Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 257 May/June 2017 Election Special
Don’t vote – Fight for socialism
In the run-up to the general election on 8 June, socialists will have to decide whether to support the Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour Party, or to oppose it because it remains a racist, imperialist and warmongering party. The Revolutionary Communist Group is clear: we are facing a global crisis of the capitalist system that threatens humanity with war and destruction. This means that there is only one choice: we have to build a working class movement that can challenge the ruthless, predatory British ruling class. We have to fight for socialism. Corbyn and his supporters are actively preventing this development. They and the trade unions have blocked the emergence of any resistance to austerity while spreading the illusion that, in the midst of a deepening economic crisis, a future Labour government can ‘deliver a fairer, more prosperous society for the many, not just the few’. The reality is that it cannot and it will not.
If it is elected, a Labour government will have to satisfy the ruling class that it will protect Britain’s worldwide interests as the crisis intensifies inter-imperialist rivalries. Labour’s manifesto makes clear it will not challenge the basic structures of British imperialism. It declares Labour’s commitment to Trident renewal, to the NATO alliance and to maintaining defence spending at or above 2% of GDP. It promises 10,000 extra police, 3,000 extra prison officers and 1,000 extra border guards to enforce immigration laws. The manifesto repeats the long-standing Labour mantra ‘to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime’. A commitment to ‘think very seriously’ before using weapons of mass destruction included in an early draft of the manifesto has been dropped. All this is to re-assure the ruling class that Labour will defend British imperialism’s worldwide interests if they come under threat. Socialists have to oppose this.
Seven years of Tory rule have been disastrous for the working class:
- GMB union research shows that the real value of earnings for full-time workers is still 12.6% below 2007 levels, and for 33 out of 169 occupations more than 20% below. 80% of new jobs are precarious in nature and dependent on self-employment.
- The NHS is approaching collapse while state education is undergoing complete fragmentation in the drive to create ‘free’ schools and grammar schools with massive handouts to private institutions.
- Tory housing policy spells the end of social housing and is forcing working class people back into overcrowded private slum accommodation at higher and higher rents.
- People with disabilities are suffering an average 20% cut in their benefits, Employment Support Allowance for many has been slashed by nearly 30%. Housing benefit eligibility has been restricted, and payments have been cut by the Overall Benefit Cap and the Bedroom Tax, threatening homelessness for hundreds of thousands. Child Tax Credit has been removed for a third child, and an exemption for a child born because of rape will require the mother to go through an intensively degrading process to ‘prove’ the fact.
- Up to three million children risk going hungry during the school holidays, while the Trussell Trust charity reports record usage of food banks, issuing nearly 1.2 million people with three-day emergency food parcels in 2016/17.
- Racism has been normalised through the creation of what Theresa May calls a ‘hostile environment’ for migrant workers and the clear intention to use the plight of three million EU residents as a bargaining tool in Brexit negotiations.
- Internationally, Britain remains the most bellicose member of NATO, calling for further sanctions against Russia and Syria. Tory foreign policy involves alliances with reactionary states like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel to sustain the interests of British imperialism.
Given this appalling record, defending the interests of the working class has clearly been an urgent task. Yet at a time when millions have suffered years of austerity, Labour has refused to stand up to the ruling class:
- Labour councils, hand-in-glove with profiteering developers, have led the way in the destruction of social housing, forcing families into homelessness, socially cleansing parts of London and putting secure housing beyond the reach of working class families.
- These same Labour councils have slashed jobs and services at the behest of the Tory government while dishonestly pleading there is nothing they can do to resist. Women and disabled people have borne the brunt of these cuts.
- Labour has not campaigned in support of those suffering the savage Tory benefit cuts.
- Nor has it made any commitment to repeal the 2014 and 2016 Immigration Acts, key to May’s ‘hostile environment’ for migrants: Labour candidates do not want to be seen as soft on immigration.
- Having led the way to privatisation of state provision under Blair’s government, Labour and the trade unions have failed to lead any fight to save NHS and free care provision.
- There has been no opposition to the systematic destruction and disintegration of state education through the introduction of selection and phoney ‘free’ schools.
To win the election, the Labour Party will have to secure the votes of the better-off sections of the working class and middle class. A promise to repeal university tuition fees – introduced by the last Labour government – is part of this appeal. However, the material privileges of these layers can only be maintained at the expense of the mass of the working class, and the economic consequences of Brexit will only exacerbate this division. So, other than for people with disabilities, Labour will commit only to reversing a limited range of benefit cuts.
Locally, many parliamentary candidates are distancing themselves from Corbyn since they agree with the reactionary populist views of Sion Simon, West Midlands Labour MEP, who said, after losing the West Midlands mayoral vote, that ‘Traditional working-class voters, who we were born to serve, quite simply want to hear a clearer, stronger message about traditional values like patriotism, hard work and a defence of decency, law and order.’
18 months ago, the left claimed that Corbyn’s election as Labour leader would transform the Labour Party and reinvigorate the fight against austerity. In fact, under his watch, Labour and the trade unions have stifled any grassroots struggle since it would split the Labour Party. Together with John McDonnell, Corbyn instructed Labour councils not to set illegal budgets for 2016/17, thereby authorising savage cuts in services and jobs. This year no such instruction was required since Labour Party rule changes at the September 2016 conference made it a disciplinary offence to oppose legal budgets. This let both the Labour councils and the trade unions off the hook.
Corbyn has made concession after concession to the right wing to maintain Labour unity and ensure the party stays a parliamentary force. He allowed a free vote in parliament over bombing Syria and renewing Trident. He has capitulated to the racist ideology of Zionism, saying that he now ‘admires’ the settler-colonial nation of Israel. As an MP for more than 30 years, he has remained in a party which, in government,
- gave free rein to the parasitism of the City of London,
- launched wars on Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq,
- passed seven racist anti-terrorism acts, six asylum and immigration acts and six policing and crime acts.
He is now ensuring that Labour remains what it always has been: a reactionary, anti-working class force. Undeterred, forces on the left like the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party call for a Labour vote because they say its policies will improve conditions for the working class. But this ducks the real issue: parliament exists to run the affairs of British imperialism, not to hand out improvements for the working class. Labour’s manifesto has made clear it accepts the rules of the game – not just defending Britain’s global position, but also reassuring the ruling class about its fiscal responsibility and emphasising that it will clear the budget deficit within five years, signifying agreement that the ruling class will keep its hands on the proceeds of Britain’s plunder from the rest of the world.
Labour has ensured that there is no working class movement which can force it to honour any of its commitments, and its dominant right wing in parliament will see that its manifesto proposals are diluted or dropped if it forms a government. Just as it has done in the past, Labour will continue to attack the working class regardless of what its manifesto says. Events in Venezuela show what a ruling class will do to maintain its wealth and power, spreading lies about the Bolivarian government through its control of the mass media and fomenting economic sabotage and violence to destroy the gains for the working class and poor achieved over the past two decades. Under threat, the British ruling class will be even more ruthless: the proof lies in the 150 military engagements it has been involved in since the end of the Second World War. Corbyn and Labour will not stand up to it.
Socialists and communists do not share the illusion that this deep unending crisis of capitalism and its effects can be resolved through parliament, or that the Labour Party is a vehicle for radical progressive social change. There is no shortcut through participation in the general election as the left argues. The only way forward is through independent working class organisation and the creation of a socialist, anti-racist and anti-imperialist movement which completely opposes the Labour Party and its allies. Such a movement has to be built on the streets and in working class communities. Join us in that struggle!
