Reformism sails under many different flags of convenience – liberalism, socialism, Trotskyism, eco-activism – but the end result is always the same: the maintenance in power of the fascist gang that is nowadays referred to as the “Labour Party”.
Eighteen months ago, the cops predicted riots on the streets if Britain went to war with Iraq. They feared that tens of thousands would march on London and sack the city in an all-night festival of mayhem and destruction. Downing Street would be attacked with bricks and bottles. Parliament would be pelted with Molotov cocktails. Ministers would be dragged from their cars and subjected to a beating at the hands of enraged mobs. “This is going to be worse than the Poll Tax”, as one senior officer put it.
However, they underestimated the persistence and creativity of their friends in the Stop the War Coalition, who, in the space of a few short weeks, managed to transform the British anti-war movement into a mouthpiece for all the middle class day-trippers of the masturbatory ‘Left’.
No one noticed the proletariat quietly jumping ship, or that the few thousand militants who remain are the same blithering idiots who organised the opposition to the Falklands War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo war etc with precisely zero success (unless, of course, success is measured in terms of members recruited and papers sold).
Where were the trade unions while Iraqi prisoners were being tortured and herded into concentration camps, while women and children were massacred, while whole cities were flattened with British bombs? The answer is that they were there all the time, SUPPORTING the government. Who can forget the teachers’ union condemning walkouts by secondary school pupils in the first week of war? The intervention of bureaucrats spells disaster for any social movement. What can be expected of a set-up that demands only your vote, your signature on a piece of paper, and a few minutes of your attention at a Labour Day rally?
Trafalgar Square – once the battleground of the revolutionary proletariat – is now the favoured stomping ground of a formidable caste of managerial specialists. They call for “direct action” with a straight face, only to tell the workers that “direct action” means thousands standing obediently like cattle at the feeding trough of ideology. And let there be no mistake, hecklers won’t be tolerated – we’ve plenty of stewards to ensure public order.
So-called ‘rainbow coalitions’ are never what they seem. Behind the innocent-sounding rhetoric lies a swamp of power-mongering, careerism and bureaucratic attitudes. Who can forget that Blair campaigned in 1982 on a CND ticket? Or that Peter Hain was once a celebrated activist in the anti-apartheid struggle? As for Galloway, he is a miserable turd floating in the bowl of the utterly discredited parliamentary ‘Left’: If only someone would pull the chain and put us all out of our misery.
Conservatives have learned the lesson far better than anyone on the British Left: direct action pays. “Farmers For Action” are on the right track. As one of their spokesmen recently declared: “With five thousand armed farmers we will storm Westminster and topple the Blair regime.” These days you are more likely to encounter the Special Branch in the cowshed than on the campus, and with good reason.
The future doesn’t belong to the likes of Respect – despite their rabble-rousing, political parties have never managed to capture the mood of the people. (The last European elections saw a turnout of 19%.)
And what of the 81% who reject their spoon-fed dose of ideology? What of the hooligans, the dole-scroungers, the inner-city kids, the ranks of the bored and the disillusioned who fill our streets awaiting their moment? At the beginning of the war, I overheard an argument on Parliament Square between a young Muslim woman and two white youths. The Muslim woman was berating the white youths for their lack of interest in the destruction of the National Museum in Baghdad. “We don’t give a fuck about civilisation,” replied one of the boys, “Let it burn.”
Eighteen months ago, the cops predicted riots on the streets if Britain went to war with Iraq. They feared that tens of thousands would march on London and sack the city in an all-night festival of mayhem and destruction. Downing Street would be attacked with bricks and bottles. Parliament would be pelted with Molotov cocktails. Ministers would be dragged from their cars and subjected to a beating at the hands of enraged mobs. “This is going to be worse than the Poll Tax”, as one senior officer put it.
However, they underestimated the persistence and creativity of their friends in the Stop the War Coalition, who, in the space of a few short weeks, managed to transform the British anti-war movement into a mouthpiece for all the middle class day-trippers of the masturbatory ‘Left’.
No one noticed the proletariat quietly jumping ship, or that the few thousand militants who remain are the same blithering idiots who organised the opposition to the Falklands War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo war etc with precisely zero success (unless, of course, success is measured in terms of members recruited and papers sold).
Where were the trade unions while Iraqi prisoners were being tortured and herded into concentration camps, while women and children were massacred, while whole cities were flattened with British bombs? The answer is that they were there all the time, SUPPORTING the government. Who can forget the teachers’ union condemning walkouts by secondary school pupils in the first week of war? The intervention of bureaucrats spells disaster for any social movement. What can be expected of a set-up that demands only your vote, your signature on a piece of paper, and a few minutes of your attention at a Labour Day rally?
Trafalgar Square – once the battleground of the revolutionary proletariat – is now the favoured stomping ground of a formidable caste of managerial specialists. They call for “direct action” with a straight face, only to tell the workers that “direct action” means thousands standing obediently like cattle at the feeding trough of ideology. And let there be no mistake, hecklers won’t be tolerated – we’ve plenty of stewards to ensure public order.
So-called ‘rainbow coalitions’ are never what they seem. Behind the innocent-sounding rhetoric lies a swamp of power-mongering, careerism and bureaucratic attitudes. Who can forget that Blair campaigned in 1982 on a CND ticket? Or that Peter Hain was once a celebrated activist in the anti-apartheid struggle? As for Galloway, he is a miserable turd floating in the bowl of the utterly discredited parliamentary ‘Left’: If only someone would pull the chain and put us all out of our misery.
Conservatives have learned the lesson far better than anyone on the British Left: direct action pays. “Farmers For Action” are on the right track. As one of their spokesmen recently declared: “With five thousand armed farmers we will storm Westminster and topple the Blair regime.” These days you are more likely to encounter the Special Branch in the cowshed than on the campus, and with good reason.
The future doesn’t belong to the likes of Respect – despite their rabble-rousing, political parties have never managed to capture the mood of the people. (The last European elections saw a turnout of 19%.)
And what of the 81% who reject their spoon-fed dose of ideology? What of the hooligans, the dole-scroungers, the inner-city kids, the ranks of the bored and the disillusioned who fill our streets awaiting their moment? At the beginning of the war, I overheard an argument on Parliament Square between a young Muslim woman and two white youths. The Muslim woman was berating the white youths for their lack of interest in the destruction of the National Museum in Baghdad. “We don’t give a fuck about civilisation,” replied one of the boys, “Let it burn.”
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