Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials - 13 July 2016

Print
Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials
13 July 2016

So, the Tory party machinery has finally managed to avoid a potentially damaging leadership contest. If it had been left to the grassroots, the result might have been an "untested" prime minister. Obviously, the result won't resolve the party's infighting, which had led to the referendum. But it does resolve a problem for the City.

It allows Theresa May, who the City considers as a "safe pair of hands", to seamlessly slip into Cameron's shoes. Like Cameron, she was a Eurosceptic before the whole shenanigans of the referendum started. And like Cameron, she dutifully joined the Remain camp, because that was what the City wanted. Now, she will carry on doing the City's bidding - which is not to do anything rash and ensure that the access of big business to the EU market is preserved, whatever it takes.

Hence May's "dual" announcement that she intends to implement Brexit, but that she won't make any move in that direction before next year - by which time she hopes to have secured guarantees for British capital from EU governments.

What they have in store for us

In the meantime, the financial ripples of the Brexit shock are still affecting the economy.

Commercial property investment funds have to offload assets due to the panic selling of their customers and half of them have suspended their payments. This is putting tens of thousands of jobs at risk in construction. Meanwhile, bank share prices have collapsed as the profits they make from selling financial services in the EU are being put into question. And the slide of the value of the pound against all major currencies continues.

So much so, that the Bank of England, after having already flooded the markets with massive amounts of fresh cash, is gearing up for another bailout exercise.

We know from experience what this means: the working class will eventually be presented with the bill for the mess caused by the politicians and their capitalist masters.

Concealed behind May's populist language, designed to make her sound "different" by promising a more equal society and more powers for "hard working people" (haven't we heard it all before?), there is the iron fist of big business. And it is unlikely that the attacks on benefits and other cuts, which were already planned by Osborne, will satisfy the capitalists' greed.

In fact, we've already started to foot their bill: the sliding pound means rising inflation, which is just another way of making us pay for their mess by cutting our real wages, benefits and pensions. But let's not make any mistake: that's only for starters! We'll have to face many more attacks - and we'll need to fight them!

We need a fighting workers' party!

Meanwhile, the Labour party was embroiled in bureaucratic infighting. The party machinery and its MPs never accepted Corbyn's election and they've taken to the offensive to get rid of him.

So far, Corbyn has (narrowly) foiled the Blairites' attempt to stop him from standing in the leadership election triggered by Angela Eagle's challenge. But there is no shortage of irony in this challenge.

At the very moment when the publication of the Chilcot report exposes Blair's lies and deceit over Iraq and his responsibility in causing the subsequent bloody civil war across the region, Eagle, an MP who voted for the war, is challenging a leader who was elected by the grassroots, due, among other things, to his unbending opposition to this war!

Likewise, whereas Corbyn's grassroots support is due to his standing up against austerity, Eagle refused to vote against Osborne's welfare cuts last year!

No less ironical is the reason offered for this attempt to unseat Corbyn. Backed by a vociferous media campaign, Corbyn's opponents argue that he is "unelectable" as a prime minister and can only keep Labour out of power forever.

But have we forgotten what Labour governments did for the working class when they were in power? Until the banking crisis, big business blossomed like it had never done before, thanks to state handouts and tax cuts. Meanwhile we, workers, faced a sharp rise in casual jobs as the jobless were increasingly forced to take the first non-job on offer. Labour carried on cutting and privatising public services as the Tories had done before.

What do we need such a party in office for? Labour, with its long tradition of serving the capitalists whenever in government, cannot serve our interests, no matter who is its leader. We need a fighting party, which does not seek positions in the institutions of this parasitic capitalist system, but is prepared to lead our struggles to get rid of it once and for all. It has to be built - urgently - if we, workers, want to see real change in this society!