THE prospects for the 2015 May 7 general election – taking place after more than five years of savage austerity measures that have resulted in the rich getting richer and the poor getting very much poorer – are causing a major crisis in the ranks of the UK ruling class and amongst its political servants.
They fear that the reality is that they are presiding over the end of UK capitalism, and that the only way for them to hang on to their bankrupt system is through installing another 1931-type national government.
They have found that despite throwing oceans of muck at the weak ultra-reformist Labour party leader Miliband, the Tory party is still not ahead in the polls.
Further, that even if Labour loses a number of seats to the Scottish nationalists, in what is a Tory free Scotland, that the Tories will lose seats to UKIP and more to Labour, meaning that both major parties may not have enough seats to form a government on their own.
While the Tories would have the support of UKIP MPs, Labour could well rule with the support of the Scottish nationalists.
A weak Labour Party minority government would then have to face the full force of a UK working class, in no mood for the promise of more austerity measures. and determined to win back every penny that has been stolen from it, as well as securing the NHS and carrying out many more socialist policies.
Such a crisis situation, a British version of the Greek anti-austerity revolution, would see stock markets and sterling crash and loans to bankroll bankrupt British capitalism impossible to negotiate!
This critical prospect has led ex-Tory leaders such as Baker (Thatcher’s education secretary) and ex-PM Major to speak out, while PM Cameron is even nervous of having a head to head debate with Miliband, the man he has been vilifying on a daily basis for some time, in case it all goes wrong.
Baker says that there should be a national government, the first since that notorious year of 1931, to rule over crisis-ridden UK.
He adds: ‘What is at risk is the continuing unity of the United Kingdom. In order to preserve that unity another way should be found. This could be a joint government of the Labour and Conservative
parties . . .
‘The prime minister would be the party leader with the most seats – at the moment it looks like David Cameron but it could be Ed Miliband – and both parties would have cabinet seats.
‘Such a coalition should only last two years, which means that the fixed five-year-term Parliament Act would be repealed, leading to a general election in 2017. . . . The more controversial manifesto promises would have to be forgone but not abandoned; David Cameron may have to wait until 2018 for the European referendum and Ed Miliband for 2018 for the mansion tax.’
Ex-PM Major says: ‘So Labour now have to make a choice. They must summon the courage of their convictions and declare their intent. The British people – North and South of the border – do not deserve to be misled. Labour must remove any doubt. If the outcome of the general election is inconclusive, will they refuse to govern with the support of a party whose principal aim is to break up the United Kingdom? Or will they make common cause with Liberal and Conservative opinion, and fight to keep it together?’
Such a new regime would have to have the state, the army and the police force right out in front, taking action against workers.
That the Tories are panicking is without a doubt. That its veteran leaders have a well-based feeling that the UK and the capitalist class can only survive by bringing forward a national government to further cut pay, benefits and the NHS, backed by the police and the army repressive apparatus is obvious.
This is why the working class must throw out the Tories on May 7th.
It must not only return Labour with a massive majority, it must build up the revolutionary leadership of the WRP as rapidly as possible, so that on the first occasion that the Labour government seeks to betray the masses it is brought down by a general strike and replaced with a workers government and socialism.
