THE TORY Party membership is currently teaching its Tory leadership a lesson in ‘class politics’ as the Amersham by-election result shows when the LibDems wiped out the 16,000 Tory majority.
This was a safe Tory seat but once the Tory vote grasped that they might have to pay their share for the massive crisis of capitalism that is building up, they acted decisively to pull the rug from underneath the feet of the Tory Party, and voted in an ultra-opportunist LibDem candidate.
The LibDems won a massive vote by dumping their own party’s national support for the HS2 rail link, and assured local Tory residents that they would not tolerate changes in planning laws that could see thousands of houses being built in their idyl.
Tory voters know that the £2.3 trillion debt built up and growing fast because of the continuing furloughing will have to be paid off, and they want to be sure that it is the working class that pays the price, and the full bill, that will continue its rapid growth as the crisis of capitalism worsens.
In fact, the Tory leadership has the working class and sections of the middle class and the elderly in their sights. In a TV interview Chancellor Sunak has repeatedly refused to confirm that the ‘triple lock’ on state pensions would be maintained, instead insisting that it was ‘still government policy’, but would be reviewed in the autumn when he will announce massive cuts in government spending to ‘re-balance’ the economy.
The triple lock on state pensions introduced by the coalition government in 2011, guarantees that the basic state pension increases by a minimum of either 2.5%, the rate of inflation, or average earnings.
Now, Sunak is preparing to ditch the triple lock after it emerged that if it remains in place he will have to find an extra £4 billion next year to fund it. Instead, the working class and pensioners will face massive wage cuts and pension cuts.
The priority for Sunak and the Tories is no longer keeping pensioners happy but cutting back on government spending at all costs to try and bring down the over £2.3 trillion debt run up bailing out capitalism through the pandemic.
The fact is, that as the economic catastrophe develops, and the Tory vote continues to demonstrate that it will not pay for the crisis, Johnson will be stood down and the Tory leadership will reorientate itself to take on the working class in an out-and-out class war, to make the working class pay for the crisis.
Amanda Milling co-chairperson of the Conservative Party said in Saturday’s Daily Telegraph: ‘I am in no doubt that Thursday’s result is a warning shot and we are listening. And as co-chairman, I will ensure that we learn the lessons from this campaign.
‘Over the coming weeks and months, we will take stock of what happened in Chesham and Amersham and look at how we can regain the trust of voters there.’
Former minister, and MP for Ashford, Damian Green said the Tory Party must listen to voters and not drift away from its core vote. ‘People want some form of local control,’ he said. ‘People don’t want to feel they are going to have developments dumped on green fields near them when they and their local representatives have had no say about it.’
Cannock Chase MP Milling noted the planning bill has not yet been published, adding the government ‘has been clear’ that any reforms would protect green spaces and still give local authorities the final say. In other words, the Tories are going to take a scissors to the legislation and rip it up.
Meanwhile, while Rome has started to burn, the TUC trade union leaders in Unite, the GMB and Unison are still saying that Johnson can be forced to make fire and rehire illegal! It is now a matter of life and death for the working class and the youth to see that the TUC leaders are removed and replaced with a leadership that will call the indefinite general strike to bring down the Tories to bring in a workers’ government and socialism.
This will make the bosses pay for the crisis by bringing in a nationalised and planned economy that will be owned and managed by the working class.
This is the way forward, in the UK and throughout the rest of the capitalist world to go forward to socialism.
Only the WRP, the British Section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, is fighting for this perspective and policy. Join it today!
