Reindustrialisation Policy

The policy passed at last year’s TUC Conference backing the Government’s war drive is foolish and short-sighted

At last year’s TUC conference (2022) the GMB Union and Prison Officers’ Association successfully moved a motion calling for the government to invest in re-industrialisation. There are some elements to this motion that any worker can agree with, the running down of the British shipbuilding industry for instance is indeed a disgrace and one that any decent British government would actually address. The problem with this motion, and others like it that are going to be debated at this year’s TUC conference, is that it frames the issue in terms that are defined by the Tories and the Labour Party, all of whom seem to be hell bent on war with either Russia or China, or both.  This is incredibly short-sighted and runs counter to the interests of the British working class. It is not our class who are wanting to push for war with two massive nuclear armed states: It is the British ruling class. 

This same ruling class are the ones who have spent decades deindustrialising Britain and sending better-paid manufacturing jobs overseas, where workers can be hyper-exploited and thus more profit returned. This same ruling class, and its political servants, the union leaders in the GMB and POA, want us to believe can be persuaded into acting in the interests of the British working class. This is nonsense and reflects the worst elements of trade union leadership in Britain. In truth, the increased tensions with Russia and China is the creation of the US and British governments and it is because the economies of both countries have been hollowed out by financialised capitalism. It wasn’t the Chinese or Russians who killed shipbuilding in Britain – it was the ship yard owners who refused to invest in them for decades then sold up and moved on when they couldn’t wring any more profits out of them. Most people in this country know that deindustrialisation has been a disaster for our class and want to see industry rebuilt. 

This is something that we are all in favour of: We want to see our coal industry rebuilt, our steel industry revived and the traditional centres of ship building have their industry returned to them. The union movement must demand this, and be prepared to campaign for it in a serious way, but to tie that to a dash for war which is only about defending the profits of the ruling class is both opportunistic and short-sighted. In the event that the British government does get us into a war with Russia or China, who will be sent to die in that war? It will be working class men and women who get sacrificed in their millions to defend the profits of the ruling class, just as it was in 1914 and on so many other occasions since then. 

This is another example of the trade union leaders foolishly thinking that this drive to war can somehow be of benefit to workers: It can not. Re-industrialisation and rebuilding of our nation must be done, and can only be done via the coming to power of a workers’ government which can mobilise our class in support of a mass rebuilding of the country from top to bottom. This must be about revitalising our nation, not at the expense of anyone else or as a threat to anyone, but to maximise the usage of our own resources and end the parasitic manner in which  the British ruling class run the economy for the benefit of themselves and at our expense. To do that, we must oppose their destructive war policies and say clearly to our class that the main enemy is at home and that enemy is the British ruling class.