Alex Sampson, Plymouth Socialist Party
Over 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza in nearly a year of Israeli state attacks – schools, hospitals and refugee camps levelled. Attacks are expanding on Palestinians in the West Bank and now hundreds are being killed in air strikes in Lebanon. And when the majority of United Nations attendees voted to call on Israel to withdraw from Gaza, Britain abstained.
Keir Starmer’s Labour government continues to grant more than 300 export licences to arms manufacturers to sell weapons and components for use by the Israeli military, despite a token revoking of 30 licences. £7.6 billion has so far been sent for military use in the war in Ukraine, causing even more devastation for the working class of Ukraine and Russia.
A small number of super-rich capitalists are making a big pile of cash from the horrors of war. Global military spending reached $2.2 trillion in 2023, a 9% rise on the previous year. Companies like BAE Systems are making record profits.
Labour is “the natural party of British business”, according to chancellor Rachel Reeves. Meanwhile, she and Starmer tell us they have to make “tough decisions” to cut pensioners’ winter fuel allowance and cap benefits for families with more than two kids. Once again, the poorest and most vulnerable people in Britain, the sixth-richest country in the world, will have to decide whether to heat or eat.
Fund services
If billions can be found to spend on war and destruction, then services can be fully funded and NHS workers given a decent pay rise too!
Tens of thousands of people continue to flood the streets in solidarity with Palestinians and to protest against war. Hundreds of thousands took part in the biggest strike wave in a generation over the last few years. Millions are angry at a Labour government continuing the criminal policies of the Tories in Britain and abroad.
Like the Tories, Labour are trying to make us pay for the failures of the capitalist system. That’s why we need to get organised to fight for a socialist alternative – a genuinely democratic socialist system led by working-class people for the benefit of the working class in Britain and abroad.
We need a party that fights for the working-class majority, not the corporations and fat-cat bankers. Join the Socialist Party to help us fight for a new mass workers’ party and for socialist change.