CHANCELLOR Darling has followed up his appearance before the bankers at the Mansion House on Wednesday night, where he pledged that wage rises would be met by ever higher interest rates and unemployment, by making it crystal clear who is to gain out of this jobs and wages massacre.
In a letter to the Treasury Select Committee yesterday, Darling proposed the Bank of England(BofE) should be put in charge of the government’s regime for rescuing banks, which will be given a legal basis next year.
Brown and Darling have decided on this course in the wake of the Northern Rock collapse, which saw them hand out more than £50bn to the bankrupts.
Darling wrote: ‘The new legislation will change the role of the Bank and, within that, the deputy governor for financial stability, including giving him a leading role in dealing with failing banks through the new special resolution regime.’
This means massive multi-billion handouts at the expense of the working class and the middle class.
Both the BofE chief King and Darling spelt it out at the Mansion House that there would be no protection or relief for workers whose families were starving because of massive price rises – they would just have to accept belt tightening for the good of the ‘country’ ie the bosses.
There would also be no help for the tens of thousands who are about to lose their homes, repossessed by the same bankers who are to enjoy unlimited grace and favour from the BofE and Brown.
The role of the working class and the middle class is to sacrifice their wages and jobs to provide the largesse to the bankers, and if they will not, to be hammered by ever higher interest rates.
No wonder, when faced with this class war by the bankers, the bosses and the government, more and more workers are deciding that the trade unions must fight and defeat the Brown gang.
It is this burning anger of the working class that is scorching such union leaders as Dave Prentis and the Unite duo of Simpson and Woodley.
At the UNISON conference, Prentis – who accepted the privatisation of NHS Logistics when it could have been defeated, who helped Brown into office and would not support his challenger John McDonnell, who supported the acceptance of the three-year wage cutting deal for the NHS workers (which was signed by ten unions yesterday) – was forced to warn Brown that if he did not change course he would be brought down by his members. Prentis virtually admitted that he was powerless to prevent this movement developing.
Prentis told his members: ‘We need to prepare for battle. . . And I give this commitment: if our union decides to approve industrial action in local government, we will campaign with all other public service unions to break this pay policy.’
In the next breath he was warning the government that it was not too late to listen. ‘Raise our people up, or our people will bring you down,’ he said, implying that ‘our people’ would let the Tories back.
The truth is that the trade union leaders know that an enraged working class is now surging forward. Instead of leading it they will mislead it and betray it as the TUC General Council did in 1926.
No doubt the Prentis’s of the trade union movement will engage in a multitude of protest actions, to try and wear the working class out, but the one thing that they are incapable of doing is organising a general strike to bring down the Brown government and to go forward to a workers government.
They will march the working class up and down the hill before betraying it to the bosses, and will reason that the return of the Tories is inevitable.
Workers, however, know that the Brown government must be fought and defeated. They are also beginning to grasp that the only way to keep the Tories out is to bring down Brown, and bar the way to a return of the Tories by bringing in a workers government that will carry out socialist policies.
What the working class requires is a revolutionary leadership to lead this struggle forward to victory.
This is what will be discussed at the June 29 conference called by the News Line – ATUA (see news advert). Make sure that you are there!