Capitalism's crisis and the threat to democracy
by Gary Lefley
Barely a week goes by in Britain without a major incident or high-profile speech summoning up the forces of the far-right and calling for state repression of democratic rights.
Back in April one such event involved Gideon Falter of the Campaign against Antisemitism. (CAA) The CAA is an organisation which exists to defend and excuse the policies and actions of the Israeli state. This includes supporting the regime’s war of ethnic cleansing and annexation of Gaza. The CAA equates criticism of the state of Israel with antisemitism, so any critique of Israel’s genocidal war is dismissed as antisemitic. Falter is the Chief Executive of CAA and was recently at the centre of a controversy when the metropolitan police refused to allow him and his accomplices to march through the centre of a mass public demonstration which was calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. He claimed that he just happened to be out “for a walk” when by chance he came across the demonstration. The police suggested an alternative route, which Falter rejected. He then attempted to shove police officers out of his path.
Dal Babu, a former Met chief superintendent, told the BBC’s Today programme that the full 13-minute footage from the encounter showed officers “bending over backwards” to help Falter. Babu added that had he been at the scene, he would have arrested Falter for “breach of the peace.” He continued, “…the full picture shows somebody trying to go against the march, attempting to push past police officers and being quite frankly rude and aggressive”. (1)
If Falter was out for a walk, why not enjoy the beautiful green acres of Hyde Park, or Green Park, or St James’ Park, all of which are a stone’s throw away? Why that place at that time? Why was he so dismissive of police assistance? Why up the stakes by trying to barge past police officers to dissect a demonstration that, coincidentally, he wanted banned? To the world, his behaviour looks like a planned provocation. Ben Jamal, head of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, concluded that Falter staged the stunt “to provoke a banning of marches against Israel’s genocide”. It is hard to disagree. (2)
BAN THE MARCHES
‘Ban the marches’ is a recurring far-right narrative. Suella Braverman MP, former home secretary, has repeatedly called for public demonstrations in support of a ceasefire in Gaza to be outlawed. After Falter’s incitement she re-issued that demand and is now calling for Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley to be sacked.
Lee Anderson MP hit the headlines back in February with his racist outburst directed at Sadiq Khan and the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in London supporting a ‘Free Palestine’. He accused Khan of giving “our capital city away to his mates…” claiming that Islamists have “got control of Khan and they’ve got control of London”. (3) Robert Jenrick MP, former Minister of State for Health, Minister of State for Immigration, and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, told Parliament in February: “we have allowed our streets to be dominated by Islamist extremists”. (4)
In March Prime Minister Sunak, referring to the entirely peaceful demonstrations against the genocide in Gaza, summoned Police chiefs to Downing Street to allege that there is a "growing consensus that mob rule is replacing democratic rule". (5)
GROWTH OF THE RIGHT
The attack on the freedom to protest collectively is by no means the only manifestation of a growing far-right faction within British ruling circles. In March, cabinet Minister Michael Gove MP unveiled his strategy to combat ‘extremism’. One of the organisations named by Gove, the Muslim Association of Britain, has been part of the coalition of five groups organising the national demonstrations calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The groups, which include Stop the War and Palestine Solidarity, issued a joint statement saying,
“We condemn Michael Gove’s statement. His redefinition of extremism, framed as a defence of democracy, is in reality an assault on core democratic freedoms, seeking to silence dissenting voices.” (6)
Frank Hester OBE is the Tory Party’s biggest donor and he recently gifted a further £10 million. In March he was reported to have told a meeting in 2019 that looking at Diane Abbott made him “want to hate all black women”, and “she should be shot.” (7) Incitement to hatred carries up to a 6-year custodial sentence. Five years later Hester has apologised. Evidently, if you donate millions to the Tories then that’s enough to stop you going to prison, or even being charged.
Imagine, just for one impossible moment, if Abbott had said Boris Johnson made her hate all white men and he should be shot. Imagine the enduring media outcry. Her public life would be over and Johnson would very likely press criminal charges.
A number of Tory MPs claimed Hester’s comment was ‘rude’ but neither racist nor threatening. And Sunak - with multi-million pounds of finance capital at his Party’s disposal - is nevertheless happy to accept Hester’s money. Evidently calling for someone to be shot because she is black is not ‘extreme’. Gove will not, of course, acknowledge the real far-right extremist menace, which comes from within his own Party and from within the British establishment. For the rest of her life, Diane will be looking over her shoulder waiting for some fascist psychopath to do Hester’s bidding.
AUTHORITARIANISM
Back to Anderson. In August 2023 he commented that any asylum seekers who disliked being housed in barges “should f*ck off back to France". Justice Secretary Alex Chalk voiced his support for Anderson on behalf of the government, stating that Anderson’s “indignation is well placed" and "not bigotry at all". (8) During the 2019 General Election campaign Anderson suggested council estate tenants should be evicted into tents in a field and made to pick vegetables. He has described Black Lives Matter as a "political movement whose core principles aim to undermine our very way of life". In November 2021, he told a female councillor to "stay out of big boy politics". (9) Four years ago, his own Party investigated him over claims of antisemitism.
Anderson’s rants are not the aberrations of an eccentric non-entity. He was until recently the Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party and chair of the Conservative Party’s Blue Collar Caucus. Though he has now switched to the Reform UK Party, he remains a mouthpiece of a powerful proto-fascistic faction within ruling class ranks, a faction that Reform UK seeks to represent.
Anderson is not alone. At the Tory Party conference in October 2023 Suella Braverman, projected herself as the leader of the Tory far-right and a future Tory prime minister, “the hurricane… is coming… the future could bring millions more migrants to these shores, uncontrolled and unmanageable…” Speaking in Washington DC the month before, she described migrants and refugees as “an existential challenge for the political and cultural institutions of the West”. (10) Anderson, Braverman and Jenrick currently represent a minority within conservative thinking, but they are not marginalised. They speak on behalf of a significant, and increasingly vociferous wing of the British ruling class.
When Sunak referred to ‘mob rule replacing democratic rule’, it was a victory for the far-right. Having come under attack for removing the Party whip from Anderson, he was then obliged, almost immediately, to appease the Tory extremists with a baseless attack on the right to demonstrate. That far-right is looking for Britain to follow Germany in instituting a state crackdown on such demonstrations.
Sunak’s ruthless commitment to the policy of deporting immigrants to Rwanda is partly a desperate appeal to base populism in order to reverse Tory fortunes in the opinion polls. But it is also another victory for the extremists within his own ranks.
CAPITALISM'S CRISIS
The capitalist world has been in economic crisis since 2008. The 30-year parasitical bonanza that materialised from the counter-revolutions in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, had been frittered away. Asset-stripping, imperial capitalisation of what was formerly Soviet public property, mineral exploitation and market acquisition have all contracted as Russia, under Putin, established its own identity as a capitalist nation state.
The boom-bust cycle, for decades thought to be intrinsic to the market economy, has disappeared and been replaced by enduring crisis and a sustained trend towards declining productivity. British monopoly capitalism, in the form of neo-liberalism, has perceived the solution to the post-2008 crisis to be the cannibalising of public industries and services and intensifying the rate of exploitation of labour, both at home and abroad.
STATE COERCION
Under the floss of five come-and-go Tory Prime Ministers, including breathtaking incompetence and substantiated corruption, there has been one tangible constant: the sustained dismantling of democratic rights. A stream of legislation has passed quietly through parliament, removing the democratic rights of the people and ramping up the coercive power of the state. (11) In just the last three years this has included the Overseas Operations Act 2021; the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Act 2021; the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022; The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022; Nationality and Borders Act 2022; Election Act 2022; Policing Act 2022; Public Order Act 2023; the National Security Act 2023; the Illegal Migration Act 2023; the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023.
The objective has been clear: whether or not the crisis is resolvable, the profit margins of big business will be looked after and public opposition will be repressed. Neoliberalism has remained the unchallenged dogma, with sweeping privatisation, ‘liberalisation’ of regulations on everything from the management of raw sewage to construction, the asset stripping of public property, and the suppression of workers’ wages and conditions of service. Since 2010 the cost of this enduring crisis has been offloaded onto the working classes through controlled inflation, falling real wages, massive cuts in the social wage and deteriorating working conditions. All the indices of social deprivation continue to rise. Consequent unrest and resistance are being met by the state.
ESTABLISHMENT DIVISIONS
British ruling circles are not united behind this frontal assault on democracy. While Labour’s front bench has been groomed as a safe neoliberal option and the drive towards authoritarianism, reflected in the drive to war and across the major capitalist states, is manifest, these developments do not reflect a unified British ruling class.
The divisions are becoming apparent. Sunak was appointed by Tory MPs as a centrist who, they hoped, could unite the parliamentary Party after the divisive, disastrous tenure of Liz Truss. Braverman has been relegated to the backbenches after she was dismissed as home secretary for describing protesters as ‘hate marchers’, blaming the police, and calling for the demonstrations to be banned. Anderson had the Tory Party whip removed for his racist comments and has now joined Reform UK.
On 14th March the Financial Times Editorial Board published a critique of Gove’s government guidelines on extremism, concluding that they “carry risks for free speech and legitimate protest”. The editorial comment went on to say, “… the new definition contributes to a troubling expansion of what constitutes harmful extremism away from physical acts and straightforward incitement towards ideology and sets of beliefs. In striking the difficult balance between freedom and safety, governments should err on the side of free expression and the right to dissent.” (12)
The FT has never been for mass public readership. It has the unique role of the ruling class talking amongst itself - and it can therefore be revealing. What is important about the editorial comment above is it indicates that the battles within the capitalist class are anything but concluded. As yet, that disunion appears to be having minimal impact on the legislative programme to repress democratic rights. Nevertheless, divisions within the political establishment serve as a break on the drive to proto-fascism and to war.
DEMOCRATIC RESPONSE
To respond to these developments there is an urgent requirement for both an intensification of working class militancy in defence of its socio-economic interests and for the broadest unity of forces in defence of peace and democracy. With the significant rise in industrial action and working days lost to strike action over the past two years, and the unprecedented series of demonstrations of unity with the Palestinian people, there is evidence that these requirements are in the making. These class and democratic struggles can exacerbate ruling class divisions and begin to grow the political consciousness for a mass socialist movement.
We have embarked upon a period of history where the primary tasks are the prevention of a third world war, to halt climate change, to meet essential economic needs and to defend democracy. The likes of Braverman, Anderson and Shapps are representatives of the most reactionary, chauvinistic elements of the British ruling class. Defeating them, dispelling the spectres of war, poverty, climate degradation and fascism, necessitates the broadest possible unity of democratic forces. While the organised working class holds the industrial power and social compass to lead such a struggle, the democratic movement must reach out to all who have an investment in peace, sustainability and democracy.
(5) https://www.ft.com/content/5ce523fb-9729-476f-9635-4edab5a62a4b
(6) https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/splash-democracy-risk-warns-left-after-gove-plan
(8) https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tories-back-lee-anderson-after-30652396
(9) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Anderson_(British_politician)
(10) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-party-conference-live-rishi-sunak-hs2-latest-news-b0n7kcqd7
(11) The Dismantling Of Democracy - The Socialist Correspondent Monday Comment, 4/3/24
(12) https://on.ft.com/3PnHLnR
Palestine protesters in London stand up for free speech photo by Alisdare Hickson
Michael Gove the real face of extremism photo by Simon Dawson
Since 2010 the cost of this enduring crisis has been offloaded onto the working classes through controlled inflation, falling real wages, massive cuts in the social wage and deteriorating working conditions.
