THIS year’s British TUC Congress in Brighton from 8-11 September took key decisions to align trade unions with the pro-Palestine, pro-peace and anti-war movements, and demanded an end to Britain’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and escalation towards a wider war in the Middle East.
Stop the War’s well-attended TUC fringe meeting heard from PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote, Fire Brigade Union’s Riccardo LaTorre, TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust, Unison president Steve North, Sean Vernell from UCU, Louise Regan chair of NEU’s international committee and Chris Nineham, Stop the War Vice Chair.
Every speaker identified the need to oppose the trend in the TUC in recent years, led by some unions representing workers in the arms industry, to argue for an increase in the proportion of Britain’s GDP spent on arms production.
Congress debated the British government’s support for the arms industry, focusing on the genocide carried out by Israel in Gaza. The NEU’s Louise Regan moving Composite Motion 17 on Palestine said, ‘… our political leaders continue to sell Israel weapons even as it stands charged in the International Court of Justice for the crime of genocide. It is obscene to continue arms sales at a time when two senior Israeli government leaders stand personally accused of crimes against humanity’.
The NEU’s motion called on the government to ‘end all licences for arms traded with Israel, meeting international law’ was carried. The motion was supported by speakers from Unison, Unite, PCS, CWU, FBU, GMB, ASLEF, BFAWU and UCU.
The motion, supported by the TUC General Council, was welcomed by the Palestinian Ambassador who in his address told TUC Congress delegates ‘it is clear that it is calling for a full arms embargo on Israel’.
An emergency motion from the University and College Lecturers’ Union (UCU) supported by the RMT condemned Israel’s bombing of Lebanon and attacks on Iranian territory, resolved to oppose any attempts to escalate this war and to demand a ceasefire now, and supported the call launched by Stop the War for a UK-wide workplace day of action in support of an immediate ceasefire.
The TUC General Council supported the UCU emergency motion which described Israeli bombing of Lebanon – with the support of Britain – as ‘a significant and qualitative escalation’ that ‘threatens a much wider war in the Middle East that will lead to far greater death, destruction and instability in the region’.
Already the Israelis are engaging in cyber warfare using ‘pager bombs’ to kill Palestinian and other opponents of imperialist war in the service of their masters, Anglo-American imperialism.
These two motions put Britain’s official trade union movement into opposition of the incessant drumbeat of war emanating from the US state department, the UK Ministry of Defence and Foreign & Commonwealth Office and Tel Aviv.
However, the crushing of the Tories has left the UK in a revolutionary situation, with Starmer very hard pressed to keep the ship of state afloat.
The major influence on the trade unions is now the unprecedented mass movement of millions of pro-Palestine workers and youth on the streets of the UK, Europe and even the USA.
We have now entered a revolutionary period when millions are marching on the streets of Britain for the victory of the Palestinian revolution and the establishment of the Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
A big obstacle to this socialist revolution is the Starmer government that is seeking to usurp the revolutionary movement of the working class and defeat it.
Now is the time to deal them a body blow.
To change UK government policy and force a ban on arms sales to Israel we will have to not just recognise the state of Palestine, we will have to organise our own ‘British revolution’ to bring down the pro-imperialist Starmer government and to bring in a workers government and socialism, by nationalising the banks and the major industries.
The UK-wide ‘workplace day of action’ in support of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza will now take place on Thursday 10 October.
However, a one-day action will not be enough to bring in a Palestinian government and a workers government in the UK. What is required is an indefinite general strike and a socialist revolution to seize the power and, as Marx put it, ‘Expropriate the Expropriators’. Forward to the British socialist revolution!