It is commonly acknowledged across the broad spectrum of opinion that describes itself as ‘left wing’ that the British working class has been under siege by the bourgeoisie for over fifteen years now, since the 2008 economic collapse in fact. The mandarins of the TUC even comment upon this in their usual mournful, faux serious fashion when it comes to conference season. So at a time when wages have seeing real term cuts, unemployment is climbing and the organisational level of the working class remains chronically weak, what do the great and the good of the trade union bureaucracy focus on? Is it on organising industrial action to force the Starmer government to save Grangemouth (Scotland’s only oil refinery) from being closed down by the asset stripper Jim Ratcliffe? Is it to tackle the housing crisis which is seeing more and more families shoved into poor quality temporary accommodation? Is it to demand a real jobs programme from the government to tackle the unemployment crisis?
No. The TUC, under the leadership of the weasel-featured buffoon Paul Nowak, has instead chosen to back a national demonstration in favour of continuing the war in Ukraine and the British government’s financial backing for it. This financial backing has been confirmed recently by Keir Starmer to amount to at least £3 billion a year for “as long as it takes”. So why then are the TUC going as far as openly demonstrating for the continuation of a war that has likely killed over a million working class Ukrainians and as many as one hundred thousand Russians? Before answering this it is best to remind ourselves of the kind of regime that Paul Nowak is so keen to defend.
The current Ukrainian regime stems from the coup of 2014 that saw a pro-US junta imposed on the country which was backed up by armed bands of fascists. Upon coming to power they immediately started attacks on working class organisations and led a pogrom of communists, socialists and trade unionists at the union hall in Odessa. Since then both President Poroshenko and his successor Zelensky have been selling off the industry, farmland and natural resources of the country to imperialist countries. The working class has seen its ability to organise severely restricted and the Ukrainian communist party has been banned. This is the regime that the TUC leaders are endorsing and saying that the British government should continue to prop up. So let us return to the question of why it is that they are endorsing such a regime? The TUC leaders are acting in this way because the order has come out from Downing Street to try and mobilise working class support for a war that has already played its part in making workers in Britain poorer via increased energy bills and rising inflation. The truth is that the TUC has been incorporated into the workings of the British state for over a century now. The bureaucrats at the top of it see their job as managing the class struggle and making sure it doesn’t go ‘too far’ in terms of the militancy. This extends to them playing the role of reinforcing ruling class propaganda within the working class which is exactly what the TUC leaders are trying to do here. This is not a new phenomenon, in fact it has been the way the TUC has been operating since the early 20th century. The truth is that they are not the leaders of the working class but the representatives of a narrow layer of better off workers who still obtain some benefits from the rapaciousness of British imperialism.
This is another key reason why the TUC always advocates for imperialism, because the TUC leaders are beneficiaries of it. If the working class movement is to progress, if we are to get even the minimum demands realised, we must free the movement from the wretched leadership of the two pillars of the British ruling class within the working class and these are the Labour Party and the leadership of the TUC. Our movement (if it is to mean anything) must escape the control of both of these entities, in fact both of them must be consigned to the dustbin of history.
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