THE 150,000 workers who turned out in London on Saturday, as well as the thousands in Glasgow and Belfast, represent a massive change in the workers’ movement in the UK.
There is now emerging a mass movement of millions who are refusing to take another step backwards in the battle for wage rises and in the struggle against the closure and privatisation of the NHS.
They are insisting that the unions take a stand to claw back everything that has been stolen from the working class, the middle class and the youth since the 2008 crash.
This battling workers movement as it emerges will be supported by the millions of youth in the UK, no less fervently than the youth of Glasgow and Dundee supported the fight to put an end to the Tory UK union earlier this year.
A revolutionary situation is now fast emerging in the UK, because the response of the Tories will be to tighten the screws much more intensely to bring in their own slave labour economy, where millions work, creating huge profits for the capitalists, but are unable to feed, house and clothe their families.
The Tories are also preparing to intensify the class war on all fronts, by bringing in new anti-union laws and also anti-terror laws that can be applied to trade unions just as easily as to ISIS.
They want new anti-strike laws that will require a 50% turnout for a ballot to even be regarded as legal, with the proviso that the right to strike in the essential services be withdrawn completely, beginning with the fire, ambulance, and London tube services.
They are aiming to drag the working class back a century or more as far as living standards and basic rights are concerned.
This what is being planned – the bosses know it, the trade union leaders know it and the working class and youth are beginning to sense it.
In this situation the Labour Party has already lined up to say that it will match the Tories cut for cut if it is necessary for saving capitalism.
The trade union leaders at their just-concluded congress, tried to conceal the truth from the working class and invited the governor of the Bank of England to address the Congress!
As well, the TUC leaders withdrew the resolution that they have had for the last two Congresses, that they were considering the practicalities of calling a general strike. At a time when the bosses are readying themselves to knife the working class, the TUC dropped any discussion on the issue of a general strike, with GMB leader Kenny publicly calling a general strike ‘unreal’. Lenin called such leaders the ‘Labour Lieutenants of Capitalism’.
On Saturday’s march News Line asked Kenny, ‘You have been quoted as saying the call for a general strike is “unreal”. Is that what you believe?’
Kenny replied: ‘People say a general strike and it’s a very easy phrase. It’s our job to make sure of jobs.
‘I think a general strike is unreal at the moment. Every policy has its time. A general strike may come. What drives it is anger, frustration. People are being forced to face up to their choices.
‘If we end up with the government seeking to ban the right to strike anywhere, a general strike will ensue and I’ll be first out of the gate.
‘And if they put me in jail then so be it. It might do me some good and get some of this weight off.’
The TUC General Council concedes that at some stage or other the anger of the masses may force it to call a general strike. However, they are already prepared to sit it out in jail until the leaderless masses, who will be getting hammered by the state on the streets are subdued. Then they can be safely let out to lecture the working class on the dangers of impetuous mass actions.
This leadership dropped at its Congress any reference to the practicalities of calling a general strike just when the time had arrived to call the strike. They consciously blindfolded and betrayed the working class.
Kenny has made it crystal clear that this leadership is preparing a defeat of the working class.
It must be removed and be replaced by a revolutionary leadership, trained and organised by the WRP that will call the general strike and bring down the coalition and bring in a workers government and socialism.
This is the major issue that will dominate our forthcoming News Line Anniversary Rally. Make sure that you and your friends are there.