Cllr Eleanor Cox is a councillor for Lower Morden Ward on Merton Council.
And there it was.
On the Slido screen – workers submitting their views in real time – one line stood out in bold: “Matters holding back our ability to grow: the Budget.”
For a room of non-political people, today they were political.
My fellow workers asked: “What will today bring? What will the Budget do for me?” And we all knew the answer: nothing.
In fact, worse than nothing. This Budget takes from workers under a distorted guise of Robin Hood – stealing from those who work to give to those who do not. In Robin Hood’s day, the target was corrupt elites; today, the Labour Party points its arrow at working people themselves.
Government failure, leaving wasteful spending untouched, marks this Labour government’s undoing. Workers are treated as an endless cash cow, funding handouts for those who do not work and propping up a bloated state in urgent need of reform.
Equally worrying is the impact on business. With Labour slashing National Insurance relief on pensions from April 2029 – making it more expensive to employ most people – as workers, we asked one other: “will companies cut jobs?”
Labour’s raid on pensions threatens not only worker’s savings and retirement but also jobs, as businesses face higher costs. If businesses can’t shoulder these increased costs, they may have to reduce employer pension contributions or cut jobs. It’s no wonder people left the room asking, with a knot in their stomachs: “Is my job safe? And if it is, for how long?”
When Labour threatens jobs, gradual change becomes impossible – you ignite something far stronger. Workers, already shifting from the centre to the right of politics, react with urgency when livelihoods – some already strained by technological change – are at risk. Many firms are already racing to adopt technology to boost efficiency and reduce costs, so increasing employment costs only add to the pressure on jobs and business stability.
Most people are not political, but deeply wedded to their families, homes, and work. Defending what is ours is instinctive, timeless, and has defined humanity since its beginnings. Threaten a job, a home, or a family’s means to survive, and they become political: a mindset of decisive, relentless action, demanding change, takes hold.
Compassion is a great British trait – we want to help those in need. But with one in three working-age Londoners out of work (Trust for London) and UK unemployment at 5 per cent (ONS, November 2025) – nearly matching its Covid-19 peak – the system is undeniably broken. Rather than helping more people into work, Labour’s Budgets focus on taking from those who do. Many Labour politicians shrug off workers’ despair, yet we already sense they will return for even more – from the same workers – in their next Budget.
Workers strive not only for survival but for the rewards of their labour: a home, food, heating, a good school, a holiday. A strong society balances that drive, and contribution to society, with care for its vulnerable. Compassion sits at the heart of Britishness. But the system is no longer in balance; it now feels disproportionately unfair on workers.
History tells us working people always reach a point when they say: enough. If Labour believes workers will accept ever-increasing taxation and sleepwalk into socialism, they are wrong. “Cometh the hour, cometh the man,” the old English saying goes. Which man or woman will stand, passionately so, for working people? That must be the Conservatives.
Just as the barons resisted King John’s heavy taxation in 1215 – forcing the creation of the Magna Carta – they reminded the Crown that authority has limits and overreach carries consequences. Workers’ tolerance has boundaries, and the government is perilously close to losing their consent. Already, early signs are visible in the growing support for alternative political parties, reflecting voters’ demand for change when they feel overburdened or ignored.
It is no surprise that workers question the purpose of this Labour government. Many see it as disconnected, self-serving, and inconsistent. From Angela Rayner’s stamp duty controversy, to Rachel Reeves’ misrepresentation of her career history, to failures to follow rental-licence rules she herself advocated, the hypocrisy – and absurdity – of the Labour government is clear. And Keir Starmer’s choice to bring back Peter Mandelson – a man closely associated with Jeffrey Epstein – speaks for itself.
How did this government become so disconnected from its workers? How did it come to point where it places undue burdens on workers rather than supporting them? Political leadership cannot simply imagine empathy; it must feel it, live it, breathe the burden of every tax it demands. Pain leaves an unforgettable imprint – what a government takes away lingers far longer than what it gives. Every government demand carries weight and becomes a reason not to vote for them again. Ignore the needs of workers, and a government risks being seen not as a servant of the people, but as a corrupt authority.
This Budget is, without doubt, an attack on workers. It is socialism arriving without disguise. The fight for fairness, personal choice, and aspiration begins. The battle with socialism is no longer theoretical – it is here.
