‘Britain’s political crisis reflects a deeper crisis of the British state and its institutions’, rail union president Alex Gordon told the Communist Party’s political committee on Monday (June 12).
He was speaking as past and present Conservative Party prime ministers were at each other’s throats, one having been denounced by a House of Lords committee, and after the arrest of the former Scottish first minister as part of a police investigation into the finances of the Scottish National Party.
‘Meanwhile, the increasingly autocratic Labour leader and his faction are purging their party and Britain’s only Green MP and former party leader is quitting the House of Commons because nothing useful can be achieved there’, Mr Gordon remarked.
‘As the Conservatives face three by-elections losses, the ruling class is preparing the Labour Party for government as Sir Keir Starmer dumps left-wing policies in return for shed loads of big business cash’, he added.
He also noted that the Greens have betrayed their long-standing opposition to NATO as Britain’s mainstream mass media rigorously peddle a single pro-war, pro-nuclear weapons and anti-China agenda, excluding all critical voices from broadcasting coverage.
Mr Gordon traced the latest stage in Britain’s political and state crisis to its roots in the 2016 EU referendum result.
‘Britain’s ruling capitalist class has lost its role inside the EU as a champion of economic neoliberalism and US-NATO foreign and military policy, yet the attempts from outside to create an exclusive economic, technological and media relationship with the US are being rebuffed as President Biden pursues allies and markets elsewhere’, he insisted.
At the same time, the trade union leader declared, British capitalism’s parasitic reliance on financial services, investment abroad and short-term profiteering at home is driving the current offensive against living standards, stable employment and democratic rights.
‘Workers are fighting back on the basis of class politics, as disaffection with the main political parties, elections and the integrity of government and the state continues to grow’, Mr Gordon insisted.
Warning against a turn to the far right, racism and fascism, Britain’s Communists urged the political left to build a ‘united front’ against the ruling class offensive, reinvigorating the anti-war movement and rebuilding working-class organisation in the trade union movement and local communities.