October is Black History Month. Starting in America and spreading to other western countries with significant black minority populations, its aim is to highlight the contribution of black people to the history of their country.
Capitalist states do this, now that direct racism is unfashionable, to use race as a dividing factor. This works by appealing to minorities, making them feel accepted and enfranchised, at the same time separating them from the struggle of the working class. It also separates other workers from class struggle by making them feel that minorities are getting special treatment, a fact Reform are trying to exploit.
Within a socialist education system, there wouldn’t be a Black History Month. Socialist history would not exclude black people from history. A history of Britain, of its working class, would be incomplete and untruthful if it ignored black people.
As a socialist economy, run by and in the interests of the working people, would not exclude black workers, nor would a participatory democracy ignore black workers, education would work the same way. To split workers along lines of race and to see the history of a class in one country along racial lines would be both divisive and inaccurate.
In St. Helens, the Reform-led Council has said that they would not be celebrating black history month, with George Woodward calling it “racist and divisive” and that they won’t be spending money on “subversive woke movements”
This is a disingenuous statement from Cllr. Woodward, as the party he represents is itself racist and divisive. It is led by disingenuous people.
As socialists, we do do not want to divide by race as it undermines class solidarity. Reform are not a socialist party, not a party of the working class and their idea of unity is not a brotherhood of workers, but a hierarchical nation of landowners, with better off workers and poor workers competing with each other.
MP Robert Jenrick has recently complained that there are millions of people with UK passports who are not “culturally British or English, or ethnically English” One of his criteria for being culturally British is “fully embracing our history”
Their history, a history of monarchs, Empire builders and Churchill’s cult of personality rather than that of farm labourers, shipyard workers and coal miners.
It may surprise Mr. Jenrick to learn that his leader, Nigel Farage, is descended from Huguenots – Protestants fleeing religous persecution in France.
Reform’s deputy Leader Richard Tice claims to be from a family of builders, when his Grandad was just a property developer.
Their token working class MP, ex-trade unionist Lee Anderson has, due to his grudge against Gypsies, helped the Police, Crime and Sentencing and Courts Bill get through – which gave extra powers to the state’s security apparatus.
They can use all the populist language they want, but Reform will do just as much to prevent class consciousness and to prevent our class from taking power as the woke movements they claim to oppose.
Leave a Reply