THE result of the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election points to one thing, that the working class and large sections of the middle class are determined to get rid of the Tory coalition at all costs.
Consider the situation in which the by-election was called.
At the general election the Labour candidate, Phil Woolas, scraped home with a majority of just 103 over the LibDems.
Woolas was then thrown out of the seat and Labour Party after being found guilty by the courts of lying about his opponent.
The same week as the by-election, another Labour MP, Eric Illsley, resigned his seat after being convicted of expenses fraud and faces a spell in gaol.
So we have a situation where the Labour Party stands exposed as a haven for MPs who are liars and criminal fraudsters and where they face a united front of Tories and LibDems.
Under any ‘normal’ circumstances it would be assumed Labour would be trounced.
In fact, Labour increased its vote and won with a majority of just over 3,500 votes.
The LibDems came second despite being the beneficiaries of Tory votes, while the Tory vote itself collapsed by more than 7,000 votes.
Immediately the political pundits weighed in with the usual line, namely that by-elections tell us nothing really, that all governments expect to lose them as voters register a protest vote against unpopular policies etc, etc.
This entirely misses the point.
This by-election did not take place at the dying end of a government, or even in the middle of one.
It took place a mere eight months after the last general election and at a time when the slash-and-burn policies of the Tory coalition have yet to be truly felt by the majority of workers and the middle classes.
What it tells us in plain terms is that the honeymoon period each new government expects after an election victory just never existed for this coalition.
Workers, the middle classes and young people want it gone as soon as possible and they do not give a fig about the personal shortcomings of individual Labour MPs.
It was a class vote to get rid of the coalition as soon as possible.
Not that this result has been met with unalloyed joy within the ranks of the Labour Party.
The right-wing will be bitterly disappointed.
They have made no secret that they find the ineffective Ed Miliband too much to stomach with his talk of breaking with Blairism.
They were hoping for a Labour disaster in Oldham to discredit him and pave the way for a return of the ultra-right Blairites to the leadership of the party.
The leadership of the trade unions were equally less than enthusiastic about the result, and are very loth to comment on it.
They are fully aware that this result is a further indication that workers are not prepared to sit back and endure four years of savage cuts and pauperisation to keep the capitalist financial system and the banks going.
The appeals of these leaders to restrict opposition to the coalition, to protests designed to persuade it to change its policies, are being rejected.
The working class has been forced into an understanding that protest is hopelessly inadequate in the face of the civil war that is about to be unleashed against it.
The real question posed by the by-election is the organisation of an indefinite general strike to get rid of the government and replace it, not with Labour, but with a workers government that will bring in socialism.
For this to happen we must build a new and revolutionary leadership inside the trade unions in the course of the struggle to organise general strike action.
