The recent remark by Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, that the Labour
party should join a Lib-Lab coalition, is another dangerous attempt to
push the party to the right
The recent remark by Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, that the Labour party should join a Lib-Lab coalition, is another dangerous attempt to push the party to the right.
Balls has told the Independent newspaper that he would be prepared to serve in a coalition government alongside the likes of Vince Cable and Chris Huhne. “Before or after the next election, if the parliamentary arithmetic throws up the need for a coalition of Labour and the Lib Dems… I would go into that with enthusiasm… I could serve in a cabinet with Chris Huhne or Vince Cable tomorrow.”
Is Balls not aware that the Lib Dems are presently in a coalition with the Tory Party “in the national interest”, hell-bent on attacking the working class? They are as committed to the cuts as the Tories are. They are clearly as much an anti-working class party as their senior coalition partners.
The talk of Ed Balls that he would “enthusiastically” climb into bed with these enemies of the working class is an absolute scandal. To him this is all just a game.
All this shows the real colours of the Labour leaders, who live in the rarified atmosphere of Westminster and are constantly rubbing shoulders with the political representatives of the ruling class. Their life-styles are more akin to the bosses than ordinary working people. They are under the pressures of capitalism, and embrace the “national interest”, the interests of British capitalism, which for them stands above “narrow” class party politics.
This is a warning to all Labour supporters. We have been here before. In 1931, Ramsay MacDonald, the then Labour prime minister, split from the Labour Party “in the national interest” and joined the Tories and Liberals in a National Government, whose programme was massive cuts and austerity.
This was seen correctly as a disaster and a betrayal. We are not interested in a repeat of 1931.
The trade unions should step in and prevent this from happening again. They must fight to bring the party back under the control of the working class.
