Nobody should rely on the Labour Party leadership to give a lead in the fight against Conservative government policies’, Andy Bain told the Communist Party’s executive committee at the weekend. ‘While trade unions, the People’s Assembly, the peace movement and the Communist Party are taking action, Keir Starmer is desperate to make Labour wholly acceptable to big business and the pro-establishment mass media’, the CP trade union organiser declared.
He pointed to company ‘fire and rehire’ tactics, large rises in food, energy and transport costs, the government’s withdrawal of the £20 a week Universal Credit uplift, and new anti-protest measures, as examples of the ‘ruling class offensive’ against working class living standards and democratic rights.
But Mr Bain – a former trade union president – welcomed the determination of the CWU and other unions to campaign for the ‘New Deal for Workers’ agreed again at last month’s TUC conference. ‘Fine words must at last be turned into action, building up to an all-Britain day of action in alliance with other campaigning bodies, trades councils and regional and national TUCs’, he urged. Britain’s Communists also expressed solidarity with socialists and progressives in the Labour Party who won votes at the Labour conference in favour of public ownership, a ‘Green New Deal’ and Palestinian rights and against the new US-UK-Australia military pact aimed at China, although these will be ignored by that party’s leadership. The CP executive finalised plans for the 56th congress of the Communist Party in Britain on November 6-7, when the guests will include delegates representing Ireland, Portugal, Palestine, Russia, China, Cuba and Vietnam plus video messages from Venezuela, Cyprus, India and South Africa.