The world is heading for a new imperialist world war, with conflicts between the two main imperialist camps being fought out by proxy, already, in Ukraine, Syria and the Middle East, and the South China Sea. The US's main strategic outpost in the Middle East, Israel, is becoming more fascist by the day, with the establishment of a new private army of stormtroopers, under the direct control of the fascist Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, as the racist, Zionist state also launches military raids on the Al Aqsa Mosque. The regime of Netanyahu, who is already personally close to both Putin and Trump, utilises its pivotal position to play off the US against Russia, for advantage, which will grow if Trump, or one of his clones, takes over again in the US.
As the world heads towards a war that will signify the end of humanity, as the contradictions of capitalism, in its imperialist phase, play out, those contradictions, at a more specific and local level, which resulted in Brexit, have brought economic chaos and decay to Britain, itself, as witnessed by the sharp reduction in its trade, even during a period of global economic resurgence, and huge queues at its ports, as the introduction of border checks left even holiday makers waiting for more than 24 hours, even before the peak holiday period arrives, and before the new border checks requiring finger print and other biometric checks and so on are introduced.
Those same contradictions have led to a global inflation that is not going away any time soon, and at the same time, rising interest rates are set to cause another crash in asset prices, with the first tremors of that already seen in the last year. So, with all of these huge issues to be dealt with, it was inevitable that Labour would need to advance a bold and radical, programme for government as we approach elections. However, polls show that the voters still don't really know who Starmer is, or what he stands for, and the criticism of him has been that, whenever Labour politicians are asked about their programme, they have only talked about the problems of Tory policies, rather than set out what they would do differently.
The latter, of course, has been difficult, because, in practice, Labour under Starmer has been a pale imitation of the Brexitories. Having claimed to be in favour of a second referendum, demarcating him from Corbyn, while he was in the latter's Shadow Cabinet, Starmer has since become an even bigger Brexiter than Corbyn! Indeed, he has wrapped himself in the flag to a ridiculous extent, turning Labour into a jingoistic, English nationalist party, as a sort of second edition of UKIP. Also, despite claiming, before becoming Leader, that he would stick with all of the popular elements of Corbyn's social-democratic agenda of renationalising rail, and other major utilities, he dropped those policies like a hot rock once he became Leader, and fell in with the reactionary petty-bourgeois economic agenda of the Brexitories, required for his/their commitment to "taking back control", and having a cakist relation to the EU.
No wonder having lied about what his positions were, in order to win the leadership election, voters don't trust Starmer, or know where he stands. So, I was glad to see, as the local elections approach, Labour Shadow Justice Minister, Steve Reed, appear on Sky News this morning, so as to start to remedy all of this, as Starmer says the local elections are a staging post to the General Election. So, with the world heading towards the abyss, with workers facing a soaring cost of living, and unable even to easily escape for a holiday due to Brexit, what was Labour's bold programme for government.
Reed set it out. They will deal with litter and fly-tipping. No wonder they've resisted setting out their policies before now, and instead just wanted to talk about what the Tory wing of their Brexitory movement were doing wrong!
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