THE left wing backbench MP, Jeremy Corbyn, won a stunning victory in the Labour Party leadership contest on Saturday, as the working class gave its ‘thumbs down’ to the Tory look-alikes of Labour’s right wing!
The sheer scale of his victory left the right wing of the party looking dismayed as it was announced that in the very first round of the election Corbyn had won by 59.5% of the vote. Out of the 422,664 votes cast, 251,417 voted for Corbyn. It was not just the scale of this victory that has stunned the right wing but the fact that in every constituency allowed to vote – Members, Registered Supporters and Affiliated Supporters – Corbyn trounced his opponents.
In the Supporters section he won 85% of the vote! There is no doubt that what transformed the situation was the intervention of the working class into this election. Corbyn owes his victory solely to these new forces that have emerged who hate the Tories, hate capitalism, and despise Blairism!
400,000 workers and youth representing the millions who hate the Tories and despise the treachery of the Blair-Brown governments seized the opportunity to demand a real fight.
The working class in this election has spoken with a powerful voice to demand action against all the cuts, privatisations and the new anti-trade union bill that will make striking and protests illegal. They vented their hatred of the right wing Labour leaders, who abstained on the vote on the Welfare Bill ensuring that Cameron avoided defeat.
In return, the right wing are venting their fury with a number of shadow cabinet ministers vowing to go on strike by refusing to serve under him, and more vowing to vote with the Tories for a war with Syria. Corbyn’s victory is undoubtedly the high point for both him and the Labour Party lefts. Their finest hour, however, was soon let down when in his acceptance speech, Corbyn signalled that he is desperate to compromise with the right wing.
He went out of his way to praise Harriet Harman who, as interim Labour leader, kept Cameron from defeat when she orchestrated the treacherous abstention on the Welfare Bill. His call for an ‘all-inclusive’ party will cut no ice with the right wing as events will show in the very near future, when the Labour right wing vote to keep the Tories in power and to bomb Syria.
Corbyn may wish to keep the right wing on board, but a split in the ranks of the reformist Labour leadership is inevitable as the right wing will continue to scab on the working class to keep the Tories in power in the interests of capitalism. With millions of workers and youth demanding a fight, the TUC Congress meeting this week in Brighton cannot be allowed to sit on its hands.
Today the anti-trade union bill is being debated in parliament – this bill is nothing less than a declaration that the Tories are determined to destroy the trade unions as they prosecute their class war to drive the working class into the ground in the interests of the bankers and bosses. All the TUC leadership is proposing is an endless round of protests and appeals to the Tories to be reasonable. These appeals, along with going cap-in-hand to the Tory conference next month, must be rejected by the TUC Congress and cancelled. Further, an emergency resolution must be put down naming the date for an indefinite general strike.
TUC leaders that oppose this must be made to resign. New leaders must take the fight forward against the Tories by calling a general strike to kick them out to bring in a workers’ government and socialism. TUC delegates must follow the example of the workers and youth who have just delivered a heavy blow at Labour’s right wing.
The truth of the matter is that British capitalism cannot be reformed. It must be overthrown and replaced by a socialist society. This task requires the development of the revolutionary leadership of the WRP. We urge all delegates at the TUC Congress and all workers and youth to attend our ATUA conference on Sunday September 27th where all these issues, plus action to achieve them, will be fully discussed and decided on.
