AFTER decades of chipping away, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), which describes itself as an “educational research institute” which “furthers the dissemination of free-market thinking”, finally got their moment.  

A prime minister suitably primed to free the markets and slash the state. When Liz Truss came to the helm, they must have thought all their Christmases had come at once — someone committed to their project and with a healthy majority to carry out their destruction of what’s left of the civilising influences in our society.  

Attacks on unions, attacks on tax, attacks on the state itself and a “freeing of the markets” that would take her Margaret Thatcher cosplay to a new level.

There was just one snag. The markets, it seems, did not want to be freed. Strange, isn’t it? Let there be no mistake, I have no pity for Truss, but we just witnessed a coup in full view of the world. When the PM offered them freedom, they chose a new PM — one of their own, no less.

When presented with the choice between freedom and more multi-billion profit subsidies, they knew which side their bread was buttered on.

At least they have bread. The rest of the country is being crippled by inflation. With food price inflation peaking over 20 per cent, rents exploding and mortgages (if they can be found at all) on the up, we have what liberal commentators call a “cost-of-living crisis.”  

As I have written before, for working people there has always been a cost-of-living crisis — all that has changed is that the middle class have started to notice. “Why, oh why?” they cry, before all too often collapsing into a mumble about Brexit or some such nonsense.

This moment has been decades in the making and it really is not too complex when we boil it down. Successive governments have acted as cheerleaders for the concentration of capital into fewer and fewer hands, while telling us “it could be you!” and throwing a few sweeties to the crowd; and successive governments have looked to the FTSE, rather than to the productive economy, for approval.

The empowered market knows how to unite and fight for its interests, removing governments and prime ministers when they feel it necessary. If ever there was an example of class solidarity, that was it. With once publicly owned energy companies harvesting billions in profits — subsidised by billions of pounds in government bill assistance — they’ve never had it so good.

Class solidarity works then, and the time for working people to come together over our own interests is long overdue. In Scotland, the constitutional split has seriously undermined the left’s strength over the last decade.

I have my view, and that debate will rumble on (and on), but back in the real world, without serious, concerted action, inflation and a total lack of interest from the government will send people to their graves this winter.

For my own part, I write this having come fresh from a meeting at Glasgow City Council, where we’ve been informed that there is predicted to be a £119.4 million “budget gap” in the next financial year. If things follow their usual pathetic choreography, that will come down a little after some “hard bargaining” by coalition partners at Holyrood and we’ll all be expected to be grateful. I won’t be.

I have been a councillor for 15 years. There has never, during that time, been a moment when a “budget gap” didn’t exist. Instead, what has occurred is a steady, relentless destruction of local government and the services it provides — and not the slightest interest from Parliament in the effects of its decisions.  

After all, why risk involving yourself with the dirty business of implementing the cuts you’ve voted for when you have the arms-length cuts machine that is local government to do it for you?

I firmly believe that until local government, across party lines, refuses to play along with this charade, it will continue.  

Councillors must surely ask themselves at what point this farce ends — when they come back to another £100m next year, or the year after that? Glasgow City Council now spends nearly half a billion less a year, in real terms, than it did in 2007. We, and councils across the land, cannot go on like this.

Things can change, but they will only be decisively changed through collective action. My union, the CWU, along with the RMT, has been at the forefront in recent months in demonstrating the power of solidarity — and here in Glasgow we’ve seen it from the residents of Wyndford, who took action against energy company SSE and won a price freeze.

When people stand up and stand together, they win.

I make this plea — yes, attend the big rallies, attend your union branch meetings, your party branch meetings and all the rest; but when you leave those gatherings, go back to your community, your street, your block and build local solidarity — and build out from there.  

Whether it be under the auspices of the People’s Assembly, Enough is Enough, Power to the People, Living Rent — get out there and make sure people understand their power, how to use it, and be part of bringing together these groups — and more — to build a movement capable of winning this war.

We have a choice — live with more market solidarity, or build our own.

Matt Kerr is a Labour councillor for Cardonald ward, Glasgow — Twitter: @mattkerrlabour.