YESTERDAY afternoon the PM’s office was leaking the speech that Brown is due to give to the TUC Congress on Tuesday.
It stressed that if the trade unions refuse to accept the big cuts the Labour government intends to make, they will have the Tories back, who will make even bigger cuts. This is a very crude attempt at political blackmail.
Brown will say: ‘Today we are on a road towards recovery – but things are still fragile, not automatic, and the recovery needs to be nurtured.
‘People’s livelihoods and homes and savings are still hanging in the balance, and so today I say to you: don’t put the recovery at risk.’ Again the message is – fight the Brown cuts and you will harm the ‘recovery’.
This ‘recovery’ seems to depend on making the bankers even richer, while the workers and the poor are made to pay the full cost of rescuing the bankers and are pauperised.
The government is planning to slash £45bn of spending every year for the next four years.
Brown intends to add hundreds of thousands, if not millions of public sector workers onto the army of the unemployed – all allegedly to aid a recovery. The only recovery that will be aided by this policy is the recovery of the fortunes of the bosses and bankers.
The simple fact is that the trade unions, if they are not to betray their millions of members, must fight the Labour government’s cuts and privatisation policies with strike action, starting with strike action across the board to support the postal workers whose industry is being smashed by the government and the Royal Mail.
This strike action must be resolute and determined and must not be fearful of defeating the government. It is far better for the workers to bring down the Brown government, from the left, than the Tories to do so from the right.
The truth is that every policy that Labour has been carrying out, from the removal of clause four in the years before 1997, to the declaration that it was to be a businessman’s government in 1997, on the eve of the election, has been a Tory policy that helped only the Tories.
It was Labour that then speeded up the privatisation process, directing it at the NHS and Royal Mail.
It was Labour that responded to the banking crash by handing the bankers £1.3 trillion of aid, loans and guarantees to save the banks and save capitalism. Now it expects the working class to foot the bill, while the bankers are back on their bonuses!
It is Labour that is refusing to nationalise the motor car industry to save hundreds of thousands of jobs.
It is Labour’s adoption of Tory policies and its ditching of socialism that has led to the revival of the Tories after their near destruction in the 1997 general election.
The Brown-Mandelson policies are the biggest aid ever to the Tories. All Cameron has got to do is sit back and watch Brown alienate more and more workers.
Brown and Mandelson are the Tories’ biggest asset!
The TUC supporting Brown, on the basis that Labour cuts are better than Tory cuts, will further strengthen the Tories.
The trade unions must take action and fight the Brown government’s policy of rescuing capitalism no matter how much it costs the working class.
What is required is for the trade unions to bring down Brown and to bring in a workers’ government that will carry out socialist policies. This is the only way to keep the Tories out.
If the TUC wants to see a Tory government, then stick with Brown. Delegates must vote to fight all Brown’s cuts and to go forward to socialism.
