JONTY LEFF News Line editor told the News Line 50th Anniversary Rally, ‘TODAY we celebrate 50 years of the News Line, the only daily Trotskyist paper.
‘It takes a real struggle to produce a revolutionary paper, it is a daily struggle. And it is a struggle made possible by all of our members, readers and supporters and the working class.
‘It is the revolutionary organisation of the Workers Revolutionary Party, based on the revolutionary role of the working class in getting rid of capitalist society which enables the News Line to be produced.
‘Every attempt by our enemies to shut the paper down, and there had been a number, has been thwarted.
‘And the News Line has player a pivotal role in this election, not just by giving a lead on the burning issues, but as a weapon to organise, mobilise and recruit new members.
‘It is a living, fighting paper and we are proud of the role it plays in building the revolutionary leadership to take the working class to power.’
He continued: ‘This is an election like no other. It is a crisis election. Three and a half years ago 17.4 million people voted to leave the European Union, and since then Parliament has been doing everything in it’s power to oppose the will of the people and remain.
‘There is a real anger against Parliament in this election. The WRP are clear:
‘We must break with the EU now without a penny compensation. The working class must take mass action, strike action and a general strike to break with European capitalism and in doing so break with British capitalism as well.’
Leff continued to say that ‘What is happening here is part of a world movement, where in country after country people are rising up against capitalism.
‘It comes in the middle of a world economic crisis where severe austerity imposed by the banks, big businesses, and by governments with their mountains of debt has driven people onto the streets.
‘Millions are on the March from Ecuador, Chile, Lebanon, Iraq. They are demanding jobs, pay, housing and a future for their children.
‘Right across Europe workers are rising up.
‘We are for a unity, but it must be Europe united under the working class, a United Socialist States of Europe. That is the only way forward.’
He continued that ‘this is why this election is so important … Everywhere we go people are enthusiastically signing up to our party. Why? Because we have the only way forward.
‘For a general strike to bring the government down, to break with the EU no deal, no delay, no compensation, and go forward to a workers government which will nationalise the banks, the land, the industries and services and put the entire lot under workers control. For socialist revolution, not just here but right across the globe.’
Dave Wiltshire the secretary of the All Trades Unions Alliance told the rally: ‘Ever since the world crisis of capitalism erupted 11 years ago with the international banking collapse, the ruling class have attempted to stagger on through accumulating more and more debt – printing trillions of worthless banknotes handed out to the banks in an effort to prevent them from going bust.
‘Through their Quantitative Easing programmes and low interest rates, the central banks of America, Europe and Britain have created a huge debt time bomb in the world.
‘This is not us saying this – this comes from the International Monetary Fund which last month warned that world capitalism is on the point of crashing under the weight of a global $19 trillion debt and that 40% of the corporations in eight major economies, including the US, Britain and Europe, faced bankruptcy.
‘The stark reality is that these great powerhouses of capitalism are in reality plunging into recession with manufacturing industries in Germany and the US collapsing on a daily basis. Britain, the weakest economy, has been devastated with everything from motor manufacturing to steel closing down as the shareholders and owners desperately try to revive profits through closures or moving to low wage economies.’
Wiltshire stressed: ‘Above all, it was the working class throughout the world that the bankers and bosses were determined should pay for the massive debt run up bailing the banks and capitalism out of its historic crisis.
‘Workers have been made to pay through the most savage austerity cuts ever seen – cuts that in Britain were inflicted by first, the Labour government of Gordon Brown and then zealously taken up by successive Tory governments.
‘Cuts that have seen services like the NHS virtually bankrupted with whole parts of it flogged off to the privateers desperate to make profit out of human suffering.
‘Cuts that have left millions of workers, even those in full-time employment, having to rely on the charity of food banks to feed their families …
‘Today as the world crisis reaches the point of explosion it is driving forward world revolution.
‘Not that you would think this if you read the Labour Party manifesto. Not one word of the world debt crisis gets a look in. Not a word about the warnings from the IMF that zero rate interest rates are driving the impending debt crash.
‘In fact, despite all Corbyn’s talk about it being the most radical manifesto, you can search all 140 odd pages and not see the word Socialist mentioned once.
‘On the contrary, as the manifesto makes clear, Corbyn and McDonnell have more faith in capitalism than the capitalist class have.
‘Their entire programme of massive investments in infrastructure, the reversal of Tory austerity cuts is to be funded mainly through securing a massive £400 billion from the capitalist financial markets.
‘McDonnell has staked the ability of a Labour government to service a national debt driven up by this massive amount by saying that it would all be OK because of low or zero interest rates.
‘The very thing that the IMF warns is the main cause of a debt time bomb is the very thing McDonnell and Corbyn are relying on.’
Wiltshire remarked about McDonnell: ‘His faith in capitalism is as touching as it is lunacy … His belief that capitalism is stable defies belief – it is a system on the point of collapse worldwide and Labour has no ideas about how to deal without it except wish it away.’
Wiltshire concluded: ‘The only way forward for the working class in Britain is to prepare immediately not for just a Labour government but for the working class to take independent action and take the power.
‘No regulation of the banks, like Labour propose, but take them over, nationalise them without compensation and place them under the direction and rule of the working class. Expropriate the entire capitalist class and advance to a workers state and a socialist society.’
He concluded: ‘Socialist revolution is the only way to provide a future for the working class in Britain and across the world.
‘This means building the revolutionary leadership of the WRP prepared to lead the socialist revolution to victory and the building of sections of the 4th International in every country to lead the coming world socialist revolution to its final victory over this bankrupt capitalist system.’