Britain: Liz Truss is the new Prime Minister
By Laurence Humphries, RCIT Britain, 9 September 2022, www.thecommunists.net
Liz Truss won the Tory leadership race on 5th September. Truss is on the extreme right of the Tory Party. She is a noted Thatcherite who propagates most of Thatcher’s ‘views. The Tory party is divided and split after Boris Johnson’s reign. Much of the ruling class never wanted her as leader and it was only the grassroots in the Tory Party who supported her.
She faces an enormous political crisis with high energy costs, industrial unrest and climate change. Like Boris Johnson, her predecessor, she has purged the Cabinet and installed her own supporters in major Cabinet positions. Hence, out goes Sunak, Patel and Javid. Nearly a third of Tory MP’s either didn’t vote for her or are opposed to her policies. Truss will also continue the racist policies of Boris Johnson and Priti Patel against refugees and migrants threatening to deport them to countries in Africa like Rwanda. Truss has suggested that she will ruthlessly use Islamophobia and racism as key features of her government.
“Liz Truss, Britain’s foreign secretary, has been chosen to succeed Boris Johnson as the country’s fourth prime minister in six years, inheriting a generation-defining economic crisis and increased tensions with some of Britain’s biggest trading partners. Truss was voted as new leader of the ruling Conservative Party by 170,000 Tory members, beating main rival Rishi Sunak 57 to 43 per cent after a two-month hustings campaign.
Truss, who has served in the governments of three prime ministers over the past decade, has vowed to shrink the size of Britain’s government, lower taxes and redefine the country’s relationship with the likes of the European Union (EU) and China as Britain’s new leader. However, Truss is facing a cost-of-living crisis not seen since her idol – Margaret Thatcher – was in office. Inflation has risen to double digits and could top 22 per cent next year if surging energy prices do not abate, according to investment bank Goldman Sachs.” [1]
Strikes, industrial unrest and energy protests
For the last 4-5 weeks there have been 24-hour strikes on the railways mainly organised by the RMT, TSSA and ASLEF. With inflation running at 11% many sections of workers are finding it very difficult to exist. Network rail and the train operating companies have only offered 5%. This, of course, has been rejected and strikes continue to take place twice a week. There is also industrial unrest in the public sector amongst doctors, nurses teachers and local government workers who are balloting for strike action. Unite, the Union, has also been on strike in the port of Felixstowe and with bus companies.
The rate of inflation continues to rise while energy companies like Shell and British Gas make enormous profits of over £650 Billion. Drilling continues and Truss has said there will not be a reduction in the use of energy. Many bourgeois economists have warned that there must be energy rationing because the result of excessive energy use will lead to blackouts and power cuts. Truss has appeared to ignore this advice.
“But Truss has not provided specific details on how she will tackle high energy prices as she is set to take over amid sky-high inflation, labour strife, and a strained healthcare system. The UK has been rudderless for weeks as it endures a cascade of workers’ strikes that has disrupted ports, trains and multiple industrial sectors, the worst cost-of-living crisis to hit the country for decades, and a potentially lengthy recession. Households in the UK are facing a record 80 percent jump in energy bills, triggered by Russia’s war on Ukraine. Truss has ruled out energy rationing this winter, pledging instead to increase energy supply. However, officials say without energy rationing, the UK could experience blackouts for several days in January if cold weather combines with gas shortages to leave the country short of power. She has also ruled out a further windfall tax to pay for the cost of living support for struggling families.” [2]
On the campaign trail for leader, Truss made it plain that she is seeking a confrontation with workers and the oppressed and would make some strikes illegal. In a tweet she said “As Prime Minister I will not let our Country be held to ransom by Militant Trade Unionists.“
“Liz Truss has promised a further crackdown on trade unions, widening restrictions to a significant new number of industries, but her proposals were immediately criticised as the “biggest attack on civil rights” since the 19th century. Truss said she would legislate for minimum service levels on critical national infrastructure in the first 30 days of government under her leadership. The pledge would go further than the Tories’ 2019 policy, which promised a minimum service should operate during transport strikes. The new law proposed by Truss would potentially restrict teachers, postal workers and the energy sector. Tailored minimum thresholds, including staffing levels, would be determined with each industry. Mick Lynch, general secretary of the RMT said unions would organise mass resistance if the plans went ahead, calling it “the biggest attack on trade union and civil rights since labour unions were legalised in 1871.” [3]
Inter-imperialist rivalry
Of course, many bourgeois commentators have suggested that the markets might stabilise. It is also possible that Truss may use state intervention to lower energy costs before the protests turn into an avalanche of civil unrest.
The RCIT has demonstrated through many publications the inter imperialist rivalry throughout the world between the main imperialist countries of the USA, Japan, Europe and the Eastern imperialists of China and Russia. The major conflicts are the Ukraine war and the conflicts in the pacific between Taiwan and China. The USA supports the perspectives of Taiwan as China is the main imperialist rival.
In our World Perspectives document, we identified the slump of autumn 2019 and the second slump beginning at the end of 2021. This is dominating the minds of all Imperialists. As Karl Marx explained in Capital the declining rate of profit is falling and so the imperialists must search for new markets to exploit but all over the world civil and social unrest is taking place in Latin America, Asia, Africa Syria, Iraq and Palestine and in the imperialist heartlands in Europe. Russia, the imperialist power which has launched an attack on a semi-colonial capitalist nation Ukraine, supplies most of the gas to power the economies in Europe. Their main pipeline Nord Stream has stopped delivery. This will cause enormous crises for all countries in Europe including Britain.
“The governments of rich imperialist countries will try to contain such unrest with high levels of social spending. However, such a perspective hardly exists for the countries of the Global South. In this part of the world, the ruling class will attempt to squash such mass protests with brutal force. “For governments unable to spend their way out of the crisis, repression is likely to be the main response to anti-government protests. The most recent developments have fully confirmed our analysis. Studies of bourgeois think tanks like the one discussed in this article demonstrate that even ideologists of the ruling class expect a dramatic acceleration of the class struggle – not only in the countries of the Global South but even in the imperialist metropolises. This is why we characterize the current phase of the world situation as “a pre-revolutionary phase full of explosions – wars, revolutions and counterrevolutions.” The task of Marxists in the coming period is to organize and to intervene in the mass struggles armed with a program combining minimum as well as transitional demands and focused on the necessity of a popular uprising in order to overthrow the ruling class. The RCIT calls all revolutionary activists to join us in the struggle for a socialist future! [4]
Crisis of social democracy and centrism
The British Labour Party, the mainstay of reformism in Britain, has proved itself as a willing accomplice of the ruling class in Britain. Keir Starmer, the pro-capitalist leader of the Blairite faction which rules the Labour party, congratulated Truss on her election victory. With a general election less than 2 years away in 2024, he knows that if Truss and the Tories fail, he and his party will be ready to do the capitalist bidding. He has not opened his mouth about the industrial and civil unrest in Britain. He has denounced Labour MP’s who support the rail strikes and is opposed on climate change where he supports fossil fuels but can only suggest a windfall tax. He is violently opposed to the climate protesters of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil. During the COVID Counterrevolution he was a willing ally of Johnson and the Tories and with the continuing civil unrest like all reformists he is moving rapidly to the right. His history of expelling members who denounce Zionism continues and the Labour Party in membership terms has lost many members since Jeremy Corbyn was Labour Party Leader.
The centrist groups in Britain remain very close to the trade union bureaucracy even when they call themselves Trotskyist. The SWP for instance without providing any perspective calls for a fightback without any demands. The Socialist Party meanwhile calls for their own workers party with demands to sit in a capitalist parliament. They are becoming utterly reformist in nature becoming part of the trade union apparatus. The IMT, led by Alan Woods, remains inside the Labour Party observing that there may be a general strike but doing nothing to make it happen. Again, the centrists remain part of reformism supporting the Bonapartist measures and attacks on democratic rights as they did in the COVID Counterrevolution. They huff and puff but in essence have nothing to offer the masses.
As the RCIT has stated we have identified this period as pre-revolutionary and exhort trade unionists, workers, students and others to read our transitional demands. Now is not the time to lose we must prepare for the seizure of power in Britain before the catastrophe of the ruling class destroys everyone through war and oppression.
* For an indefinite general strike! Pressurise the bureaucratic leadership at the Trades Union Congress from 11-14th September 2022 in Brighton to organise the struggle!
* Build committees of action to organise the struggle, to pressurise reformist leaders and to lead the struggle without them if they refuse to fight!
* Nationalise without compensation and under workers control all utilities and energy companies including gas, oil, electricity and water.
* Fight inflation - for a sliding scale of wages which automatically links wages with price increases!
* Cancel all public debts!
* No to racist deportations of refugees and migrants. All migrants and peoples from semi-colonial countries be given equality right to speak their own language and wear their own dress. Open all borders so peoples can move around freely.
* For armed defence guards to protect communities from racist and police provocation
* Prepare for an uprising to bring down the reactionary Tory government! For a workers government based on popular councils and militias!
* Join the RCIT!
Footnotes
2) What are Liz Truss’s major policies as UK’s prime minister? | Explainer News | Al Jazeera