A new Prime Minister has begun his time at 10 Downing Street. Many people with socialist convictions are open to hearing what Andy Burnham has to offer, but the SSY is unconvinced.
In case you’re unfamiliar with recent British political events, Sir Keir Starmer, was elected by a landslide to become Labour Prime Minister in 2024. After a calamitous two years, he resigned earlier in June. His tenure was marked by his stubborn defence of Israel’s genocide in Palestine, inaction on a failing economy, being beat by Reform UK in the polls and having his appointed US ambassador, Peter Mandelson, turn out to be a (very) close associate of the serial child sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.
However, the reason why Burnham will not succeed in halting the far-right and fixing our economy is not because he is a better man than Keir Starmer. It’s not because we are living through a crisis of political leadership. It’s because we are living through a crisis of capitalism.
The price of basic necessities has been going through the roof, more and more skilled young people are underemployed or jobless, and the housing market is pricing out working people.
It’s easy to think that we’re all in the same boat; but we’re not. There is a class of people who are increasing their wealth exponentially as a direct result of us losing out.
Starmer often pursued popular policies, but because he did not treat this deep economic crisis that is affecting the majority of people in Britain, it was all too easy for the media to bring him down.
Because Burnham is extremely unlikely to take a principled stance against the class of powerful elites who own our economy – capitalists – the isolated policy changes he makes will not be sustained. Unless the unrestricted influence of corporate lobbyists, pro-establishment media, and free market economic advisors is curbed, his work will be undone. In short, because he is not a socialist, he will suffer the same fate as Starmer.
We have plenty of evidence that this will be the case.
He is keeping Shabana Mahmood as Home Secretary, who is committed to making Labour the party of deportations and border control, bending to the whims of Reform. He is welcoming the former Defence Secretary, John Healey, as the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, who will no doubt be continuing to please Trump and the arms trade with greater military spending. Ed Miliband, who missed out on 11 Downing Street at the pleading of oil lobbyists, takes over the foreign office, whilst Burnham’s short-lived leadership rival and private sector pushover Wes Streeting is handed the defence brief.
For the readers who are disappointed by the discovery that Burnham is not about to end our misery, I’m sorry. However I invite you to imagine an alternative with me.
If the past decade proves anything, it’s that nobody is coming to save us. There is no gentle, soft-spoken alternative to a revolutionary confrontation with British capitalism.
Whether Burnham, Swinney or Polanski, the most they can do with small policy ideas and big talk is delay the far-right, but not defeat them.
So the question I pose is: if you agree that this is true, what will you do?
The fact that politicians keep on failing again and again is not a disaster for us, but an opportunity. Our radical vision of a socialist Scottish republic is more credible than ever. The door is wide open for a political movement that puts people before profit.
We need a socialist breakthrough in Scotland to unite a movement for change – will you join us and help make that happen?
