2024 General Election in Britain: Labour Wins by a Landslide
By Laurence Humphries, RCIT Britain, 12th July 2024
On Thursday the 4th July the Labour party under the leadership of Keir Starmer won a landslide election. It was comparable to Tony Blair’s win in 1997 although the vote was down. The working class voted for the removal of the hated reactionary Tory government which had been in power for 14 years. This was a class vote but it is clear that this is a government in the service of the ruling capitalist class – a system which after the slumps of 2008 and 2019 is in meltdown and extreme crisis.
“Keir Starmer has said the “sunlight of hope” is now shining in Britain again as Labour won a landslide UK election victory, bringing a crushing end to 14 years of Conservative rule. The Labour leader is expected to officially become prime minister later on Friday after Rishi Sunak conceded, with voters giving Starmer a large mandate to bring about change in Britain. Speaking at the Tate Modern in London, Starmer said people would be waking up to the news of a Labour victory and Tory defeat “relieved that a weight has been lifted, a burden finally removed”.
Sunak’s party is on track to record its worst performance in a general election, with a record number of cabinet ministers set to lose their seats and big names such as Liz Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Penny Mordaunt and Grant Shapps ousted. Labour had won 411 seats, while the Conservatives were on just 119, with five left to declare by 9.30am. The government’s likely majority is set to be about 170 seats. The party dominated in Scotland, with the SNP reduced to eight seats so far, while the Liberal Democrats gained at least 71 seats – their best performance ever.” [1]
As the RCIT has said in another place Starmer is a leading supporter of Zionism and its genocide against the Palestinian people. He has carried out a ruthless purge in his party of anyone who is a socialist and wants the basic redistribution of wealth. There will be no nationalisation of the railways or any other formerly state-run sector. It is a capitalist government carrying out the wishes of the bankers and the bosses who own the means of production.
“All polls predict a landslide victory for the Labour Party which people consider as a “lesser evil” compared with the rotten Tories. However, while it is still a bourgeois workers party given its ongoing links with the trade unions, it is also evident that Sir Keir Starmer is a staunch servant of the ruling capitalist class who has advanced the bourgeoisification of Labour to unprecedented levels. His unwavering support for the Zionist killing machine, the vicious persecution of left-wing and pro-Palestine supporters within the Labour Party (under the cynical pretext of “anti-Semitism”!) and his unashamed pro-business agenda – all this demonstrates that Starmer is a reactionary enemy of the workers and oppressed”. [2]
Pro-Palestinian movement in Britain
Since the beginning of the Gaza War on 7th October there have been 16 pro-Palestinian mass demonstration in Britain. These marches in Britain have reached epic proportions very similar to the demonstrations during the Iraq war during Blair’s government. There have been occupations and strikes by students and protests by workers and trade unionists. This is an important touchstone for Palestinian supporters. In the election, although the BBC exit poll didn’t recognise it.
Pro-Palestine supporters including Jeremy Corbyn, the former left-wing leader of the Labour party, were successful in winning and becoming elected as MPs. All in all, about one million people voted for pro-Palestine candidates, resulting in 5 elected MP’s (and several coming close). This is a tremendous victory and shows the Zionists in the Labour party that there will be a voice in Parliament to represent their views.
“Though the exit poll predicted Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration party Reform UK to perform better than expected, in the end its four MPs were outnumbered by independents running on platforms explicitly denouncing Israel’s war on Gaza.
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who won his seat as an independent, told Middle East Eye: "Palestine was on the ballot - and I promise to stay true to my word to stand up for the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination. Or months, many voters across the UK had voiced dissatisfaction with Labour, especially over the party's early stance when it called for an "enduring cessation of fighting" in Gaza instead of an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire.
Starmer also appeared to back Israel's decision to cut Gaza from power, water and other necessities, despite legal experts condemning the move as a war crime. Although the party later shifted its position and Labour denied Starmer was supportive of Israel's total siege, much of the British public said they felt compelled to vote for an unwaveringly pro-ceasefire candidate and party”. [3]
Centrism and the pro-Palestinian movement
The Trade Union Socialist Coalition (TUSC) – the electoral arm of the SPEW/CWI in Britain – fared badly in the election. This reflects, among others, their failure to relate to the pro-Palestinian mass movement.
In fact, various centrists in Britain – like the SPEW/CWI or the ISA – refuse to engage in active support for the Palestinian resistance fighting against the Zionist genocide. Their arguments often refer to the nature of the leadership of such resistance which is usually petty-bourgeois Islamist and nationalist. They remain as they have always done as bystanders never participating in the national liberation struggle of the masses as genuine Marxists must do. In Britain they remain close to the labour aristocracy and the trade union bureaucracy – a caste to which Lenin referred as labour lieutenants of capital.
On Palestine the CWI and the ISA take a pro-Zionist line of supporting a two-state solution with a “socialist” Israel and a “socialist” Palestine – instead of fighting for one democratic Palestinian state from the river to the sea which should be a workers and fellahin republic as part of a socialist federation of the Middle East. As we noted in a programmatic document:
“Revisionists often justify their refusal to support national and democratic struggles because these are usually led by petty-bourgeois movements (e.g. nationalists, Islamists, left-liberal feminists). Of course, it is true that such struggles are often led by such non-revolutionary forces. But given the deep crisis of revolutionary leadership, nearly all class struggles are led by non-revolutionary forces! Are economic demonstrations and strikes led by corrupted trade union bureaucrats – eying at a well-paid position in the capitalist management or the government – in any way superior to national struggles led by petty-bourgeois forces?! In fact, such a counterargument betrays the aristocratic degeneration of many centrist organisations in rich countries since they consider pro-imperialist reformist bureaucrats as something more “proletarian” than petty-bourgeois nationalist or Islamist leaders in semi-colonial countries or among migrants.
In order to overcome the leadership of economic as well as political struggles by non-revolutionary forces, Marxists must not denounce these from the sidelines but rather participate in such struggles energetically. They have to apply the united front tactic in its various forms according to the concrete circumstances (in trade unions and popular organisations, with other parties, with military forces, the anti-imperialist united front, etc.). This means that revolutionaries join the struggle even if it takes place under a non-revolutionary leadership, advocate the self-organisation of the masses independent of the bureaucrats, criticising the leadership wherever it fails and putting demands on them in order to expose them and to aid the masses in learning through their own experience with these leaders. It is through such a process that Marxists can build an alternative leadership – a Revolutionary World Party.” [4]
For a New Workers Party in Britain
The RCIT in Britain puts forward the following transitional demands to unite the masses and fight for a genuine Workers Party in Britain.
* Boycott the Israeli Apartheid state! Victory to the Palestinian resistance! Solidarity with the Arab Revolution! For a Free Red Palestine from the river to the sea!
* No to Islamophobia and racism! For open borders, no to immigration controls or deportation to other countries!
* Call on the Labour government to repeal all anti-union laws!
* Organise mass struggles for higher wages, full employment and democratic rights!
* Expropriate the super-rich! Open the employers’ books! Cancel the debt.
* Nationalise the key sectors of the economy under workers’ control!
* For a workers government based on popular councils and militias!
* Neither EU nor UK imperialism! For international class struggle and the United Socialist States of Europe!
* Against all imperialist powers (NATO, Russia, China)!
Footnotes