FIVE Tory advisors to Prime Minister Boris Johnson have now resigned. They are leaving the sinking ship while more Tory MPs have handed in their letters to the Conservative Party 1922 Committee calling for a leadership contest.
The Metropolitan Police has launched an investigation into 12 of the Downing Street parties. Due to these ongoing allegations, 18 Tory MPs have submitted letters of no confidence in the PM to the 1922 Committee. It takes 54 MPs to trigger a confidence vote, with 180 Tories needed to vote for a new leadership contest.
Johnson’s response to the move to remove him, is to fight for his life to remain as Prime Minister, declaring that ‘he will not resign’.
He has already been driven to support Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s NI measures to defend the economy by making the working class pay. The ‘levelling-up’ programme, on which Johnson and his party were elected, particularly in Labour strongholds, is now under attack by the Tory media. The Tories won an 80-seat majority for carrying out Brexit and leaving the EU, in opposition to Labour’s policy to stay in the EU and to call for a Second referendum.
Levelling up has been left to Gove to carry out, and all this has proven is that you can’t level conditions between the classes under this bankrupt capitalist system.
PM Johnson is now fully on board with putting the economy first. He has removed all Covid restrictions at a time of very high infections and over 500 deaths a few days ago, showing that the pandemic is far from over.
The policy of the government now, is to claw back the huge borrowing carried out during the lockdowns, amounting to £2.4tn of national debt, and carry out a war on the poorest sections of workers in order to do it.
After talk of reversing the National Insurance (NI) increase, Johnson was told by Sunak that they must proceed to balance the books and the Prime Minister has agreed this should go ahead.
Attacks on benefits have been imposed to make the unemployed find a job in just four weeks, rather than the current three months. They will have to look outside their work sectors if necessary and accept low wages and bad conditions. In other words this government’s policy, fully supported by Johnson, is to force millions of workers, many driven out of work during the pandemic, into cheap labour, zero-hours’ jobs.
Students have also come under the hammer, with the threshold for their fees’ repayment frozen so that they have to pay their student loan earlier and with growing interest, for longer.
In the middle of this world crisis, energy prices have soared. In April, families face on average their energy bill rising to at least £693 after a 54% increase in the price cap to energy companies, which is the worst energy price hike in history. The offer of a £200 grant a household will by no means aid those who are already cutting back on heat and cooking and will force many families and pensioners into cold and dark homes.
The energy hike is just a start. Prices are already rising: food, rents, transport have all gone up and are set to rise even higher.
The working class and the youth, hit already for two years during the Covid pandemic, now face even harsher conditions as the government, with Johnson in tow, leads the fight to get the ‘economy going.’
The big problem for the Tories, is that Johnson is now so discredited and despised that he will not be able to carry through the necessary brutal assault on the working class to drive them back, to impose a slave labour economy.
What the bosses require is a national government led by a new Tory leader with Labour’s Starmer as deputy PM. This is why there have been howls of anger when Johnson tried to expose Starmer over the lack of prosecution of Jimmy Savile.
In the face of this Tory crisis, Labour has organised no action to bring the Tory government down, apart from a few calls in parliament. Starmer only calls on the Tories to remove Johnson, he is waiting in the wings for the call.
The silence of the TUC is also deafening. There is a major strike wave underway as the working class fights for its life – Serco workers at Bart’s in London on two week strike, Tube drivers carrying out every weekend Night Tube strikes, council workers, university lecturers and staff at 68 universities, teachers, bus and rail workers and many more taking strike action, fighting for their wages and conditions as it is getting very difficult to survive.
If the TUC just called one demonstration against Johnson and the government, organised a mass march on Downing Street, so deep is the government crisis that it would be forced out at once! The TUC must now be made to call a general strike and bring the government down.
It must be replaced by a workers government and a socialist economy. This will immediately nationalise all the energy companies, the land, banks, services and industries – this is the only way forward out of this crisis. Join the WRP today to build the revolutionary leadership for this fight!
