The Shape of Things to Come

The Green victory in the Gorton & Denton by-election was a slap in the face for all the major parliamentary parties. Labour lost a seat it’s held for a hundred years. Reform came a poor second  and the Tories lost their deposit trailing behind just a few hundred votes above the Liberal Democrats, the Monster Raving Loonies and the other also-rans. 
Trumped by the Greens the Faragists put their failure down to the “Muslim vote” while the Starmer crowd blame left “extremists” for making the common course with the Greens that led to Labour’s downfall in Manchester. But at the end of the day Starmer & Co got the kicking they so richly deserved because voters were sick of the lies of the false prophets of all the mainstream bourgeois parties in Britain today.
Jeremy Corbyn, one of those “extremists” that Starmer doubtless had in mind, welcomed the Greens’ stunning victory and said his supporters “will work constructively with the Greens, because there is only one way we can bring about real change: together”.
On the other hand Richard Burgon, one of the few left social-democrats still in the Parliamentary Labour Party says the “blame for Labour’s defeat lies squarely with Keir Starmer and his clique”.
He says “they put factional interests over having the candidate best placed to win, Andy Burnham. If Labour is to be the “Stop Reform” party, then the leadership must stop treating progressive voters with contempt - and start appealing to them.
“That means a return to real Labour values - through policies like a Wealth Tax, public ownership of energy and water, and an ethical foreign policy that are all popular with the public. And it means ditching the approach of trying to ape Reform and kicking the left, that has alienated so many people who have voted Labour previously”.
We’ll see. The Greens deservedly got a massive protest vote this time round but their “eco-socialism” is only a rehash of the stale left social-democracy we see time and time again within the European Union that the Greens much admire. 
Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham wait in the wings to pick up the pieces when Starmer inevitably goes. They uphold the NHS. They talk about public ownership. They pay lip-service to the old Bennite social-democratic tradition. They support the union bureaucrats at the helm of the labour movement. But that’s as far as it goes – and as far as it will ever go as long as the careerists and time-servers remain in charge. We, as communists,  want real change. We have to put socialism back on the working-class agenda. 
We must keep up the fight against the whole capitalist system in Britain and throughout the world. The struggle for peace and socialism must begin anew – in the unions, amongst the rank and file and on the street. It must start now...

Burnham’s move

The Labour bureaucracy’s decision to block Andy Burnham’s bid to return to Parliament comes as no surprise – least of all to the Mayor of Greater Manchester who has done little in recent months to mask his leadership ambitions. Burnham knows the score. His star  rose with the help of the right-wing blocs that have long held sway in the unions and the Labour Party – factions that are still loyal to Starmer and the ageing gang of washed-up Blairites that advise him.
Though some 50 Labour backbenchers and peers are calling on Labour’s NEC to reverse the Burnham ban they don’t have the power or influence to force it through. But the decision to bar Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham from contesting the Gorton & Denton by-election is a double-edged sword. It removes a potential challenger to Starmer or his chosen successor, Wes Streeting but at the same time it boosts the chances of the Faragists and the Greens – who are both making huge efforts to turf Labour out at the by-election in the Manchester constituency next month. And if Labour lose Starmer’s days are numbered.
Burnham will still be out of the running. He hasn’t got a seat in Parliament and he’s never going to get one as long as Starmer & Co are in charge,
Burnham’s hope however is that Starmer will fall on his sword if the Labour vote collapses in Gorton & Denton and the regional and local elections that will soon follow in the Spring. If the ‘Stop Streeting’ brigade can mount a successful challenge for the leadership – possibly through Angela Rayner – Burnham’s return to national politics and the high office he craves for is on the cards. The ‘King of the North’ has been checked. But he’s still in the game.
None of this, however, is of much benefit to the working class. At the end of the day there is little that really divides Starmer and Burnham. All we are seeing is a spat within right-wing social-democracy – a beauty contest between the third-rate bureaucrat who claims to lead us and a seasoned street-wise politician who knows how to woo the voters. 
Sadly the left response has been weak and divided. The Corbynistas are too busy locked in their own internal struggles to intervene. One of their prominente, Salma Yaqoob, is openly calling on her followers to support the Greens in the Gorton & Denton by-election.
Prominent Your Party member and former Respect party leader Salma Yaqoob has endorsed the Greens in the upcoming Gorton & Denton by-election. She is urging the left to “work together to support” the Greens who are now the bookies’ favourite to take the seat. 
Though essentially a liberal-bourgeois front the Greens like to pose as ‘eco-socialists’ when gunning for votes in traditional Labour areas. Zack Polanski, the Green leader, is a former Liberal-Democrat who has seen his platform grow on calls for a wealth tax, an end to arms sales to Israel, and the defence of immigrants, asylum seekers and civil liberties as a whole.
But this is still reformism – a rebrand of the left social-democracy we see time and time again within the European Union that the Greens much admire.
Though there is a time and place for a protest vote – and Starmer definitely must go – we must keep up the fight against the whole capitalist system in Britain and throughout the world.

Johnson’s summer of discontent

August is traditionally known as the ‘Silly Season’ – when parliaments close, politicians head for the beach and the papers are reduced to reporting even more rubbish to fill their columns during the summer break. Normally they make do with the mediocre performance of the English cricket team, sharks off the Devon coast and the occasional sighting of the Loch Ness monster. But this is not a normal summer.

The movers and shakers are on stand-by for a snap election, and all sorts of nonsense is being spouted by MPs who otherwise would literally be spending more time with their family in pleasanter climes.

Whilst Liberal-Democrats talk about “national governments” headed by the likes of discredited Blairites Hillary Benn or Yvette Cooper, the Greens have gone one better in calling for an all-woman coalition to topple Boris Johnson and keep us in the European Union (EU).

Caroline Lucas, the only Green MP in Parliament, has asked 10 female politicians from all parties to join her in forming an "emergency cabinet" in a bid to oust Boris Johnson and stop a No-deal Brexit. The chosen few include Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry, Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson and even Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish nationalist leader who is not even a member of the Westminster parliament. Diane Abbott, the most senior woman politician on the Labour front bench, was predictably ignored. But it hardly matters because no-one, apart from the Guardian that published it, took the Green proposal seriously in the first place.

Boris Johnson has nothing to fear from embittered Blairite backbenchers whose “Anyone but Corbyn” mantra makes the formation of a “government of national unity” in this current parliament all but impossible. But Johnson’s Brexiteers are under threat from the Europhiles in their own camp and the prospect of Brexit overturned in parliament cannot be ignored.

This week former Tory Chancellor Philip Hammond had a pop at Boris Johnson’s special adviser, Dominic Cummings, when he accused the Prime Minister of heeding “unelected” saboteurs “who pull the strings” of his government. Needless to say, Cummings is loathed by the Remainers for his hard-line Brexit views.

Johnson’s foolish talk of proroguing parliament has enabled the Remainers to don the mantle of parliamentary sovereignty in the quarrel over Europe. John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, has vowed to block Boris Johnson from suspending parliament to force through a No-deal Brexit “with every breath in my body”, whilst others believe that the Queen’s "disappointment in the current political class” has further undermined Johnson’s prestige.

Johnson is clearly banking on being bailed out by an American trade deal to off-set the supposed losses that will follow Brexit. But even this is in doubt, despite the enthusiastic support of the Republican president, Donald Trump. Democrat rival Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, says there is “no chance” of a UK–US trade deal if a No-deal Brexit undermines the Good Friday Agreement in Ireland.

The Brexit crisis cannot be resolved by dirty deals in Parliament nor by crawling to the Americans. In fact this fractious parliament cannot resolve anything. There’s got to be a snap general election.

This will be our chance to kick the Tories out and sweep Labour back into power. We must use every resource the labour movement has to win the biggest possible vote for Labour by mobilising the mass support that swept Corbyn to the helm of the party in the first place. Labour can end austerity and empower the unions to raise the standard of living of every worker across the country. Let’s make sure it does.