Carillion, Brexit - the profiteers and their politicians will have to pay for their lies!

Imprimir
Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials
31 January 2018

The Tories are at each other’s throats again - and, of course, it's all due to their Brexit obsession!  As if nothing else mattered on planet Earth!
    So, the Westminster Brexit bigots are now busy pulling the rug from under May's feet, calling her a sell-out and demanding that she reads the riot act to the EU.
    Meanwhile, in an attempt to appease her own party's rioting factions, May is leading the "largest ever British business delegation to China", to demonstrate her determination to ape Trump and "make Britain Great again" - all expenses paid by the taxpayer.
    Never mind that all this nonsense is based on fake news.  Not only is tiny Britain in no position to dictate to the 27 EU countries, but even the Chinese investors May is trying to woo, are saying in no uncertain terms that they'll wait for the Brexit sandstorm to settle, before they decide whether it's worth risking their dollars in Britain.
    And for good reason.  After all, by now, EU leaders and Chinese businessmen have all read May's leaked secret memo.  And they know that, whichever way it goes, Brexit will result in job losses and a shrinking market here.  So why would they rush to oblige?

The big cover-up

But all this Brexit furore is certainly a convenient diversion from what is happening in the real world!
    Here, back on earth, tens of thousands of working class jobs and pensions remain suspended in mid-air after Carillion's collapse.  And all because for decades, private companies have been allowed to line their pockets and those of their shareholders, thanks to the outsourcing of public services orchestrated by their Westminster friends.
    And we, the working class, are now supposed to pay three times over for this reckless profiteering: first, as taxpayers, due to the exorbitant cost of these public-private contracts; second, as wage-workers, because of the way these contracts were used to slash the jobs, wages and conditions of public sector workers; and third, today, because of the present huge job losses, which are likely to be compounded by the demise of yet more Carillion-like sharks.
    Significantly, however, the Tory rioters have nothing to say about this - and no disagreement to register.  Of course not, since they were all 100% behind the fairy tale that private business would be "more efficient" at managing public services.  "More efficient"?  Yeah, sure, but only at looting public funds, while running down services and cutting jobs!
    In fact, whatever their position on Brexit, the Tory rioters have no regret, nor disagreement with May: as far as they are all concerned, it was right, yesterday, to open public coffers to the private sharks and it is right today, to allow Carillion's shareholders and bosses to keep their loot and run, while workers and taxpayers are left to pick up the bill!

Expropriate the profit thieves!

So, let's not allow ourselves to be conned by their Brexit saga.  The real problem is neither in Brussels  - nor on the planet Mars.  It is here, in Britain, under our noses.  And it's called capitalist profiteering.
    Nor is it a question of "good" or "bad" apples among the profiteers.  Sharks are sharks.  When they smell blood, they go for it, whatever the cost for society!
    And the more borders we allow politicians to build around us, under the spurious pretext of "protecting" us from migrants, the more freedom we give these very British sharks to go in for the kill in their highly protected fiefdom.  But let's not forget: we, the working class, are their prey!
    Let's not allow ourselves either, to be conned by Corbyn's "good words" on Carillion.  He may have always opposed the privatisation of public services, but the simple fact that he sticks with a party whose MPs and council leaders have, in their overwhelming majority, taken an active part in the privatisation drive, speaks for itself.  Even Corbyn's right-hand man, McDonnell, can't bring himself to commit his party to expropriating the PFI and other railway sharks by nationalising their loot, without compensation for shareholders.  The bottom line is that Labour will not, not even under Corbyn, threaten capitalist profiteering.  And this means that Labour is useless to the working class.
    There is no space for both the reckless profiteering of the capitalist system and the common interests of society as a whole.  One, or the other, has to give and we'd better make sure that it is capitalist profiteering that gives - before we meet the same fate as the Carillion workers.  Only the working class can take care of the interests of society as a whole - because we produce all wealth through our labour and have no stake in this destructive private profiteering.  But for this, we need our own party.  Let's build it!