UK capitalism is now the sick man of the capitalist world. Its economy is going broke while the Tories openly discuss knifing the NHS, and smashing all public services to make the working class and the poor pay for their crisis.
At the same time, the Tory party itself is split and divided. Nevertheless, they are setting out to illegalise trade unionism at home, while abroad joining the war in the Ukraine against Russia to try and recover their old place in the world order.
In fact, their intervention in the Ukraine has sharpened the class struggle at home, over which class is going to pay for the economic crisis, to the point of revolutionary explosion, with the Tory party in complete and utter disarray, and the trade unions facing illegality.
The Tory way out of the crisis is to smash the NHS and to bankrupt all public services, wiping out the great gain that the working class made after the Second World War when Attlee, and Bevan were forced to bring in the Welfare State, to give the working class ‘security’ from the ‘cradle to the grave’.
The government has already announced plans to begin shutting down the NHS and to slash hospital care by opening up so-called ‘virtual wards’ for patients in England, shortly to be announced by the government. Hospital care is to be replaced by ‘community teams’ visiting people in their homes and no doubt giving patients decent burials, along with the Health Service.
Today, the government and NHS England will publish the ‘Urgent and Emergency Care Plan’, outlining steps intended to bring waiting times back down, by replacing hospital care with ‘virtual wards’.
Doctors and other health staff will review virtual ward cases, and patients using wearable devices can treat themselves by reporting daily readings and results that can be remotely monitored.
There is to be a target of up to 50,000 people being ‘supported’ in this way each month, up from around 10,000 at the end of last year.
A Hull scheme includes bringing together fire, ambulance and community services to deal with cases. A London Ambulance pilot scheme also dispatches paramedics and nurses to frail patients in their homes.
Workers are to be looked after in virtual hospitals, while families go hungry and spend the evenings in ‘warm halls’ to avoid freezing to death.
Meanwhile, the food banks are struggling to feed thousands more people.
Meanwhile, the railways and the Royal Mail are to get rid of ‘outmoded safety’ and tens of thousands of workers, with legislation brought in to force workers to break their own strikes.
This is the broken Britain that the Tories are bringing in, while Labour is looking on and the TUC is ducking and diving to avoid the general strike that workers are demanding.
The TUC has stabbed workers in the back by refusing to call a general strike to defend trade union rights on February 1st. They have refused to call a general strike on February 1st when they are supposed to be defending the trade unions. They are allowing the Tories to do their worst.
TUC General Secretary, Paul Nowak, said recently: ‘The right to strike is a fundamental British liberty – but the government is attacking it in broad daylight.
‘These draconian new curbs will tilt the balance of power even more in favour of bad bosses and make it harder for people to win better pay and conditions.
‘Nobody should lose their job if they take lawful action to win a better deal. But ministers have gone from clapping our key workers to threatening them with the sack. Unions will fight these plans every step of the way – including through parliament and through the courts,’ said the TUC.
The working class has the power in its trade unions but the reformist TUC will not use it!
February 1st will not see millions marching in London on the first day of a general strike, to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers government and a socialist planned economy.
Instead, the TUC is hiding. Workers must demand a recall Trade Union Congress to sack the current TUC leaders and to call a general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a Workers Government and a socialist planned economy!
There is no other way forward!
