The disgraceful scenes and chaos, in the House of Commons, yesterday, illustrated the sham nature of bourgeois-democracy, just as the events across the globe, as imperialism acts to justify its support for Zionist genocide against Palestinians, illustrates the same lies purveyed by bourgeois-democracy concerning the rule of law, and an international rules based system. As tens of thousands of Palestinians die in Gaza at the hands of the Zionists, backed by their imperialist allies in the US, UK and EU, the imperialist politicians played political parlour games, and showed their main concern to be about their own skins, both physically and politically, as an election approaches.
Everyone knew, the day before, that the supine imperialists of Blue Labour, led by Supple-Spined Starmer were in trouble, because the news reports had said so. For months, Starmer and his accomplices in Blue Labour have justified and supported the war crimes and genocide committed by their friends and allies in the Zionist regime, in Israel. In part, they were not only willing accomplices in those war crimes and genocide, as full throttle supporters of Zionism, but were also trapped by it, as a result of their previous weaponisation and equation of “anti-Zionism” with “anti-Semitism”, in order to, lyingly, attack Corbyn and the Left of the Party.
It meant that, despite the overwhelming evidence of a holocaust being inflicted on the Palestinians by the Zionist state in Israel, Starmer could not admit to it, because to do so would require him to criticise that Zionist regime, in the same way that Corbyn and the Left had done. It would expose the hypocrisy and lies that he and the Right have perpetrated. And, it would have brought down its own avalanche of attacks on Starmer from the rabid Zionists in Britain, for whom nothing but total support for whatever the Zionist state does is enough. Having created the monster, he found himself about to be eaten by it.
Even after the ICJ, as one of those international organs of bourgeois-democracy, and the rules based system, had said that, even prima facie, there was a case to be answered by the Zionist state for acts of genocide in Gaza, and called for it to desist, Starmer, as with Genocide Joe, in the US, and many EU leaders, continued to deny what was, and is, apparent to everyone with eyes to see that the Zionist state was inflicting, and continued to inflict war crimes and genocide on the Palestinians, not just in Gaza, where it, supported by western media, ridiculously claims to be engaged in an Israel-Hamas War, but also in the West Bank, where Zionist settlers, backed by the Zionist state, daily attack, and kill, Palestinians, where the Zionist military machine, daily, invades Palestinian homes, and destroys them.
Indeed, the West Bank, more clearly than Gaza, is already an example of the much vaunted, and mystified, Palestinian state, required as part of a “Two-State Solution”, but which has provided no solution whatsoever to Palestinians as a whole, and to Palestinian workers and poor peasants in particular. What use is a Two State Solution, in which any Palestinian state is perpetually dependent upon the Zionist state's blessing to exist? What use is such a solution, without the Palestinian state having the means to defend itself, in the same manner that the imperialists and Zionists demand that the Zionist state itself can do?
Where is the the benefit to the working-class, of creating a solution where both these capitalist states are dependent upon the kindness of imperialist strangers for their existence, and which, then, exist as two militarised states, two heavily armed camps staring down the barrel of a gun at each other, perpetually dividing the working-class of the region, and lining it up behind its own respective ruling class? No wonder the bourgeoisie and imperialists' favourite solution is that of two-bourgeois states, though, in reality, given the dominance of US imperialism, such a solution is really just a sop to liberal fantasies, and the Arab bourgeoisie, whilst it backs the continual expansion of the Zionist single state.
Over the last five months, during which time the Zionist state has been conducting that genocide in Gaza, as well as continuing its decades long occupation, and oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank, and Israel itself, Starmer could have supported a ceasefire, could have used the Labour Opposition Days, in parliament, to do what the SNP had done, yesterday, to put a motion calling for such an immediate ceasefire, and opposing the collective punishment and genocide being committed by the Zionist state. He did not do so, and, rather, continued to give his full throated support to that Zionist state, and to refuse to acknowledge its war crimes, instead, again apologising for them, and openly supporting them, as he did in saying that he supported the Zionist state in its war crimes of cutting off water, energy and so on.
So, the news programmes on Tuesday had all noted that, with elections coming up, such as in Rochdale, where Labour is likely to lose to the obnoxious, and reactionary, George Galloway, and where Labour is hoping to make headway, in Scotland, against the SNP, Starmer and his reactionary nationalist Blue Labour Party had a problem. The party's rank and file members, such as are left after Starmer's purges, and the mass exodus of disgusted activists, were still principled enough to be reviled at the genocide being committed by the Zionists, and the support for it given by Starrmer. The Scottish Labour Party itself voted for an immediate ceasefire, showing Starmer the writing on the wall. Yet, Starrmer still needed to slither around the issue, so as to try to not unleash the full wrath of the Zionists inside and out of the party.
As with Genocide Joe, Starmer needed to try to head off the electoral storm coming his way from voters who already are revolted by the genocide and war crimes he has been complicit in, and yet to hedge his words in such a way as to make them meaningless, and allow free rein for the Zionists to continue. The SNP motion correctly pointed not only to the need for an immediate ceasefire, but also to the fact that the Zionist regime was committing war crimes and genocide. That was too much for Starmer, and his imperialist/Zionist agenda. But, as the Tuesday night news reports noted, if he voted against the SNP motion, that would cause a further revolt, not just amongst the voters, not even just amongst Labour members, but even amongst a large number of mostly useless Labour MP's.
The further problem for Starmer, as the Tuesday news programmes outlined, was that parliamentary procedure, and Standing Order 31, did not permit Starmer to put a Labour motion or amendment, on what was an SNP Opposition day. To do so would require that the Speaker of the House, Lyndsay Hoyle, overturn the previous rules and precedent, to allow such a Labour Amendment to be tabled. So, it is ludicrous for Hoyle, now, to claim that he did not know what he was doing, or what the outcome would be, when he did, break that precedent, and allow his mate Starmer to get off the hook of his own making, by allowing that amendment to be tabled. The result was that no actual lobby division on the motion and amendments took place, even though there were clear calls for such a division. Instead, under the chair of the Deputy Speaker, Rosie Winterton, another of Starmer's mates, the Labour motion was nodded through. Labour's Lucy Powell even had the gall to later claim that their motion had been passed “unanimously”.
No vote on the SNP motion, which was the whole basis of the debate, was then even taken, which, as the SNP noted, meant that the Speaker had allowed Labour, which has failed to support a ceasefire for months, and has itself failed to put forward, and even voted against, motions for a ceasefire, to hijack the SNP's Opposition Day. And, the reality is that, in doing so, the Labour motion passed is totally inadequate. It does not condemn the acts of genocide and war crimes being committed by the Zionist state, and its call for a “humanitarian ceasefire” is meaningless. What it means is a call for only a temporary ceasefire, during which the hostages might be released, and some sops of aid be provided, before allowing the Zionist butchers to once again engage in their attempts to wipe Palestinians from the map of the region, beginning with Gaza.
Hoyle has claimed that his action was taken to protect members of parliament, poor lambs. But, if those MP's were not themselves complicit in genocide by their support of the Zionist butchers, no such protection would be necessary. What is more, if such concern really was his motivation for undermining parliamentary procedure, it would be a very bad precedent to set. In fact, on Wednesday night, the BBC's Nick Watt, reported that he had been told by a Labour Shadow Cabinet member that Hoyle had been told that he could not retain his position without the support of Labour MP's, and that, in a matter of months, there would likely be a Labour government. Quizzed by Newsnight's Victoria Derbyshire, Labour's John Heeley was forced to admit that if Hoyle had been intimidated in that way, it would be a very serious matter. Today, Starmer himself admitted that he had met with Hoyle to press on him the need for the Labour motion to be tabled. So, now, its not only the position of Hoyle, as Speaker, that is untenable, but also that of Starmer.
In other words, in all of this sordid and corrupt farrago of lies and deception, taking place as thousands of Palestinians continue to be butchered, the reality of what went on, is really about trying to allow Starmer to save face, and avoid having to recognise the genocide being committed by his Zionist allies, whilst enabling him to present, in weasel words, the most bland and meaningless call for a ceasefire, ahead of the Rochdale by-election, and the coming local and General Elections.
The ICJ's ruling shows the bankruptcy of bourgeois-democracy at an international level, because the Zionist genocide has continued despite it. Had it been a state, like Russia, doing that, the western media would never have stopped proclaiming it, and western states would have been calling for further action against it, the social-imperialists demanding military intervention, no fly-zones and so on to stop the slaughter. Instead, we have the US and UK, refusing even to admit that such genocide is taking place, as they continue to provide the weapons with which that genocide is being committed. Instead of fulfilling their obligations under the Genocide Convention, to prevent such acts, they launch their own military action against those, such as the Houthis that are fulfilling that obligation.
The institutions of global bourgeois-democracy are there, as with bourgeois democracy at a national level, only to give a superficial democratic gloss to the actions of the ruling-class, and its dominant sections, a gloss that is soon removed, if the interests of that ruling-class are undermined. As with the United Nations, US imperialism uses it to sanction its own military adventures, but, whenever, it refuses to support such actions, the US simply ignores it, and engages in its wars regardless, just as the Zionist regime, under the protection of that US imperialism has time and again refused to abide by the resolutions of the UN Security Council, as now with its refusal to abide by the ruling of the ICJ.
Exposing the sham nature of bourgeois-democracy is a primary duty of Marxists, and using it, as with the use of parliaments, and other institutions, demanding consistency and so on, is one way of doing that. But, we should never pretend that such exposure is enough, that somehow these institutions can be reformed to meet our needs. They never can be, and, this recent experience shows that the ruling class would never countenance such a development. The point of showing the sham nature of bourgeois democracy, is to show to workers the need to create their own alternative workers' democracy, operated through existing workers' organisations, and by the development of networks of workers' councils, to establish our own organs of workers' power to challenge those of the ruling class, both at a national and at an international level.
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