Bush and Blair - partners in crime

The state visit of George W. Bush just about says everything there is to say about this New Labour government. Blair has fallen over himself to welcome his partner in crime to London because their regimes stand for exactly the same things.

Behind all the rhetoric about the “war on terror”,  the British and American governments are on a mission to “civilise” the rest of the world through the joys of the free-market, corporate-driven global economy.

It is true that Bush and Blair lied about the reasons for the invasion. But  capitalist politicians inhabit a system which systematically deceives in order to convince the majority that minority rule by a powerful élite is a good thing.

Whatever phrases like “freedom” and “democracy” Bush and Blair may use, there is no disguising their real intent. By the time the US and British troops leave, Iraq’s economy will be thrown open to the world market - which, in effect, means the transnational corporations.

This is not about Blair or Bush as individuals. Both governments are creatures of the market economy and the corporations that rule it. While Blair welcomes Bush, Brown launches privately-financed hospitals, Blunkett is introducing ID cards and Prescott is abandoning affordable social housing.

This is what many on the “left” don’t want to face up to. New Labour is an out-and-out capitalist government, while at party level there is authoritarian rule and contempt for any dissident. Moreover, the system of parliamentary democracy which New Labour controls has lost much of its legitimacy under the impact of corporate-led globalisation.

In these circumstances, the launch of the “Unity Coalition” by George Galloway, George Monbiot and others is a totally inadequate response. They aim to gather an anti-Blair protest vote at European and local elections in June 2004. Their platform, which is a series of laudable principles, fail sto answer the key question: How can people get to live in a world free from corporate control, with its inequality, environmental destruction and drive to war?

Putting pressure on New Labour through protest votes is a waste of time, frankly. Exchanging Blair for another New Labour prime minister is equally futile, because the whole regime is reactionary.  

This is a critical moment in history, a time for bold initiatives based on a vision for the future. A new movement must go beyond New Labour, which also means creating an alternative to the political and economic system the Blair regime represents. A genuine, mass democracy based on control and ownership of economic and financial resources is the way forward and how to achieve this is what we should discuss. Some like the Network for Economic and Political Democracy are doing just that, and we should support such initiatives.

This system cannot be fixed or made to work in the interests of ordinary, working people. The days of winning reforms from capitalism have long past and we should face up to that rather than spend time reinventing a mythical past when Labour was allegedly socialist.

“Regime change”, as Bush and Blair demonstrated from a reactionary standpoint, is about removing one kind of state and replacing it with another. It’s time we took a leaf out of their book and gathered support for regime change in London and Washington, carried out not by jackbooted soldiers but by the millions who have marched against the Iraq war on both sides of the Atlantic.

Movement for a Socialist Future
18 November 2003