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TURN A HISTORIC TORY DEFEAT INTO A CHANGE OF COURSE FOR BRITAIN  
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Morning Star Editorial Board
July 5, 2024
Morning Star
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_ The left needs to put pressure on this government from day one, to
ensure commitments to abolish anti-union laws and boost workers’
rights are kept, and to break with Tory spending rules that will
hobble attempts to solve urgent social crises. _

Kier Starmer will be Britain's new Labor Prime Minister, Morning Star


 

BRITAIN has just inflicted the worst defeat on the Conservative Party
in its history.

Two-thirds of their MPs have been swept away in a night, leaving the
smallest Tory contingent at Westminster since the party’s foundation
in 1834. Jubilation at the outcome has, for socialists, been sweetened
by the sight of some of the most odious politicians in the country
lose their seats, from former prime minister Liz Truss through
anti-union fanatic Grant Shapps to Victorian play-actor Jacob
Rees-Mogg.

The result is an emphatic rejection of a rotten government and its
policies. Our sights must now be set on changing the country’s
course: reversing the tide of authoritarian legislation, including the
anti-strike and anti-protest laws; ending the longest decline in
real-terms incomes in 200 years; riding to the rescue of collapsing
public services.

Some of that is in Labour’s programme as it enters office with a
huge majority, but not much. The left needs to put pressure on this
government from day one, not just to ensure manifesto commitments to
abolishing anti-union laws and boosting workers’ rights are kept,
but to drive it to break with Tory spending rules which will hobble
any attempt to resolve crises in healthcare, education, local
government and many other sectors.

The Labour right have their counter-arguments ready. Keir Starmer
rehearsed them in his victory speech. Labour has only regained the
trust of the British people because he has spent four-and-a-half years
changing the party, smashing the left.

It’s nonsense. As elections analyst Professor John Curtice observes,
Labour’s sweeping win is down to the rejection of the Tories, whose
vote has collapsed.

Its vote share, at 35 per cent, is not just lower than at any of Tony
Blair’s election victories — it’s considerably lower than the 40
per cent Labour bagged when it lost the 2017 election under Jeremy
Corbyn.

It rose significantly in Scotland, where the SNP has been in meltdown
for over a year. But in England Labour’s vote is unchanged from 2019
— a year of catastrophic defeat — and in Wales it has actually
fallen since then. Starmer himself got only half as many votes as he
did in 2019.

Sour grapes? No, and many on the left who have long resented the
Tories’ repeated ability to secure commanding majorities on a
minority of the vote are delighted to see the A-team of British
capitalism shredded by the system they have always championed.

It’s about being clear on the balance of forces. One, Labour has not
become more popular because it has shifted right. It has not become
more popular at all. That contrasts to the 2015-17 period, and makes
the case for a bolder programme.

Without that bolder programme, one which might actually address the
manifold crises that brought down the Tories, we can see a very grim
future in the rise of the far right, with Reform UK being the main
recipient of lost Tory votes and polling a strong second to Labour in
parts of the country. This places a responsibility on the labour
movement to force Labour left, or risk the collapse of a majority
based on a low vote share, a metaphorical house built on sand.

There is no need to despair. Reform UK may have won five MPs: but the
election also returned four independents on a peace in Palestine
platform — one demolishing the once formidable majority of Jonathan
Ashworth in Leicester South — along with four Greens.

Jeremy Corbyn’s victory as an independent was a highlight of the
night, a win for popular mobilisation against the party machine, and
secures in Islington North the services of an outstanding champion of
peace and socialism whose voice will be sorely needed at Westminster
in a darkening world.

It is time for change: but delivering it is up to us, not the new
occupant of No 10.

_The Morning Star [[link removed]] is a
left-wing British newspaper and the only English-language socialist
daily newspaper in the world, published six days a week. Subscribe
to the Morning Star. [[link removed]]_

* Great Britain
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* Kier Starmer
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* British Labour Party
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