MILLIONS of people across Britain will welcome July 4’s general election as a chance to bring an end to one of the worst governments working people have endured.
The last 14 years have left the country with scars that will not heal for years. As Rishi Sunak takes the Tory case to the voters, no spin or PR tricks can conceal the truth of the Conservative record in government.
Stagnant living standards. Local authorities bankrupt, and universities heading the same way. A cost-of-living crisis from which the economy has barely emerged. An NHS permanently on the edge. Polluted rivers and soaring water bills. A vast shortage of affordable housing.
And that is before one turns to the baneful conduct of the Tories in international affairs, actively supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, doing all they can to prolong the war in Ukraine and trashing relations with China without regard to economic or diplomatic consequences.
It has been 14 years or austerity, crisis and chaos at the expense of the working class. Promises made to “level up” industrial communities in the north and Midlands have been discarded and the opportunities Brexit provided for a more interventionist economic and industrial policy have been wasted.
Sunak, like Cameron, May, Johnson and Truss before him, has governed Britian in the interests of finance capital and imperialism. July 4 is first of all an opportunity to bring this sordid episode to an overdue conclusion.
But enthusiasm for the forthcoming election campaign can go no further than that. Labour limps rather than marches into the struggle, a party devoid of policy proposals, ideas for change and enthusiasm.
Keir Starmer has gone in just four years from offering continuity Corbynism with competence to continuity Conservatism with a managerial gloss.
No-one can look at the meagre prospectus offered in the priority “six steps” for government launched last week and believe that this is really the “change” election he pretends it to be.
Indeed, the protester who blasted the 1997 Labour campaign tune “Things Can Only Get Better” over Sunak’s announcement in Downing Street was drawing attention to the most salient point about this election: they won’t.
The left therefore faces more than usual challenges. The priority is the defeat of Tory reaction, and Labour is clearly the only alternative government.
Yet the disgust with Starmer’s pro-Israel stance over Gaza, on top of his cynical betrayal of the policies on which he was elected Labour leader and his destruction of party democracy means many will look for alternative candidates of the left.
The plausibility of such challenges, and their potential impact on the outcome, will vary from one constituency to another.
The whole left will want to support Jeremy Corbyn in his bid to continue serving the people of Islington North as he has done for 41 years. His return to the Commons would be a win for socialism.
There will be other such constituencies, many of them where lifelong Labour voters in Muslim communities above all will want to express their outrage over Gaza.
However, the bulk of the trade union movement will campaign for Labour, not least to secure what remains of the promised New Deal for Working People.
The campaign, however, must be the occasion for pressure on Labour candidates from the movement and their constituents to face up to the scale of Britian’s crisis and cast off the Treasury dogmas which inhibit even a mildly social-democratic response.
Because the real battles will begin after July 4. Britain has been broken by the bourgeoisie. Only a newly empowered working class imposing its own social priorities can provide a real answer.
