THE working class must kick out the Tories on June 8th and return Labour to government to set the scene for the struggle for socialism, both throughout the UK and throughout Europe, including an immediate break with the European Union.
PM May’s decision to hold a snap general election, after repeated denials that she was going to do any such thing, was an expression of ruling class’ weakness and not of any strength. Her colleagues, Cameron and Osborne lost the June 23 referendum on whether to remain in the EU, and the masses voted to leave!
The UK ruling class was shocked to its foundations by that result because the masses of workers had voted against the Tory, Labour and Liberal leaderships, the TUC and all the major trade union leaderships except the RMT, ASLEF and Bakers’ union. These leaders were all desperate to remain slaves of Brussels.
That vote, in which the ruling class and all of its agencies were rejected, was revolutionary. Workers were angry that their jobs were being exported all over the world by the big EU banks, and were opposed to the UK becoming some cog in an EU super-imperialist state run by an unelected Commission in Brussels.
So great was the panic at the ‘Leave’ result that the Tories halted their leadership election, and the 1922 Committee of the Tory Party rushed to appoint May, without an election as the new Tory leader. She immediately positioned herself as the alleged ‘friend’ of the ‘just about managing’.
She has now however called a snap election, based on the propaganda that only May is strong enough to save the UK. So important is this Boudicca pose that she has even said that debating with the leaders of the opposition parties is out of the question since it would only help to spread the chaos!
The June 23 referendum result completely split the ruling class, and the Tory and Labour parties, through which British capitalism has ruled since 1945. The majority of Labour MPs oppose the referendum result and many are hoping that Labour will be defeated at the general election so that they can get rid of Corbyn, Labour’s reformist socialist leader, and make a pact with pro-EU Tories, Liberals, Scottish Nationalists and the Blairite rabble to force through a second referendum to undo the first!
They are willing to fight a civil war to save the EU! May hopes to come out of this election with a big majority as a ‘strong leader’ to try and save British capitalism on behalf of its bosses and bankers, and to impose any settlement reached with the EU onto the backs of the UK working class, using the power of the state.
Already the EU Commission, desperate to avoid the break up of the EU, and stop France, Italy, Spain Portugal, and Greece emulating Brexit, is demanding that the UK surrender 100 billion euros as the price for starting ‘leave’ negotiations.
The truth is that British capitalism was based on the super-exploitation of the working class at home and the super-exploitation of the now gone world empire, with its millions of colonial slaves.
The loss of empire was what forced it to turn first of all to the EEC, the European Economic Community, and then to the EU, and the dictatorship of the unelected European Commission in Brussels, and equally unelected European Court.
Now the masses of the UK are forcing it out of the EU, and the ruling class has brought forward its ‘strong woman’, May, to lead the struggle to maintain British capitalism by driving the UK working class back to where it came from – before the election of the 1945 Labour government.
For May the main enemy is at home, and it is the Welfare State, the NHS, triple lock pensions, and the benefit system that her new government will seek to obliterate to save British capitalism. The WRP urges the working class and the middle class to throw the May government out on June 8th and to bring in a Labour government.
It is true that Labour’s programme is a minimal one that merely tinkers about with the desperate capitalist crisis. Nevertheless a defeat for May would in fact signify the beginning of the British socialist revolution. Labour pledges it ‘will immediately halt the proposed closure of A&Es in England and carry out a full scale review of all proposals’.
It will immediately halt the Tories chaotic ‘sustainability and transformation plan’ (STP) programme,’ said Shadow Health Secretary Ashworth. He did not pledge to scrap them. Labour calls for a living wage of £10 an hour when inflation has begun to rocket at such a rate that all wage freezing has to end.
We need a workers’ state that insists on a sliding scale of wages, so that wages at least keep up with the real rate of inflation, measured by a cost of living index as calculated by the trade unions.
Labour calls for the restoration of bursaries for student nurses and midwives, but sticks with the £9,000-a-year-plus student fees that youth going to universities have to get into enormous debt to pay.
Labour’s very minimum programme leaves out completely the question of the next banking crash, which is now rapidly approaching. In fact to avoid a new crash all of the banks will have to be expropriated. It is also a fact that a Labour victory will cause the mother of all City of London crashes and a huge political crisis.
This is why the WRP is standing five parliamentary candidates to provide revolutionary leadership for the working class in this crisis situation and to demand:
• An immediate break with the EU and a campaign alongside the French and all EU workers to bring down the EU and replace it with a Socialist United States of Europe.
• The nationalisation of the banks and the major industries to bring in a socialist planned economy in the face of the worsening capitalist crisis to build the millions of council homes that are required to house the homeless, and also to put an end to all benefit cuts.
• The nationalisation of the drug companies to provide the finances that the NHS requires for its renewal and restrengthening.
• The best way to save the NHS is to disarm British imperialism. We will save hundreds of billions by scrapping the renewal of the Trident programme, stopping the building of two giant aircraft carriers, the purchasing of their aircraft, and the building of their escort vessels, and by closing down the naval base that it is building in Bahrain for a new war east of Suez with Iran.
We must stop the arms supplies to Israel and Saudi Arabia, apologise for the Balfour Declaration and recognise the State of Palestine.
A section of the huge savings made must be used to rebuild the NHS and public sector care, and restore student grants, and part of it must be transferred to support the state of Palestine.
• The way to prevent eternal austerity is to nationalise the banks and the major industries under workers control and management, to have a real expansion of the productive forces to provide work for all.
• Immediately, the homeless must be housed through the sequestration of all major empty properties at the centre of all of the UK’s major cities, while a plan to build millions of council homes is drawn up and implemented!
This is the way forward. Vote WRP on June 8 where we are standing. Vote Labour everywhere else!
