THE LABOUR Party leader Keir Starmer appeared on the Laura Keunssberg Show on the BBC yesterday where he refused to say whether a Labour government would spend more money on public services – placing himself in the same camp as the Sunak-led Tory Party, and insulting millions of workers in the process!
The Labour leader who opposes picket lines and strikes said that his party would always invest in public services but to do this it needed to grow the economy. He ignored the current situation where British capitalism is collapsing.
Some, including Labour’s biggest union backer Unite, have called for the party to be more ambitious in its pledges.
Starmer, asked repeatedly if he believed public services needed more money and if a Labour government would offer this, would only say: ‘A Labour government will always want to invest in its public services.’
His message to Labour is that he will not promise to spend lots of money ahead of the next general election, and has no intention of nationalising any sections of the crisis ridden British capitalist economy.
The Labour leader took his stand alongside Tory PM Sunak by refusing to say whether his party would offer junior doctors a higher pay offer to end strike action!
Public sector workers, including teachers, police and doctors have been offered ‘pay rises’ of between 5% and 7%, with junior doctors in England in line for 6%, while inflation has long passed the 6% level.
Junior doctors in England are standing fast by their demand for a 35% rise – just to make up for what inflation has robbed them of in the last decade.
On Saturday, Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, said the union could reduce the amount of money it gave to Labour if the leadership did not back more of its policy priorities, saying ‘people want something to vote for’.
Starmer says public services can and must be reformed without vast sums of money – ‘it is reform or bust’, he says boosting the privatisation agenda.
Starmer’s intervention comes as the Tory Party now absolutely split and divided, faces losing three by-elections in a week, and should be driven out of office.
The crisis of the Tories is emphasised by the fact that they could lose a seat where they had a majority of more than 20,000 in the Conservative heartland of Selby and Ainsty in North Yorkshire.
Labour is also expected to win Boris Johnson’s old seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip in north west London.
Starmer and Labour’s approach is that in this crisis situation Labour must not campaign for socialist policies, but must move for an electoral pact with the Lib-Dems based on Blairite privatisation policies.
The Labour Party rank and file are not stupid and they know that Starmer is the chosen rep of the capitalist state, who has helped to keep Assange in jail, and who now is desperate to keep disintegrating British capitalism going.
Tensions within Labour about its reactionary leadership are most likely to come to a head next weekend, when Labour officials meet with unions, MPs and affiliated groups at its National Policy Forum (NPF) in Nottingham. At this forum, Starmer will seek to get socialist policies banned in favour of the Blairite agenda to keep British capitalism going, no matter how many millions of workers’ jobs are destroyed in the process.
Starmer wants to privatise the NHS and all of the other public services. In Nottingham next weekend Labour’s left must demolish Starmer’s capitalist policies that favour big business.
A Momentum spokesperson has already said of the Tory crisis: ‘As Labour members, unions and conference recognise, fixing their mess requires real ambition, with nationalisation of our failing, privatised public services, real investment in our decaying infrastructure and an end to the scourge of low pay. ‘That’s why, at the NPF next week, Momentum-backed reps will make the case for policies like public ownership of our utilities, free school meals, rent controls and the restoration of British democracy. The case for transformative change in the interests of the many has never been stronger or more popular – we urge the leadership to heed it.’
Yesterday, RMT general secretary Mick Lynch condemned Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour Party. Appearing on Sky’s ‘The Sophie Ridge Show’ yesterday, Lynch said of Starmer: ‘He’s got five missions. Nobody knows what they are. Nobody understands them. Nobody can remember the five missions.
‘He’s not saying any of that. He won’t dare mention the word socialism. I want to hear that word mentioned frequently and I want to see a redistribution of wealth in our society.’
He added of the Tories: ‘What they’ve said in the Commons is just not true … ‘They set down an agenda where our members must give up their contracts of employment, have them chopped to bits and go on, basically, the gig economy and versions of it. We can’t accept that!’
It is now vital that the trade unions act. The TUC must be made to call a general strike to bring down the government and bring in a Workers Government and a socialist nationalised and planned economy!
