Austerity Politics and UK Economic Policy

Craig Berry assesses UK economic policy in the wake of the financialcrisis through the lens of the austerity agenda, focusing on monetary policy,economic rebalancing, industrial and regional policy, the labour market,welfare reform and budgetary management. He argues that austerity is gearedtowards a resurrection of financialisation and the UK’s pre-crisis economic model,through the transformation of individual behaviour and demonisation of thestate. Cutting public spending and debt in the short term is, at most, asecondary concern for the UK policy elite. However, the underlying purpose ofausterity is frequently misunderstood due to its conflation with a narrowdeficit reduction agenda, not least by its Keynesian critics. Berry alsodemonstrates how austerity has effectively dismantled the prospect of acentre-left alternative to neoliberalism.

Craig Berry isDeputy Director of the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute at theUniversity of Sheffield. He has worked previously at the Trades Union Congress,International Longevity Centre, HM Treasury and the University of Warwick. Hisresearch focuses on UK economic statecraft, with an emerging focus on NorthernEngland in a European and global context.