By Frieda Park

The Tories under their inept new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, are at risk of turning economic struggles by workers to stave off destitution into a political fight which could have unwanted consequences for the ruling class.

The widespread industrial action and ballots still taking place across Britain are hugely welcome. There has been massive support for strikes in ballots and solid support for the strikes themselves. Workers have developed a self-confidence to act in their own interests after decades of near passivity as they were battered by the consequences of the neo-liberal restructuring of the British economy and consequent ruptures in social and political organisation. They have been pushed to this by a crisis in their living standards which means that millions will be struggling over the coming months.

RULING CLASS PROBLEMS 

The origins of this crisis are in the systemic problems of global capitalism, deep-seated structural problems in the British economy and the choices made by the Tory government which have made things worse. Inflation, high energy prices and post-Covid supply chain problems are not unique to the UK. However, the Tories have shown that they are so wedded to their ideological orthodoxies and complacency about the underlying fragility of the UK economy with its reliance on the financial sector that they have totally failed to respond. So divorced are they from the real experiences of people that they don’t seem to even understand the implications of rising prices for the majority of the population. Their suggested remedies will go nowhere near to touching the sides of the problems being faced. Rather what answers they have are aimed at protecting the profits of energy giants by giving them tax-payers’ cash as handouts and loans to enable families to pay their inflated bills. Perhaps that disdain and impotence by the representatives of the establishment have also emboldened trade union members to assert themselves.

Sections of the ruling class are certainly worried about the possibility of disorder on the streets and we are now seeing wildcat strikes, illegal under anti-trade union legislation. Any breach in the consensus of respect for the rule of law by the working class (though not for the bosses who regularly break laws – remember P&O) is dangerous. The ruling class certainly wouldn’t want it to be habit forming.

But the contrasts are stark – a bit of the veil has been lifted from capitalism as workers see bosses earn millions and companies raking in huge profits, while they literally can’t afford food and heating.

Yet these remain defensive struggles in the sense that workers are trying to get back to where they were, earning enough to get by. Whether the struggles can be more than that depends on the Tories’ actions and the political organisation and consciousness of the working class itself.

When it comes to managing this crisis the ruling class are in difficulties. How can the interests of capital be safeguarded, whilst meeting some of the expectations of ordinary people that they will be able to eat and heat their homes in what is the 5^th or 6^th richest country in the world? How can they respond so that people do not begin to question the legitimacy of the system that has created this crisis? The answers do not seem to be forthcoming.

PRIME MINISTER TRUSS 

Whilst some in the ruling class might want to try to mitigate the disaster facing British people, the new Tory leader and Prime Minister, Liz Truss, shows little sign of going down that route. She already proved herself to be politically inept in her leadership campaign. However, she won by appealing to the Thatcherite fundamentalist base of the Party trying to emulate the lost leader’s appeal. Her main policy for tackling rising energy costs was to cut taxes which would do little for most and nothing for the poorest who pay very little income tax. That was a huge gaff, even if it went down well with the Party faithful, so has now been pushed into offering some financial help to people. She still intends massive tax cuts, however, and it is difficult to imagine how she is going to tackle the problems of the Health Service, other public services and crumbling infrastructure with less cash coming in.

She and Grant Shapps are also promoting more anti-union legislation – Britain already has some of the most restrictive anti-trade union laws in the Western world – which would make legal strike action virtually impossible and would effectively do away with the right to strike. Entrenching the government in a face-off against working people may not go well. If trade union leaders, wildcat strike organisers and energy protesters end up in court and in jail, their protests will become of necessity more politicised.

Tory MPs and the establishment would have preferred Rishi Sunak as the next Prime Minister, so in quick succession after Johnson, they have got another Tory leader that they didn’t want. His policies would have chimed more with their interests. Truss on the other hand shows every sign of pursuing her own agenda regardless of the peril for capital and the Tory party’s fortunes.

Although it hardly seems possible, she is shaping up to be even worse than Johnson. As well as her lack of understanding of politics in Britain and lacking a thought through strategy to defend the interests of capital in a crisis, she is also a dangerous warmonger. While she offers no help for people whose living standards are tanking she will provide plenty of money for actual tanks. She plans to increase defence spending by half up from 2% to 3% or £20bn more per year. Britain faces no threat from any other country – no one is about to invade us. The increased spending can only be for offensive purposes, usually defined as protecting British interests, which now resemble playing a support role to the United States’ attempt to retain its position as the global hegemon. She will also fully renew the Trident nuclear weapons at a cost of at least £31bn. Her remarks over a potential direct confrontation between Russia and NATO, along with statements from other Western politicians, led Russia to put its nuclear forces on high alert. She believes that there should be a “global NATO”, which would police the world in Western interests and dangerously destabilise it. War with China is looming.

In domestic politics, what Truss and the Tory membership fail to realise is that this is not the 1980s – things have moved on. Unions are often accused of wanting to drag Britain back to the 1970s, but it is the Tories who are harking back to another time. However, there are big differences between Thatcher’s time and now. Even although there was mass unemployment and poverty, she created some buy in from the British people for her policies. Individuals were to benefit from privatisation and the selling off of assets. Workers were given shares in newly privatised companies like BT, people were given the right to buy their council houses at knock down prices, workers were allowed to opt out of pension schemes and so on. None of these measures resulted in any lasting prosperity for the working class, and the buy in to capitalism that they were designed to create has largely evaporated. Shares were sold off by their recipients to realise a bit of ready cash – now gone. People no longer have future prospects of a pension they can live on and while there is a generation of homeowners who would not otherwise have been in the property market, it is a market their children have been priced out of, with the added burden that, since it was sold off, there is hardly any social housing for them. They are, then, forced to pay exorbitant rents for often sub-standard accommodation to private landlords. Truss cannot emulate Thatcher in this respect as there is nothing left to sell off - the cupboard of supposed goodies is bare and are now living through the consequences. Public services are collapsing, infrastructure is crumbling and the cost of living crisis is a Thatcherite vulture come home to roost.

Of course there is a war. Thatcher had the Falklands and Johnson/Truss have Ukraine. But again this is different. The Falklands Islands is a British Overseas Territory, Ukraine has no such tie to the UK. The Falklands war was expensive in terms of soldiers’ lives lost and the long term injuries they suffered, but was a short campaign, lasting only 10 weeks, and as wars go relatively uncostly. The proxy war in Ukraine looks set to drag on with the UK committed to pouring arms into it indefinitely. It is also cited as a cause of rising energy prices and, therefore, may be seen as having a direct impact on the lives of British people in a way that the Falklands did not. This could yet become an unpopular war despite the media barrage in support of it.

WORKING CLASS POLITICAL ACTION 

The Unions and workers may be made more political by the Tories’ actions, however, what of their independent political organisation and consciousness? If there is to be a long term advance for the class coming through these industrial struggles then these need to develop too. There are weaknesses in the movement and the working class to be overcome. Developing unity, extending union membership in the private sector and the gig economy, consolidating a left which is based on class politics, the political organisation of the working class and developing education and class consciousness are all important.

The movement is now dominated by a few big powerful trade unions as well as influential smaller and militant ones. The big ones especially are in competition with each other to gain members and there is, too often, disunity over demands and tactics. Collaboration between unions to bring their actions together would be really powerful. Yet despite the talk there has, at time of writing, been no move towards coordinated strike action, which could amount to a general strike, even if only for a day and would be a major statement by the unions presenting a greater challenge to the government as well as employers. A TUC spokesperson recently said on Channel 4 news that it wasn’t the TUC’s role to be organising this, that it was up to unions to coordinate, raising questions about what the TUC is for.

As trade union membership declined unions tended to become concentrated in the public sector. In the current wave of industrial action, there have been victories in the private sector for Trade Unions and there is extensive industrial action taking place there. However, a good proportion of this is in industries that were formerly nationalised, like the railways and BT, and where the tradition of union organisation continued. A huge swath of the working class is now in bogus self-employment, working as contractors. Some firms, like Uber and Deliveroo, have built their business models on this. Organising these workers remains challenging, but inroads are now being made. Trade unions are focusing on this more now which is very positive. As a result of the strike action taking place, union membership is growing and workers in the gig economy and other parts of the private sector may increasingly see the benefits of union membership.

New trade union general secretaries have placed a welcome focus on militant organisation. The current industrial struggles are a massive advance on the passivity of recent years but what they can deliver is strictly limited without political struggle. Of necessity they focus on immediate demands, pay and working conditions. What about the other vital interests of the working class like housing, health services, nationalisation of energy companies and the railways? Whilst unions may make demands round these issues, they are not what members are currently out on strike for.

As parliamentary action will be required to enact legislation to achieve these aims, distancing unions from the Labour Party that they established is counterproductive. Sharon Graham, Unite General Secretary, has adopted a stance of disengagement from Labour. She is correct that Labour does not represent the be all and end all of politics – far from it. It was set up to be, and remains largely, an electoral machine. She has put disaffiliation of Unite on the table and during her election campaign advocated that the union support community based political action. Community action is good, but looking around at the plethora of protest groups which have sprung up over the cost of living crisis it easy to see the limitations as they lack strategies to actually achieve their ends.

Union leaders are rightly strongly critical of the Labour leader Keir Starmer. At the start of the RMT industrial action he issued an edict that Labour front- benchers should not attend picket lines. This has been widely ignored by senior figures including on the right, like Lisa Nandy, Shadow Minister for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Anas Sarwar leader of Scottish Labour.  Just as the Tories hark back to the glory days of the 1980s, he seems set on trying to re-create the New Labour of the1990s. Trying to be only marginally to the left of the Tories and seeking to tack to the elusive middle ground is hardly a recipe to build the Labour Party in such a polarised political situation. Yet given the dire situation that the Tories are in and establishment dissatisfaction with them, he could easily win a general election.

Of course Labour has shifted to the right under Starmer, but that is hardly a new phenomenon since the Party has been right wing for most of its existence. Hard as it is, there is no alternative to confronting the vested interests of the establishment. The alternatives for nebulous community organisation or yet another (inevitably doomed) attempt at a new party are unconvincing. With no serious alternative, the destruction or weakening of Labour would be a big loss. If unions which founded the Labour Party see that it is not fulfilling the role of representing their interests, they could mobilise their resources and their people to change the Party. This doesn’t have to be an alternative to industrial struggle, in fact coming off the back of these fights it could be a very powerful force to transform Labour. This would be a far cry from the backroom machinations that Graham rails against. To move beyond the current defensive trade union struggles a clearer political strategy and organisation is needed.

UNITY IS STRENGTH 

Unity is strength and to achieve it we need to overcome divisive ideologies.

Nationalism in Scotland has led to a complacency that things are different there and that everything could be solved if freed from “Tory England”. It is not clear how much the current crisis will eat into that mistaken belief. SNP politicians are popping up on the news saying that there isn’t the money to meet workers’ pay demands and that they have made a good offer to council workers. In this they sound like any other boss or politician, but they can always add the get out clause that they are restricted by Westminster and would do better if Scotland were independent. On the other hand workers in Scotland are taking action alongside workers in other parts of the UK maybe that will help forge a new sense of common purpose across the British working class. However, this would be a big political turn around in Scotland and the potential should not be over-stated. The SNP is working hard to keep the focus on independence rather than class issues. In pursuit of that Sturgeon has announced plans for another referendum on October 19^th next year, despite the fact that there is absolutely zero chance of this happening legally. The objective is to keep her fundamentalist supporters on board and to divert Scottish people’s attention towards the Tories obstruction of a referendum and away from fighting right now in their interests.

Nationalism is the politics of identity over class but it is not the only example of the negative effects of identity politics and culture wars on the left and the movement. Oppression is rooted in capitalism’s exploitation of labour and in pursuit of that it seeks to divide the working class, so building unity is essential to challenging capital. The left should, therefore, seek to develop campaigns which can unify, where people can build common cause. That will involve education and debate, including with ideas which may be negative. Demands that are divisive and a refusal to engage in debate are unhelpful. They are a gift to the Tories who would rather be fighting about symbols which they can use to reinforce divisions in the working class, whilst avoiding the real issues.

Thankfully there are signs that a more solid class-based left is emerging from the defeat of Corbyn. The current strikes help with that. When Corbyn became leader there was virtually no class struggle to anchor the left and begin to build class consciousness and unity. Whilst some class consciousness will emerge spontaneously from these struggles, to move beyond the immediate issues of survival to a critique of capitalism, then political education will also be needed.

The strikes are proving that the left and the working class movement is far from dead. With the Tories in crisis, much can be won. 

Liz Truss

Public services are collapsing. infrastructure is crumbling and the cost of living crisis is a Thatcherite vulture come home to roost.

Oppression is rooted in capitalism's exploitation of labour and in pursuit of that it seeks to divide the working class, so building unity is essential to challenging capital.