IMMEDIATELY after the damning report on the Grenfell Tower fire that killed 72 people was published the House of Commons was packed with MPs listening to Labour prime minster Keir Starmer offering an apology ‘on behalf of the British state’ to ‘all the families affected by this tragedy’.
Starmer was ‘deeply sorry’, as was Tory opposition leader Rishi Sunak, for the murderous fire that, in the words of the official report, was the result of ‘decades of failure’ by central government, along with the ‘systematic dishonesty’ by the multi-million dollar companies that made the inflammable cladding used to make Grenfell Tower less of an eyesore for the wealthy inhabitants of Chelsea and Kensington.
It didn’t take 7 years of inquiry for the victims of the Grenfell inferno and the working class to pin the blame squarely on the backs of cost-cutting international companies, aided by both Labour and Tory governments, determined to smooth the way for the huge profits to be made by tearing up building and safety regulations – and to hell with the cost in workers’ lives.
The inquiry points out that the de-regulation and watering down of these regulations started in 1997 under the New Labour government of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
It was driven to extremes by the Tory/Lib Dem coalition government with David Cameron’s ‘bonfire of the regulations’.
These politicians were administering the British capitalist state solely on behalf of the corporations and bankers to ensure the maximum profits for shareholders.
That has always been their role and no amount of hand wringing apologies from Starmer and Sunak can disguise this truth.
It is there for all to see in an inquiry that took 7 years where those questioned about their role in the crime were, from the outset, granted immunity from prosecution based on any evidence they gave.
Now it turns out that the police are insisting that any prosecutions arising from the report will not take place, at least until 2027 – if ever.
No prosecutions for murder is the aim of the delaying of any legal action, by extending the length of the police investigation in the hope that the memory of the Grenfell Tower inferno fades from the consciousness of workers.
To this end, the past few days have seen all the bourgeois press and politicians from every main bourgeois party queuing up to express their deep sorrow.
Yesterday, Angela Rayner, Starmer’s deputy and housing secretary, was on BBC radio saying the report highlighted the ‘disgraceful’ treatment of social tenants and that she wanted a ‘cultural shift to empower people’, adding ‘we’ve got to make sure that greed and profit is not put above safety’.
The working class will treat with contempt this attempt by Rayner to gloss over the fact that capitalism cannot be reformed by a ‘cultural shift to empower people’, a meaningless phrase designed to divert workers from the real task – the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by a socialist society.
The Grenfell Tower fire and the complete contempt by the entire capitalist ruling class and capitalist state for the lives of workers and their families in pursuit of maximising profit at all costs is directly reflected in imperialist wars against the people of the world.
The same British capitalist system that is guilty of the killing of 72 workers, and their families, is also providing the components used by Israeli aircraft to bomb and kill women and children in Gaza.
Killing workers at home to maximise profit and slaughtering Palestinians in Gaza to prop up imperialism’s Zionist client state in the Middle East, is the only future capitalism has to offer.
The time has come for the working class to act and put an end to capitalist barbarism with a socialist revolution.
The TUC Congress next week must take action by calling a general strike to kick out the pro-capitalist, pro-Zionist Labour government and bring in a workers government and socialism.
This is the best way to remember those who died in Grenfell Tower.
Join the mass lobby of the TUC on Monday September 9 to demand the TUC organise the full strength of the working class to put an end to murderous capitalism with the victory of the socialist revolution.
Join the WRP and Young Socialists to build up the leadership of the British Socialist Revolution.
