TODAY’S local elections will see Tory and Labour leaders trying to convince the electorate that everything is basically ok, and that the voters can trust the Tory and Labour Party leaders to do the right thing for them.
This is right at the time when the PM has been found to be a Covid law-breaker, and Labour leader Starmer is notorious for his support for the prosecution of whistleblower Julian Assange. He has behind him years of service for the capitalist state.
Between 2008 and 2013, he was Director of Public Prosecutions and responsible for the Crown Prosecution Service. Starmer is a tried and tested part of the capitalist state which oppresses the working class for every moment of every day. At the last Labour Party conference, he publicly opposed a minimum wage rate of £15 an hour, to the shock of delegates.
In fact, the local elections are taking place at a time when prices are rocketing upwards, and wages are being cut by the day, as the world capitalist economy crashes.
The NHS is in a desperate financial crisis. Both hospitals and GPs cannot cope with the demand for their vital services, and patients are dying in hospital beds and corridors.
Meanwhile the stock markets are shaking with fear as capitalism is being gripped by its greatest-ever crisis. Crisis-ridden capitalism cannot deliver any concessions in terms of jobs, wages, housing and healthcare for the working class.
In fact, these elections are being held in the middle of a colossal war fever, where the imperialist powers are frantically arming the Ukraine in the hope that it can be used to weaken Russia.
The western capitalist powers have decided, as Foreign Secretary Truss explained, the war in the Ukraine is ‘our war’. She agrees it is ‘risky’, but says capitalism has always taken such risks and that its very existence depends on being able to achieve regime change in Russia, and then China – tasks that will require a World War.
Ukraine and Russia are the bread baskets of the world, and feed the planet. Russian oil has and still rules the world, with countries like Germany and France reluctant to cut the Russian oil pipeline.
At a time of capitalist crisis, when the cost of living is exploding, the rulers of the UK and the USA are not putting the needs of their citizens first, they are deliberately arming Ukraine’s war with Russia, knowing that massive price increases will emerge out of it, and that the UK, French and German workers will shortly be going hungry because of it.
The truth is that the Starmers and Johnsons put the interests of the bosses first. If that requires a war with Russia during which their people will go cold and hungry, they say so be it.
This is why Johnson, while he presides over massive price rises at home, is handing billions of pounds of weaponry to the Ukraine in the hope that this will weaken Russia.
This is the reality behind the fraud of the local elections.
There will be no reinflation of the economy. The cupboard is empty, and all of the UK’s wealth is being used to finance the Ukraine’s war to weaken Russia, which the UK ruling class considers is much more important to it, than the health of UK workers.
Workers, who have already seen huge rising prices, are voting for Starmer with the gravest reservations. The working class in the UK has already made its mind up that it can, and must, fight for its rights, its children and its future.
If the Tory vote plunges because of Johnson’s law-breaking and war-making, the plan is for Starmer to step into the breach to form a national government that will see to it that the UK working class pays for every penny of the capitalist crisis.
Workers will and must fight back. There have already been massive strikes for wage rises to keep pace with the fast-rising cost of living. The working class must force the trade unions to win a sliding scale of wages so that wages automatically keep pace with inflation!
This will give workers the time to move forward to take the power away from the bosses. In fact, the TUC is calling a National Day of Action on June 18. On June the 18th, the TUC must announce that it is the first day of an indefinte general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers’ government and a socialist planned and nationalised economy! This is the way forward!
