Tories Out – but Labour and the SNP don’t stand for us

Fourteen years of Tory government look set to come to an end on 4 July, 2024. Fourteen years of the super-rich raking in billions, while the rest of us suffer falling living standards and crumbling public services.

No wonder millions will be rejoicing to see the back of Sunak and his cronies. However, a Starmer ‘New Labour’ government is not going to act in the interests of the working-class majority.

Starmer has been ruthless in removing all vestiges of left policies from Labour’s manifesto. Rachel Reeves, Labour’s shadow chancellor, has pledged to stick to the Tories own fiscal rules. In other words cuts will continue under a Labour government.

Jeremy Corbyn and a whole rake of left Labour MPs have been barred from standing. Tory MPs, in contrast, are welcomed into Labour with open arms. Starmer has turned Labour into a reliable instrument for the service of an crisis-ridden British capitalism.

While millions will vote Labour to get rid of the Tories, there is no enthusiasm for Starmer’s re-heated Blairism. That’s why we need a working class and socialist alternative to be built.

In Scotland the pro-business SNP have descended into a farce. Sturgeon gone, Yousaf gone and now John Swinney, former finance secretary who carried out cuts budget after cuts budget, is first minister.

It’s likely that the SNP will lose a rake of MPs in Scotland. They posed as a anti-establishment alternative but have not delivered. Instead they are paying the price for implementing a series of anti-working class policies while in power.

That’s another reason why Socialist Party Scotland members are standing in this election: to help offer a real alternative to cuts and capitalism. In the absence of a mass workers’ party – which we campaign for the trade unions to help launch – we are standing as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. As our comrades are in England and Wales.

It’s also positive that Jeremy Corbyn is standing as an independent alongside other anti-war candidates and candidates from other left organisations.

Starmer-led government

We are on course for a Starmer-led government. The most enthusiasm for Starmer’s New Labour comes from the capitalist elite.

The party’s ‘business conference’ was sponsored by HSBC, and was packed with bankers and city executives. No surprise that Rachel Reeves has even scrapped the pledge to re-introduce the very limited cap on bankers’ bonuses.

The majority of the capitalist class want a Starmer-led government, because they are confident it will act in their interests. But what will that mean for the working-class majority?

Starmer’s lead pledge is ‘deliver economic stability with tough spending rules’. No one wants economic ‘instability’, but that is what Starmer will preside over. He defends capitalism, and capitalism is a crisis-ridden unstable system.

Remember that New Labour’s previous incarnation, under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, claimed to have ‘abolished boom and bust’, only to be engulfed by the Great Recession, which British capitalism has never recovered from.

Average wages today are £10,700 a year lower than they would have been if they had continued on the pre-2008 trend. The real meaning of Starmer’s pledge is that his government will defend the profits of the few at the top, while imposing continued Tory austerity on the rest of us.

Change is desperately needed: we need repeal of all the anti-union laws, an end to pay restraint, a minimum wage of at least £15 an hour, a huge increase in NHS funding, a reversal of the 40% cut to council grants from central government, mass council house building, and much more.

But Starmer has made clear he will deliver none of this. He has also made clear that his foreign policy, including on the nightmare being suffered by Palestinians in Gaza, will be the same, in essence, as the Tories.

None of this means that the working class is powerless to improve our lives under the next government. But, just like under the Tories, doing so will require the trade union movement being prepared to fight to defend workers’ interests.

The need for this will be posed sharply from day one on a host of issues.

Fighting trade union movement

A fighting trade union movement is going to be essential under the next government. So is building the anti-war movement. But it is also vital that the working class starts to create its own political voice.

The potential for such a party has existed for some time. That was demonstrated by the enthusiasm for Enough is Enough, launched at the height of the strike wave by two key trade union leaders, Mick Lynch, general secretary of the RMT, and Dave Ward, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union.

Half a million people joined, but unfortunately its leaders didn’t see it as a step towards new party, and so it has now disappeared. The opportunities that were there have not been taken to launch a mass workers’ party in time for this general election.

Nonetheless, this election does represent an opportunity to take steps towards the kind of party we will need under a Starmer government.

We participate in the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), an electoral coalition which aims to enable trade unionists, community campaigners and socialists who are fighting for a new mass workers’ party to stand candidates against pro-austerity establishment politicians under a clear banner.

We have been campaigning to bring as many different workers’ candidates as possible together in a common challenge in this general election.

What is certain is that a Starmer government will offer huge opportunities to strengthen the case for the building of a new mass working-class political force with socialist policies.

The trade unions will be thrown into a battle – a series of battles – with the next Labour government. As will support for the ideas of socialism and an alternative to the nightmare of capitalism.

By standing in this election we are placing a down payment for an eruption of support for socialist ideas under a Starmer government. Join us.