18.04.1996

Socialist Worker contradictions

Communist press

We all expect contradictions in political life and Socialist Worker last week really underlines the point. The April 6 edition is full, as usual, of stories condemning the Tories. On the question of BSE, “Nothing could expose the Tory priorities more dearly. The Tories have done almost nothing about BSE since admitting its possible link to CJD in humans.”

On the topic of union busting we are told, “The Tory-run Brent council in North West London threw down the gauntlet to Britain’s biggest trade union on Monday. The Tories want to break union organisation so they can drive down wages, impose rotten conditions and slash services.”

Socialist Worker keeps up this splendid barrage against the Tories throughout the paper. We are told, “The Tories aimed to push a draconian new anti-terrorist law through Parliament this week, giving new police powers.” The next story tells us, “Almost everyone in Britain is opposed to rail privatisation, yet the Tories are pressing ahead with the sell-off.” It’s the same message for the Criminal Justice Act, the return of the grammar school and the Child Support Agency. They certainly live up to their slogan, ‘We hate the Tories; we are the Tory haters’. All well and good up to a point, but what of capitalism’s second eleven - Blair’s New Labour? Everybody knows they are being groomed to take over running capitalist Britain, yet this is hardly reflected in the pages of Socialist Worker. Criticism of Labour is there, but it’s muted, incidental and everywhere secondary to the anti-Tory onslaught.

All this might seem rather unexceptional for the SWP, but in the midst of this legitimate ‘Tory hating’ is a rather lively column from Paul Foot entitled, “All at sea with Labour”. In a nice journalistic piece, Foot does a fair job at exposing the betrayals of the Wilson Labour government. Foot concludes his article, “For the striking workers and their allies the government they had elected became their enemy. This was the plainest possible proof of the utter impossibility of any real change from an elected Labour government.” Paul Foot has learnt the lesson, but it seems that the rest of the journalists at Socialist Worker have not. Voting Blair at the next election will only lead to more betrayals. Socialist Worker might do well to tell its readers this simple message.

Julian Jake