NHS crisis and political recomposition within Social Democratic and Bourgeois politics

WHY THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT HAS OFFICIALLY REJECTED MANAGMENT CONSULTANTS TO AXE 136,000 NHS JOBS! AND IT’S RELATIONSHIP TO RECOMPOSITION WITHIN SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC AND BOURGEOIS POLITICS.


The British ruling class has skilfully minimised the possibility of major reforms benefiting workers through New Labour being in alliance with right wing Social Democrats, with certain amount of Trade Union Bureaucratic acceptance blocking classical Social Democratic measures. This is in a context of mass radicalisation represented by Labour’s landslide during 1997.

Bourgeois strategists reacted to this limited radicalisation by slowing down the Bourgeoisification of Labour and conceding very limited reforms to the workers and middle class. Their main strategy was/is to wait for despair to set in so parties to the right of Labour could gain support and could attack the working class more effectively without constraints of a party (Labour) based on a massive Social Democratic base.

The growth of despair was/is not inevitable. It was/is a product of Blairism’s attack on workers; Social Democratic/Trade Union Bureaucratic inability to wage an effective struggle against these policies; and most revolutionaries playing into Blairism’s and Social Democracy’s hands by not building a serious left wing inside the Labour Party to challenge Blairism. In May 1997 the Times paper argued that Labour’s landslide may lead to major reforms for workers and the middle class. Due to a number of historical factors the ruling class managed to successfully to concede very little.

This short to medium-term gain for ruling class elements may dialectically turn into its opposite with increased anger if there are further massive attacks on workers and the middle class. The danger for ruling class elements is if anger exploded in a pre-revolutionary crisis could Old Labour-type Social Democrats contain it? Trotskyists cannot rely on Social Democrats to fight Blairism and Brownism. They either do it to protect their privileges or to contain a growing radicalisation. We as a Trotskyist movement argue to build a left wing within Labour is because if there is a strong left millions of workers and middle class elements will have perspective of fighting for a better society and revolutionaries can influence those millions radicalising. There will be an inevitable split between Trotskyists and Social Democratic Bureaucrats. Out of this crisis Trotskyists hope to construct a new mass revolutionary party.

Blairism could have been seriously weakened if revolutionaries had organised a serious left wing within the Labour Party. It is almost certain that Blair would have been forced out quicker if Trotskyists had delivered leadership and direction of anti-Iraq war movement into the Labour Party. The reason New Labour is not implementing that 10% axe of NHS staff before next year’s general election is that it would caused such an internal Labour Party rupture they could have been kicked out of the leadership by left Wing Social Democrats or a massive split with a large left wing Social Democratic party which could have won a landslide. We are moving into the phrase of the epoch what Trotsky characterised as rapid changes.

There are two main dangers at the next general election of a Tory or coalition government. Liberal Bourgeois elements do not want a big Tory majority because Conservative Bourgeois layers and Aristocrats will attempt to sabotage their EU project. Within the Tory party there are some extreme right wingers such as the Cornerstone group who have publically declared in their 2005 manifesto of using increased xenophobia to destroy Bourgeois Liberalism. If these right wing forces are unleashed in a deep Capitalist crisis it could cause massive explosions. This is why the ruling class are trying to win the ideological arguments for massive cutbacks. After the next election a deepening radicalisation will reflect itself within the Labour Party.