Build a new workers party with all the oppressed

n the 4 July a general election will be held in Britian following 14 years of Tory corruption, workers struggling against austerity, a long strike wave against the cost-of-living crisis and an unceasing struggle to support Palestine.

The government sells arms to Israel and is giving direct military assistance to the bombing of Yemen. Palestine will be a key question in this election, as the Tory government (as all previous governments) have overseen research at universities, arms production and sales, and support to Israel. Now millions in Britain are seeing the barbarism taking place every day, as Labour and Tory fundamentally support the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians. The real terror alongside Israel are the weapons of mass destruction from Britian, Europe and the USA.

In Britian the Tory’s have created poverty and misery for the many and this continues: privatising the NHS and public services, attacks aimed to destroy workers’ rights, attacks on the most vulnerable, attacks on the rights of oppressed people, and inhumane plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda. 

Millions of people hate this ‘enrich themselves’ government and its policies and want change. The Tories, if re-elected, will plan more imperialist wars and introduce conscription.

However, many traditional Labour voters feel growing revulsion against the party’s support for Israel and their abandonment of Palestinians in Gaza who over the last 8 months have been forced to endure terrible crimes. Unspeakable horrors are witnessed on social media as Gaza is reduced to rubble, and tens of thousands of Palestinians are murdered, with the invasion of Rafah as a stark and brutal reminder of the sheer malicious power of the Zionist regime.

People are being eviscerated, burned alive, beheaded, orphaned, denied the liberty to mourn one loved one before another is ripped away. The air of grief and pain and anguish lingers. But both Tory and Labour continue to defend Israel’s brutality.

Domestically Labour has retreated on most policies, that were insufficient in any case, to end the misery facing most workers and people. Starmer has broken with actions to defend workers’ rights, to deal with the climate catastrophe and on commitments to abolish the Tories’ punishing benefits system, such as the 2-child benefit cap.

The great debate on Labour, is to vote or not vote for it. The Labour Party has become even more a party of capital and imperialism. In October 2023 they declared Israel has the right to ‘defend’ itself, when it has been attacking and killing Palestinians since the Nakba in 1948 and before. No party with such a position is worth voting for. A Tory or Labour government will deliver conservative policies.

Genocide

We must oppose all genocides (at least 11 since 2000) that take place in Sudan, the Congo or Ukraine. The destruction of Mariupol goes hand-in-hand with the destruction of Gaza city. The mass graves in Izium and surroundings of Al-Shifa Hospital expose imperialist crimes in both Ukraine and Palestine. 

On Europe Poland and Lithuania are removing aid to Ukrainian emigrants, Britain and the EU and its governments have continued with the verbiage of support to the Ukrainian people. 

But they are not supplying the weapons needed to stop and defeat Russian aggression, and when they do supply them, they do so too little, too late, and too badly. 

EU countries have continued to buy liquefied natural gas from Russia in large quantities, while—through triangular schemes—they sell them military hardware (see a recent statement in this voice of the International Labour Network of Solidarity and struggle.). 

At the same time Zelensky develops laws against labour rights making it easier to sack workers, increasing precarious jobs while applying neo-liberal laws in agreement with the EU and USA. That is why it’s so important to build worker to worker aid through Workers Aid to Ukraine.

Workers and Oppressed people unite in struggle

To fight all the attacks that come from bosses and governments we need organisations led by the rank and file, not by an army of bureaucrats who negotiate behind our backs. We urgently need to build a united trade union opposition to have a real plan to fight austerity. To achieve the end of austerity and poverty we must be united in the face of our enemies and therefore reject the poison of racism and xenophobia which divides our class and legitimises repression against the most oppressed sector of workers. 

We urgently need to regularise the status of all undocumented workers, now! To unite the class, we need to fight sexism, racism, homophobia and all policies that attack all oppressed people and divide our struggles.

To guarantee high-quality public services accessible to all, we need to nationalise key companies and banks, and reinvest massively in healthcare and affordable housing. Faced with the environmental crisis, we need to take coercive measures against companies that pollute and have a truly radical energy transition policy. 

But these progressive measures will only be achieved through struggle. They will be the beginning of the only realistic solution to improving our living conditions: to destroy the capitalist state and build a state based on our organisations, a state to serve the exploited majority and not the minority of capitalists who exploit us – in short, a socialist state.

Climate crisis

A socialist society will make it possible to re-distribute wealth and reduce poverty; to move towards real equality between all men and all women; to save the environment and planet with a worker led ecological programme. That will require a revolutionary programme led by a revolutionary organisation, with no belief in reformist promises.

Many left of Labour candidates

There are at least twenty indies (independent left) candidates standing (in support of Palestine, immigrants and workers’ rights and against austerity) and many left and revolutionary left parties will stand candidates. Whilst recognising the difficulties faced because of the first past the post system electoral system, conversations can be held to continue to mobilise for change.

We believe it is essential to challenge the two-party system with boldness and with a socialist programme that can bring many new forces together from the movements of youth, people of colour, women and unions, those. This movement is growing in numbers and in anger against the genocide in Gaza, with awareness and hatred growing against the brutal and exploitative capitalist system which does not care about the unnecessary death and destruction of Gaza and its people.

Workers Party Britain with the leadership of George Galloway have adopted populist policies to gain votes (see article in this issue of SV), with divisive comments against many who are fighting for Palestine as well as social rights.

We support a critical vote for independent left candidates and will call for a vote for ISL member Ashley Walker in Stockport (see our ten-point programme for the general election).

We need to build an alternative revolutionary force with the strategic objective to organize the working class to take power and to advance towards a Europe of the workers and the people. Our aim is to take steps to build the ISL in Britain and a revolutionary International – a central task for the European sections of the IWL-FI.

• Stop the genocide in Gaza

• Stop arming Israel! Support BDS

• For a free, secular, democratic and non-racist Palestine, from the river to the sea!

• With the Ukrainian resistance! Support the Ukrainian resistance against Putin’s imperialist aggression! Cancellation of the foreign debt that enslaves Ukraine!

• No to Zelensky’s submission to the USA and the EU! No to his anti-worker plans!

• Out with NATO and American bases on British soil!

• Out with the immigration and asylum laws and xenophobic immigration laws!

• Regularisation of migrants! 

• Recognition of the right of nationality to those born on European soil and the right of refuge to those fleeing wars, dictatorships, and hunger!

• Native or foreigner, we are the same working class!

• Reorganize the whole economy, fight the environmental catastrophe!

• Expropriation of the strategic sectors, putting them under workers’ control!

• General reorganization of the economy based on social needs and environmental sustainability!

• The EU is the Europe of capital! For a Europe of the working class and peoples! For a Socialist United States of Europe!