Part III of Orwell’s The Lion and the Unicorn, “The English Revolution”:
“In England there is only one Socialist party that has ever seriously mattered, the Labour Party. It has never been able to achieve any major change, because except in purely domestic matters it has never possessed a genuinely independent policy. It was and is primarily a party of the trade unions, devoted to raising wages and improving working conditions. This meant that all through the critical years it was directly interested in the prosperity of British capitalism. In particular it was interested in the maintenance of the
British EmpireNeo-liberal economy, for the wealth of England was drawn largely fromAsia and Africaforeign manufacturing partners. The standard of living of the trade-union workers, whom the Labour Party represented,depended indirectly on the sweating ofIndian cooliesinsert currently exploited Asian workforce, to whom we’ve off-shored dire work conditions. At the same time the Labour Party was a Socialist party, using Socialist phraseology, thinking in terms of an old-fashioned anti-imperialism and more or less pledged to make restitution to the coloured races.”
A party tied to trade unions will forever be tied to the capital class, unless industry is first nationalised.
The book makes incredible reading now in light of the recent ‘Patriotic’ rallies; UK conditions are much the same as 1931-1939, with Starmer our Chamberlain whom has the impossible task of appeasing many incompatible sides (the wealthy who fund him and neo-liberal ‘growth’, the middle class who are losing their stake; the impoverished who are looking toward what they think is the quickest way out - Facism)
The book makes an incredible case for a distinctly British Socialism: non-monetary-based classes which retains the idiosyncrasies that makes Britain Britain.
We’ve done it before; post WWII. How? We taxed the fuck out of the rich, specifically static assets like estates. You can’t move land to Dubai.
We need wealth taxes.
Unfortunately the propaganda being pumped at the masses has dulled that appetite.