by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The reason Labour did so badly is down to at least three reasons.
One being that they made a mistake backing the No Campaign in Scotland
Two that they have moved so far away from the true values of the original Labour party that the working class no longer feels them to be their home
Three that they have refused to entertain a referendum on UK membership in the EU (NO2EU has been part of some of the Trade Union message for some time now and Labour has completely lost it there) claiming that – and openly saying that – that the people of the UK cannot be trusted with that question and that it is up to politicians to make that decision.
But there are also a number of other reasons and one of those is that people are selfish in the extreme in Britain nowadays, ever since the Thatcher era.
Time and again I hear some people say “What has Labour ever done for me?” or when one suggests to them to join a Trade Union “What have the Unions ever done for me?” without stopping once to think what Labour under Clement Attlee did in creating the welfare state, the National Health service, and the unions by bringing them the five-day working week, paid holidays, and such like. Some even go as far as to say “Oh well, I get those benefits even if I am not in a union”.
The problem is selfishness in the extreme and people also vote according to which party promises them personal benefits. But in the words of J F Kennedy we should not ask what our country can do for us but what we can do for our country. Instead of looking out for only what we can gain from this or that personally it is time that we looked out also for those less fortunate for we could be the next one losing out job and thus our home and be dependent on the no longer existent, if the Tories get their way, welfare state.
However, the truth be told, the Labour Party no longer is the party of the working class even though, unfortunately, many of the working class still seem to believe that. There is almost not a single MP left from that party who has ever done an honest day's work at the coal face, in a factory, a shipyard, or in the fields and forests.
Those that are now being put forward for leadership are also no better in that respect. None of them have a clue as to the working class and its problems, coming from privileged backgrounds and in the main having been privately educated. Furthermore they are drifting further and further to “the right” and are becoming just pink Tories.
The British working class (and in all honesty not only the working class of Britain) needs new leadership and the Labour Party or the Social Democratic Party (in the case of Germany, etc.) does not cut the mustard.
It is also time that the Unions cut their ties with the Labour Party. The Unions do not need Labour but Labour the Unions. Without the Unions the Labour party is nothing. Labour, however, has forgotten that and the very fact that the Unions gave it life.
To the majority of the working class in Britain the Labour Party is but the other side of the Tory coin and that seems to be a fact, unfortunately, which can also be seen in that they were prepared to use basically the same austerity measures proposed by the Tories and also were hellbent to continue the British Independent Nuclear Deterrent (may I laugh) in the form of the Trident submarines. The cost for the renewal of those alone could pay is more than the proposed austerity measures but no, it has to be kept. Sure it has to be kept because the master, the USA, who actually command that “independent” nuclear deterrent, says so.
It is time for the British working class to wake up and – one – understand that they are not millionaires or even billionaires in waiting but simple wage slaves as long as they do not have control over the means of production and – two – that the Labour Party was only intent on creating capitalism with a human face and no socialism, where the workers do own the means of productions, etc. And today Labour does not even want to know the word socialism in any shape or form. They have become a party for the bourgeoisie and now longer – if ever they did – represent the proletariat.
Furthermore it is time for the British working class to take matters into their hands and to rise from their prisons of starvation into which the Tory “masters” intend to toss them, once again, and overturn the tables of the moneychangers.
But, alas, the British working class has been lulled to sleep by promises of being able to aspire. Aspire to what? We can all aspire but getting there in the current climate to fulfill our aspirations, whatever they may be, is all but a dream.
The Labour Party is dead and has been on its deathbed for some time and now it is time for the working class and with the Trade Unions in the lead, maybe, to bury the poor thing and give birth to a proper organization of the working class, by the working class, for the working class, and bring about a system where all will be the winners, including the Planet.
© 2015
