PM JOHNSON made it clear on Tuesday night that he has no intention of resigning despite the fact that he has become the first serving prime minister in history to have been found guilty of a criminal offence.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak joined Johnson in being found guilty of breaking their own strict lockdown rules during parties held at Downing Street in June 2020.
Both Johnson and Sunak made profuse apologies but insisted they would not resign, with Johnson saying he felt ‘an even greater sense of obligation to deliver’ while Sunak announced he was ‘focused on delivering for the British people.’
The working class are in no doubt what Johnson and Sunak are even more determined to deliver – more poverty, more inflation, more cuts to benefits and more privatisation of the NHS.
Johnson and Sunak are determined to cling on in power to impose on the backs of workers all the sacrifices British capitalism is demanding, as it sinks below the weight of a massive £2.4 trillion national debt and now the huge cost of the imperialist war against Russia.
Tory MPs, including those who in the past called for Johnson to resign for bringing the Tories into disrepute and damaging their chances of re-election, have fallen into line and are now insisting that Britain cannot kick out a prime minister during a war situation.
The ‘importance’ Tory MPs are now claiming Johnson has to this war, is solely due to the fact that he is the most willing lap-dog to the US administration of Joe Biden, leading the way in sanctions on Russia regardless of the explosive effect on the cost of living crisis that is pauperising millions of workers and their families.
The Tories won’t get rid of Johnson or Sunak, and the odd call by the Labour leadership for them to resign is merely window-dressing, designed to appeal to the hatred and revulsion of workers towards the Tory government and the arrogance and law-breaking of the entire ruling class epitomised by these two.
What is clear is that the only force powerful enough to get rid of Johnson, Sunak and the Tory government is the working class.
In this crisis situation, however, the trade union leaders have been absolutely silent.
There has been no condemnation, let alone calls for resignation, from the TUC, instead yesterday they called on the chancellor to produce ‘an emergency budget to help with surging energy bills and to get wages rising.’
Similarly, the major unions have refused to issue any demands for Johnson to go and the Tories to get out.
The attitude of the trade union leadership is that bringing down the Tories is no concern of the trade union movement – leaving the crisis-hit Tories free to carry out a class war to impose the capitalist crisis on workers.
This week, TUC general secretary Francis O’Grady announced she would be leaving her post at the end of the year after nine years of loyally serving the interests of British capitalism.
The TUC bureaucracy is insisting that a new general secretary will be elected at its annual conference in September.
The working class cannot afford to wait for O’Grady to be allowed to swan off and wait months for a successor to be elected.
The working class must demand that the economic and political crisis that has brought British capitalism to its knees requires immediate action, starting with an emergency meeting of the TUC to get rid of O’Grady now and bring in a real TU leadership to prepare and organise for an indefinite general strike action to kick out Johnson and the Tories.
The national mass march and lobby of parliament on June 18 called by the TUC must be transformed, with millions of workers organised in a general strike and mass demonstrations to close down the country, force the Tories out and go forward to a workers government and socialism.
There has never been a better time to rapidly build the WRP and Young Socialists to provide the revolutionary leadership necessary to take the working class to power and establish a socialist planned economy.
Join the WRP and YS today!
