Vote Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition on 2 May
James Collett, Gloucestershire Socialist Party
Over 33,000 have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli state since 7 October, famine stalks the strip and Palestinians in the West Bank face daily attacks by Israeli settlers. Workers and young people across the world will have watched the missiles fired by the Iranian regime into Israel and now sit with bated breath, fearful that the retaliation of the Israeli state will mean the region slides even further into horrifying war.
With all this, it’s no surprise that Labour is losing members as Keir Starmer echoes Sunak; backing imperialism in the Middle East and backing the bosses here in Britain. He has pledged to increase military spending to 2.5% of GDP and his commitment to nuclear weapons is “unshakeable”!
Starmer’s recent (feeble) criticism of civilian casualties and starvation in Gaza is not caused by a delayed realisation that Israel’s ruthless policy of occupation and extermination is wrong: in fact Starmer’s current rhetoric is entirely in line with that of most representatives of western imperialism, who fear Netanyahu destabilising the region and threatening to disrupt the profits of the capitalists.
It shows that Starmer’s concern is with profits, not human lives. He is yet to retract the comments he made in October that Israel is justified in withholding electricity and water from Gaza.
Summoning the ghost of Blair’s New Labour, who stuck to Tory spending plans in their first years in office and boasted to the capitalists that they could “trust Labour with the economy”, Starmer’s new New Labour is making it clear what we can expect from them: “fiscal responsibility” – austerity for workers, and a free-for-all for big business. From the arms dealers and oil giants who benefit from imperialist war to the private companies gouging profits from the NHS, the Labour leadership represents the ruling capitalist class who can only drag society backwards.
We need to get the Tories out – but to replace them with what? George Galloway’s victory in Rochdale shows that anti-war candidates can win. We must build political representation of the working class: a party to unite workers, young people and all those oppressed by capitalism so that we can challenge the pro-war, pro-austerity consensus of the establishment and fight together for a socialist world.
Socialist Party members are standing as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) as part of the fight for such a party. So vote TUSC on 2 May and back candidates who represent workers, not war.
