In February 1997, three months before the General Election, we demanded to know where Labour would make a difference if they were to replace the reviled Tories. We said Labour will retain and extend all the repressive legislation that has been passed over the last 17 years. The absence of significant internal divisions, the insignificant left wing, and the removal of any inner-party democracy means it is far better placed than the Tories to mount a concerted attack on state welfare spending. It will continue with a bipartisan foreign policy and will maintain its support for the Loyalist ascendancy. It will retain all existing immigration controls. It will not repeal either the Asylum Act nor the Jobseeker’s Allowance. In fact it will be more oppressive, more racist, more anti-working class than the Tory government it is almost certain to replace.’ (Editorial: Don’t vote for Labour, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 135, February/March 1997)
Time has proved us right. At the same time as Labour is directing a blitzkrieg against the former Yugoslavia, it is forcing through cuts in disability benefits and railroading through even more draconian asylum legislation than it inherited from the Tories. Its relentless targeting of the poor and oppressed in Britain exposes the fraudulent humanitarianism with which its cloaks its pursuit of British and US imperialist ambitions in the Balkans. Labour’s willingness to support the US drive to reassert its domination of Europe is matched by its determination to ensure that British imperialism achieves a position as the pre-eminent power within the European imperialist pack. With Middle East oil production set to rise from 41% of the world total to 65% over the next 20 years, control of the surrounding region will assume even greater importance as the major imperialist powers jockey for position. Russia is to be driven back and China contained, in a world order characterised by intensifying inter-imperialist rivalries.
Labour is the voice of contemporary British imperialism. It understands that the key to social stability lies in sustaining the privileged conditions of as large a section of the middle class and upper working class as possible. This means Labour has to ensure the preservation of Britain’s position as the second imperialist power in the world. Hence Labour is serving a warning in Yugoslavia: it will pound into submission any resistance to British imperialism’s interests. As economic crisis threatens financial collapse, such military actions will become the norm Labour is also serving a warning to other European imperialist powers that they should not presume to undermine Britain’s positions either.
The continuing privilege of the middle class and upper working class also depends on the continuing transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich that started in the 1980s. The intensifying attack on state welfare is crucial to this in that it minimises the financial burden the poor may place on the wealthy and better-off. Repressive legislation is a necessary accompaniment, to deal with any rebellion by those who have less and less to lose. It is therefore no surprise to socialists that Labour is attacking the working class at home at the same time as it is bombing working class people in Yugoslavia.
In these conditions, those who do not condemn Labour condone it. Left Labour MPs want it both ways: they want to have an easy conscience whilst retaining their positions of status and privilege. Meanwhile the left outside the Labour Party participates uncritically in this spectacle. They see courage in hypocrisy because they themselves have capitulated to Labour and imperialism. There can be no serious movement against the war unless it is against British imperialism. There can be no serious movement against British imperialism unless it breaks with the party that stewards its interests Labour. That is the message that socialists and democrats must fight for.
FRFI 149 June / July 1999
