Time to raise the banner of socialism!
 
From a distance the pattern of the British elections are somewhat clearer than may be apparent among the shock and despair of the socialist groups directly involved.
 
From that distance it is clear that British politics sit firmly within the European mould. We have the same merciless advance of capitalism and the imposition of austerity, the same collapse of a social democracy unable to present an opposition, the limitation of resistance to searches for a better capitalism, the rise of movements presenting separate states and a turn by sections of the population towards the far right and racism.
 
Racism dominated the campaign. On the one hand Labour displayed anti-migrant mugs, signaling a total capitulation to a tide of hatred where the poorest and most deprived become the scapegoats for the crimes of the bondholders and bankers. Cameron pandered to that hatred and played the card of English nationalism, presenting ludicrous pictures of hairy Scots pouring across the border to combine with Labour and do down the English.
 
Absent from the election debates was the real issues – that the slight uptick in economic activity produced by the current attack on wages and benefits had not in any sense “rebalanced” the economy and that both Labour and the Tories had agreed a savage attack on the working class that will force millions below the poverty line and ration health, housing, education and other services.
 
An invisible casualty of the election was the left bureaucracy led by Len McCluskey. Their defense against austerity was to lie low and wait for "red Ed" to deliver a slightly less onerous form. At least Ed resigned immediately following the collapse of this strategy. Unite called for the right-wing leader of Scottish Labour to stand aside. Yet Miliband was the creature constructed and bankrolled by Len’s Dr Frankenstein. Will anyone ask McCluskey to stand aside? 
 
The socialist groups have by and large remained in Len’s wake, while trying to construct rafts for their own survival based on identity politics, environmental issues and links to the bottom rungs of the trade union bureaucracy. Their insistence that there is an alternative capitalism that doesn't involve austerity has led some to denouncing Labour as “Red Tories” and bizarre claims that the Scottish National Party is a party of the left and that it is anti-austerity when it has imposed cuts and stands on a strong pro-capitalist programme.
 
It is fantastical to imagine that Labour or the union leaderships will turn left. Socialist should denounce the insane claims of Blair and company that Miliband was too left wing when its right wing policies led to the destruction of Scottish party. They should recognize that there is little opposition from within the party or the union leaderships. However the need for defense will to a great extent focus around union struggles. The RMT strike will be an early confrontation. The Tories will move very quickly to effectively outlaw strikes. Socialists should be in the forefront of defence campaigns but at all costs they must have political independence from the bureaucracy.
 
No-one, not even the Tories, expected that they would be able to unleash their full programme without restriction. A torrent of austerity and major restrictions on democratic rights are in the offing, with the suspension of human rights, of the right to strike and the creation of a thought police and a surveillance society. The working class is weaker and more fragmented than in the past. However the capitalists also face many difficulties and contradictions.
 
Cameron is going where Thatcher feared to tread. A central aspect of the coming battle is that it will not pivot around parliament and elections. No-one has the democratic mandate to force the poor to starvation or to deny human rights. The resistance to these measures will be on the streets, in working class communities and in workplaces. The socialist groups have a crucial role to play in arguing for the independence and self-organization of the working class and advancing the struggle for a socialist society as the only real alternative.