OH how the mighty have fallen. It was not so long ago that Blairites were queuing up to challenge Gordon Brown for the premiership. To name but a few, there was Reid, Clarke, Johnson – even Hazel Blears.
Yesterday, however, ex-radical anti-apartheid campaigner, Peter Hain, was predicting that despite the fact that the last thing in the world that Gordon Brown allegedly wanted was a coronation, that there would be no rival in the struggle for the leadership.
Even Charles Clarke, who vilified Brown not so long ago, accusing him of an attempted coup to achieve the early overthrow of Premier Blair, was yesterday adamant that he would not be standing.
The one time ‘strong-man’ Reid was nowhere in sight.
What has brought about this amazing transformation is the growing crisis of British capitalism. This has seen big businessmen, bankers and press barons, such as Rupert Murdoch, taking the position that a leadership squabble inside the Labour Party is a luxury that cannot now be afforded.
With the American economy in a huge crisis, in deep slump, with the housing market collapsing and the trade deficit and government expenditure growing, the economic outlook is definitely critical.
The respite in oil prices is likely to be a short one. The depth of the crisis has forced Britain to send an envoy to plead with President Assad of Syria to break his links with Iran, discharge himself from the ‘axis of evil’ and give imperialism a hand in forcing the Palestinians to recognise Israel and in halting the Iraqi insurgency.
While Britain is waiting for Assad’s reply, the United States is still accusing Syria of seeking to overthrow the Lebanese government and implicitly threatening that its mercenary in the area, Israel, will take action.
For the first time for a long time Britain and the US – Bush and Blair – are slightly out of step.
Any new deepening of the Iraq crisis, or a full-scale invasion of Gaza by the Israeli forces, or a new attack on the Lebanon or Syria, will push oil prices sky-high, so Britain is in favour of treading as gingerly as possible to try to calm the waters that it helped to stir up.
It’s in this situation that big business has told the Blairites and Brownites to pack it in, that Britain needs a united government and that all of its energies are required to deal with the crisis in the Middle East and the crisis over its attempts to smash and destroy the Welfare State.
This temporary outbreak of peace may not last for long. A sudden deepening of the crisis can create the conditions where the Labour government has to take critical measures to stave off economic collapse. These will open up and deepen all of the wounds of the Labour Party, and the Labour government.
It is possible that the crisis may produce a sudden general election and a hung parliament, leaving Blair and his supporters considering their options and whether their partiality for Mr Cameron and his lookalike policies would see them better situated in a coalition with the Tories.
For the working class, the disposition of the different factions inside the Labour government, and whether they’re at peace or at war, is of little strategic consequence.
The basic facts of life for workers are that, whatever the ruling faction of the Labour Party, the struggle to destroy workers’ gains, and level the Welfare State, cutting wages, cutting and exporting jobs, cutting pensions and lengthening the retirement age will continue.
No faction of the Labour government can present a solution to the problems that face the working class. The only solution for the workers is to develop a revolutionary leadership that will sweep out the grovelling reformists in the upper ranks of the trade unions and create the conditions for organising a general strike to bring down the capitalist government of the day and to go forward to a workers’ revolution, workers’ power and a socialist reorganisation of society.
As the crisis of capitalism deepens, so does the need for a socialist revolution. Only the Workers Revolutionary Party is building the leadership to organise the necessary socialist transformation of society. Make sure that you join the Workers Revolutionary Party today.
