The Illusions Of Bourgeois Democracy Must Be Dispelled

The rehabilitation of Alistair Campbell by the British petit-bourgeois left is the latest in the never ending series of moral disgraces that this layer has engaged in. Campbell was of course Blairs “spin doctor”, a former journalist and editor for the Daily Mirror when it was owned by the notorious Israeli spy and pension thief Robert Maxwell and a propagandist for the brutal imperialist wars waged by Britain on Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Campbell particularly distinguished himself in the run up to the Iraq war by helping to falsify the now utterly discredited “evidence” that Iraq possessed nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Campbell was behind the ludicrous claim that the Iraqi government could have “attacked Cyprus” inside 45 minutes. A claim that the entire bourgeois press repeated of course. Now it must be stated that US imperialism was going to invade Iraq no matter what and only a serious domestic rebellion or military defeat on the battlefield was going to stop them, Campbells manufactured narratives were just one form of the propaganda war that took shape at the time which had many facets. Nevertheless you would think that the bare minimum you could expect from the British petit-bourgeois left was that they would remember who had been the chief propagandist for this war that so many of them did oppose at the time and not seek to grant him new acclaim. But over the last decade this is exactly what has happened and this reached its miserable climax with John McDonnell (remember him) doing a truly skin crawling “discussion” with Campbell where the great and courageous leader of the labour left and Corbyn’s right hand man declared that Blair (and by extension Campbell) should not be called a war criminal. Now the British left, faced with the total failure and collapse of the Corbyn project, has dutifully fallen in behind Starmer and are mouthing the usual useless phrase “get the Tories out”. This is repeated by everyone from Starmer himself all the way to the Trotskyites in the SWP and it reveals just how thoroughly rotten the entire “left wing” is in this country. If you’re entire understanding of politics in Britain is “get the Tories out” then you will end up having “bantz” with monsters like Alistair Campbell and Tony Blair before you know it. You’ll justify war, privatisations and the crushing of strikes just to “get the tories out”.

This all stems from the fact that the British left (as is the case in many imperialist nations) is not the product of the working class. It is, and has been for over a century, the product of the uppermost layers of the working class. These are the better paid layers of the working class out of whom emerge the trade union bureaucracy. This is the small section of the working class that has been bought off by British imperialism, these days they are drawn from the better paid sections of the public sector and NGO world. It is this layer that dominates the labour party and the trade union leadership. Their only priority is preserving their own position and keeping themselves from falling into the increasingly impoverished mass of the British working class. This layer embraced Blair 30 years ago and they embrace Starmer now. For all their moralising about “the Tories” they will accept and, in fact, embrace Starmer as he promises to essentially do all the same things that Sunak would do. Starmer will continue with the process of health service privatisation for one thing, which his shadow health spokesman Wes Streeting has admitted to, he won’t repeal anti union laws, he won’t settle the pay disputes in the public sector on terms favourable to the workers concerned. All of this he has been completely open about. He will also continue to wage the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and follow US imperialism in trying to provoke a war with China over Taiwan. These are just the issues that Starmer has been completely open about in his intentions. He claims to be following in the traditions of Atlee, Wilson and Blair when the left howls with outrage about this. However it must be said that Starmer is actually telling the truth about this. Ramsay Macdonald was just as enthusiastic about maintaining the British stranglehold over India as Lloyd George or Churchill was. Atlee waged brutal campaigns to cling on to British possession of Malaya and Kenya, Wilson collaborated with US imperialism to organise the massacre of communists in Indonesia and of course Blairs crimes are what we started off this article by looking at. All of this reveals the Labour Party’s true position, as a long term partner in crime with the Tories in ruthlessly pursuing the interests of British imperialism abroad and crushing the working class at home. This is not a new development but one that developed over a century ago as the Labour Party in parliament collaborated with the governments of Asquith and Lloyd George in sending hundreds of thousands of British workers to die for the profits of imperialism on the battlefields of Belgium and France. Starmer is consistent with this, the inexcusable thing is that so many “radicals” in Britain echo the tired old line of how everything is the fault of “the Tories” and thus attempting to lie to the British working class.

The role of communists in this time must be to counter this propaganda, to clearly state that the role of the labour party is to act as partner in crime to the Conservatives and that these parties act to defend the interests of the British ruling class. Those who refuse to do that, who peddle illusions and who insist that a labour government will be one iota better for British workers will all end up embracing criminals like Campbell and Blair in the end, no matter how “revolutionary” they proclaim themselves to be.