Labour’s betrayal poses urgent need to build a trade union and socialist alternative

Editorial from the January/February 2025 edition of the Socialist

2025 began where 2024 ended; with collapsing support for the Labour Party in Scotland and across the UK. The full reality of Starmer and Reeves’ betrayal of their albeit threadbare promises in opposition has been writ large in the six months since the Tories were thrown out. 

From the refusal to act on the two-child benefit cap, the winter fuel robbery against millions of pensioners, to the WASPI women who have been kicked in the teeth by a Labour government determined to act in the interests of big business from day one.

Add to that the continued cuts onslaught to public services and pay offers for workers that will not match inflation and the recipe is complete. At the same time the wealth of the pampered capitalist elite remains untouched. The top bosses of the FTSE 100 companies currently earn 113 times the average wage of a worker in the UK.   

In a recent poll, asked if their opinion of Labour had improved, worsened, or stayed the same since they took power, 56% said it was worse, 37% said there had been no change, and just 7% said they now looked more favourably on the party. A massive 88% said they did not think Keir Starmer’s government would deliver on its promise to lower energy costs. 

no enthusiasm for Labour

For millions of working-class people who voted in July 2024 to drive out the Tories few had any enthusiasm for Starmer’s reheated Blairite policies. Labour received the lowest share of the electorate’s vote for any winning party in a general election since the end of the first world war in 1918. There was no honeymoon. Now there is anger, a justified and visceral anger. And that anger is seeking an outlet. 

To an overwhelming extent, the rise in electoral support for the millionaire Farage’s corporate entity Reform UK is rooted in this mood of outrage. But Reform offer not a scintilla of a solution to an economic disaster that is rooted in the crisis of capitalism – a system Farage supports to the hilt. 

With projected growth rates in the UK of just 2% for 2025 and 1.5% for 2026, there is no possibility of any recovery under any government committed to retaining the profit system. Just continued and deepening attacks on the lives and incomes of the working class throughout the term of Starmer’s government. To weaken and undercut the support for the reactionary and racist Reform UK requires the building of a genuine opposition in the shape of a mass workers’ party armed with socialist policies. 

In this volatile and explosive period, the rise in support of the populist right is not the only expression of working-class anger. The strike wave of 2022/23 that wrestled pay concessions from the UK and Scottish government was a shining example of what is possible. More strikes are inevitable under Starmer and the SNP at Holyrood.  

independence support growing despite SNP leadership

Another example in the last few months is that support for Scottish independence has spiked significantly as the reality of Labour’s inevitable betrayal became all too clear. There is a large section of the working class who are currently moving towards independence but not necessarily seeing the SNP as any alternative.  

In fact recent polls all indicate dramatic falls in Labour support, from 35% in July 2024 general election to 20% today. But the SNP’s support has only risen by 4%, from 30% to 34%. 

Its the same for current polling for the next major electoral test, the elections to the Scottish parliament in 2026. Anas Sarwar’s hope of becoming first minister is sinking in the Starmerite swamp. Sarwar himself was complicit in the surgical removal of the Corbynite wing by the pro-capitalist wing of the Labour Party that Sarwar himself is part off. And he is now paying the price for his role in driving the party to the right. 

However, there is little to no enthusiasm for the SNP under the leadership of John Swinney and Kate Forbes. The current budget going through the parliament will do nothing to ease the burden on an underfunded NHS, devastated council services, education and housing. This is reflected in the fact that while support for independence has grown to 55%, support for the SNP in the Holyrood election is a full 20% below that figure. The SNP are largely a busted flush, having lost their core working class support after years of passing on Tory austerity. 

It’s against this backdrop that urgent steps are needed to begin to create a fighting socialist and trade union election alternative. Reform UK are currently predicted to enter the Scottish parliament and even Alba, the populist independence party created by the late Alex Salmond, could also possibly win parliamentary representation next year. The disintegration of Labour and SNP support is therefore opening up new opportunities for a genuine working-class and socialist election alternative to be established ahead of the 2026 election.  

the question of questions

The question of questions is how and whether such opportunities will be taken. Since 2010, the Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, with Socialist Party Scotland playing a leading role, has stood in elections. This has been done to encourage the building of independent working-class political representation as a step to a new mass workers’ party based on the trade unions. Without question one of the key tasks of socialists in the trade unions is to fight and argue for such a development to take place. 

However, while making that case we also have a responsibility to engage in the propaganda of the deed by standing in elections, as Scottish TUSC have done consistently. For example in the last few months we stood candidates in Dundee and Glasgow council by elections on a platform of ending all council cuts, nationalisation of energy and for a mass council house building programme. More council by elections are taking place in the next few months and its vital that socialist candidates stand on a similar platform. 

To that end, Scottish TUSC are inviting all trade unionists and socialist organisations who support the idea of standing working-class fighters in elections to come together as a matter or urgency to discuss using the by elections to offer that alternative. As well as preparing a conference later in 2025 to launch a bid for the Scottish parliament elections next year. 

To cut across the likes of Reform UK – who are drawing support from angry and disillusioned sections of the working class disgusted by the betrayals of Labour and the SNP – requires a socialist and trade union political alternative to be built.