At its 2016 biennial Congress last November, the Communist
Party of Britain defined the current political situation as one where the
ruling class was manoeuvring to drive, during the next period in the developing
crisis of British capitalism, a make or break attempt to shore up its rule. The
Congress recognised that the next big battle between the contending classes of
Capital and Labour would result in the outright victory of one and the total
defeat of the other and resolved to ensure that the working class movement was victorious.
The ten years since the onset of the great financial crash (remember
the “experts" calling it a “credit crunch”) and the desperate measures by International
Capital to bail out the banks, and other financial institutions, by looting
national treasuries and forcing years of austerity, misery and poverty upon the
mass of peoples across the globe; have witnessed a magnificent movement of
peoples against these attacks in countries as diverse as Ireland, Portugal,
Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Italy, France, Belgium and Britain.
The anti-austerity movement here in the UK, led by the
widely supported Peoples Assembly Against Austerity, resulted in the election and
re-election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, the total disarray
of the Parliamentary Labour Party, which is playing the role of Capital's fifth
column within the working class movement, and the body blow delivered to British,
European and International Capital by the British working class vote to leave the
European Union, which was never an instrument of “international
solidarity" but in reality a tool for the unhindered flight of capital and
jobs and the unregulated movement of cheap labour whenever and wherever Capital
demands.
The reason the British Government, instead of immediately
triggering Article 50, is procrastinating on beginning the withdrawal process is
that the ruling elites, both UK and EU, need to re-assess their strategy for
trans-national corporate domination in the midst of an EU and Eurozone melt down
and looming defeat for global, anti-democratic trade deals such as TTIP, TPP,
CETA and TISA.
The allied vote by American workers in the recent
presidential election, defeating the establishment candidate Hillary Clinton, a
leading pro-war hawk and neo-liberal exponent, and the humiliating defeat of US
imperialism in Syria are further examples of the global nature of the
resistance to Capital’s attempts to resolve its crises at the expense of the
workers of the world.
The apoplectic howls of anguish spluttering from the chocking
throats of the “liberal bourgeoisie" who have been totally thrown by these
events is an indicator of their anti-working class bias and basic anti-democratic
credentials. Tory europhiles, Liberal Democrats, right-wing Labourites and
Greens are joined by the SNP which continually denies the decision of the
Scottish people to remain in the UK, and the result of the all-UK European referendum, in a desperate but
forlorn attempt to resurrect native capital, reverse more than three hundred years
of economic development, split the united British Trade Union and Labour Movement
along national lines and end forever the redistribution of wealth across the nations
and regions of Britain; hence the Congress decision to totally oppose calls for
a second Scottish “independence" referendum.
Bourgeois forces and their political and media mouth-pieces
continually snigger at, denigrate, name call and abuse the real creators of
wealth and the ultimate founders of a decent, inclusive society which treasures
respect, peace, mutual support through the provision of quality publicly owned
and delivered housing, transport, health and education services and amenities,
and secures democratic and popular ownership of wealth, factories, utilities
and banks and financial institutions, that is working class control of the
means of production, distribution and exchange.
Since the introduction of neo-liberal policies in 1976, when
the Labour Chancellor Dennis Healey bent before the International Monetary Fund
diktat to cut public spending, the later Thatcher Tory Governments from 1979 tightened
the neo-liberal screw with the removal of controls on the export of capital,
removal of controls on the import of manufactured goods, further cuts in public
spending, privatisation of public assets, outsourcing of public services and
draconian anti-trade union legislation (euphemistically called “employment"
laws) and the even later Blair and Brown Labour Governments timidly followed a
so-called “third way”, continued to serve the interests of domestic and
international Capital and refused to repeal the vicious Tory anti-union laws,
followed by the austerity addicted Cameron/Osborne Governments; the share of
generated annual wealth going to wages fell from 65% of Gross Domestic Product
in 1976 to 50.5% in 2015 with the balance going to profits. Additionally £375
billion of quantitative easing by the Bank of England have been hoovered up into
bank deposits and asset purchases by the super-rich. No wonder profits have soared,
wages have fallen and wealth inequality has grown to historic levels of
obscenity while workers have suffered the longest wage squeeze since 1856!
The growing level of unconscionable greed and wealth inequality
across the world and within nations has even moved Pope Francis, leader of the
biggest organisation on earth with two billion members, to declare that “the
Communists are now the real Christians.”
In a society of food-banks, clothing banks, fuel poverty, debt
poverty, zero hour contracts, mass under and unemployment, where more than half
of those subsisting below the official poverty level are actually working and
26 million are only £100 away from financial ruin while British businesses hoard
bank balances worth £754 billion and also claim £93 billion in subsidies each
year, corporations and the super-rich squirrel £2.1 trillion away in overseas
tax-havens and banks have walked off with £1.35 trillion of the people’s money;
such a society is over-ripe for change.
The Congress agreed that such change should be driven by the
organised Trade Union and Labour Movement at the head of a broad anti-austerity
alliance, uniting wide sections of the population in pursuit of an alternative
political, social and economic strategy, based on reversal of the cuts to
services and benefits, investment in infrastructure renewal, manufacturing
industry and renewable energy; all sustained by an increase in purchasing power
and improvements in living standards.
The advent of the “internet of things" and the
introduction of new waves of technological advance has led some forecasters to
warn of the loss of up to 40% of existing jobs in the next 10 to 15 years, even
outstripping the 8 million high-skill, high-wage jobs lost in previous waves of
technological change. Technical and clerical workers are about to feel the same
chilling effects of capitalist innovation as felt by their industrial and
manufacturing colleagues over recent years. The necessity for job-share and fewer
working hours as reflected in the 6 hour day, the 4 day week, 12 weeks annual
holiday and retirement at 55 and 50 years is now of pressing concern.
Given that the failed neo-liberal economic policy has cost
the average worker a loss in wages, at current prices, of £160 per week since
1976, £40 of which has occurred since the crash of 2007 and a decade of wage
freezes and derisory 1% increases; millions of workers, both organised and
unorganised are desperately crying out for a realistic, rewarding hike in their
wage rates. An initial rise of £2 per hour would seem appropriate to be
followed by similar increases each and every year.
The Congress agreed that the Trade Union and Labour Movement
campaign for a new political, social and economic settlement should adopt
cutting edge demands for shorter working hours and higher wages in all
work-places across both the private and public sectors, an initiative since
repeated in decisions of the Party’s Political Committee and statements by its General
Secretary.
If pursued seriously, this strategy would lead to a
re-invigorated Trade Union and Labour Movement with renewed credibility and
thousands of new members and supporters attracted by such a determined effort to
improve living standards and life chances. EffectIve industrial action,
supported by wide sections of the public, has the strength and force to steam-roller
any resistance from employers, Government and the law into the ground and win social
and economic justice for our people, our youth, our elderly and each and every
community, town and city throughout our country.
Let's get cracking on with it and submit our demands as soon
as possible!
TOGETHER WE CAN
MAKE 2017, THE
CENTENARY OF THE GREAT OCTOBER SOCIALIST REVOLUTION, BRITAIN'S 1917!
