Are the Tories now Socialists? How do the real Socialists win Power?

In 2020, due to the Covid 19 pandemic, the UK government spent more in a year than it ever had done before. With the Conservatives stealing a march on Labour by announcing an increase of the minimum wage to probably £9.42, and much talk of their ‘levelling up’, does this make them the high spending party of the people?

The spending on the coronavirus, mostly in the form of furloughs and help for business, was to deal with an emergency in the short term. As the virus comes more under control, spending to fight it will be radically cut back – even if future mask mandates and school closures are a possibility. The government locked down late, it did not want to lockdown and would have rather let the pandemic kill off the vulnerable than spend that money. It is very unlikely to do so again due to Covid 19.

The government spent nearly £100 billion on the pandemic, councils took on massive debt, and the economy is still in the doldrums. This makes their £4.8 billion ‘levelling up fund’ look puny. The UK spends more than £200 billion a year on the NHS, so how much difference will such a relatively small sum make? To add to this difficulty the money is being distributed in an unjust manner, with Tory-voting areas getting priority treatment.

Although an increase in the minimum wage is welcome it will make little difference to those who are worse off while zero-hours contracts are a feature of the economy. Many people on these contracts have to do unpaid work to get any paid hours. Employers can just increase the number of unpaid hours worked to off-set their losses – the poorest paid workers will be little better off. Whilst there may be more work, most of the money for ‘levelling up’ is likely to end up in the pockets of wealthy investors.

The Conservatives have come up with a strong narrative to convince the voters that they are the party of the people, and they have managed to tie it in to their anti-immigration policy. This is a fraud – not only for the reasons above – but also because they could increase minimum wages and get rid of zero-hours contracts whilst not clamping down on immigration – this would actually do far more good for the low paid and the economy in general. Cancelling the uplift on Universal Credit not only plummets many people into deeper poverty, but it reduces the pressure on bosses to increase wages. The Tories are doing the opposite of what they keep boasting about doing.

Because of the uselessness of the Labour Party leadership, and their pathological aversion to anything slightly socialist, left-wing thinkers have decided to centre their efforts on activism and campaigning. Whilst a few campaigns have been successful, the government is completely willing and able to ignore protests that are not going to undermine its support relative to Labour. As the Labour Party cares very little about many of these issues they will not effect government support and the government will often not do anything. This can be seen with the BLM protests and the protests against new police powers and the lack of trust in the police.

Campaigning and activism could evolve into a revolutionary movement that could occupy strategic buildings and bring government to a halt – possibly in combination with strikes by left-wing unions. But historically, revolutions have only worked when the police side with the revolutionaries, and this only happens when the establishment appears useless and has little or no narrative to sell the people. When the Occupy movement hit the stock exchange, they quickly had to move to St. Pauls cathedral or they would have merely been arrested and then forgotten about. Once they were moved they could exert little pressure.

The only way that campaigning can work is if the left has a narrative which is as strong as, or stronger than the right.

The narrative of the left is horribly weak at the moment. The mainstream media is extremely biased towards the right, the Labour leadership are incapable of any ideas and the Labour Socialist Campaign Group is divided, suppressed and almost silent. If transformative change is going to happen in the UK this needs to change, but it shows no signs of doing so. Even a competent Labour right-wing leadership would make little difference. The chances of another left-wing Labour leader were low to start with, and even lower now with the electoral rule changes. Whilst left wing media has made inroads on the internet, its audience is small, and the mainstream media grows ever more pro-government as time goes on. The weakness of opposition, and the Conservatives’ chameleon like abilities to pretend they are something else, are gradually undermining democracy and turning England into a one party state like Russia or Hungary. Just waiting for the left wing to ‘get its chance’, may mean waiting until there is no democracy and no chance.

Barring a philanthropic multi-millionaire supporting a left wing media platform like Novara Media, the left has no chance of making inroads into the mainstream media. The only option left for a strong leftist narrative is political leadership, which has to come from parliament. The only public argument I’ve heard for this so far came from James Schneider at The World Transformed. He urged the Labour SCG to form stronger links – or merge with – organisations such as Momentum, BLM and Extinction Rebellion and form a party within a party – as Militant did in Labour in the 1980s. This is a good idea. But while the organisation remains a part of the Labour Party the Party will always have the tools to crush it, and the Party will always come across as divided and unelectable and will therefore definitely want to crush it. The history of Militant does not give a hopeful example.

It is often said that new parties cannot survive in the British electoral system. I disagree – it is not necessarily new parties that are doomed, but small parties, and most new parties are necessarily small. A separate party that included all of the Labour SCG MPs would not be small – it would be more than twice the size of the Liberal Democrats in parliamentary terms. It would quickly acquire a membership far bigger than any other party, and as a result would have a very healthy war-chest. Whilst it would be somewhat unlikely to win a majority by itself, there is no reason why it could not survive – it could provide leadership, and a much needed counter-narrative to oppose the government and the media.

The world cannot be transformed in a decent and sustainable way unless there are powerful socialists, or indeed just progressives, to lead the movement to do so. These figures will not become powerful unless there are ‘safe spaces’ in major institutions for them to operate in. At the moment there are few institutions that are ‘safe spaces’ for us, and of the ones that exist none are powerful enough to achieve much. Once there is a safe space to lead from, a progressive and transformative coalition can develop that will necessarily include people who are not socialists or environmentalists – maybe even some right-wing Labour party members. It will be impossible to form this coalition without an independent, viable and ‘safe’ base to support it.

Please support my petition to the Labour Socialist Campaign Group MPs to pressurize them to join, or create, an independent and viable Socialist party.