A-Infos (en) UK, ACG, Jackdaw 26 - The Labour Leadership Contest (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The Labour government is deeply unpopular as a result of its first two 
years, where it attacked pensioners and pursued policies that showed it 
was jettisoning any idea of welfarism and left rhetoric. It blatantly is 
pro-business and pro-market.
Starmer sought to block any contenders to leadership of Labour back in 
2021 when he increased the percentage of MPs needed to set off a contest 
from 10% to 20%. This has blocked the former Health Secretary Wes 
Streeting, himself an alternative Starmer, with a record of viciously 
attacking the NHS, and indeed, if anything, more Blairite than Starmer.
Sections of the Labour Party started panicking that under Starmer they 
would lose the next election. They looked to Andy Burnham, Mayor of 
Greater Manchester, as someone to replace Starmer.
Andy Burnham is no fiery left winger. He supported the Iraq war when he 
was a MP, voting for the invasion of Iraq. He served as a minister under 
Blair, and over the next ten years he voted to block any independent 
inquiry into the war. He then opportunistically started to say that he 
regretted the war when he became Mayor of Manchester. Whilst in 
Parliament, he abstained on opposing welfare cuts proposed by the Tory 
government. He made it abundantly clear when Corbyn was elected Labour 
leader, that he was dissociating himself from the whole phenomenon of 
Corbynism. He supported Starmer in the 2020 leadership contest.
In addition, he was an important member of Labour Friends of Israel 
whilst in parliament, and has spoken regularly at their events. He says 
that Israel would be the first country he would visit if he became Prime 
Minister. He is a confirmed supporter of the Israeli state.
Now, however, in order to win the leadership election, he had to pose as 
to the left of Starmer. So, he is calling for more funding for council 
housing and more re-nationalisation (indeed Starmer himself changed 
direction over this, calling for nationalisation of the steel industry).
Sections of the ruling class were concerned that Starmer could not 
retain control over his MPs and continue its assaults on the working 
class. Therefore, Burnham is seen as a handy alternative, due to his 
supposed popularity, and better able to implement harsh measures. 
Burnham has said that he supports fiscal rules and so may well curry 
favour with sections of the boss class. He hopes to garner the racist 
vote by his support for anti-migrant action pushed by Home Secretary 
Shabana Mahmood. He has said that the government should spend more on 
defence, rather than health, education and infrastructure.
Now Burnham's winning of the Makerfield election has forced Starmer to 
resign. This is at a time when the UK has shown that it is as unstable a 
state, as, for example, Italy, with six different prime ministers in the 
last ten years.
This instability is caused by the ongoing world economic crisis, dating 
back to the crash of 2007. All around the world, governments, whether, 
left, right, or centre, and at the bidding of the boss class, imposed 
austerity measures. With the failure of neo-liberalism to get out of 
this crisis, we see a new tack, with increasing state intervention in 
the economy. Alongside this has come the encouragement of racism and 
far-right groups, payrolled heavily by trillionaires and billionaires; 
and a culture war, attacking the gains of the late sixties onwards 
around women's and LBGTQ+ rights.
However, the Starmer government decided to continue with austerity 
measures, as it was scared of affrighting the ruling class and upsetting 
the financial markets. Burnham, it will be seen, is no more capable of 
going against the grain as Starmer was.
An indication of the direction he is going if he wins the Labour 
leadership contest is his appointment of three economic advisers all 
tightly linked to austerity policies and to financial institutions like 
the Bank of England and Goldman Sachs.
The past few decades of austerity and rising cost of living have dealt 
severe blows to the old establishment parties of Labour and 
Conservatives. Unfortunately, the vacuum that is opening does not 
benefit truly radical ideas, but offers new opportunities for the 
populist hard right. Bigotry and racism are now fully out in the open. 
As for the left, whether they be the old Stalinist formations or the 
Trotskyist groups, they have been unable to develop any significant 
threat, tied as they are by an umbilical cord to Labourism. The majority 
of British anarchism, now much reduced, is also similarly unable to 
offer a challenge.
A social alternative is in dire need of being created. This has to mean 
painstaking work around the cost-of-living crisis, the rising cost of 
energy and food, housing, and transport. This crisis has been aggravated 
by the Trump regime's war against Iran, and so a clear antimilitarist 
message has to be linked to any such fight against this crisis. Whether 
this alternative can be built remains to be seen. If not, the far right 
will profit.

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/jackdaw_low-res.pdf
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