Prediction 5 – Labour Wins The Election and Attacks Workers
Last year, I predicted an Autumn General Election, which, as I set out, in the Review, clearly didn't happen, but the conditions for which still exist. Most bets are on a May election, which, as I have also described, may be a couple of months too late, despite the announcement of a March Budget. The Tories, are openly setting out tax and spending traps for Labour, as I said they would, and those traps, really, are most effectively sprung before the Tories have to introduce another Budget of tax giveaways, which, as with the Truss Mini Budget, in 2022, could provoke a sharp sell-off of the Pound, and UK financial markets, which would provoke another political crisis that would be devastating for them.
The purpose of announcing a March Budget is to front-run a series of proposed tax give-aways, but without actually having to introduce them. They hold out the promise to voters, if they vote Tory, whilst putting Labour on the spot to say whether they would reverse them etc. Labour is already in a bind of its own making when it comes to tax and spending, as its sums don't add up, and the vague “aspirations” and “values” do not fill the gap in hard cash. It also throws Labour off guard, but there are any number of reasons why the Tories will be able, within the next couple of months, to call a snap election, before the proposed Budget. Either way, its almost certain that they will not want to wait until later in the year, giving hostage to fortune, as the economy is not going to miraculously be transformed in that time.
The Tories aim is to minimise their losses, and to consolidate their core vote. The only question is which core vote that is. As I wrote a while ago, it appears that they have realised that trying to consolidate that reactionary, petty-bourgeois core is a fool's errand. Brexit has clearly failed, and become increasingly an albatross around their neck. They are competing for those reactionary votes both with the UKIP light, Blue Labour, of Starmer, and with Reform. Trying to do that, by shifting even further Right will not only alienate the ruling class, but will also alienate those aspirational, professional middle-class, Tory voters in the Blue Wall seats, that have been moving rapidly towards the Liberals, and Greens. The sensible strategy of the Tories is to return to that ideology pursued by Heath, and his predecessors in the 1950's and 60's, oriented towards the EU, and leave Starmer's UKIP Light to squabble with the real thing in Reform.
The Tories probably can't do that openly in this election, but they can create the conditions for moving Blue Labour further in that reactionary nationalist direction, so as to take the blame for the Brexit catastrophe, whilst the Tories reposition, opportunistically, to become the advocates of Europeanism, once more, overwhelming the Liberals and Greens, in the process. Starmer's own opportunism and willingness to adopt any unprincipled, reactionary stance in order to scrabble after a few extra votes, facilitates the Tories in that regard. He can't easily drop his own rabid nationalism and jingoism, and support for Brexit, but the failure of that Brexit, and impossibility of his nationalistic “Labour Brexit” fantasy, means, as I set out a while ago, soon after winning the election, that will be exposed.
At the same time, the changed material conditions that have strengthened the position of workers, as against capital, will continue to play out, making it impossible for British capital to simply make British workers pay for the unfolding crisis that Brexit is bringing with it. Only a concerted effort by the state to try to achieve that will stop workers moving forward at the expense of British capital. Starmer will, as he has in opposition, champion that pro-capitalist attack on workers. But, this is not the 1970's, and still less the 1980's, when such strong state, Bonapartist methods, under Thatcher, could be applied. Then, a global stagnation was beginning, unemployment was rising fast, as new labour-saving technologies were introduced. Today, unemployment continues to fall and employment to rise, with increasing labour shortages, and competition between firms for labour, causing wages to rise.
Starmer's Blue Labour does not meet the needs of the global ruling class, which drives towards re-joining the EU, but nor does it meet the needs of the working-class, which continues to comprise its core voter base, and membership, via the trades unions. It is a contradiction that must explode in Starmer's face, very quickly. The likely result is that the ruling class will seek to replace Starmer as Leader with someone that can quickly reverse Labour's disastrous pro-Brexit position, but who will continue with Starmer's pro-capitalist, anti-worker onslaught. The latter, however, is not vital to capital, in current conditions. It has other options. A rapid return to the EU, would facilitate that, but also, as economies expand, capital can utilise other means to slow the growth of relative wages at the expense of relative profits. Inflation is the most obvious. But, once the fetishization of the petty-bourgeoisie is ended, a simple concentration and centralization of capital, would increase productivity and labour supplies, and so limit the upward pressure on wages.
Starmer will take Blue Labour into government, but he is unlikely to be leading them at the following election. Its up to Marxists, working in the Labour Party and trades unions, to ensure that, in the intervening period, the interests of workers are protected, and that a new leadership is created.
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