Yanis Varoufakis: Labour's budget is for the ruling class

Ava sits down with economist and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis to unpack Labour’s first budget under Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, and why he believes Britain’s economic system makes any genuinely progressive reform "impossible".

Varoufakis argues that the Bank of England, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), and the wider network of financial institutions have locked the UK into a model that serves the ruling class at the expense of working people. According to him, Labour has surrendered fiscal and monetary policy to bodies that are "independent only from democracy, not from the City of London". The result, he says, is a budget designed for the powerful, by the powerful.

Ava and Varoufakis dig into Reeves’ claims about a "black hole" in public finances, the influence of bond markets, Britain’s decades-long experiment with neoliberalism, and why incremental change is no longer possible. Varoufakis insists the UK needs a bottom-up transformation of its social and economic system, from housing and energy to investment and industrial strategy.

He also warns that today’s economic choices are fuelling widespread future anger, particularly among young people burdened with frozen tax thresholds, rising interest on student loans, and unaffordable housing. If Labour continues on its current path, he argues, it risks warming the seat for Nigel Farage and Reform UK at the next election.

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