any court order, if fraud is suspected. There is no right of appeal and the state can directly remove money from the bank accounts. None of this applies to tax evaders, money launderers, disqualified company directors or legislators claiming false expenses.

The dissent in public spaces is suppressed. Most media outlets are controlled by corporations and wealthy elites sympathetic to the coup. The word ‘socialism’ is increasingly confined to negative spaces. When the Labour party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn sought to develop an alternative path built on equitable distribution of wealth, mixed economy, public ownership of utilities and limits on industry-military complex, there was orchestrated media hostility. A military general threatened mutiny. After securing leadership of the Labour Party with radical promises, Sir Keir Starmer expelled Jeremy Corbyn from the party, and abandoned most of the promises. Purging the left has been one of his major aims. He removed the party whip from seven MPs for opposing the two-child benefit cap. Another four MPs were suspended for tabling amendments to a Bill cutting disability benefits.

The coup has not been bloodless. Some 300,000 people a year  die whilst waiting for a hospital appointment in England.  A study reported that between 2012 and 2019, government imposed austerity caused 335,000 excess deaths in England and Scotland i.e. nearly 48,000 a year. Around 128,000 people, including 110,000 pensioners, a year die in fuel poverty.

The right-wing coup is a major cause of stagnant economy and social tensions. For a better future the power of corporations and wealthy elites must be curbed and reversed. A sustainable economy and just society cannot be built without a counter revolution based on humanity, compassion, justice and equitable distribution of income and wealth. Against all the odds our predecessors challenged dominant discourses and secured a modicum of rights by building communities and solidarity with oratory, pamphlets, music, street theatre, plays, songs, poetry, oral histories of the marginalised, protest marches and resistance strategies. Can we not do the same or more?