‘In the past year, we have seen the crisis of Britain’s capitalist system laid bare’, trade union president Alex Gordon told the Communist Party’s political committee on Wednesday evening (January 5). ‘Workers are now paying the price for Tory corruption and incompetence as the energy, Big Tech and Big Pharma monopolies reap big profits’, he said. Condemning the two-year public sector wage freeze and a reversal of progress towards closing the gender pay gap, Mr Gordon welcomed the readiness of workers to fight back on a range of issues including ‘fire and rehire’, pay and health and safety.
Britain’s Communists warned that millions of working-class families face a cost of living crisis early in the new year as gas and electricity bills rocket, National Insurance contributions go up along with rents and rail fares, and the Universal Credit uplift is withdrawn. The CP political committee called for price controls, a windfall tax on the ‘Big Five’ energy monopolies and the abolition of VAT on household fuel bills now made possible by Brexit.
Mr Gordon insisted that public ownership is the only rational alternative to the ‘rigged’ gas and electricity market, which has failed to invest in insulation and storage while 50 smaller companies have gone bust since 2018 at a likely cost of £2bn to the public purse. As the Tory government struggles to contain Britain’s crisis, arming itself with new repressive powers to combat dissent and protest, he said that divisions are re-emerging over Britain’s relationship with the EU Single Market.
‘In these conditions, Boris Johnson will not lead the party into the next General Election should he continue to be a vote loser, Alex Gordon predicted. At the same time, he slammed the ‘anodyne leadership’ of the Labour Party under Keir Starmer. ‘A creature of the Blairite party machine, he has no intention of offering even a feeble version of social democracy, preferring to re-establish Labour as the party of business’, Mr Gordon charged, ‘while the task of the Communist Party is to support and broaden working-class and trade union resistance to the impact of capitalist crisis’.