Build a socialist alternative to Trump, Starmer and all the warmongers
Stand against capitalism’s war and horror
Text of an initial leaflet printed by the Socialist Party on 3 March
How can we organise to end war?
Across the world, the reasons to feel fear have mounted as US President Donald Trump launched another Middle East attack. Alongside fear, however, there is also rage that the world’s capitalist leaders have used their power so destructively again.
Since Saturday 28 February thousands have died as the Israel-US attacks have hit 131 cities in Iran. There have been casualties across 12 countries as war again hits the region. This is against the background of the genocidal slaughter in Gaza by the Israeli regime and its attacks in the West Bank.
Revealed once again is that the world establishment currently in charge, representing the interests of the billionaire capitalist class, have no plan of how to protect our future – be that preventing war, climate change, death by curable diseases, or poverty. Profit-before-all-else-capitalism is in crisis.
It is urgent that the working class organises its own intervention – fighting for a socialist alternative.
That means building mass workers’ struggle and organisation to fight back against the warmongers and exploiters and take power to begin democratically planning society free from war, exploitation and poverty. The magnificent movement against ICE in Minneapolis shows Trump can be pushed back by US workers and youth – and we can do the same here.
We have also seen the heroic movements of young people and workers in Iran, in rage against the government’s repression, austerity and brutality. The enormous courage of the youth has even produced a resurgence of the protests in the last weeks.
The tragic lesson from the previous ousting of brutal dictators, as the masses did in the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia in 2011, is that without the working class being organised with its own mass party to take power, the vacuum is only filled by more of the same.
The building, therefore, of a new mass party that represents the interests of the entire working class across all ethnic divides in Iran is urgent.
That wars and conflicts are on the rise is a consequence of a world dominated by the crisis of the capitalist system. Capitalist leaders offer no way out and the workers’ movement needs to urgently fight to build its own independent challenge to them.
It is welcome that trade union leaders in Britain, reflecting the huge opposition among their 6.5 million members to more atrocities, have produced opposition statements already. Seventeen trade union leaders have signed a declaration opposing “any direct or indirect participation by the UK in this conflict”.
The TUC has also produced a statement condemning the attack. It says: “We call on the UK government to do everything it can to deliver these objectives and resist all efforts to drag us further into the conflict.”
But appeals alone will not work. Yes, Keir Starmer has made a statement saying that Britain will not join the US offensive action against Iran. But he granted permission on Sunday 1 March for the US to use British bases to target Iran’s missile launchers and stores.
His contradictory approach reflects the different class pressures on him. On the one side are the big business bosses who want him to stay close to Trump in the hope of deals that benefit their profits. On the other, is the huge public mood of opposition to war, shown in the mass anti-war movement that has marched in its hundreds of thousands since the attacks on Gaza began. A political expression of this was the election of Jeremy Corbyn and four independent Gaza MPs in 2024.
The two main parties, who between them have ruled for a century, were pushed into third and fourth position in the Manchester byelection. Starmer’s party faces huge losses in the May elections in 136 English councils and the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd. In those English councils alone, 73 are Labour-led, with over 2,200 Labour seats being defended.
The trade union leaders could use their authority most effectively against British support for more war by calling their members to come forward as anti-war and anti-austerity candidates in those elections. They could stand on their union’s policies of opposition to job and public service cuts, to privatisation, to discrimination, and in solidarity with those facing war and poverty across the world.
This would be a huge step forward in the building of a new mass workers’ party – giving a political voice to the workers in trade unions and across society, independent of all the rotten capitalist elites and fighting for a socialist programme: for power to be taken out of the hands of the major corporations and banks that dominate the economy, so society can be run democratically in the interests of the majority, based on planning and cooperation, instead of capitalism’s ruthless pursuit of profit which leads to poverty, environmental destruction, and war.
We should not underestimate the effect that the creation of such a party – in Britain or any country – would have on strengthening the confidence of the working class and oppressed worldwide to build parties that struggle for the ending of this rotten capitalist system.
Trade union model motion
This union organisation condemns the unprovoked attack on Iran by Trump and the Israeli regime.
It is already causing thousands of deaths, injuries and displacement of ordinary people, and is rapidly escalating across the Middle East.
This union organisation totally rejects any idea that this war is in the interests of the Iranian people in their striving for democratic rights and their struggle against repression.
It is the for the Iranian working class and poor to decide for themselves and act to change their government. There have been heroic mass protests and strikes that have shaken the Iranian regime, and trade unions internationally should support the struggles of the Iranian workers and youth for their demands.
It is clear that this is an aggressive, imperialist offensive, in the interests of big business, by the US and Israeli governments that have blood on their hands with an increasing list of attacks and wars in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Venezuela and while Trump is threatening to attack Cuba and annex Greenland.
This war has nothing to do with democracy as the US and other powers like Britain fully support the dictatorial Saudi regime which does not even pretend to hold elections or allow free speech.
This union organisation also condemns the hypocrisy of Starmer’s Labour government which has effectively backed the aggression of Trump and Netanyahu over this whole period.
The Starmer government’s claim that it supports defence against Iranian attacks is a propaganda trick aimed at covering up its refusal to criticise the US and Israeli for starting this war. It is similar to the attempts to justify the genocidal attack on Gaza.
This union organisation demands that our union NEC meets urgently to:
1. Make a clear public statement against this attack and opposes Starmer and the Labour government’s warmongering, and effective support for the US attack, and any intention to join this imperialist war
2. Agree to demand an emergency meeting of the TUC General Council to call a national trade union led weekend demonstration against war, racism and austerity
3. To urgently call a national meeting of union reps in the defence, aerospace, transport and logistics sectors to discuss a programme for workers in these sectors, committing to defend any workers threatened by management for refusing to carry out work duties related to military production and supply. Also, to look at how alternatives to military production can be drawn up and implemented, guaranteeing workers’ jobs, pay and pensions, based on the nationalisation of those industries
4. To set out a timetable for a discussion in our union on our relationship with Labour (if affiliated) and/or initiate with other unions, a conference on political representation
If this motion passes in your union branch or trades council then email a report to editors@socialistparty.org.uk
