2009: recession and class struggle

[IndianaGreen]

2009: recession and class struggle

By Terry McPartlan
Monday, 28 December 2009

The consequences of the banking crisis have revealed themselves as a slump. As we’ve explained elsewhere, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 didn’t wipe out Pompeii. It was the fallout of ash afterwards that choked the people. Throughout the world, companies have been falling like ninepins. In Britain unemployment is approaching 3 million and tragically 1 million of these are young people under the age of 25. But that’s not the end of it and next year could see the rate rising to 4 million. As might be expected, figures like these don’t engender a warm, loving feeling towards the government and New Labour’s woes only increased in the June local and European elections. Large swathes of what were previously Labour heartlands have now turned a murky shade of blue and yellow with victories by the Tories and LibDems. The stench of privatisation in these councils is more reminiscent of the sort of bile and brimstone of the Thatcher years. It was 25 years since the beginning of the miners’ strike in March this year, a timely reminder of what a Tory victory nationally would really mean for workers.

New Labour’s star is on the wane. Murdoch’s Sun has now nailed itself to the Tory mast and the days when Tony Blair and Mandelson were the toast of News International editors and the bosses are long gone. The MPs’ expenses scandal, though it affected all parties, inevitably served to further discredit New Labour as the party in government.

It is to the eternal shame of Blair, Brown and New Labour that tens and even hundreds of thousands of Labour voters just don’t bother turning out to vote at the moment. After all, the right wing of the party has had 12 years with a huge parliamentary majority but, far from squeezing the rich, Blair and Brown have frustrated many workers with their pro-business policies. A minority of disillusioned workers have turned to the racist programme of the BNP. Griffin and another BNP candidate managed to get elected to the European Parliament, but what was most noticeable in those elections was the abstention rate. The reformist/nationalist programme presented by the Communist Party of Britain and Socialist Party’s NO2EU campaign received a derisory vote, proving that there are no short cuts to fighting in the official labour movement for a socialist programme. This socialist programme is also necessary to undermine the BNP and send them scuttling back under their stones. We saw a glimmer of that fighting approach in November in Glasgow with the campaign against the ‘Scottish Defence League’.

But despite the lack of movement on the political front, the workers have moved towards industrial struggle instead. Notable in 2009 has been the reappearance of factory occupations in Britain. Socialist Appeal readers will be familiar with the wave of occupations in Latin America, but it’s been a long time since we saw factory occupations here. In fact the first examples of occupations in these islands weren’t in Britain, but in Ireland. The workers of Waterford Crystal took over the factory after management announced it was going to close.

http://www.socialist.net/2009-recession-and-class-struggle.htm

[OHdem10]

1. Tony Blair started The Third Way--very similar to Clinton's DLC.

It has not worked out so well it appears. Free Market Fundamentalism
on the Rampage.

[IndianaGreen]

2. Brown will lead Labour to defeat

and that will put the last nail on New Labour's coffin.

Nick Clegg has already said that the Liberal Democrats will support whichever party wins the popular vote.