[Marxism] This government has been the most rightwing since the second world war

[Dbachmozart@xxxxxxx]

The prospect of a Tory in No 10 does worry me - but no more so than  another
term for this cabinet of war criminals

*    George  Monbiot <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/georgemonbiot>  
*    

Close 
This article appeared in the  Guardian
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian>  on Tuesday May  20 2008


You can hear the wringing of hands and tearing of cloth all  the way down
Farringdon Road. Dismayed by the local election results,  convinced that
Labour will be crushed in Thursday's byelection, afraid that  this will
presage disaster in the next general election, my fellow columnists  are
predicting the end of the civilised world. But I can't understand why  we
should care.

Yes, I worry about what the Tories might do if they  get in. I also worry
about what Labour might do if it wins another term. Why  should anyone on the
left seek the re-election of the most rightwing  government Britain has had
since the second world war?

New Labour's  apologists keep reminding us of the redistributive policies it
has  introduced: Sure Start children's centres, reductions in child  poverty,
raising the school leaving age, the national minimum wage, flexible  hours
for parents and carers, better conditions for part-time workers, the  decent
homes programme, free museums, more foreign aid. All these are  real
achievements and deserve to be celebrated. But the catalogue of  failures,
backsliding and outright destruction is much longer and more  consequential.

One fact alone should disqualify this government from  office: we have a
cabinet of war criminals. The Nuremberg tribunal  characterised a war of
aggression as "the supreme international crime". It is  not just that
Britain's Labour government launched and sustained an  unprovoked war, it
also sabotaged all means of achieving a peaceful  resolution. In April 2002
it helped the Bush administration to sack José  Bustani, the head of the
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical  Weapons, in order to prevent
him settling the dispute over Iraq's alleged  weapons of mass destruction. In
two separate offers before the invasion,  Saddam Hussein agreed to meet the
terms the US and Britain were demanding.  But they slapped him down and
concealed his offers from their electorates.  (All references are on my
website.) 

Cluster bombs can be legally used  because the British government helped to
block an international ban in 2006:  it is still holding out against an
outright ban at the current talks in  Dublin. The government has undermined
another international peace agreement -  the nuclear non-proliferation treaty
- by deciding to renew the Trident  missile programme. It was the first
administration to announce a policy of  pre-emptive nuclear attack: even the
great nuclear enthusiast Harold  Macmillan never went this far. In 2007 the
defence secretary, without  parliamentary debate, revealed that the US would
be allowed to use the  listening station at Menwith Hill for its missile
defence  system.

Labour appears to be prepared to meet any demand the Bush  administration
makes, however outrageous. In 2003 the government signed a  one-sided
extradition treaty, permitting the US to extract our citizens  without
producing prima facie evidence of an offence. In the same year the  defence
secretary announced that he would restructure the British armed  forces to
make them "inter-operable" with those of the United States,  ensuring for the
first time in British history that they became functionally  subordinate to
those of another sovereign power.

Labour's foreign  policy is as unethical as Margaret Thatcher's. It provides
military aid to  the government of Colombia, whose troops are involved in a
campaign of terror  against the civilian population. It granted an open
licence for weapons  exports to the government of Uzbekistan, and sacked the
British ambassador  when he tried to draw attention to the regime's human
rights abuses. It has  collaborated with the US programme of extra-judicial
kidnapping and  imprisonment, left our citizens to languish in Guantánamo
Bay, and made use  of Pakistani torture chambers in seeking to extract
testimony from British  suspects. Until 2005 it tied its foreign aid
programme to the privatisation  of public utilities in some of the world's
poorest countries. Last year it  held out against reform of the International
Monetary Fund's unfair  allocation of votes.

The proportion of the British population in prison  has risen by a fifth
since the Tories left office. Today Britain locks up 151  out of every
100,000 people. The Chinese judiciary, by contrast, which is  notorious for
its willingness to bang up anyone and everyone, jails 119  people per
100,000; Burma imprisons 120; Saudi Arabia 132. The Serious  Organised Crime
and Police Act, passed in 2005, contains clauses that permit  the police to
ban any demonstration, however peaceful. It is one of a long  series of bills
the Labour government has passed that restrict the right to  protest.

The citizen has been re-regulated; business has been  deregulated. Last year
deaths caused by serious injuries at work rose by 11%:  a predictable result
of the sacking of 1,000 staff at the Health & Safety  Executive and a 24%
reduction in workplace inspections. In 2006 the  government instructed the
Serious Fraud Office to drop its corruption case  against the arms
manufacturer BAE Systems. It has obstructed efforts by other  states to
investigate the company.

Labour has shifted taxation from  the rich to the poor, cutting corporation
tax from 33% to 28% and capital  gains tax from 40% to 18%, and introducing a
new entrepreneurs' relief  scheme, taxing the first million of capital gains
at just 10%. It tried to  raise the income tax paid by the poorest earners
from 10% to 20%. Labour has  lifted the inheritance tax threshold from
£300,000 to £700,000, and  maintained the cap on the highest rates of council
tax. While vigorously  prosecuting benefits cheats, it has allowed tax
avoidance, mostly by the very  rich, to reach an estimated £41bn. Inequality
today is slightly worse than it  was when Labour took power in 1997 (the Gini
coefficient which measures it  has risen from 0.33 to 0.35).

Both as chancellor and prime minister,  Gordon Brown has forced the private
finance initiative into almost all public  services. His privatisation
schemes have crept into places where the  Conservative government never dared
to tread. Labour has waged war against  our planning system and overseen a
disastrous decline in social housing:  under Thatcher an average of 46,600
social homes were built every year; under  Tony Blair the average was 17,300.
Labour is closing post offices, small  schools and GPs' surgeries, while
overseeing a doubling of airport capacity  and the construction of 4,000km of
trunk roads. These developments ensure  that even the modest targets in the
climate change bill are likely to be  missed. Carbon dioxide pollution fell
faster under the Conservatives than  under Labour.

Above all, the Labour government has destroyed hope. It has  put into
practice Thatcher's dictum that "there is no alternative" to a  market
fundamentalism that subordinates human welfare to the demands of  business.
Labour has created a political monoculture that kills voters'  enthusiasm,
and has delayed electoral reforms that would have given smaller  parties an
opportunity to be heard. All we are left with is fear: the fear  that this
awful government might be replaced by something slightly worse.  Fear has
destroyed the Labour party, but people keep supporting it in  trepidation of
letting the other side win.

Save this government? I  would sooner give money to the Malarial Mosquito
Conservation Project. Of all  the causes leftist thinkers might support, New
Labour must be the least  deserving.

monbiot.com <http://monbiot.com/> 


George  Monbiot 






All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second,  it is 
violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." Arthur  
Schopenhauer (1788-1860)



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