160,000 Tories are deciding who will be the next Prime Minister. Truss is most likely to win. She favours the new Tory right (a mini Thatcher) and Sunak isn't white enough. The very first decision of either of these two new PM's will be to try to smash the trade unions. Both PM candidates have sworn to increase the already extreme anti-union laws. The new laws are designed to demolish the already minimal rights of union voters. But millions of workers of all types are now battling against the bosses' resistance of the unions fighting for reasonable wages and conditions, following 2 decades of declining wages. The Tress-Sunak pair are both intending to crush organised workers into the dust. And this is meant to be the first success of whoever is the new PM. The key banner to define a conservative society. Thatcher made her first smashup over the miners. Reagan's earliest action was to break the aviation workers, ending them in chains. These were the symbols of the new governments.
But today we face an entirely different context. The unsettled political leadership of the UK demonstrates the most obvious absence of any planning and an imminent crash. Boris was a 2 year glory that slipped away in, what was frankly, a joke. His only ability was his bellowing about his non-existence successes. His following about his half-done Brexit has not achieved anything other than make the UK appear more foolish. Boris's Brexit has barely started. His Covid decisions were a disaster, until the chemists told him about vaccines. The rest, from leveling up, to the Churchillian photos in the Ukraine, was not more than anything other than self aggrandisement. All this is daily more and more obvious.
What is less clear in society is the rapid shift from Boris, the apparent demi-hero to the 14 million voters for Boris in 2019, and now that are drifting away in their millions. We are also seeing the collapsing, previously dominant hard right which Truss hopes to lead. But instead of the far right we are facing a huge and deeply critical population who do not accept the new, fancy Tory PMs, but also neither do they turn to the adenoidal Blair, now Labour's Starmer. But what IS emerging is the day to day support for the new Trade Union leaders and their rights.
Of course this is all still shifting. This includes the hints of a new type of society, partly started by the unions, and which ties in with the appalling disaster of the UK's economy. Virtually every day another shocking truth about the decades of rot that hits on millions already inside increasing wider and wider scales of the deep troubles. Most workers are overwhelmingly in work, but unable to live. The most recent example is Shell and Centrica who steal both £billions of profit while their gas and electricity costs fly higher every day. The axis of the unions and the day to day experience of the poorest people are cohering together with the unions - as against the Tory attempt to make the unions the problem. Our new Prime Minister will no doubt do her slavering best, but the Tories can't do their Thatcher 'thing' anymore.
But even should there be an increasing hostility for the government and the possible combination of those battling for daily existence and those fighting for a decent working life, there is no obvious positive, wide scale movement to lead the 90% of the population. Current developments in the Labour Party leadership have managed to destroy the radical Corbyn program (which still stood for 10 million votes even in the 'Bust it with Boris' 2019 General Election). Starmer is simply another Tory. He is completely unable to understand the current political conditions, as the 10 million and more are standing up to fight. What pops up in the picket lines scares Starmer to death. No. The political conditions require a collection of forces that are able to form a leading bloc that can show, step by step, how each moment forward can solidify and then move forward to the next positive actions.
Which now begins with a possible new General Strike. The failure of the 1926 General Strike has been well studied. One part of its retreat was the absence of any agreed, forward, proposition; all was defence. This, and the domination of most trade union leaders, who were tied in a deep national support of the UK's Empire, broke the strike.
Today we have a significant political and economic melee that is already resisting a weak government. Those who fight for food and heat and those who demand decent work and wages are able, virtually immediately, to bring down a wobbly, tragic government. At least that proposal can gather the first objective, to build up the widespread for a General Strike. Alas, Corbyn's very welcomed, relatively radical programme, is now immediately unavailable. Starmer has little to offer. But as the crisis in Winter will gather, bringing the end of the government desperate to retain its class rule, there will be a likely offer for a National Government, 'to bring us all together in the crisis!' And, more frightened of a possible General Strike, Starmer will likely agree.
This particular scenario is just that. It is true that the UK's society is going through a massive class based clash. The elements of government and economy are fragile in the extreme and the vital response to that is a widespread action by the working classes. Truss or anybody else will not simply close it all down with a ferocious law. That far seems clear. And the only other alternative to the government's decision is an election. As this process unfolds it is essential to bring together all who are already battling away. A combined bloc, attached to active unions, to those working to get heat and food etc, could naturally develop a new Charter, a set of basic demands, from large scale wealth taxes, to insuring public service requirements, to peoples assemblies to decide progress and to the organisations we really need.
No comments:
Post a Comment