A Government in Shameful Disarray with No Way Forward
Demonstration against Britain's support for genocide, demands Hands Off Rafah!, May 7, 2024
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak, called a general election to take place on July 4 after a six week campaign. Prior to this, on May 13, he made a major speech at Policy Exchange on Britain's "security," promoted as his pre-election claim to be the new leader following the General Election.[1] All under the guise of creating "a secure future," it betrayed an incoherent mishmash of worn out and reactionary rhetoric.
He said that he felt "a profound sense of urgency" because "more will change in the next five years than in the last thirty." He tried to set a tone of foreboding with "storms ahead" against the "threats we face at home and abroad" but with "bold action and a clear plan, we can and we will create a secure future." He tried to paint a picture that the "dangers that threaten our country are real," but these have nothing to do with the pro-war stance and support for Israeli genocide consensus of the main cartel parties in Parliament. The "threat" he tried to address was that "an axis of authoritarian states like Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China is working together to undermine us and our values." He talked about "war returned to Europe" as if Britain were not part of the U.S./NATO axis that has been escalating its expansionism and destabilizing Eastern Europe and Ukraine over many years. Sunak completely covers over Britain's role in provoking and continuing to escalate the U.S.-led NATO's proxy war in Ukraine against Russia as well as Britain's role in escalating sanctions, tensions and threats of war against China, Iran and the DPRK.
Sunak claimed that war rages, too, in the Middle East "as Israel defends itself not only against the terrorists of Hamas but a barrage of missiles fired -- for the first time -- directly from Iran." The likes of Sunak, as well as Starmer, who are blaming the resistance for war are shamefully attempting to exonerate Israel, giving it their backing, for its war crimes. Sunak's speech made no mention of the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Gaza and genocidal war that Israel is conducting with Britain's support in Gaza and the West Bank. He also denies the right of the Palestinians to resist this genocide of their people and calls them terrorists, nor does he mention the provocations against Iran with the bombing of their Embassy complex in Damascus by Israel, destroying the building housing the consular section, that led to a stand off between Iran and Israel. Sunak also blamed Iran for Yemen's stand in imposing shipping sanctions on Israel in support of the Palestinians and he justified Britain's bombing of Yemen in support of Israel.
Furthermore, what is revealed by this speech is a government in shameful disarray with no way forward trying desperately to cover over its warmongering and support for genocide as "security" for the British people. This was further highlighted when David Cameron, Foreign Secretary sitting in the House of Lords, said on the same day on BBC news that while he would not support a major ground offensive in the Gazan city of Rafah, the UK "would not copy U.S. plans to stop some arms sales to Israel," as, according to Cameron, denying arms to Israel would only help Hamas.
Such shameful comments to try and mask Britain's complicity in the genocide in Gaza prompted Craig Murray, a former British diplomat, to condemn the government on May 13 saying that, "incredibly the Israeli genocide in Gaza is now reaching new heights of violence. Casualty figures are not coming in, as the attacks are so bad that bodies cannot be recovered, medics cannot travel and there are almost no medical facilities operational now anyway."[2] He continued, "We now see that the Western injunctions not to attack Rafah were a smokescreen of lies to mask complicity. The final pocket of Gaza is being ruthlessly ethnically cleansed and its infrastructure will be destroyed like all the rest. ...The only possible conclusion from all of the above is to reinforce my analysis that the Zionist political and media classes in the West, including Biden, Blinken, Trudeau, Macron, Sunak, Starmer, Scholtz, von der Leyen and all, are active and willing participants in a program of genocide."
Sunak's speech reflected this outlook of the old world values and not the values of peoples striving for peace, empowerment and the new in the modern world. The warmongering and genocidal values of the Zionists that Sunak tries to cover over are the continuation of the striving for hegemony of the oligopolies and their war industries in the world. Wars in the pursuit of their interests are causing mass deaths and destruction and displacing millions of people as refugees as they are now doing again in Gaza. This is infamy.
People Have Rights by Virtue of Being Human
After boasting, "We've proudly taken the generational decision to increase defence spending to a new baseline of 2.5 per cent of GDP, by 2030," Rishi Sunak veered onto another topic, that the "global displacement of a hundred million people is a new and defining challenge of our age." Sunak tries to reduce the massive refugee problems that their warmongering system have contributed to in the world to one when he says, "we can and will protect ourselves against illegal migration." The world the imperialists are imposing is one of global displacement of the peoples by their wars, but yet again they confound this by their lies that migrants and refugees are the problem and label them "illegal."
In this way Sunak tries to justify the illegal Rwanda scheme by trying to dress it up as a humanitarian measure. He says: "That's why we're pioneering the Rwanda scheme. And so, when people see that if they come here illegally, they will be swiftly detained and removed, they will be deterred from making that perilous journey, stopping the boats and saving thousands of lives." With this outlook, which is contradicted by stark reality, he claims that the "international frameworks on human rights are outdated," not the anti-human laws he shamelessly advocates for Britain. He tries to incite people against human rights by saying "there may be flashpoints ahead with the ECHR ."[3]
That any Prime Minister can in the modern age make a speech that tries to put a human face on the values and crimes of the past which the peoples of the world fought to end during the Second World War against Nazi Germany beggars belief. What it shows is how out of step they are with the requirements of the modern era.
The question facing the working class and peoples' movement emphasizes that the struggle on all fronts is between the New and the Old. The burning need of the present and for the security of the people of Britain and the world is for an Anti-War Government, the expression of a modern democratic personality opposed to police powers and executive rule and to the use of force to settle conflicts. It is not the Sunaks of this world that will lead society out of this crisis but the working class becoming worker-politicians themselves. Their aim is for a new situation where decision-making involves all workers, communities, and people as a whole, speaking and acting in their own name and as one, without the political mechanisms of the ruling elite that disempower and block their direct decisions from being realized.
This article was published in
Volume 54 Number 35 - May 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS54359.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca