{"id":66809,"date":"2021-12-22T12:53:23","date_gmt":"2021-12-22T12:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/?p=66809"},"modified":"2021-12-22T12:53:23","modified_gmt":"2021-12-22T12:53:23","slug":"north-shropshire-by-election-liberals-win-with-a-34-swing-but-offer-nothing-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/north-shropshire-by-election-liberals-win-with-a-34-swing-but-offer-nothing-new\/","title":{"rendered":"North Shropshire by-election: Liberals win with a 34% swing but offer nothing new"},"content":{"rendered":"

Build a national strike movement against Johnson!<\/span><\/strong>
\nBring Johnson and the Tory government down!<\/span><\/strong>
\nPeter Windeler \u2013 International Socialist League<\/span>
\nAfter the Liberal Democrats victory in December in the North Staffordshire by-election, The Observer<\/em> described the Liberal Democrats as \u201cpolitical gadflies\u201d. As readers probably know, gadflies are the annoying bloodsucking insects that sometimes attack you. However, the Liberal Democrats were part of the Conservative, David Cameron, government, for imposing austerity on Britain, resulting in the life being sucked out of thousands of workers and their families.<\/span>
\nThe North Shropshire by-election saw a swing against the Tories of 34%, the biggest swing since 1993 when there was a 35% reversal against the Tory John Major government. <\/span>
\nBack then, the post-Thatcher Tories called for a \u201cback to basics\u201d agenda with a witch hunt against single mums. Now the Tories are showing their gruesome, true colours and their instinctive hatred for the NHS, with their MP Joy Morrissey (and many others) baying against new COVID restrictions. Morrissey ranted, \u201cThis is not a public health socialist state\u201d in response to the Chief Medical Officer\u2019s call to take limited measures and stop the Omicron strain from spreading so quickly.<\/span>
\nDespite the Tories being \u201cideologically incoherent and democratically diverse\u201d, as the political scientists describe them, along with the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats, they are all parties of capitalism. <\/span>
\nThere was tactical voting and Labour\u2019s vote went down by 12%. Part of that loss may also reflect workers hostility to Labour. If Labour leader Kier Starmer becomes Prime Minister, will not undo the Tory austerity implemented by Labour councils or repeal the anti-trade-unions laws that first appeared under Harold Wilson\u2019s Labour government back in 1969, under Barbara Castle\u2019s infamous White Paper \u201cIn Place of Strife\u201d. <\/span>
\nWhat does the by-election result signify? Voters are changing their support for different parties rapidly. The North Shropshire constituency voted 60% in support of Brexit \u2013 Boris Johnson\u2019s winning card. The promises of Brexit have all evaporated and any belief that the Tories could improve living conditions have been knocked asunder by Johnson\u2019s handling of COVID and safety issues. While the country was in lockdown and families could not see their beloved ones before they died, 10 Downing Street carried on with Xmas celebrations.<\/span>
\nThe post-Brexit shambles is one of the reasons for the North Staffordshire result, especially the lack of support for local farmers and the deepening divisions inside the Tory government. The Brexit Minister, David Frost, has resigned and been replaced by the Thatcher-loving Liz Truss. Frost reasons for resigning include the new COVID restrictions, which\u00a0<\/span>he opposes <\/span>with many other Tory MPs, increasing taxes and Johnson\u2019s strategy to be less confrontational with Brussels.<\/span>
\nThe avalanche of sleaze affected the result, with \u00a31.6bn of NHS COVID contracts being awarded by referrals from just ten Tory politicians. Tory concerns over the welfare of workers who voted for Brexit is a lie.<\/span>
\nSleaze also affected Tony Blair\u2019s Labour government after it was linked to the Labour decision to exempt Formula One from the ban on tobacco advertising and the Labour Party was forced to pay back \u00a31 million given by Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One boss.<\/span>
\nThe overall impression of this Tory government is of one that is drifting aimlessly, unable to chart a course through increasingly choppy capitalist waters. The desperate attempts to strike trade deals with the U.S. could result in Britain importing meat with up to ten banned antibiotics, potentially undermining treatments for infections, cancer and even coronavirus.<\/span>
\nThe real issue is the Tory running the economy since Brexit has been a disaster for workers. Their post-Brexit dream of a low tax, low regulation Singapore-on-Thames country has disappeared. Interest rates are rising, energy prices are catapulting, inflation is at 5%, and the Office for Public Responsibility predicts 4% less national income, which means that each person will be \u00a31,500 worse off each year, and the government will be \u00a340 billion short each year to run the country. <\/span>
\nThe years of austerity continue and the stripping away of local authority funding is behind many of the recent, appalling, child neglect stories and a sharp decline in social care. The cack-handed approach of dealing with the covid crisis has resulted in the NHS becoming broken \u2013 a crisis engineered by the Tories.<\/span>
\nWhile employers continually attempt to undermine pay and conditions with their \u201cFire and Rehire\u201d policies, the improved job situation, after Brexit, has emboldened workers to start a triumphant fight-back.\u00a0<\/span>
\nThere is no version of capitalism that can ever satisfy the basic needs of workers and their communities as capitalism will always seek to preserve its profits by taking from workers and the poorest. Capitalism resolves its problems by increasing poverty.<\/span>
\nWorkers have to build a new alternative of national economic and political struggle, combining all combative sectors not just to get rid of Johnson but to get rid of the Tory government and build an industrial fight back for pay rises above the rate of inflation, for equal wages and permanent work, and for an increase in Welfare benefits that will end poverty, end inequality and lift 4.3 million children out of poverty in 2022. <\/span>
\nBring the Tory government down<\/b><\/span>
\nThere is only one way to eradicate the problems and the contradictions that the capitalist system creates and is unable to resolve and that is to build for an alternative \u2013 that fights for workers\u2019 control with a workers\u2019 government, with banks under workers\u2019 control and organised internationally. <\/span>
\nLeaving the European Union for workers should translate into leaving the Capitalist EU and joining with European workers to fight for a Socialist United States of Europe. Only a socialist system can end oppression and exploitation and improve the lives of the majority population of the world, the working class. <\/span>
\nEuropean workers have to take the power from the likes of Johnson and Macron who impose the brutality and cruelty of capitalism on the world – the only way is for workers to organise democratically with all those oppressed for socialism.<\/span>
\nWorkers can build a national strike movement, a workers alternative and a revolutionary party that can overthrow capitalism. <\/span><\/p>\n