Vol. 74/No. 9      March 8, 2010

More than 1,200 British troops are among the 15,000 imperialist-led forces currently engaged in a military offensive against the Taliban in the Marjah region of southern Afghanistan, with a further 3,000 British troops waiting in reserve. Prime Minister Gordon Brown claims, “We will break the Taliban during this enterprise.”

Bellamy explains that through their wars “the wealthy capitalist rulers and their governments act at all costs to protect their profits. That’s why working people need to take state power from them through revolutionary action by the millions, as in Cuba.”

A factory sewing machine worker and member of the GMB union, Bellamy actively built the February 20 demonstration here against the ultrarightist Scottish Defence League (SDL). This outfit and its counterparts in the English Defence League have held actions targeting what they call “Militant Islam,” echoing the bourgeois parties’ support for Britain’s war in Afghanistan.

Bellamy says she “rejects the view of Edinburgh city councillor Cameron Rose, who opposes counterprotests against the rightists, calling instead for the police to deal with the SDL.” At key moments “the police have acted to protect the ultraright as they did in the 1930s with Oswald Mosley’s Black Shirts and in the 1970s and ’80s with the National Front,” Bellamy points out.

The scale and speed of cuts to government spending—and consequent attacks on workers’ social wage—has emerged as a main issue among the big-business parties. Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said that the next government faces implementing the “toughest” spending cuts in 20 years. Echoing this, Tory opposition shadow business secretary Kenneth Clarke said, “We are going to have to be much tougher on public spending than Margaret Thatcher ever was.” University spending has already been cut by £449 million ($693 million) for 2010-2011.

“As a loyal servant of the capitalist class Alistair Darling has acted to protect those ‘too big to fail,’” Bellamy explains, “in other words the wealthy bondholders who stand behind the likes of RBS or Bank of Scotland. Meanwhile, working people face growing devastation as attacks on our living standards mount.” In order to achieve an economic recovery for workers, she says, “we must fight for measures that cut directly into the capitalist profit system and its rule.”

“Millions could be put to work at union rates to build the schools, hospitals, and public transport that working people need,” Davies points out.

Paul Davies contributed to this article.
 
 
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