New Left Party Needed Now!
The only answer from centrist politicians like Keir Starmer to rising support for the figures like Farage is to politically mimic them.
“We must close the book on a squalid chapter for our politics, our economy and our country. Britain risks becoming an island of strangers”. This chilling anti-migrant rhetoric, straight from the mouth of the Prime Minister, could easily have been lifted from a speech by Nigel Farage or Enoch Powell. It comes directly from the playbook of the far right. This is “squalid” politics on every level.
Labour’s hammering in the local elections has clearly led to a strategic rethink among Starmer’s top team. In a sane and sensible political world, you might expect them to address the top four or five reasons voters gave for not supporting Labour in these elections, despite having done so previously. These were (in ranking order):
1. Removal of winter fuel allowance
2. Not reducing the cost of living
3. Not improving public services
4. Broken too many promises
5. Not stood up to the rich and powerful
To find even a mention of immigration, you have to get all the way down to number eight! Just 18% of those planning to “defect” mentioned it as a reason when polled.
Why then, you might ask, has Starmer chosen to respond to the kicking his party received in the local elections with a poisonous attack on migrants and refugees? The answer is that we don’t live in a sane or sensible world. We live in a world in which the ailing capitalist system is leaning more and more heavily on poisonous right-wing ideas to maintain itself. This volatile world, dominated by imperialist conflict and nationalism, is one in which the far right is insurgent.
Centrist politicians like Keir Starmer, whose raison d’etre is the defence of the failing capitalist system, have nothing to offer working-class people except austerity and falling living standards. Their only answer to rising support for the figures like Farage is to politically mimic them.
Not Just Words
The White Paper which Starmer’s speech announced is full of deadly serious new attacks on migrants and refugees. Many of these policies will have the opposite of the effect Starmer claims they will. For example, forcing migrant workers to wait for ten years to achieve settled status will increase the levels of precarity they face, strengthening the hand of employers.
A serious approach to preventing any so-called ‘undercutting’ of established pay or conditions would have to be based instead on bolstering trade union rights, removing restrictions on the right to strike, guaranteeing the right to work legally for all asylum seekers from day one, and raising the minimum wage to £20 an hour.
The English language requirements Starmer also included in the announcement are patronising and punitive. Clearly, the vast majority of those coming to live in this country already speak good English. Those who don’t, generally learn rapidly. Nobody at all is deliberately refusing to learn or speak English in Britain. It also shouldn’t even need saying that everybody should have the right to communicate in whatever language they wish.
Why not announce a policy to provide extra support via free classes for those who are struggling? The Tory government made massive attacks on English for Speakers of other Languages programmes. Many will also rightly wonder how well most British ‘expats’ would fare if asked to sit corresponding language exams in the countries to which they have migrated.
By donning the clothes of the right, Starmer hopes to put a stop to the rise of Reform and claw back some electoral support. In reality, it is far more likely to have the opposite effect. Starmer is echoing and legitimising all Farage’s talking points. Experience internationally has shown that many voters taken in by these arguments will always prefer to back the ‘original’ rather than the ‘imitation’.
Workers’ Unity and a New Party
The majority of working-class people in this country are not taken in by this divisive politics, even if the minority who are may be growing. Attitudes towards immigration remain significantly more positive in Britain compared to what they were a decade ago, despite a recent reversal in that trend. Indeed, all the surveys done in the run up to the elections indicate clearly that it is issues which unite the working class — around the cost of living, access to benefits, housing and wages — which are central for most voters.
This underlines the huge potential which would exist for a new left party to act as an effective challenge both to Reform and to Starmer. The launch of such a party is now beyond urgent. A conference held last weekend in Huddersfield — organised by the local People’s Alliance for Change and Equality, in which Socialist Alternative has an important role — highlighted the potential for building an organisation based on bringing together campaigners and trade unionists, and rooting a left party in the real struggles of the working class.
Ultimately, any new force will need to adopt a searing critique of the decaying capitalist system and its latest turn to racism and bigotry. It will need to base itself on a socialist program—for a society built on solidarity, public ownership and a democratic economic plan based on the needs of people and the planet.
