THE humiliating climb-down by David Cameron over Syria on Wednesday night exposes for all to see the weakness of British imperialism, the coalition government and the leadership of the Labour Party.
Up until Wednesday evening war against the Syrian people was a ‘done deal’ as far as Cameron was concerned, with Miliband falling faithfully into line and promising the full support of Labour MPs for the US and British campaign of bombing and missile attacks designed to smash up Syrian resistance and pave the way for regime change.
The coalition, with scores of MPs opposing the war, in its weakness was forced to rely on the Labour leadership to ensure a majority for the action.
Miliband, eager to prove his credentials as a loyal servant of imperialism, jumped at the chance and pledged the party’s support.
All these plans came to an abrupt halt when it became clear that Miliband could not deliver the majority of Labour MPs, and the prospect that faced the government and the Labour leadership was that they would be defeated in Parliament on the war.
Rather than face this defeat a climb-down was hastily concocted, whereby Thursday’s vote was put off to next week at the earliest – a huge blow given that US imperialism is all set to launch its cowardly attack this weekend and Cameron had faithfully pledged to follow this agenda.
In order to justify this humiliation, senior government officials are putting it around that Cameron now recognises the need for ‘consensus’ and citing the Iraq ‘syndrome’ as being responsible – a reference to the blatant lies about weapons of mass destruction used by Tony Blair as justification for the invasion of Iraq.
Whilst the vast majority of workers and the middle classes certainly don’t believe evidence that the Syrian government is responsible for using chemical weapons – evidence that has been cobbled together from YouTube postings on the internet – there is an even more fundamental reason for Cameron buckling.
It is that his is the most hated and despised government in living memory.
It is a government that is waging an all-out war against the working class, driving pay down to below poverty levels, attacking the unemployed and those forced to survive on benefits, while at the same time breaking up the welfare state and handing it over to the privateers.
The working class is quite simply sick and tired of this government and its austerity measures that pauperise families in the name of bailing out the banks.
Workers are not stupid, they know full well that any war against the Syrian people will be paid for not by the bankers and the speculators but by the working class in the form of yet deeper cuts.
At a time when workers are constantly being told that British capitalism can no longer afford to pay for the NHS and pensions, they will not accept paying billions for an imperialist adventure that will cost hundreds of thousands of lives just so US imperialism can re-order the world.
It is the pressure of an enraged working class and middle class that Cameron and Miliband are feeling, and which has reduced all their careful plans to dust.
However, they will regroup in the next few days, and the US will carry out its cruise missile strike. There is only one way to stop the wars against the peoples of the world and the war against the workers at home and that is to bring down the common enemy through a general strike. This is true for the UK, the US and the EU.
This is the issue that must dominate the TUC conference – the demand that the leaders of the TUC either call a general strike to kick the government out, or that these leaders themselves be chucked out and replaced by a new leadership prepared to carry out this struggle.
The Young Socialists will be lobbying the TUC on September 8th and fighting for these demands.
Every worker and young person must come to this lobby and join in the fight for a general strike to kick out the government and go forward to a workers government and socialism.
