Our newsletter are updated monthly and are published on the 1st of every month.

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Newssheet No.7 – 2025

 

Editorial - The Morning Star Editorial on Trump’s abrupt exit from the G7 Summit

The Morning Star published an Editorial (18/6/25) on Trump’s abrupt exit from the G7 Summit. Its Editor, Ben Chacko, quoted a bourgeois commentator that Trump’s speech was slurred and he looked disheveled. Trump appeared to be unstable and, on this basis, developed a ‘twaddle’ to explain events. The Morning Star, which parades as a communist organ writing for the trade union movement, failed to provide a ‘class analysis’ of the G7 Summit. It failed to mention the G7 Summit is a meeting of the political leaders of the advanced capitalist countries of the world who dictate and determine policies affecting the working class of the world. The G7 Summit expresses the ‘international unity’ of the bourgeoisie of the advanced capitalist countries against the international working-class movement of the world.

The bourgeoisie is divided into two – the ‘bourgeois nationalists’ who uphold the nation-state and national sovereignty and the ‘bourgeois internationalists’ who favour capitalist integration and the breakdown of national barriers like the European Union (EU). President Trump is a bourgeois nationalist. Finance capitalists are for bourgeois internationalism. Trump’s abrupt and early exit expresses the divide between the bourgeois nationalists and the bourgeois internationalists at the G7 Summit. Trump, the bourgeois nationalist, is prepared to use US monopoly capitalism in relation to his economic and political policies to ‘dominate’ the bourgeois internationalists. Trump’s bourgeois nationalism is to deny bourgeois internationalism the role it is playing in global politics. This ‘rift’ between bourgeois nationalism and bourgeois internationalism has profound significance for the struggle of the working class against capital, the capitalists and the monopoly capitalists.

The failure of the Morning Star and its Editor, Ben Chacko, to provide an all-round and comprehensive class analysis of the G7 Summit sees it sinking into petty bourgeois socialism and as a trade unionist paper not a communist newspaper. This shows that Ben Chacko has very little understanding of the principles of Scientific Socialism and its two methodologies, materialist dialectics and historical materialism. Chacko is oblivious and ignorant to the fact that ‘bourgeois nationalism’ and ‘bourgeois internationalism’ are political economic categories within Scientific Socialism. Chacko in relation to Britain only sees the Establishment or Westminster, the City of London, of the rule of British Imperialism, in true “Marxist-Leninist” fashion, an ‘illusory ideology’ created by Stalin and the now defunct and dissolved Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). What Chacko does in talking about the idiosyncrasies of Trump in relation to the G7 Summit is to reduce the principles and methodologies of Scientific Socialism and its political categories to ‘populist’ and ‘dogmatic’ “Marxism-Leninism”. This is the ‘service’ that Chacko propagates to the working class in this Editorial which expresses opportunism within the working-class movement when not applying materialist dialectics and historical materialism of Scientific Socialism in his Editorial.

 

Britain – The Labour Party    

The Labour Party was formed by the Trade Unions seeking working class representation in Parliament in the early 20th century. It engaged in bourgeois democracy with a program of reform and commitment to socialism to which it paid lip-service. When in government it threw sops at the working class whilst maintaining the existence of capitalism in Britain in the 20th century. In 1945, the Atlee Labour Government introduced Public Ownership of the means of production, the Welfare State, the National Health Service (NHS) and free education at all three levels. It was the closest that the Labour Party came to socialism. Social Democracy, in the form of the Labour Party in Britain, could claim that it was serving the working class. This ‘mixed economy’ of the public sector and a private sector, i.e., capitalism, lasted until the 1980s when Thatcherism dealt a deathblow to Public Ownership and Social Democracy.

The Labour Party in the 1990s changed under Blair. The Labour Party as characterized by Blair as “New Labour” adopted neo-Thatcherite policies when in government. The Labour Party shifted to the Right. It became a bona fide bourgeois democratic political party by dropping its commitment to socialism. Clause 4 was abandoned for the sake of electability. The Trade Unions and its members which form the core of the Labour Party was sidelined and paid scant attention by “New Labour’s” petty bourgeois leadership. In the 2010 General Election “New Labour” program was rejected by the electorate especially its working-class base.

The next few years saw the Labour Party move slightly to the Left first under Miliband and then into a kind of Atlee’s program of Public Ownership under Corbyn. Corbyn’s leadership did not lead to the restoration of Clause 4. It was a petty bourgeois socialist program within the parameters of capitalism that Labour developed under Corbyn. “Corbynism” was rejected by the electorate especially the working-class base in favour of Brexit in the 2019 General Election. Corbyn made two mistakes. The first is that he underestimated the virulent contamination with bourgeois nationalism by the working class and failed to conduct a struggle against it. The second mistake he made was he underestimated the hatred felt towards the European Union (EU) by the working class which was seized upon by Boris Johnson and the bourgeois nationalists of the Conservative Party. The working-class electorate was not interested in the ‘socialist nirvana’ in the form of Public Ownership promised by Corbyn.

The Labour Party shifted to the Right in the following years under Starmer’s leadership. It ‘reduced’ the influence of the Left by administrative measures. It emasculated the Left. In the 2024 General Election it was elected by a landslide after 14 years of Conservative rule and austerity. What is its political make-up?

The Labour Party with its petty bourgeois leadership by Starmer no longer purports to be the “party of the working class”. It stands, under Starmer, as a “party of working people”. This shows that ‘class’ is no longer important for the Starmer’s Labour Party. Starmer has not restored Clause 4 and any form of commitment to socialism. It is a bourgeois democratic party which is wedded to neoliberalism orthodoxy. In this first year of government, it has attacked “working people” with its own ‘austerity’ program. It is for “growing the economy” and at the same time declaring that the “system is broken”. It calls for “Change”. Under this mantra, it is doing everything for British capitalism and maintaining its existence whilst at the same time imposing draconian ‘austerity’ measures on “working people”, the unemployed and the needy.  This is the propaganda used by the Labour Party to push through its policies and ‘con’ “working people”. No wonder the polls show that it is unpopular and is projected to lose the next General Election in 2029.  The Welfare cuts policy that it is propagating is carrying out the “nasty party”, the Conservative Party, austerity policy. The Labour Party and the Labour government is now regarded by disability campaigners as the “new nasty party”. The Trade Unions, who know that their working-class membership is affected by Labour ‘s policies, are keeping ‘silent’. They do not want to rock the boat of the Labour Government. The Labour government is affected by the ‘hostile’ response of its own MPs to its policies because the latter fears losing their seats. The Labour government under Starmer is having to change track, i.e., make U-turns, under such pressure and this in only its first year of government. Some Labour MPs are ‘worried’ that the party is losing its “Labour values” with the Starmer government’s policies. Welfare cuts are not “Labour values” and this is causing “chaos” within the Labour Party.

The Labour Party, irrespective of its working-class base in the form of Trade Unions, is a bourgeois democratic party dominated by a petty bourgeois leadership under Starmer and the Right of the Party. It is not for socialism. Its role is to ensure the maintenance and existence of the capitalist system whilst in government and the continuing economic exploitation of the workers by British capitalism, by British capitalists and monopoly capitalists. The Labour Party thus acts as a party of opportunism within the working class or labour movement and, in essence, serves the interests of British monopoly capitalism and not the interests of “working people”, not the interests of the “working class”.

Given its trade union base, can the Labour Party be a vehicle for socialism? The Labour Party, at present’ has according to Starmer, does not base its policies on ‘ideology’. There are no “Labour values” in relation to capitalism and specifically no “Labour values” concerning socialism. The Labour Party is not a socialist party. It is not a Social Democratic party.  In the foreseeable future and in times of political crises, the Labour Party will prove itself as an opportunist political party within the working-class movement, devoid of ‘ideology’, and cannot be a vehicle for socialism, let alone serving “working people” under capitalism. The role of the Labour Party is to tie the working class to capitalism for the latter to economically exploit the workers. Nothing more, nothing less.

It is important for Communists to have a scientific understanding of Social Democratic and bourgeois democratic parties that have a working-class base, like the Labour Party. The bottom line for these political parties: are they for the working-class transforming capitalism into socialism. On this principled question lies their political credibility.