Britain facing its deepest crisis ever + Corbyn and Sultana clash

Last week saw hundreds of thousands attend the biggest right-wing demonstration in decades. Meanwhile, Keir Starmer’s Labour government is facing a meltdown after just a year in office. How should the left respond, and what are the reasons for the rise of the right and the political crisis in the first place? 

In this week on Against the Stream, Niklas Albin Svensson and Hamid Alizadeh discuss the background of the crisis of British capitalism, Starmer’s future, the prospects and problems of Corbyn’s new party and the tasks facing Marxists in the period ahead. 

Against the Stream is a current affairs podcast of the Revolutionary Communist International, which airs weekly on YouTube on Thursdays at 6pm London time.

Reading list

Migration crisis: Who is to blame? by Ben Gliniecki

“Britain's largest right-wing demo in a generation – a damning indictment of the left” by The Revolutionary Communist Party

“UK Living Standards Review 2025” – National Institute of Economic and Social Research National Institute of Economic and Social Research

Transcript

Hamid  

Britain used to be known as an island of stability in the western world, but those days are far gone.

The economy is hardly scratching by. The budget deficit is increasing. The government's popularity is crashing. 

And over the weekend, there was a march with over 100,000 people in London called for by far-right activists such as Tommy Robinson. 

But what does it all mean? Is there fascism coming to Britain? And what is the answer of the communists to this crisis? 

My name is Hamid Alizadeh. This is Against the Stream, and I'm here today with Niklas Albin Svensson from the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International. 

Welcome back Niklas. 

Niklas  

Thank you.

Hamid  

Before we head into this, I just need to make a little announcement to our viewers and listeners out there, which is that we now have transcribed the episodes that we that we have. You can find the full transcription in the article that we published on Marxist.com every Friday. 

We also have – because we are doing this transcription – we've managed to produce subtitles in seven languages: in English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Chinese. 

We also have added a reading list with the main material, with important material going into the background of the topics that we discuss, that we will publish in the comments and the articles related to this episode every week.

So go to Marxist.com or go into the description section of YouTube Spotify, or wherever else you listen to us and watch us, and you can find the reading list and all the other material there. 

Now let's dive into this. There's lots happening in Britain. Maybe we should talk about... 

Donald Trump is in Britain. Did you see it? It was on BBC yesterday. It was his royal visit. He was invited by the King. 

Niklas  

Yeah, unprecedented second visit. 

Hamid  

Unprecedented. I noted that he tapped the King's back. You're not supposed to do that. That's a big no no. 

And and he was inspecting the royal guards with the King, but he was walking at the front, talking to one of the guards, and the king was kind of following him, like a little poodle, three or four meters behind him. 

I guess that's the special relationship, isn't it? 

Niklas  

Yes, Trump showing who's boss.

Hamid  

Exactly, exactly, which is more or less the correct relationship between Britain and America, isn't it? 

Niklas  

He's not keeping up pretenses, basically.

Hamid  

Exactly. They are, with all their royal pomp and ceremony. Oh, my God. But we're not going to really talk about that. 

The main thing we're going to start with is this march. There was a march on Saturday, 'Unite the Kingdom', it was called. It was called for by Tommy Robinson, who is a long standing far-right activist. Used to be a fascist, if I'm not mistaken, or very close to fascist. 

Niklas  

He was the leader of the English Defense League, which was, yeah, football hooligans bordering on fascists.

Hamid  

Yes. He's now mended his ways. He's in favor of peaceful resistance. What's it called? What's the name of his book?

Niklas

Well, he was selling a book at the. It was for selling his book. He's a shameless self promoter, if anything. But it's something like 'Peaceful Disobedience'.

Hamid  

Disobedience, yes, yes. But obviously he's still in those circles. 

He's now a member of a small party called Advance UK, if I'm not mistaken. 

He called this March, and the march was definitely a rallying point for the far-right in Britain. It was also addressed by Elon Musk – The world's no-longer richest man. I think he's the second richest man at the moment – who addressed the march via a video saying:

"Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die."

And this was in reference to one of the main themes of the march, which is basically against migration and in defense of this vague thing called unity. There was a lot of Christian religious propaganda and rhetoric on the stage, with different preachers who addressed the people. 

And if you just looked at that, you could be excused for thinking, well this is a massive racist fascist march. Definitely there were elements of racism there. If you read the newspapers, that is exactly what a lot of them are saying. In particular, the liberals are saying. 

"He's a fascist. Fascism is coming. We warned you." And there's a very sneering attitude towards this kind of thing on the left.

Niklas  

I think, to be honest, the left is worse. I think the newspapers are a little bit more balanced, even the liberals, like The Guardian, are a bit more balanced in their reporting than what you have with the left. 

Well, you have 'Stand up to Racism', which is a front for a certain left wing organisation. And they, they called this a fascist march. The counter protest was 'March Against Fascism', which is completely exaggerated. 

I mean, the opinions are... there was a fair amount of racism, xenophobia on display, and so on. A lot of right wing nationalist, all kinds of unpleasant ideas being expressed. But it's not quite the same as fascism.

Hamid  

No. Fascism, as we know, is a mass movement of enraged petty bourgeois and lumpens with the aim of crushing the working class movement.

Niklas  

Yeah. And, I mean, that's what you don't see here. Now, there is a lot of anti-migrant rhetoric and so on. And certainly these guys... 

If Reform, for example, were to come to power, there would be a lot of anti-migrant racist laws and acts and so on. No doubt about it. 

They would give the police more authority and so on. But there's a difference between that and actual fascism, which meant, in the 20s and 30s, meant the actual elimination of all the working class organisations, or them completely converting into fascist organisations. 

And that's not what we're looking at here, not at all. Like the trade unions...

Hamid  

Or the crushing of the conditions of the working class.

Niklas  

The trade unions would face a similar situation to what they face today, with increasing repression, increasing anti-trade union laws and so on. 

But nothing fundamentally different. Not like mass-fascist guns going beating, breaking, burning trade union offices, attacking pickets and so on. That's not on the cards. No.

Hamid  

No. In fact, a lot of these people, the majority, are probably working class. That's what we're talking about. 

And I think this thing of calling it fascist and focusing on the racist element here is on the one hand, a very superficial approach. But it's also a cop out. 

It's a way not to actually try to understand what is happening here. Because how can you explain this? 

How can you explain, if there's this many fascists or racists, how did that come about. How did this happen? Such a massive, massive movement? 

In the end, the way that it's always explained is kind of a dismissive, "It's just stupid. Reform is too good at manipulating working class people", or "The parts that support these guys are just stupid, too ignorant, too unintelligent." 

And it's a very condescending attitude, which actually plays into the root causes of this whole thing. 

Niklas  

There's one, for example, talking about "the low education level". 

It's just a really like, snobby, attitude. "Oh yeah you're stupid, that's why you support these parties." But it's not true. And also, have people become suddenly more stupid over the last 20 years?

Hamid  

Yeah. And most importantly, it lets the ruling class off the hook. That's the key thing. 

Because the fact is this: Britain... You were just telling me before the show that the British economy has grown slightly on a year-on-year basis: 1.2% I think, 1.3%. Which is more than France and Germany. 

But I don't think working class people feel any of that. Working class people feel a deep crisis. Prices are going up, are still going up. They were going down briefly, but they're going up again.

Niklas  

Energy. Now they're allowing the water companies to raise their prices massively, like they're going to go up, I don't know, it's 50, or more than 50%. Food is going up. I mean, you can feel it every time you go to the supermarket, you'll feel, well, that's another product that's gone up by 10, 20%.

Hamid  

Rent. Rent is going up. Employment is now declining. There's there are fewer jobs being advertised. Unemployment in general still relatively low, but I think everyone can feel there's something coming, tsomething big underway. 

Wages have stagnated since 2005. They're not really moved, not really changed. 

Niklas  

Real wages, yeah.

Hamid  

Real wages have stagnated since 2005. That's 20 years. 4.5 million children live in poverty. 

And there's a new report which actually compares poverty in Britain with elsewhere. And because of this long period of wage stagnation and income stagnation, where other countries have at least had some development, you actually have the poorest parts, the poorest districts of Britain are now poorer than the poorest parts in Slovenia and Malta. 

I'll link the report. I actually forgot the name of the report, but I'll link it in the description.

Niklas  

It's a process have been going on since Thatcher, basically, and the attacks and destruction of the trade unions, collective bargaining agreements and so on, all in the 80s into the 90s. 

And it created this layer of the underclass, basically, of really, really poorly paid workers who were just scraping by. 

And somehow that's ameliorated a bit by the minimum wage. But a lot of people don't work full hours. They work some hours, but not the full day, and so on. 

And then there are a whole series of people who've been written off sick because of illnesses, disabilities and so on, because they've been destroyed by work. 

All these things have created this layer in society in extreme poverty, and it concentrated also in certain geographic areas, particularly in some big cities. But, maybe you feel it not so much in the big cities. It doesn't necessarily feel the same way, even if poverty might be as high. 

But, in the north, in some these areas where there's really a feeling of hopelessness, that there's no way forward, there's no future, and so on.

Hamid  

Yeah. Those are the pressures. And then there's the response. There's a response to this, which is... 

You know, we talked about it a bit when Trump was elected, that the American working class was constantly told that "The economy is going forward. Why can't they just look at the figures?"

And obviously, we actually found that the figures were fiddled with. The figures were not exactly true. They actually don't show that for the vast majority of the poorest section of the working class incomes have been declining, but they're not really showing the right figures, the figures that show that. 

And here we have something of the same where there's these large sections that live in de-industrialised areas. But not only that, but also the people just above those. People who have a job, maybe on the lowest rungs of the ladder, people who are self employed, who might be construction workers and so on, who didn't do too badly in the previous decade, but who are now increasingly beginning to feel the pressure of falling down into that level of extreme poverty, into that level of desperation. 

And what do they get from Westminster? What do they get from the Labour Party? The Labour Party is supposed to be the party of the working class. What do they get from the Labour Party?

Niklas  

Yeah, well, you have nothing, because you have this government...

There was a poll asking people, "So, now a year into the Labour government, do you feel that this is a change, or more of the same?" And something like 70, 75% answered, well, it's just more of the same compared to the Conservative government. I mean, it's true.

Hamid  

It's indistinguishable. If anything, they've gone further. They tried to attack the PIP, benefits for disabled people. 

Niklas  

That was a Conservative policy that they'd taken up and they continued. But the Conservatives had shelved it, and they took it up and they continued it to the point where even the author of the PIP cuts, Ian Duncan Smith, said, "Oh no, this is too much, you can't do this anymore. You can't attack disabled people anymore."

He was the one who introduced it in the first instance. I mean, obviously he's not in government now, so it's easier for him to speak out. 

But he basically said, "Look, there's no way. You can't go further down this road. It's impossible." But they were trying anyway. And then they ran up against a brick wall and they had to pull back.

Hamid  

Yeah. So this is a layer that's under enormous pressure, being attacked by every government that comes to power. It's been attacked for decades actually. It's building up resentment and has not been heard whatsoever, right? 

And I think also added to this, there is the the attitude of the liberals in general, and identity politics. This is the negative side of identity politics. 

Again, it fits very well with what happened in America. Of course, there is racism and oppression and so on, and we are the first ones to fight against that. 

But the way that identity politics has been used to divert the attention from the class issues in society is having a negative effect. 

Because if you're a white working class English person, and you have heard constantly in the media, in the newspapers and on TV, that you are privileged. You're privileged. 

Your parents are going hungry. You're afraid of losing your job, because then you would lose everything. You can barely make ends meet. And you're being told that you're privileged.

Niklas  

I mean, it flies in the face of reality.

Hamid  

It flies in the face of reality. And then what often happens is – there is this question of migration – is that the government often...

I mean, this is something that the FT was writing about recently. There is a migration crisis, in the sense that there's more migrants coming, by the way mainly because of the imperialist intervention of the West in different parts of the world, and the super exploitation of those countries for decades by the West and countries like Britain.

Niklas  

And the fact there are still some jobs. I mean, the fact is that there are some jobs still to be had here.

Hamid  

And the British capitalists obviously not being too shy to use cheap labour coming in. 

But then what is happening is that the government is now having a hard time finding housing for a lot of migrants, so they are trying to buy up and rent housing in the cheapest areas, which is where a lot of normal working class people live already. 

What does that mean? That rents are going up, house prices are going up in those areas. 

And you put, basically, desperate people next to one another, and you use them as scapegoats, right? You use one as a scapegoat to divert the attention of the other. That's basically what's happening. 

And the Labour Party has been a part of this. The Labour Party... What's his name? Keir Starmer was out saying things like, "We're being invaded." And, you know, the ills of...

Niklas  

They basically have a thing where they... it's constantly, particularly in capitalism in crisis, it pits one group of workers against another. Right? 

So in Starmer's policy about disability benefits, he was doing, he was adding... 

So one group of poor workers was going to get a little bit more money and then he's going to take it away from disabled people. And he was going to then present it as, "Oh, here's a progressive reform, because I'm giving a bit more." 

And that's how they constantly act, right? And it's the same in this case, right. Pitting one group of...

So instead of building more houses in general, to house everyone, right, and building a programme of housing. Instead of doing that, just having poor people fight even more over the little scraps of housing that is in existence, or the jobs, or the whatever. 

This is the way that capitalism works in a crisis, just pitting one group of workers against another.

Hamid  

What happens when, let's say, a white working class person, says, "I'm struggling to survive." 

And you have demagogues who point at the migrants, saying, "Look the government's spending 5 billion pounds a year,"–by the way, that's how much they wanted to cut on Pip, right? – "spending 5 billion pounds a year on on migrants."

What's the response of the liberals? Oh, you're being unsympathetic, you're being racist, you're being xenophobic. 

Instead of yacknowledging that there is a problem here. The problem is not migration. The problem is the struggle of the working class, is the conditions that the working class live in.

Niklas  

Well, the truth is that the banks, big business is sitting on trillions of pounds. I think the unused... at least some years ago, there was something like 1 trillion pounds sitting in the City of London, not being invested in anything in particular. So, I mean, 5 billion to 1 trillion is a piss, as they say, in the ocean.

Hamid  

Hundreds of 1000s of flats being empty, used for speculation.

Niklas  

It's a little crumb, right? And so they're basically, what they're saying to the workers is, "Oh yeah, you fight over the crumbs here, right?" 

5 billion is a lot of money, but in the grand scheme of things, it's peanuts. As you said, all these right wing demagogues then go and say, "Oh yeah, yeah. Look at these migrants. They're getting all this money, right?" 

And obviously, 5 billion sounds like a lot of money. But then you have the government, which – first the Conservative government, and now the Labour government – was saying, "Well, yes, yes, yes, you're right. This is a big problem." 

This is what Starmer said. He held the speech. He said that immigration was a "squalid chapter in British history that had caused incalculable damage", which is a lot of nonsense. 

If you actually look at the impact on the migration on the economy, it hasn't caused any damage whatsoever. He talks about an "island of strangers". 

And if you talk about, fascism, and you say Tommy Robinson is a fascist because of the language he uses. Well, Keir Starmer is using exactly the same kind of language. Talking about strangers, people not... 

Hamid  

Enoch Powell, he was referencing it.

Niklas  

That's right. And then two months later, or a few weeks later, he then said, "Oh, no, that speech was a mistake." 

Well, so what's the point? Like, it's like, oh, there's no point in saying... I mean, you're basically saying, "Oh, everything you're saying is right, but what you shouldn't do is to go and protest outside hotels or whatever, or cause trouble with police." 

That's a big thing with Starmer, who's like "Oi, all these police have been injured and so on." When there's been fire bombs thrown at hostels, he's like, "Oh no, but the police got, like, injured or something," and that's the big thing, right? 

And that's the only thing that he he can talk about. So you shouldn't protest about it. Everything you're saying is true, everything is saying is correct, but you just shouldn't protest about it, which doesn't make any sense whatsoever. 

And this goes to show the bigger problems and how no one's really given an answer to all these questions. What are the problems that people face. What are the source of the problems that people face? The real problems. 

And instead, you just... it must seem to these people as "Well, you know we all agreed what the problem is. Now we must do something about it." As in, you know, close the borders, stop the boats coming in and so on, which will solve nothing, but it seems to be a solution, yeah.

Hamid  

There's a very good article on the website of the British Revolutionary Communist Party, communist.red.

 It's called 'Migration Crisis: Who is to blame?' by Ben Glinieki. And there's a quote there by one of the people who have been organising protests around these hotels, refugee hotels – the hotels that the state rents to house refugees – and there's been a series of protests around these over the summer. 

One of the organisers here, who is the organiser of a community center and a food bank as well, says, "I want people to know that I don't hate these men. What I hate is the unfairness put upon us all. It's upsetting to know that they will enjoy three meals a day, air conditioning when it's hot, heating cranked up to the highest when they're cold, and we will continue to watch the old lady and the old man pick up a shopping basket, not a trolley, a shopping basket, and head for the reduced shelf. That's the reality." 

Now, speaking of fighting over crumbs, the fact that  she's angry that some people get a state service of heating and insulated housing, tells you what the situation is, the level of desperation. Which is true. It's a fact in Britain. 

Every year we talk about it, hundreds of thousands of old people are faced with heating or eating. That is, basically, either you pay your housing bill or you pay your food bill, shopping bill. 

And every year people die, actually, of cold, because they can't afford to pay for the heating. That's the reality of it. 

But then, as you say, who is giving an answer about this? What is the answer that the so called opposition is giving? 

We talked about the Labour Party. The Labour Party, in the hands of Keir Starmer and the right wing, has become indistinguishable from the Tories. 

Then there's the unions. There's been a cost of living crisis for the past three years, a serious cost of living crisis that everyone feels, everyone talks about. What have the unions done?

Niklas  

Very little. I mean, the truth is they were unable to keep wages up for their unionised members. And that's just the unionised members. 

Then all the workers outside of unions, which is the biggest proportion in Britain, what about them?Surely, this would have been an excellent opportunity to launch a campaign to bring the unions out, to show its relevance to people, to organise and prepare to fight back to try to claw back some of this. 

But there's very little. I mean, the left unions were somewhat better, but even then, they failed to get any agreements that upheld wages to the rate of inflation. They were 2, 3% lower. And over the space of a couple of years, you suddenly got like 5 or maybe even 10% cuts in what your wage can buy.

Hamid  

They didn't organise anything. This so called massive fascist protest –They really believe that, I mean, some of the activists who organised it are prominent activists within the unions as well – the unions didn't do anything to organise for this. 

As far as I understand, Unison, sorry, Unite had a small notice on his website. The three biggest unions didn't do anything to mobilise their membership. 

They have millions of members. They could dwarf this, but they didn't do anything to organise a counter-demonstration to this. Neither did anyone else. The counter demonstration, by the way, organised by the left, was outnumbered 20 to 1. That's the figures that the comrades who were there were saying. 20 to 1. 

Essentially, they were surrounded by this right-wing protest. The unions didn't do anything. Why didn't they do anything? Why didn't the union leaders mobilise their members? One thing is putting a notice on your website. But who sees that?

Niklas  

I mean, they clearly had no interest in mobilizing whatsoever. I think to some extent, maybe, I think some people were a little bit taken by surprise. They didn't realise, you know... 

They don't understand what is going on in society. They don't have a clue how angry people feel. You know, if you look at what this protest was about, it's very abstract. There's no concrete demands, very little concrete demands, except maybe something about reducing immigration in general. 

But there's very little concrete things, right? The thing is, they're really angry. These are people who've been really radicalised, and they're feeling angry. A lot of them are maybe either non-voters or traditional Conservative voters, but they've become really angry at society and the way things are going, right? 

They see British society is going the wrong way. And they might say, "Oh, it's about this cultural question, or it's about this or that," but it's still an accident that it happens right now, right? 

Like Britain has had immigration for decades. How come it's become such a big burning question for these people right now, at this moment in time. It's clearly all about the fact that the economic conditions are getting worse. 

Yes, and so the answer... So these people are getting angry and so on. But these trade union leaders, they have no way... They can't connect. They don't realise what is going on. 

They're sitting in their offices – nice, air conditioned offices – and they don't understand what is going on, what is the real mood is of the working class out there, and they are incapable of connecting with it. 

And I think also they fear it a bit, you know. If they were to mobilise, if they start to mobilise, what would be the consequences? I think some of them are real cynical people, and they feel like, "Well, if we start mobilising, then we will quite quickly lose control of the situation. Therefore, best not to do anything."

Hamid  

At the same time, a lot of them are connected to the Labour Party. And coming out without criticising the Labour Party... How would they do that? 

Meanwhile, Reform is gaining within the unions. Reform is gaining support within the unions as well. Why? Because of the betrayals of Labour.

And so the only way to actually tackle this problem from the union tops, would be by engaging in a discussion with the Reform voters. But doing that, they would have to explain why Labour is doing as they do. And if they oppose what Labour is doing, then they have to go into opposition to Labour, which is what they don't want to do.

Niklas  

I mean, they made an agreement with Labour, with the government, with the right-wing of the Labour Party. When was it? I think it was last year or something like that. 

And they would be given this really, really pitiful... They made some changes to remove some anti-trade union laws, right? Really, on the margins, small, minor, not even the most elementary demands of unions. 

Like, for example, when you organise an industrial ballot, you have to send it in the post. You can't send it by email, right? 

So the unions are saying, "Well, look, all the parties, they vote with email or online. Why can't we do it? Which would make organising industrial ballots so much cheaper and easier to control and so on, and the whole process so less painful." 

And the Labour and Starmer was like, "No, we're not doing that." Because that's what the bosses want. They want to make going on strike really hard, right? 

So no significant changes were promised in this bill, but unions basically, as happens every Labour government, they've caved. They get some small, small promises, and even those promises are barely implemented, and in return, basically they sell themselves and agree not to oppose what the government is doing. 

And they get basically nothing out of this, it's so clear, and they're selling themselves. But it's also it's exactly the same people as are in the Labour Party, as we said, right?

It's the same people. You could see it during the Corbyn years, how in Unison in particular... Like the people in Unison and the people who were running the Labour Party, were the same people and they would just switch offices, they'd move from one office to another, but it's exactly the same. 

Hamid  

We're talking about the top of Unison, not the membership.

Niklas  

the top of Unison, yes, yes, of course, like the headquarters, the full timers, particularly the top of the union, the top full timers. And so there's all the same people and obviously, they have the same political agenda, which is like basically trying to manage capitalism.

Hamid  

Yeah. And so the calculation goes, if we mobilse for something like this, we would face the anger of Reform members, Reform supporting members, and that would cause too much of stir inside the union. 

We would be held accountable for why we're supporting this government and better not to rock the boat. Better just to hold on to it while it's sinking. 

That's basically what they're doing. Then you have Your Party. Our party, my party. This new organisation, announced by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. 

It was announced a few months ago. Within a matter of days, it got half a million people signing up to become members in the future, once membership things are open. 

Now, they say that it has 800,000 people – 800,000 people interested! – in somehow participating and joining this party. The process of setting up the party – we'll get to that a bit later – is going, hopelessly slow. 

But there are leaders, Zarah Sultana, Jeremy Corbyn, other left wing, former Labour MPs and other prominent activists. They are sending emails. I'm getting their emails all the time. They didn't do anything about this. Zarah Sultana, to her credit, went down to the counter protest. But they didn't organise anything. Didn't organise... 

They didn't even send an email saying "You should go down and oppose this march. You should stand up for class unity" or whatever they want to do. They didn't even...

Niklas  

I think this is one of their Achilles heels. And there's two sides to it. One is that they don't mobilise. I mean, I signed up the email list and i've had 3 emails, I think, since July. 

One of them was to say, "we've set up a social media account. We've now set up social media accounts." Great. 

I checked them, this is last week now, but they might have had some more since then. But when I looked at the email, it was like 3 posts around that date and then nothing. This was at the end of August, and then there was like two, three weeks with nothing on social media. 

And it's been like that. Now there's another row inside the party about... because they sent out an email saying, "Oh, this is how you join the party." 

And then half of the leadership are now disclaiming this email saying this has nothing to do with the party, whilst there are other part... 

And this is the way they've been going. But there's also the political problem there, because you listen to Sultana sometimes, and same goes for Jeremy Corbyn. But it's even more clear with Zarah Sultana, I think. 

Sometimes she speeks, and she's very radical, and you can see, well, this is something. You're saying something here that can connect to people. Even to some of these people who are going on this march against immigration. 

She talks about the concrete questions that working class people face, about housing, about the measures the government are taking against disability benefits, this about Palestine and so on –which might not necessarily connect with these people but with others, right? 

You can see that this is has great... it's a good, it's the right idea. It has potential. But then on this question as well, she then insists that Nigel Farage is a fascist, and she says that the US is no longer a democracy and things like that, right? 

Which completely gives... and since she starts talking about identity politics questions and she sounds indistinguishable from a liberal. And it's the same with this protest, right? I mean, she didn't organise this protest, but really, politically, she has shared some of the same problems as the protest did, of having very liberal slogans, basically, 'be nice to each other' slogans. Rather than saying, "Look, this is a crisis of capitalism. We need working class unity in order to solve and face up to this crisis."

Hamid  

Well, at least she went there. Jeremy Corbyn, the supposed leader of the left, didn't even go to the protest. And he's not commented on it as far as I know. 

He wrote an article in The Independent which is called 'Surprise, surprise. Labour is reaping what it has sown'. 

And it does talk about class questions. It talks about poverty and, you know, the growing pressures on the working class and so on. The attacks that the Labour government tried to wage on welfare and so on. But not a mention of this protest. They didn't actually do anything. 

And this is one of the things that you say, you know. There's this huge potential. Instead of actually mobilising and participating in the different movements and engaging with what's happening in people's lives, these people at the top are locked into these fights with with one another. 

Like you say, now Zarah Sultana's faction has sent out an email calling for people to sign up for membership, and then the other gang are saying, "Oh, this is not it." 

And they're fighting on social media about identity politics. They're fighting about who should control this party. And in the meantime, this major political event happens, and they have nothing to to say about it.

Niklas  

And it's also like the fight that they're having... I mean, if there were political differences, and if there were genuine political differences here – I suspect there might be some political differences behind it – but they're not explaining any of those. 

All it is is like, "Oh yeah, who controls the database?" I mean, I don't really care that much. The more important question is, first... 

Well, put it this way,  who controls the database should follow from the politics. As in, we should first agree on what the politics of this party should be, then those people who represent those politics are the ones that should be control the database. It's as simple as that. 

But they're putting the cart before the horse, talking about who's gonna... and having a big row about basically who ontrols the database. All the organizational intrigues, rather than trying to put the politics first, which would help raise... would inspire people, first of all, to have a political discussion. And you will also help raise the level, and help raise the understanding of what this party is about, for people who might be thinking of voting for the party, and for those people thinking about joining and being active and involved in the party. Rather than these kind of arguments, which, just demoralise people.

Hamid  

The potential for this party is enormous. 800,000 people have already signed up. It shows the level of... The same anger that we see in a distorted way on the other side of the protest we see expressed in a clearer way in the support that this party has already gotten without having been set up yet. 

It's a reflection of the crisis of British capitalism. But this is also a sign of the dangers of what you can fall into, that you have a leadership that ends up removing itself from people's conditions, from the actual struggle and actual conditions on the ground, and losing this opportunity. 

Now, if and when this party is set up, I think it will have a big impact on things like Reform, because that's precisely what's what's needed. But this is a warning sign. This is a warning sign of what not to do.

Niklas  

Yeah, I think if they I mean initially, I suspect, this party will not be able to gain many Reform voters. But over time, because I think they are now... they now believe in Farage, and they're going to see him into becoming Prime Minister, I'm pretty sure. 

But over a period of time this will be exposed. Farage, he has nothing to give. He cannot solve any of the problems that face British workers, none of them. 

And closing the borders is just going to make the problem worse, not better. I mean, he can't do it first of all. But secondly, in the sense that he is successful, it's just going to make this problem worse. 

Plus you have the general crisis of capitalism, which is just going to make it worse. So he's going to sit there, and he's going to sit on exactly the same problems as the present Labour government is sitting on, and he's going to have to do exactly the same... well, not exactly the same cuts. I'm sure he'll come up with some slightly different cuts. 

But it's going to be cuts, tax increases. That's going to be what his Chancellor of the Exchequer, as they call it, the Minister of Finance, is going to present to Parliament, just like the Labour Government is doing now. 

And at that point, if there was a party which presented a strong alternative, they would have a tremendous opportunity to become a focal point for all the anger and opposition, not just to Reform, but in general, to the crisis and to capitalism. But obviously that is dependent on the programme that they put forward. If it's going to be a strong programme, or if it's going to be a wishy-washy, milk and water, Labour party, but slightly better programme.

Hamid  

Yeah. Well, again, this protest, I think, is a clear example. The programme that the organisers – the organisers were a group called 'Stand up to Racism', the main organisers of the counter-protest. 

They called the protest basically along very moralistic lines. Right? "Refugees Welcome." "Against racism, against fascism."

So they just painted the whole of the other side, all of the ordinary working class – not the far right people, which of course, are reactionaries. But all of the confused working class elements on the other side, they just painted them with the word fascist. 

They've actually proven everything that their demagogic leaders are telling them about the left. "They don't care about you. They don't listen to you. They look down on you. The organisers of the counterdemo completely proved that right? 

"They don't listen to what is actually the problem here. They don't engage with you." And they were indistinguishable.. 

This is run, by the way, by a so-called left organisation, mainly, the Socialist Workers Party. The comrades of the British section of the RCI, the Revolutionary Communist Party, have written a very good article criticising this. 

But this so called Socialist Workers Party was, in the slogans that they put out, indistinguishable from the liberals. Right? They're clinging on to the liberals who are clinging on to the ruling class, and what does that say to the other side?

Niklas  

Why not have a slogan saying "make the rich pay?" That would have been the slogan... or something like that, I mean...

Hamid  

We went there. Some of our comrades went to the counter protest with our paper, and the response that we got from for our slogans such as, "revolution against the billionaires," or "the problems are the billionaires", these kind of things. Against the landlords and all these things...

Actually did, on on occasion – we weren't a big force there – did gain the ear of people on the other side. One person was came around to one of our comrades selling the paper, and said, "That's the best thing I've ever heard today/ It's the best slogan I've heard today." 

I don't know if he meant in general or he meant from our side. But it does show that you can connect. What would we say? You know, if we, if we were the main organisers in protest like this? What would the position of communist be? Well, our slogan would against, 'unite the kingdom', which is what? Which is a slogan about uniting the working class with parts of the ruling class, right, and the Royals...

Niklas  

And the banks...

Hamid  

Unite, unite the whole kingdom. Unite the poor with the rich, right? What would we say? We say, unite the poor against the rich. We say, unite the working class. That's how we would face it. 

And we would be saying, your leaders are deceiving you. Your leaders, Nigel Farage, Tommy Robinson, they're in cahoots with the banks, with the big capitalists, all of the people who are exploiting you. 

Niklas  

Nigel Farage is a banker. 

Hamid  

He's a banker. 

Literally – well, up until he became a politician – he was a banker, a financial speculator, living off destroying working class people's lives.

In that way, yes, maybe you wouldn't have won over those guys immediately because they have such a deep level of suspicion. But you could have sown doubts, and you could have disarmed their leaders. 

But the way that the left and the unions and the Your Party and the Labour Party are acting is actually pushing that layer of the working class into the arms of these demagogues.

Niklas  

This organisation Stand up to Racism, which organised the counter protest, they were also going around in a recent by election saying, vote, anything but reform. So vote Tory, vote Labour, vote Lib Dem. It doesn't matter. Anything but Reform.

Hamid  

The same people who've been attacking you and attacking the welfare state. Super exploiting you.

Niklas  

I mean, what is this? Then now there's a big new argument inside the Labour Party, because people realise that Keir Starmer is leading the party into a disaster, an electoral disaster, at the next election – which is a few years away, but nonetheless, they can already see where it's taking place. 

And so they're grouping around Andy Burnham. Now Andy Burnham, he sets up a new campaign organisation inside the Labour Party. I forgetting its name. I keep thinking it's called mediocrity, but it's not. It's called Mainstream, which is sort of the same thing, right? 

It's like, it's the same idea, right? "Well, what we need is a mainstream thing." And it's like, similar, in a sense, to what Stand up to Racism is saying, that what we need is the center ground in politics, right? 

What we need is to return to the status quo as it was, like, I don't know, like 5 years ago, 10 years ago? I'm not exactly sure when they would like us to return to, but it's like, we need to return to the mainstream, mainstream politics and stuff , not extremism and so on, and for democracy. 

All these kinds of things which is basically... But the thing is, all that has given us is attacks, austerity, a cost of living, crisis, wars, climate crisis, all these things. And that's why it's become hated. The centre ground in politics, 'the mainstream politics', has become hated. And these guys are clinging on to it, whether it's Andy Burnham or the Socialist Workers Party.

Hamid  

They talk about democracy, democracy. Democracy, democracy, democracy. But where is the democracy here? I don't think any British working class person feels heard or feels that their concerns in any way, are raised and thought about and discussed in parliament or in any of the offices of power. 

Parliament represents the rich. It represents the bankers, represents the capitalists. That's how they function, and the Labour Party and all of the people who are talking about democracy, democracy, democracy are just re-emphasising that. 

In that situation you can have... You see, what we're dealing here is a crisis of bourgeois democracy, essentially, as long as the capitalists could afford some concessions to the working class in the postwar period, in the form of better wages, slightly better living standards and so on, relative stability. It seemed like democracy was working. 

It was to the benefit of all, everyone got a bit richer. The rich got a bit more richer than the poor, but everyone got a bit better off all the time, right? But as soon as that ended, you begin to see the true nature of this system, which is not a system for everyone, but is a system for a tiny minority. And that leads to a crisis of distrust, which is extremely widespread. 

That's also why we see all these conspiracy theories. Because people just don't trust the politicians. And to be fair, there are a lot of conspiracies, maybe not the same as the main theories, but there are conspiracies everywhere. This political game and backstabbing and manipulation. 

Niklas  

There is one conspiracy which is very clear over the last 20 years, a great conspiracy, which is to make working class people pay for the crisis.

Hamid  

Which is not a conspiracy at all. Which is a fact. Well, yeah, it is a conspiracy, and it's a fact.

Niklas  

I mean, that's what they've done, and in this all the governments are involved. I mean, it's not like they all sit around the table, but effectively, they've all conspired to rob working class people of the wages, of their schools, their hospitals and so on, in order to give money to the banks, the big corporations, who are making massive profits. 

It's not exactly conspiracy, really, but that is what's been taking place. That is what people feel. They don't necessarily completely consciously understand. But to some extent, they are beginning to understand this. 

I mean, I saw an opinion poll again of Reform voters asking them about multi, big corporations, if they have improved or worsened Britain, right? And like, 60 or 70%, I can't remember the figure, they said they've made things worse.

So it's like, "Yeah, immigration made Britain worse, but also these big corporations have made Britain worse, right?" So obviously, in their mind, these two ideas are conflated They don't understand exactly, they don't have a clear, worked out class position on it. But you can see that there's the beginning here of an understanding of what's actually going on at the moment.

Hamid  

I think, yes, and there is a crisis of democracy. There's a crisis of the regime. The working class is disgusted by the establishment, by establishment politics, by the whole of the status quo. 

And you see that in these kind of periods of crisis, some elements of the ruling class can split away, for their own reasons, for their own opportunist... 

When the when the ruling class is basically losing control over its system – that's what's happening –some elements of the ruling class can split away and appeal to the workers and to the masses themselves, which is bourgeois populism. That's essentially what we see. 

What we see is bourgeois populism in Trump, in Farage, and all of these people, which can, obviously, work temporarily. 

But as we see with Trump, there's a limit to that. If you cannot deliver. If you can't deliver food, if you can't put food on people's tables. If you can't put a roof over people's heads, then sooner or later, you're gonna be discredited as well. 

But definitely, some of them are playing with fire. You know, there's no danger of fascism as of today, but some of these guys, like Elon Musk and so on, are playing with fire. 

They are trying to whip up hysteria and radicalism on the far-right, to basically build up political formations that they can use for their own purposes. Now the way to fight that is the same as the way to fight the rest of this process. it's by putting forward a class position, by exposing the real situation. 

But instead of actually going out and saying, "No, this is a problem caused by the bankers, the capitalists, the bosses, the left is talking about 'democracy', which is what, again, goes back to the same system that these people represents.

Niklas  

And you can't connect at all to the anger that working class people are feeling, because you're basically defending the status quo. So people are angry. They want change. And what you're saying is, "No, no, no. This is the best of what you can get."

Hamid  

Yeah, we want change too. So let's have a very good democracy.

Niklas  

I mean, it's like, "Oh yeah, go vote. Anything but Reform in the election." I mean, the lunacy of that position is mind boggling.

Hamid  

Well, this has all led to a deep government crisis, which was there before this protest. This protest is a part of that, in a way. 

You had the budget deficit last year, which took the government by surprise. They needed to do some cuts that then they had to withdraw from at least partially. 

The budget this year is going to have an even bigger deficit. Some people talking about 50 billion pounds. Some people talking about 30 billion pounds. Whatever that is, it's a lot of money, and it's working class people who have got to pay that. 

Keir Starmer is now the second most unpopular western leader. He has a net rating of minus 47%, which means 22% of the British population have a favorable opinion of him, and 69 view him unfavorably. 

The Labour Party itself havegone has gone down from 37.5 % last year during the elections, to 23% in June. So that's 14% decline in 11 months. 

Reform is now polling as the biggest party by far, by consistently, in all of the polls. 

Then you have the scandals. Ministers, ambassadors. Peter Mandelson, trusted ambassador to the US has now been fired because of his loving relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, which, by the way, was well known in advance, but suddenly it become a big thing.

Niklas  

It's no surprise to anyone. Everyone knew about that.

Hamid  

They've they've attacked the welfare state. They've attacked migrants. They've attacked... You know, speaking of democracy, they've prescribed Palestine Action, which is a Palestine solidarity group, which happened to paint some British fighter jets.

Niklas  

Well, they broke into a military base, and spray painted, like graffitied, some of, I think it was the transport jets that were used to transport military supplies to Israel.

Hamid  

For that, they've been charged with all sorts of charges. And anyone who supports them is arrested. Hundreds of people, several thousand, I think in total, have been arrested in peaceful protests which just supported, basically, solidarity with Gaza.

Niklas  

There's a whole bunch of people who basically go to protest now deliberately just to get arrested. I mean, they go and they deliberately wear a placard saying, "I support Palestine Action", and then the police then go and have to arrest them because they're supposed to be supporting a terrorist organisation.

Hamid  

And so there's a hate and disgust. The whole country is falling apart. And in the middle of all this, what does Keir Starmer do? He travels around Europe, mobilising people for to support the war in Ukraine, making 100-year deals with the Ukraine, sending billions of pounds, to buy weapons to fight a war that's that's actually this had a massive negative impact on the British economy. 

While cutting in other places, he's raising defense spending to 5% which, I think, is about 70 to 80 billion pounds extra spent every year. Who's got to pay for all of this?

Niklas  

Yeah, that's, that's his promise to Trump. We'll see. I have my doubts whether they'll actually ever be able to implement it, but for sure, I think they got an aim of rasing it. I think it was like... 

They will raise it gradually and obviously, what that means is, well, you're going to spend all this extra money on buying military hardware, in particular, I think. Maybe paying some solders wages, but a lot of some military hardware. 

And then where's that money going to come from? Well, it's more tax increases on the working class people or cuts to public services. That's that's like... 

I mean, they talk about, "Oh, they spent 5 billion." We return to our figure on how much they spent on asylum seekers. And it's like, again, this military expenditure i, the increase that they want in military expenditure is 15 times that. And what they spend on Ukraine every year, is 3 billion, I think, which is almost as much.

Hamid  

That's just a set rate. And then they top that up with all sorts of other stuff. 

Niklas  

Then probably stuff they don't want to tell you about that as well.

Hamid  

So you have a system in full decline, full meltdown, with athe leadership that is completely out of touch with the situation. And that's obviously a recipe for class struggle. I think it's quite indicative that this new party, Your Party. Your Party is the interim name. 

It's got 800,000 sign-ups so far. That shows you a little bit of the anger that exists in society, and that is only going to be... that's going to increase.

Niklas  

We should maybe say as well, that the Labour Party, at the most, had about half a million members during the Corbyn years. I think now it's back to about 200,000 Yes, so we're talking here about...

Hamid  

This would be the biggest party in Europe, by far. 

Niklas  

If they get their act together, and get these people into the party, that would be the biggest party in Europe, yeah.

Hamid  

And it would be a major focal point for the class struggle. It would develop its own logic, and it would have a major impact on the class struggle. 

Now we would participate as communists in that process, and we would explain what we're explaining here. 

The problem to all of the different crises in Britain: the housing crisis, the cost of living crisis, and the crisis of the infrastructure, of the education system, of the healthcare system, all of these things which are falling apart...

What is the solution to that problem? Or the problem rather, is, capitalism? It's a system that's not producing for the benefit of all, but for the benefit of a tiny, tiny minority. 

And in Britain, that is very clear. You have a small kind of financial oligarchy, along with their hangers on and a capitalist class, which has become completely parasitic in its nature. 

Britain used to be the the factory of the world, right? This is where the industrial revolution started. British industry throughout the decades, up until the 60s and 70s, was very, very advanced and right there at the forefront of the world. 

But since then you see, with the peak of British capitalism, you see a decline in industry, a decline in all productive investments, and a massive financialisation. There's the City of London, the banks, the the trading, the insurance companies. 

And there is a thing, you know, people talk about a rentier economy. Basically, people just buying up houses, renting it out, buying up old, state owned companies like Thames Water, like the railways. 

Not investing, not developing, just sucking them dry and then pawning them off at the end of it. A completely parasitic ruling class, which is sucking... 

Those are the real parasites. Those are the real thieves. Those are the real criminals. Not the immigrants, you know, who come here and get 10 pounds a week for an allowance, which is impossible to live on, by the way. 

But those people who are just sucking this country dry, leeching off of what the working class built and what the working class is building today. 

And those are the people who needs to be tackled. Those are the ones who are driving this country into the ground. And Keir Starmer and the Labour government is a very faithful reflection of that ruling class: completely short sighted, completely opportunistic, no principles whatsoever, you know, quick deals, quick profits, and let's not think about tomorrow, you know. 

And that's what the British working class has to settle scores with if it wants to get itself out of this present dead end.

Niklas  

Well, I mean, the truth is that... I mean, you were talking about investment, the capitalists. And the capitalists, haven't invested in British industry for decades. 

I mean, they privatised some industries like you said. Water was one of them, which is maybe the worst example, where the companies were pulling, I can't remember how many billions, but something like 20, 30 billion was paid out in dividends over a couple of decades. 

And at the same time, the companies were racking up 20, 30 billion in debt, right? And then, now, they're raising the water prices, water bills in order that we should pay back the bills, right? The debts of these companies. 

And this is the completely absurd situation. They also were increasing their debts, paying dividends, and not investing in infrastructure. 

So we also have this phenomenon of them polluting the seas. So you can't go swimming in the sea without having some really nasty bits floating around next to you, if it has been raining day before, because the infrastructure just isn't there to to deal with water, which is what this company is supposed to do. 

And so the whole... but then you go to the steel industry. The steel industry was privatised in the 80s, and the steel industry was just run into the ground. 

They let they didn't invest in it, and now it's not competitive. It can't compete in the world market, because they haven't done the necessary investment to keep it up to scratch, keep it modern and keep it efficient. 

The car industry is maybe one of the manufacturing industries which are still relatively large in Britain. And there, it's extremely unproductive because they just haven't got the machinery, haven't got the automation and so on, as you have elsewhere. 

So there's a figure that the Belgian car industry is twice as efficient as the British one. They say, on average, a Belgian car worker produces 11 cars a year, right? A British car worker produces five cars.

 And so you can see there's the massive gap, because there just isn't a level of investment in British industries to keep them competitive and keep them being able to compete on the world scale. 

Instead, all they do is just put their money in speculation. They lend the money away. They put it in insurance schemes and all this kind of stuff, all completely parasitic activities, which means, as Marx put it, making money out of money, by avoiding production and so on. 

This the way the British ruling class has become. You can see that in other countries as well, you can see it all over the world taking place, in Europe and in the United States, that the ruling class has become extremely parasitic in this way. 

But in Britain, you take that and it's to an extreme. Whereas there's some investment in industry in Germany, there's some investment in industry in the United States, in Britain, there's nothing and they're just living off of old virtues.

Hamid  

And you know, I was reading up on this, and you have lots of academics and professors and so on saying, "Oh, this is..." 

They all know about this. There is a there is a financialisation. There is a organic crisis of capitalism, and it's basically rooted in lack of investments, lack of research and development. 

But then they say, "Oh, we need new policies, and we need to do things differently." They're basically giving advice to the British ruling class that if you want to maintain yourself at the cutting edge, or the forefront of world capitalism, you need to invest. You need to develop. 

if you're a capitalist, you don't think in those terms. You think, I have 1 billion pounds and I want to have 2 billion as quickly as possible. Where would I invest to this? Well, I could buy up a water company and just milk it dry and just leave it and I wouldn't really have to do much.

I wouldn't have to invest much. I wouldn't have to take many risks. It's pretty risk free. Or I could invest in a new industry which may or may not flourish, which will be competing against other industries on the world market. There's a there's a huge amount of risk there.

Niklas  

Maybe, maybe it'll pay off in 10 or 20 years time.

Hamid  

At a much lower rate than I can do by just sucking the state dry or living off of cheap credits or something else. 

So the point is, capitalism... The bourgeois know what the problem is. The intelligent bourgeois, their intelligentsia does know what the problem is.  

But capitalism as a system cannot carry it out because it's an anarchic system. It's a system that's governed by laws, that's not controlled by anyone. 

The question of regulation... Regulation doesn't help. It only distorts the market. Like you can say that  there's been a lot of state intervention in the in the British economy. What does it lead to? It's just led to people finding new ways of sucking the state dry. That's basically what it's become.

Niklas  

Well, the other one is handouts, the Conservative government, and I think Labour government is also doing that, but the Conservative government,  after Brexit, they were like, "Oh, there's problems with investment in Britain. So what we're going to do is give companies money so that they will invest." 

Like, give some billions here, some millions here. And this is like, "Oh, yeah, if you modernise the steel industry, we'll pay half of the bill for the modernisation," this kind of stuff, right? 

And obviously the capitalists go, okay then, if I get this money... sometimes they take the money and they don't invest. There's also that. 

But this is the way. It's completley parasitic and then obviously, who pays these billions that the capitalists are getting for free? Well it's working class people who will have to pay it through their taxes or cuts to...

Hamid  

Lenin writes in his book, Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism. He writes how monopoly capitalism – which is a part of, is a natural development of capitalism that you have the development of monopolies – is strongly resistant to progress, because once you develop a monopoly, it's much easier to just crush everyone else in the market and just suck out whatever is there, rather than investing in basically reinventing yourself and replacing yourself. 

Again, because the profit margins are higher, you can just keep going and leeching off what you have rather then to establish something new. 

And that is what you have. Once you reach that stage, you inevitably begin to see the development of a rentier economy. Lenin writes that. Not that there's no development whatsoever, but there's little of it. 

And the same you have on a world scale, that when Britain became the major dominant imperialist power, it became the monopoly power over the world for a long period, of course, and as a country, it stopped developing. 

Trotsky explained this already in the 20s and the 30s. But there's another interesting parallel here, because he says that once it reached that stage, it stopped developing. Instead, what it started doing was leeching off of the colonies, basically just sucking the colonies dry. 

And the more the capitalist crisis hit, the more it was kind of reliant on just bleeding the colonies dry, with the side effect that the colonies became the stage for social turmoil, revolutions, which, incidentally, the Americans used to whip up opposition against the Brits and support national national movements in the British colonies to then overtake them. 

Now, the parallel with today is that you have America, the hegemon, the great superpower, in a deep crisis – economically not in as deep a hole as the British economy is, but fundamentally unable to develop the productive forces as it used to in the past – in a situation of world crisis, with China rising as a competing force – we've dealt with that before. 

What does America do? Start bleeding its dependencies, its allies. 'America first', as Trump says, right? 

And that's one of the other elements of today, is that the British economy is already in a deep, deep mess. 

But now you have the tariffs. Not just Trump's, but also Joe Biden's inflation Reduction Act, which was aimed at bringing production from Europe to America. 

You have the withdrawal of America from Europe, and the pressure of the Americans for the Europeans to pay more to NATO. 

In other words, the great dominant imperialist power is actually sucking the dependencies dry and adding to the social and economic contradictions in each of these countries and that is the last element of the situation in Britain. 

It was already going pretty badly, but then the tariffs and blows that Trump is basically inflicting on the economy is going to further push it over the edge.

Niklas  

Well, I mean, Britain is in this situation where it is being very much squeezed by its position, which developed after the Second World War, of Britain being the in-between country between Europe and the United States, which worked marvelous when the relationship between Europe and United States was good. 

But now when... And this is partly why Keir Starmer is running all around the world. The British ruling class is trying to patch up the relationship between the United States and Europe because it needs it.

That is what, particularly the City of London, is about. Finance capital and the relationship between Europe and United States being a stopping point, basically, for finance capital in between those two. 

So the breakdown of relations between Europe and the United States, and particularly Trump, is a disaster for British capitalism.

Hamid  

Yeah, okay, well, let's sum up this episode. 

We have a deep crisis of capitalism on a world scale, which is affecting Britain. And particularly you have the crisis of US imperialism, which  is pushing its crisis onto amongst other countries, Britain. 

And British capitalism is in a state of decline and turmoil, and the bourgeois are putting the cost of this crisis on the working class. 

This is having a radicalising effect, but this radicalisation is not finding an outlet in the Labour Party, in the labour movement. 

You saw the early stages of this radicalism getting an expression through the Corbyn movement, the first Corbyn movement, when Corbyn became the chairman of the Labour Party. 

But his downfall prepared then the rise of Starmer, the right-wing taking over the Labour Party again, obviously continuing the attacks, continuing this pushing over the weight of the of the burden of the of the crisis onto the working class. 

You have the cost of living crisis and the unions and the left, again, not not providing any answers, any solutions. 

And on this basis, you see the rise of organisations such as Reform and the rise of these kind of demagogues, bourgeois populists, who temporarily managed to galvanize support amongst some layers of the working class and the poor. 

But that doesn't mean that this is the end of the process. In fact, we're still in the early stages of this process. 

In a very, very distorted way, all of this is a reflection of developing class consciousness. 

People are angry. They're looking for a way to express their anger. And their anger has a class content: against the rich, against the establishment. 

But that class content is not being reflected, as I said, by the the by any of by the left, by the traditional leaders of the working class. 

Now, some people have said to us, "Well, if you know all of this, why don't you organise the march yourself? Why don't you organise protests? Why don't you organise the movement in general yourself?" 

That is a that is a good question. And the answer is, we are not big enough. We are not big. The task of taking on the capitalist class is not the task of a small organisation. Is the task of the left in general, and of the labour movement leaders. 

They are the ones who are failing their tasks. They have that power, we don't. 

We are building though, we are growing. And on the basis of all of these failures, and on the basis of the rising crisis, our organization, the Revolutionary Communist Party in Britain and the Revolutionary Communist International internationally, is growing

And we are building the forces that can be big enough in the future to intervene in the movements that are lying ahead, because they are coming. 

All of these is are anticipatory events for huge social turmoil and clashes which are on the horizon in Britain, and we want to be ready. 

So if you out there agree with these ideas, and if you agree with the ideas that we put forward today, and if you want to join the fight against capitalism in Britain and elsewhere, then I would recommend you go on our website, marxist.com – or you can see the link in the description to this video, or the podcast, wherever you listen to it – and join the struggle, because we need you, and at the same time, we're the only ones who are putting forward this perspective in the workers movement, and amongst the revolutionary youth. Do you have anything to add Niklas?

Niklas

No, I think that was very well put.

Bonus segment: Corbyn and Sultana clash

Hamid
And we are back.

We just finished shooting this episode when we heard news of a brewing conflict within Your Party, which is the party set up by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana.

It started this morning, as the party's email list sent around a link for people to join to become official members of the party.

This link was hosted on a separate domain than the Your Party domain.

A few hours later, there was a message sent around by representatives and activists of Your Party saying that this link was a fraud, was a scam to steal people's money.

Then we found out that actually, it was not a scam, but a link sent out by Zarah Sultana, one of the two most prominent leaders of this organisation, alongside Jeremy Corbyn.

Who had apparently, we're not sure about this yet, but apparently had proceeded to send this out on behalf of herself and the team around her.

This was followed by a statement by Jeremy Corbyn and three or four other MPs who support Your Party, saying that this was not an official link, that it was a scam, and that legal measures are being taken, or that they're looking into taking legal measures.

Zarah Sultana then wrote, just gonna find what she wrote here. Do you have it Niklas?

She said, "We're hitting 20,000 members. Right wing, bad faith actors are desperate to claim this link is fake. It isn't. It's safe and secure."

So the plot thickens, you might say, although it seems pretty clear by now, what's actually happening.

What we're dealing with is a conflict within Your Party between the groups around the two most prominent members and leaders of the organisation. Jeremy Corbyn on the on the one hand, with a series of MPs supporting him, and Zarah Sultanah, on the other hand.

I'm not sure who, who's on her side. What do you think this represents Niklas?

Niklas
That's a very good question. I think they have not been very clear. This conflict has been brewing for some time. We know in May, was it, when Zarah Sultana announced first the setting up of a new party and Jeremy Corbyn, was unhappy about it, and the people around him were very unhappy about it.

I think Zarah Sultana and some other people they had... when you turn up to a meeting and you present a resolution without giving anyone notice, they had done that to Corbyn just earlier in the day, and then voted it through, and basically tried to force Corbyn's hand in terms of declaring this party.

And now we see something similar happening, I think this is fair to say, where what has happened behind the scenes is a bit unclear, but for whatever reason, Zarah Sultana and the people around her – you can see them on Twitter, they are supporting her and calling on people to join, follow the link and pay the membership fees –

that they are obviously thinking that something is not going fast enough, that something is being held up, or that some people are trying to control the process in a way that they don't like, and so they're once again trying to basically force the hand and basically take take matters into their own hands, against the will of the other clique around Corbyn.

Hamid
Yes, we've talked about the potential for this organisation in the in the episode that we just shot, and you know that the enormous vacuum that exists on the left has been proven by the fact that 800,000 people signed up. But what we see at the top is that there's been a long process of manoeuvring in reality, that's what's happened.

This goes back several years, we should say. The setting up of this party has been discussed for several years, going back even before the previous general election.

And certain members, in particular, Jeremy Corbyn, have been resisting setting it up for whatever reason. It's not really clear what they want.

Niklas
What their arguments are.

Hamid
Then we have a whole series of defections from the Labour Party as the party began to collapse in the opinion polls.

Niklas
Let's just be clear, this party really speaking, to be honest, they should have kept control of Labour Party and kicked the right wing out of Labour party.

They should have done that, but they didn't.

In fact, they tried to be maintained unity of the right wing of the party.

Then when the right wing took control and began to purge the left, they could have launched a fight back, which they didn't.

But even failing that, even if they'd launched that fight back and lost, which is what they were afraid of, that would have been the moment to then say, "Right, we've been kicked out of this party. We can create a new one, right? We set up our own."

You'll take with you, like, 100,000 or so of the supporters from that party, and you would have the basis of a new party.

They could have declared it. In 2021, 2022 they could have done that. And they could have then had the opportunity to stand in the next election.

But they lost that opportunity, and instead, you had this salami where left wing activists, small numbers, one or the other were expelled, pushed out.

MPs were one after another removed, weren't allowed to stand again, and so on.

So they allowed the right wing basically to crush the left. And then many, many years later. Well, not that many. But five years later, four years later, right, then they declared the party, which is...

Hamid
But even then they didn't want to! It was because Zarah Sultana sprung the decision on this group.

Niklas
But also, I mean, really, this is the way... This should have... you know, in the historical justification, they should have had no support for this declaration of a party.

You know that, like, they've done everything wrong, not to create this party, to demoralise people, to make them feel she useless, isolated, demoralised, and so on.

That's the whole way in which they have, that's the situation they created on the left. In spite of that, they got 800,000 people who signed up to this.

Once Zarah Sultana and eventually Jeremy Corbyn got on board, they got 800,000 or 700 whatever it was, to sign up.

And that is like, it's a testament. In spite of all the mistakes they made, there's still this reservoir of support of all these people who want to go involved and do something, and then...

Hamid
And then they do this. I mean, I think we need to take this a bit further back, because...

I think we need to take a step back and look at the kind of broader picture. Because, on the one hand, what you see is a jockeying for positions.

And you can go into the ins and outs and which faction represents who.

It's clear that the main argument, even before this whole party was set up, was about who should be the leaders, who should control the apparatus, who should control the membership.

And you can go into the ins and outs of that. As you said before, none of these guys have told us what their political disagreements are.

But I think it's also the politics of left reformism in in a period of capitalist crisis, in the sense that the system cannot afford reforms.

And it doesn't mean that you're not arguing for it. Many of these guys are arguing for different reforms.

But really, speaking, within the confines of the capitalist system, there's very, very little basis for reforms, and therefore there's an increased pressure to what? To hollow out the programme.

You can have a programme, but you don't really fight for it. You don't really mean it. Even if you have a relatively good one, which Corbyn had on several occasions within the Labour Party.

But it goes beyond Corbyn. When you don't really argue for a programme, we don't really believe in it, then what's left is what becomes the kind of a centre point of political activity becomes parliament becomes elections, becomes positions, becomes access to resources, careerism, you know, arbitrary, accidental figures getting thrown into parliament, and then they're realising, "Oh, all of these doors are open to me and I can pursue whatever for myself and what for my network. I can pursue all of these different opportunities."

And the programme becomes less and less and less important.

Now I don't know which or all of these people, or whoever is more enmeshed in this type of thinking, but that is the pressure that exists on reformism.

Within this system, if you don't want to challenge the system, there is that pressure on you.

And in particular, one of the things that the left reformists seem to be very afraid of is losing control, because, let's say you had an open and democratic discussion. Very quickly, that discussion would move towards socialism, towards breaking with the system.

That is the the logic of the situation today. People can see what the problems are. People can see utilities collapsing, privatisation failing, jobs being undermined, increased pressure on the workplace.

It's pretty clear what the solution is: nationalisation. Workers control throughout the whole thing. The banks, the insurance changes. The criminals are clear for everyone.

So an open and democratic discussion immediately pushes you towards – amongst a mass of people, working class people and young people – inevitably sets you on course into a conflict with the system.

And therefore there is a fear of that, and there is a tendency to move away from that. And that's what, basically, what we're seeing: the replacement of democratic structures and debates and a revolutionary programme for maneuvers and jockeying at the top.

Niklas
Yeah. I mean, under the Corbyn years the left was supposed to have an organisation inside Labour Party called Momentum. And when that was set up it was constantly a battle, because there was a constant attempt, basically, to stop it becoming that force for the left, but instead trying to clamp down on its internal democracy, stopping members having a proper say or proper democratic forums of discussion.

They never held a single congress, as far as I know. Maybe there was one just at the end, but it was way, way, like, in last year or year before. Like, it's long, long enough, the Corbynism was defeated.

Never had discussions about, how do we deal with the right wing and so on.

Never put that on the agenda and had a proper discussion and debate about it.

But rather was completely controlled from the top. And that was because the moment they put things in the hands of the members and discussion to the members, the members tended to not vote the way that leaders wanted or support proposals that didn't suit them, like mandatory reselection, deselection of MPs.

And I mean, some of the people, which are the clique around Corbyn, where the same people who were phoning up branches, during Corbyn's leadership, phoning up local Labour party activists telling them to withdraw motions against right-wing MPs.

It's the same people. But anyway, and so now that they're organising this conference. So now, in the last week, I think it was. A couple of days ago, we got an email saying this is how we're going to have this new founding congress of the party, or conference.

And it said, well, we're going to have delegates, but they're going to be elected at random by the membership.

Hamid
By a machine or something.

Niklas
They're not going to be elected at all. They're going to be picked by a machine, supposedly at random. I mean, we'll take their word that they won't cheat the system.

So there's going to be a random selection of members to go to congress, which isn't actually going to decide things, but this is later on going to be decide by an online ballot.

I mean, the whole thing is just a way of trying to stop discussion and the normal... you know, the democratic structure of a labour movement, for all their faults.

The branches, trade union branches, Labour Party branches and so on, they all have their faults they're not perfect.

Often there's a lot of control even there of bureaucracy. But still it allows a forum for members to come together to discuss, have it out and come to a solution.

Vote resolutions that are passed on to higher bodies, elect their delegates that go to the congress and so on.

This is the way that Labour Party... the best side of Labour Party's internal democracy is that.

And this is what they want to do away with, because they're afraid that, if not...

In the Labour Party, they had the right wing, which was able to hold back, was a force they could balance on to hold back the members, and can threaten with the right wing to make sure the members, left wingers, didn't get too much of a say.

But here, they don't have that. Like the traditional right wing of the labour movement will be nowhere near this party.

And so what would happen is, you put all these left wing members, they will want to have a radical programme for this party. They would have to want to have...

And the leadership do not want that, or at least they want to be very much in control of a process to decide which bits of it they like and which bits they don't like.

Hamid
Yes, as you explained very well, in Momentum and in the Labour Party back then, as soon as the membership got to say what they wanted to do was to get rid of the right wing.

The right wing of the Labour Party. What did the right wing represent? It represented a tiny parasitic clique who were direct agents of the capitalist class, who were there to secure that Labour, rather than being a tool of the working class against the system, was a tool of the state apparatus to control the working class

Niklas
And, to be honest, as well, even sabotaged Labour's election victory. Made sure they lost the election.

Hamid
Exactly. That's the point. But you see, the point was that the the left reformists in their desire for unity above everything else – not about politics, not about carrying actually things through, but unity with the with the right wing – did everything in their power to stop the clash between the membership, who were the vast majority, and the parliamentary Labour Party and their hangers on and the advisors and so on, which is a tiny, tiny clique.

Now I remember being in Momentum meetings where I was asked not to speak because certain TV channels would be there, I think it was Channel Four, to interview people and film the meeting.

And what I was saying was raising communist ideas, which had relatively good support in that Momentum group. I was asked not to speak so that my comments wouldn't provoke the right wing.

So that's the role that the left wing ended up playing in that. Inadvertently, probably for most of them, because they were relatively honest people. Well, not all of them at the top, but, but most of them.

Now here you have a similar situation. We don't know the exact mechanisms of this yet, but first of all, these MPs aren't all left wing MPs.

The people who've joined Your Party are not necessarily left wing. Some of them are ex-Lib Dems. There is an MP from Birmingham who, according to you, is at least...

Niklas
Yeah, I seem to remember that he called for the military to be called in to clear the rubbish from the bin strike.

Hamid
From the bin strike. A strike, incidentally, that Nigel Farage went down and supported.

And obviously people like that don't want to have a clash against the system as a whole. They want to hold things back.

And then there are other people who, in the name of unity... You know the idea is that unity means that we become more right.

But in reality, unity with the people who represent the ideas of a different class, of the capitalist class, undermines the party precisely as it has now.

It means it becomes anonymous. It waters down the programme in order to appease everyone, and therefore cannot appeal to the workers who are looking for a radical way out of this crisis.

In the name of unity, in the name of being statesman-like. In the name of...

Niklas
Being inclusive.

Hamid
Being inclusive, the most radical demands that truly represent the interests of the working class is taken out of the programme.

And in the most extreme cases, as we see here now, the programme could be completely pushed aside, not even discussed.

Because probably if you put forward the ideas of some of these people, they would be rejected by the majority of of the membership.

And instead, what we're left with is jockeying, manoeuvring. Which is criminal, really.

That is a criminal programme. That is a criminal method, because what we need is not that, but first of all, a radical programme that corresponds to the needs and aspirations and interests of the British working class.

A radical programme against the rich, and the most widespread discussions to discuss these things. As communists, we're not afraid of this.

Niklas
Allow people to get involved. Allow them take part. Let them feel that this, you know, let them make this party their own.

If you want them to get involved, if you want them to go and knock on doors for you, give them a chance also to get involved and have a say in how this party is run, right? It's elementary.

Hamid
Exactly. At bottom what you were saying now, just to rephrase it, at bottom, this reflects the reformists, left and right, complete lack of trust in the ability of the working class to change society. And that's essentially where we are different.

Niklas
And their lack of trust in the members. They fear the members will, if you allow them to speak, they will say the wrong thing, they will elect the wrong people, they will vote the wrong way, and so on and...

Hamid
And they will, for them. Because the membership will move to the left. That's only to the benefit of us.

Niklas
I mean, freed of the shackles of the right wing of the Labour Party, that would allow this party to move, if allowed to develop in a democratic fashion, it would move to the left.

And it could provide a voice for all those working class people, like we talked about earlier on. All those working class people who are becoming radicalised, who are feeling there's no one there to speak up for them and so on. This party could be that.

But it requires this programme. It requires something that can connect to these people.

Hamid
Yes. So I think that's the conclusion. This is a warning. This could be fatal. This could have very, very fatal, very, very bad repercussions for this party.

We don't know what's going to happen now. But this should, if anything, be a warning to the left.

Drop, this manoeuvring, drop this jockeying, drop these games and corridor agreements, and put forward ideas.

Let's have a democratic discussion. And we will participate in that discussion with the only programme that can actually solve the problems of the British workers, which is a programme of class struggle, of organising the widest possible layers of the working class on a radical programme of nationalising the banks, the insurance agencies, the main corporations, the commanding heights of the economy, the utilities, placing them under workers control and and planning production according to the needs of the majority, rather than the profit hunt of the minority.

I think that's it. Yeah? Okay. Well, this time is the real end, and we'll see you back again next Thursday, 6pm UK time.