Oscar Parry, Camden and Haringey Socialist Party
Keir Starmer’s Labour government is like a broken record, repeating the need for “ruthless” cuts to public services at every opportunity.
Labour have just announced the cancellation of 18 new hospitals, in the same week as scrapping their planned taxation of the mega-rich international ‘non-doms’ who pay almost no tax on their millions! This shows whose interests they serve.
It’s not like there’s no money around. The biggest companies are making massive profits and paying out billions to shareholders. The net worth of Britain’s 20 richest individuals has more than doubled in the past decade.
There is growing rage against Starmer’s government, and the profit system it defends. The capitalists, seeing that their position at the top could be threatened, turn to the tactics of divide and rule. As Malcolm X said: “You can’t have capitalism without racism.” For them, racism and other forms of oppression are means to scapegoat others for attacks on working-class living standards. Starmer’s Labour is in lockstep with the rhetoric of the Tories and Reform.
We need an alternative that represents the interests of the working class. The election of five Reform MPs, who have fanned the flames of racism, is a warning of what is to come if the workers’ movement does not fulfil the task of creating a political alternative.
The Socialist Party fights for the trade union movement to spearhead the fight against Starmer’s attacks, fighting for jobs, homes and services for all, not racism. By uniting working-class people to struggle for what we all need, support for reactionary ideas of the populist right can be undermined.
A new mass party for the working class with socialist policies, to answer the lies of the racist far right, would be a huge step forward. It would build confidence that we can fight back and put an end to this rotten system, and the racism and division it breeds, with a new socialist world.