Conservative Party Brexiteer Andrew Bridgen has warned that it is pointless trying to “outspend the Marxists in the Labour Party”, evoking the lesson from the Greek debt crisis that “democracy ends” when your creditors own you.
Speaking to Breitbart London’s James Delingpole, Mr Bridgen tried to reconcile the two economic positions being debated in the Tory Party: one that upholds the values of lower taxation versus the kind of big, public spending favoured by ‘One Nation Conservatives’.
“You can’t out-Corbyn Jeremy Corbyn, and the Conservatives should never try and outspend the Labour Party. I’m always very wary of this. Democracy relies on solvency,” the MP for North West Leicestershire said.
He continued: “The most depressing thing on the doorstep is when I see someone… and I give them the leaflet, and they say, ‘I’m going to decide after I see what the other side is offering me.’
“If we were all to vote for the party which gave us the most things, the most money, the country will go bankrupt. We can’t outspend or out-promise the Marxists in the Labour Party. They’re just going to use the double cube. Whatever we offer to spend on the NHS, they’ll just say they’ll spend more… there lies the road to bankruptcy.”
Mr Bridgen went on to give the example of Greece. The Mediterranean country suffered a spiralling spending deficit during the 2008 recession, having borrowed more money than it could repay through tax revenue. By 2010, Greece asked for financial rescue from the EU and International Monetary Fund (IMF). The bodies granted the bail-out packages — at the cost of forced austerity measures. The Greek economy has shrunk by 26 per cent in eight years, and it will take decades to pay off the debt at 180 per cent GDP.
“The electorate in Greece voted twice to end austerity. But because they are now owned by the IMF and their creditors, when the IMF say, ‘You’ve got to cut all your pensions by 20 per cent, cut your health spending by 25 per cent, and your public sector’s pay by 25 per cent,’ it doesn’t matter how many times the Greek people vote to end austerity, that’s what they have to do.
“That is the huge danger. Democracy ends. There is no democracy in Greece because they’re owned by their creditors.”
“I’ll never want to see this country go that way. The dangerous path is if we just try and out-spend and out-promise an irresponsible, hard-left, Labour government whose declared ambition is to destroy the capitalist system — the capitalist system which creates the wealth, the jobs, and pays the taxes that support all our public sector services,” the Brexiteer concluded.
Britons are set to go to the polls on December 12th. While Labour has not yet released its manifesto, it is expected to include promises such as tax hikes on higher earners, free university education, taxpayer-funded renationalisation of railways, and a pledge to cut the working week to 32 hours in a decade without a cut in pay.