BRITAIN’S communists have condemned the neoliberal policies that caused “deadly damage” to defences against public emergencies.

On Wednesday, Communist Party general secretary Robert Griffiths attacked the past 10 years of spending cuts, tax relief for the rich and big business and outsourcing and privatisation of public services.

Mr Griffiths said: “Almost every capitalist government is now compelled to use methods deployed so effectively by the Chinese authorities to counter the Covid-19 virus, based on state intervention, planning and control of essential industries and services.

“Tragically, in Britain as elsewhere, the capacity of the public sector and our public and emergency services to meet the coronavirus challenge has been severely weakened by the profit-driven, market-obsessed policies of recent decades.”

He said the government was still doing “too little, too late” to combat Covid-19.

The Communist Party is demanding the extension of the 80 per cent wage guarantee to all contract and self-employed workers who have been laid off, the release of all non-violent prisoners not infected with the virus, price controls on medical and food products, an end to the roll-out of universal credit and a ban on housing evictions during the current emergency.

Mr Griffiths also urged the labour movement to prepare for “huge battles ahead” in the forthcoming recession, warning that the government will “try to make the working class pay the bills for today's crisis measures.”