Isai Marijerla, Socialist Party executive committee
Rishi Sunak has made a desperate plea to his party to save his premiership: “Unite or die”. But his plea has done nothing to solve the division that exists in the Tories. As the Socialist Party has been continuously and consistently saying, the Tories are weak and deeply divided. In fact the glue that had held them together was the potential victory of Jeremy Corbyn. But now, with the Labour Party safely for the bosses in the hands of Sir Keir Starmer, who has proved to the ruling class and big business that he is their representative, the division in the Tories has exploded to the surface.
The latest issue to further rock the Tory boat is the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill. Robert Jenrick, immigration minister, quit his post over the new bill. He and the right wing of the Conservative Party accuse the bill of being too weak, “not fit for purpose”, and are demanding tougher measures.
The bill orders courts to ignore the UK’s Human Rights Act and international law, including the UN’s Refugee Convention, when considering whether Rwanda is safe for asylum seekers. It is expected to face opposition in the House of Lords and has drawn criticism from lawyers. Veteran British diplomat Lord John Kerr, who is on the international agreements committee in the House of Lords, said the bill would do “immense harm” to Britain’s reputation.
Sunak is trying everything he can to try and stop small boats of asylum seekers crossing the channel, one of his top five priorities. Working-class and young people in Britain are facing an acute cost-of-living crisis, and it’s stopping small boats that the Tories are fighting over! The Office for National Statistics data shows that people with children and those living in rented accommodation are among the groups more likely to report a range of impacts from cost-of-living pressures, such as running out of food. The NHS and other services are in crisis, but Sunak is doubling the cost of attempting to send refugees and asylum seekers to Rwanda to £290 million.
The end of the Tories?
The question on everyone’s minds is whether this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Is this going to be the end of Sunak, the third Tory leader in two years, an unelected prime minister with no mandate? The Socialist goes to press before the outcome of and fallout from the parliamentary vote.
Many of those following the ‘debate’ will think that surely Labour is better than the Tories. They at least are going to vote against this anti-human rights Rwanda bill. But Starmer has mocked Sunak by asking him how many people he would send to Rwanda. Starmer will vote against this bill but his policies on immigration are not that far different from the Tories. In fact, one of his attacks on Sunak is that the government is spending “hundreds of millions of pounds for nothing in return” and is attacking the Tories for not deporting enough people.
The Labour Party is currently 20 points ahead in polls, but this reflects hatred of the Tories more than confidence in Labour. You’d have to be extremely incompetent to be less popular than the Tories right now. The current government and the one in waiting are not going to address the real issues facing working-class and the young, by building council homes and fully funding our public services.
The Tories and Labour cannot be trusted with our lives and livelihood. We don’t want a party that is better than the Tories, we want a party that represents the interests of the majority. A working-class party with socialist policies. One that will fight for domestic and foreign policies to improve the lives of all, including investing in jobs, homes and services for all, rather than selling arms to repressive states and governments. The Socialist Party is doing all it can to build such a party, including by helping socialists and activists to stand in elections as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition umbrella. It is only such a party that will fight for the rights of working-class and young people in Britain and internationally.
