In Search of Social Justice

LAST month’s General Election was a profound moment in British society and will change this country for a generation and beyond.

And I fear deeply for our collective futures.

On one hand I am delighted for my friends in Scotland, not for any reasons of independence but because they elected 56 MPs dedicated to social justice, welfare, investment and non-nuclear proliferation.

And the first indication are that under the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon these new MPs are the real thing ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxDTasNcc2A )

But, I was equally appalled by the election of a UK government compiled of self-seeking rich Tory elitists who care more about their mansions and banking friends than about people.

And their shopping list for change is truly terrifying.

Over the next few years this is unshackled Conservative government will:

• Rip up the Human Rights Act, which underpins our legal system and protects all our basic freedoms and those of persecuted minorities.
• Spend £100billion on replacing Trident with new nuclear weapons, which at the push of a button could wipe out millions of lives and pollute our planet for tens of thousands of years.
• Make £12.8billion of cuts to welfare, leaving the poorest, the oldest and the weakest in our society facing the bleakest of futures. In turn this will ensure the need for a food bank in every town and extend child poverty ensuring suffering and a loss of opportunity for millions.
• Begin a phased end to council housing, thus pushing up rents in the private sector and making families homeless. Once again – as under Thatcher – we will see a surge in rough sleeping and begging.
• Will enact tougher sanctions on migrants, involve the UK in further illegal wars in the Middle East and trigger an increase in racism and Islamophobia.
• Back a return of the barbaric blood sports of fox hunting and deer coursing. If pandering to pink gin swilling toffs allowing them to tear defenseless animals to pieces is a sign of our society, I am ashamed.
• Extend zero hours contracts, thus massaging the unemployment figures and leaving thousands of the poorest people without any job security.
• Legislate for more private schools which will imbed the class system even deeper in our society, rather focus on improving our state schooling system.
• Escalate and accelerate the privatisation of the NHS, so medical care will depend on wealth and power rather than need.
• Then redraw constituency boundaries so these same corrupt capitalist elitists stay in power for another 20 more years.

I can’t help but wonder what’s happening to my country, my world and my companions. The Labour Party, who should be standing and campaigning against all this, have failed again and again to do so and the electorate saw through Miliband and his Tory Lite manifesto.

New Labour (or whatever they like to be called these days) even joined in with attacking the poorest, instead of the real culprits: the rich and the bankers who ruined the economy while lining their own pockets. Now our trade unions are distancing themselves from Labour in disgust. No one should have to choose between heating and eating, no one should have to pay for their healthcare or education – and everyone should have a roof over their head. It’s that simple. And neither have we learned the lessons of Iraq or Afghanistan. Once again we are hanging onto the coat hem of the USA in taking an aggressive stance against Russian involvement in the Crimea, while supporting a fascist Ukraine. We don’t need thousands more deaths of innocent people by any military posturing or worse still involvement. https://seagullnic.wordpress.com/2014/04/01/all-he-believes-are-his-eyes-and-his-eyes-they-just-tell-him-lies-2/ and in another post: https://seagullnic.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/youre-the-one-that-reached-me-youre-the-one-that-i-admired/

I have lost confidence with any major political party in this country to provide social and just government and turn back the cruel tide of capitalist politics. Last year I sadly found myself agreeing with Russell Brand that either we need a bloodless revolution to change the status quo or I remain sitting on my backside and give in to nihilism. Or is there another option? Is there a realistic left wing alternative? Also last year I joined Left Unity in an attempt to change things, and 12 months later I don’t regret that decision.

But the Left is too splintered and divided to succeed electorally.

Class War, The Communist Party, TUSC, The Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Action, 38 Degrees, UK Uncut, Respect, The Alliance for Green Socialism, The Socialist Labour Party, The Workers Revolutionary Party and even the Greens and many Labour Party members spend far too much time attacking each other over Trotskyite revisionism, personalities or tactics rather than uniting to defeat the greed and corruption of capitalism.

The 500,000 people who spontaneously attended the mass demonstration in London last weekend is an indication of the shared anger about the Conservative election victory and their manifesto of horror.

People are crying out for an alternative and they need it now.

The true Left must begin now to unify around a leader or leadership we can all trust, organise and start the fightback, or we all wave farewell to hope for a fairer and better future.