Editorial of the Socialist issue 1343
A major factor in Britain’s economic woes is “a cross-party agreement to finance the expansion of the welfare state by taxing ‘the rich’, while reducing the contribution from ‘ordinary working people’.” That is the claim being made by the chief economist of Gavekal, a Hong Kong-based wealth management company, writing in the Financial Times on 1 November.
In fact, it is the determination of the establishment parties to defend the interests of the capitalist rich that has made them unable to maintain a stable base of support. On the highest turnout ever in the Welsh Senedd constituency, the Caerphilly by-election delivered 11% and 2% of the votes for Labour and the Tories. They are respectively the most successful party in Caerphilly’s history and the most successful capitalist party in the world. Far from making the rich pay for the expansion of welfare, they have overseen an unrelenting cost-of-living crisis for us while billionaire profits pile up.
Last month, The Economist ran a feature entitled ‘Don’t tax wealth’. Its reasons to not tax the super-rich include “the risks of letting the wealth tax cat out of the bag”. The article says: “Many wealth tax advocates almost certainly see a levy of 2% as just the start”. The article points to France where 86% of the population backs a tax on wealth of more than 100 million euros, and the capitalist parties struggle to pass austerity budgets amid mass protests and strikes.
The defenders of the capitalist class fear that the appetite of the working class for measures that represent our interests will grow with the eating, for measures that come up against their ownership of industry. This poses a threat to their system.
Autumn Budget
In the run-up to the Budget on 26 November, all the talk is about Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s ‘black hole’, which requires her to ‘find’ £20-40 billion. Despite the talk of change, just like under the hated Tories the working class remains in the Starmer government’s crosshairs and must organise to fight the austerity axe falling on us again.
Our opponents are relentless in defending their right to pile up profits unobstructed. They have representatives in the billionaire-owned press and four parties: Labour, Tories, Lib Dems and Reform UK. But the enthusiasm expressed when Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s Your Party initiative launched indicates a growing understanding that we need our own voice.
To be able to express our interests, the new party being built must be a mass workers’ party. That is why Socialist Party activists are fighting in their trade unions for them to take steps towards developing their own political voice. It is why we are fighting for trade union bodies to have a collective democratic voice in the Your Party structures.
To be able to discuss and debate the crucial questions of programme requires a democratic and inclusive approach, with no exclusions or proscriptions of socialist parties.
Socialist programme
Without doubt, there will be attempts by representatives of big business to seek to influence any political force, including a new workers’ party, in the direction of moderation and ultimately capitulation to the capitalist status quo. In the course of struggle, to be able to deliver for the working class, a new party will need to adopt a fighting, socialist programme to take wealth and power out of the hands of the capitalist class.
The Socialist Party campaigns for the nationalisation of the top 125 corporations and banks that dominate the economy, under the democratic control and management of the working class, with compensation only where there is proven need. That would be a means not only of getting hold of some of the existing wealth but of the working class taking the levers of the economy into its own hands. That would allow the enormous resources, but also the technology and technique, to be organised in a democratic plan to meet the needs of all.
The working class has the potential to fight for this – and win. Under capitalism, workers are ultimately material for exploitation, our living standards being hammered down unless we fight back. But it is the collective strength of the organised working class that makes us such a potentially powerful threat to the defenders of the status quo.
The general strike that shook France in 1968, during which ten million workers brought the country to a halt and forced President Charles de Gaulle to flee, looms in the memory of the French capitalist establishment facing strikes today, and in the minds of the Economist editors.
In 1968, mistakes of the workers’ leaders allowed capitalism to be stabilised. Had it succeeded, the strike would have spread like wildfire across Europe and worldwide. It would have posed the question of working-class political organisation to replace capitalist governments removed by the movement. Today that need is even greater.
The next steps needed in Britain to build such a movement include trade union branches pushing for their leaders to fight for the TUC (Trades Union Congress) to realise its democratically agreed motion to organise a mass demo against Starmer’s austerity. That would help build the confidence of our class in its mass collective strength.
Workers’ voice
But also needed are steps to building the workers’ political alternative. Last week’s Socialist reported that Glasgow Unison, with socialists in its leadership, had immediately written to the councillors who had defected from the Greens to Your Party in Glasgow. The councillors were called to urgently meet with the city council trade unions to discuss how they can work together to advance a genuine anti-austerity and pro-public service policy.
This is a step towards the collective voice of the working class being represented in the council. Without it, the interests of all of us exploited and oppressed in the bosses’ profit-first system will continue to be trampled in the stampede to profit.
Every trade unionist should think about how their branch can put demands on local councillors to represent their opposition to cuts. If no councillors are found willing, it will be necessary for trade unions to stand their own candidates as part of a no-cuts stand – ideally under a national Your Party challenge.
As the Scotland report notes: “As the first Your Party councillors in Scotland, the three could set an example of what a fighting socialist policy on cuts looks like. With a council budget due to be drawn up in the early months of 2026, there is an immediate opportunity to create a new tradition in Glasgow by proposing a no-cuts budget.”
People’s budgets
Your Party supporters could draw together local community campaigners, trade union branches, student groups, etc, to initiate discussion on a People’s Budget in every area.
This is a vital plank of the fight against Reform UK. Farage’s equivalents in France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, also claim to speak for left-behind working-class people. But in the French Parliament, they used their seats to help the capitalist parties defeat the vote on the wealth tax on Friday 31 October.
Here, Reform councils are raising council tax. We need councils that use their powers and resources to defend working-class people – but also to unite us in a movement to fight for the money we need. Reform’s division undermines our ability to fight.
Regrettably, the current emphasis from the Your Party leadership is not on ensuring the centrality of the fighting capacity of the organised working class. Trade union members have a role to play by putting forward for discussion, in their branch or relevant body, steps that can be taken by their union towards independent working-class political representation (with model motions for a number of unions, either affiliated to Labour or not, available tinyurl.com/shbfusyw).
There are over six million members in the trade unions. The mighty potential of the organised working class to transform society is shown when that collective voice is exerted through strike action – but it needs a socialist political voice to replace capitalist rule.
