Starmer’s government of crisis

Editorial from issue 83 of the Socialist – the paper of Socialist Party Scotland

Keir Starmer’s rule is hanging by a thread. It’s a matter of when not if he is pushed out. The British capitalist class are facing a nightmare.

If Starmer is replaced, this would be the sixth prime minister in the last seven years. Leaving Britain in the almost ungovernable category. A reflection of the long-term acute decline of British capitalism and the hollowing out of the main capitalist parties as a result.

This political crisis should be the green light for the trade union movement to go on the offensive on pay and demands for the full funding of public services.

As it is, Starmer is as lame a duck as ever there was. Uber-Blairite health secretary Wes Streeting resigned but was unable to find the backers to mount an immediate challenge.

Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is standing in a by-election hoping to return to Westminster to challenge Starmer. Yet it’s by no means certain that he will win in the Makerfield election. If he does, it will be on the basis of a campaign of ‘vote Burnham to get rid of Starmer’.

Burnham

Yet Andy Burnham is no left winger. In fact he has previously served 16 years as a Labour MP including voting for the Iraq war, as a minister under Blair, as a cabinet member under Brown with a role in the Treasury, as billions of pounds of austerity cuts were sketched out in the 2007 spending review.

He stood for Labour leader against Jeremy Corbyn in 2015, and campaigned for Starmer against the left in the 2020 leadership election, telling the Guardian: Keir is a brilliant man.”

It’s a nightmare scenario, not just for Labour but also for the ruling class in Britain. They are desperate for a stable government that will carry out its bidding. And that means a government that will continue the austerity offensive.

As well as resisting demands from the working class and the trade unions for pay rises that at least match inflation that is spiralling again.

The cost of Britain’s government borrowing increased to its highest level since 2008 as Starmer moved closer to being faced by a challenge.

A Financial Times feature on ‘who do gilt investors want to lead Britain?’ put Burnham as “the biggest threat to the gilt market among the frontrunners”.

Tellingly though, one investor said Burnham’s apparent popularity might mean he is better able to “carry unpopular decisions on fiscal policy”.

Since, he has said, “I support the fiscal rules”. He has also said that he wants to make Labour “a party that’s solidly on the side of working-class people.” The two can’t be reconciled.

It is significant that all eleven affiliated trade unions have stated that Starmer will not lead Labour into the next general election.

However, the trade unions should open up a debate now among its members to discuss the building of a new trade union based party to represent the working class.

The recent election wins for the left in Unite, the PCS and Unison are all indicative of a huge desire among trade unionists for a party of their own. As well as a more militant and fighting leadership on pay, jobs and public services.

Never has the instability and political volatility facing British capitalism been so acute. It reflects the crisis-ridden system as a whole and the undermining of any and all parties who seek to govern within the limits of capitalism.

In Scotland, despite being the winners on 58 MSPs, the SNP were also among the biggest losers in terms of vote share.

The significant drop in SNP support reflects the enormous disillusionment in a government that has inflicted cut after cut to the NHS and council services. As well as declaring a housing emergency and failing to take any measures to solve it.

Threat of Reform

As expected, Reform entered the parliament in an election for the first time. At the same time their performance also showed its limits as a party that is anti-working class to its core.

The Scottish Reform leader, Lord Malcolm Offord, exposed himself as a creature of the big business class when he boasted at a recent televised election debate that, “I own six houses, five cars and six boats.”

The threat of Reform UK poses the urgent need to offer a fighting socialist alternative to racism and division, and the cuts implemented by all the main parties in power, including Reform itself in the councils it now controls in England.

The cuts and continued austerity being implemented by the SNP, Labour, and even the Greens in the areas where they run councils, can only continue to build the bridges that allows Reform to cross into working class communities.

The pro-independence parties won 73 of the 129 seats overall, the largest number ever. Indeed with the pro-independence Plaid Cymru emerging as the largest party in Wales, the threats to the union are becoming even more concerning for the capitalist class in Britain, particularly with no stable or authoritative political base for its rule.

Nevertheless, they will fight tooth and nail to avoid conceding another referendum to Scotland. A mass working class campaign – separate from the leadership of the SNP – is necessary to deliver democratic rights alongside a struggle for socialist change.

Indeed, the Scottish Government before the election announced their intention to axe 11,000 public sector jobs as part of a £1.5 billion “efficiency savings” plan.

The appointed met of a new position in the Scottish cabinet of a public sector reform secretary is a warning to the trade unions about what is to come.

Socialist campaign

The Holyrood elections underlined both the accelerating erosion in support for the capitalist parties, including the SNP, and the crushing need for the workers’ movement to build its own political vehicle to fight for its interests.

Including demanding pay and benefit increases to match the costs of living. For a massive programme of council house building to end the housing emergency. For an end to cuts to the NHS, councils and social care and to take the wealth off the super-rich.

Socialist Party Scotland will continue to fight in the trade unions for that mass workers’ party to be built. In the meantime, we will take every opportunity to stand candidates as part of Scottish TUSC as well as making the case for socialist change.