Voters in the local elections delivered a clear rejection of Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party. Reasons for their loss of seats are in plentiful supply and are understood all too well by all those struggling to pay their rents and bills, or unable to access basic health services without an extensive wait. Or those who are repulsed by the government’s unwavering support for Israel and its campaign of genocidal terror against the Palestinian people. Whilst Labour and some of the smaller parties like the Greens, Lib Dems or Galloway’s Workers’ Party are in high spirits over their seat gains, the working-class overwhelmingly understands that these parties offer very little hope of the kind of radical economic and political change needed to reverse the tides.
In Rise, we concern ourselves with building working-class power to help change society ourselves. Elections only change the set of managers presiding over the managed decay. They may change the branding and flavour of government, but they all serve the same purpose: frustrating working-class power and safeguarding the power of capitalism to profit from the ruin and diminishing living standards of the vast majority of us. Whilst elections do not offer a credible path to power for the working-class, they do serve to indicate the general direction and method used by the capitalist class to protect their rule and are instructive for working-class socialists to understand the battles ahead. It’s fairly clear now that the Labour Party is likely to form the next government. This will not offer the working-class even a partial improvement, and thus we must be ready to organise, resist and reject with the same (or indeed greater) determination we would any Tory government.
Whilst a Labour government is the most likely outcome at the next General Election, these local election results would suggest that a 1997 style Labour landslide might not be on the cards. Firstly, Labour may have achieved notable gains, but they are still dwarfed by their gain of 468 council seats in 1996. Secondly, Labour have lost seats in, what they arrogantly believe to be, their heartlands such as Oldham where they have lost overall control of the council. Furthermore, there is the additional complicating factor of smaller parties such as the Greens making a noteworthy gain of 74 seats. This reflects Starmer’s inability to establish a consensus resulting in left leaning sections of Labour looking elsewhere. This is not simply a matter of personality, though it is true Starmer cannot ape the appeal Tony Blair was able to achieve, despite how treacherous and anti working-class his premiership proved to be.
The more important factor is the fact that Starmer is preparing to govern a much more corroded political economy. The intensity of the crises unfolding means that the system cannot offer even the weak and pale reforms it could in 1997, much less a 1945 style renaissance of a welfare state for the 21st century. As a result of this deep rot within the economy, the methods and ideas of the Labour Party have had to become more crude and reactionary. This is why shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting is very openly preparing the ground for deeper privatisation of the NHS. This is why even the faint whispers of challenge from the Labour left are met with censure and expulsion. It is also why we should not welcome the incoming Labour government and we will need to work hard to organise against its aims to stifle working-class organisation ever further in the face of deepening crises.
While the minor gains made by the Workers Party, and the disruptive energy they have introduced into the electoral terrain, are notable, we also understand its limitations in terms of building the kind of socialist politics and working-class organisation needed to swing the balance of class forces in the working-class’s favour. It is good that we have elected figures offering some degree of challenge to Starmer’s complicity in the face of Israel’s brutal repression of Gaza. It is good that some degree of challenge is posed to the near identical programmes of Conservatives and Labour seeking to make the working-class pay for capitalist crisis. What we cannot foresee is the Workers Party becoming the necessary pole of attraction within working-class communities and trade unions to offer the resistance needed for the tasks ahead. To do so, they would need to establish far deeper roots and develop a democratic programme that goes further than their current efforts which are clouded in a nostalgic hope of resurrecting a compromised post-1945 Labour Party politics. This is neither desirable, achievable nor useful in resisting the deep crisis we are already in. We are happy to be proven wrong on this matter, but nothing about their current strategy nor Galloway’s opportunistic nature would indicate that the Workers Party presents a new dawn of serious, independent working-class organisation.
In Rise, we are happy to support serious and well-rooted working-class candidates in elections, but this is a distant secondary task compared to building a sustainable socialist alternative that is resilient to the Labour Party and the other small parties with their paltry offerings. A Labour Government is incoming and we need to be prepared for that. Its continued right-wing shift. Its attempts to lean on the trade unions to dampen resistance to its attacks on pay and conditions and its enduring protection of a decrepit and unstable capitalist system.
Elections are a very small aspect of the factors which determine the kind of society we wish to live in. Replacing one set of detached and disinterested administrators with another matters far less than the building of an independent working-class organisation with the power and influence to shape events as they unfold. This is a task that we in Rise are seriously committed to achieving so that we can aspire for more than the illusory and indeed delusional promise that Labour or the Greens are our only hope.
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Capitalism, which dominates every aspect of our lives, is in terminal decline, it will limp from crisis to crisis, each one more devastating than the last.
The injustices that produce the conflict in occupied Palestine will continue until the structures of apartheid and colonialism are dismantled. There will be peace, but only when Palestine is free, from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. Rise will work tirelessly to hasten the day.
It is clear to everyone that our society does not work for us all. Working class people, who produce the wealth, and without whom nothing works, have seen their wages, living standards and quality of life collapse. At the same time, the wealth of a tiny minority in society grows without restraint.
