“I can’t stand it anymore… Why are we still just marching?”
At July’s London demonstration for Palestine, these words were repeated time and again by protesters interviewed by revolutionary communists.
Millions of people in Britain have been awakened to political life and radicalised since 2023 by the unfolding horror in Gaza – and British imperialism’s brazen complicity in this barbarism.
With Netanyahu pressing for his ‘final solution’ – that is, the complete ethnic cleansing of the entire Gaza strip – the desperation for an end to the genocide has only grown wider.
Yet there remains a yawning abyss between the mood of anger on the streets, in workplaces, and in communities, and the tepid strategy offered by the leadership of the movement.
Halt the war machine!
Since the beginning of Israel’s unilateral war on Gaza, communists have called for class-based action to halt the imperialist war machine.
In short, this means mass, collective, militant action by workers internationally to paralyse the production and delivery of the arms, equipment, and services required by the Israel Defence Force (IDF).
In truth, British imperialism is a diminished power, playing a minor, auxiliary role on the world stage. For the most part, this means following Washington’s orders.
It is no secret to pro-Palestine activists, however, that British imperialism is directly complicit in the genocide. And there have been many courageous actions aimed at the UK ‘defence’ industry – from sabotage inside weapons factories, to protests outside.
On the whole, these actions have remained scattered and isolated; divorced from the workers inside these industries and factories.
Yet it is precisely these workers – those involved in the manufacturing and transporting of arms, and in provisioning the armed forces – who hold the power to shut down Britain’s military machine. Not a wheel turns and not a lightbulb shines without their permission.
A temporary walkout or strike in just one workplace might have a limited impact. But if every worker that is currently a cog in the war machine came together and took coordinated, sustained action, this would prove to be one big spanner in the works.
Furthermore, such militant action would inspire workers and youth across the country, and beyond. It would give confidence to workers everywhere, showing in practice the potential strength that the working class possesses, if organised and mobilised.
This, in turn, would lead to a confrontation with Starmer’s government. On the basis of a bold mass movement, British imperialism could be forced to retreat. This, in turn, would have an electrifying effect on the Palestine movement across the world.
This is the kind of international class solidarity that is required to end the genocide and genuinely advance the struggle of the Palestinian people.
To unlock all this potential, however, requires a leadership with the will and determination to do so – a fighting leadership armed with a class perspective and a programme of militant action.
Weapons manufacturing
The trade union leaders hold a tremendous potential power at their fingertips. Across the economy, there are many sections of workers who play a key role in keeping the wheels of British imperialism turning.
The obvious starting point is the ‘defence’ industry. In Britain, between 134,000 and 164,000 workers are employed in this sector. Unite alone organises 63,238 workers in aerospace and shipbuilding, with branches in BAE Systems, Raytheon subsidiaries, Rolls Royce, Leonardo, GE Aerospace, Airbus, to name a few of the main ones.
Raytheon and GE Aerospace both faced strikes from Unite in 2022 over pay and conditions.
GMB also organises workers in defence, in shipbuilding especially. Rolls Royce faced an overtime ban on its Derby submarine programme by the union only in June 2024, again regarding pay and conditions.
Then there are UK universities. These institutions are also an important part of the militaristic web, involved in ‘partnerships’ with the arms trade worth over £1 billion.
Lecturers and researchers are heavily organised in the UCU. Yet the majority of academics are on insecure contracts. And UCU members have repeatedly taken nationwide strike action since 2018 over this issue, alongside others.
Some ultra-left activists heap moralistic blame on workers engaged in this work; occasionally even going so far as to accuse defence workers themselves of being ‘complicit’ in the genocide.
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The truth is that most workers are sickened to know how the bosses and imperialists utilise the products of their labour, but feel like they have little choice.
As one arms worker wrote to the Communist, quoting his factory’s main programmer: “It’s those wankers in the office that send our work to blow up children, all for 3-4 percent better prices!”
If this anger against the bosses was harnessed by the trade unions as part of a mass movement against the imperialist establishment, then such workers could be turned into the most energetic and effective fighters against the genocide.
Transport
Moving onto transport and distribution, we find that only 10,000 dockers move 95 percent of all freight coming in and out of Britain.
UK ports are therefore an important bottleneck for goods destined for Israel – one that could be quickly closed off through workers’ organisation and mobilisation.
Unite won a strike for Peel Ports dockers in Liverpool in late 2022, where the union organised a mass meeting of 600 workers to agree the pay deal. The union has a presence in other ports across the country including Felixstowe, which takes in 42 percent of all container trade.
Dockers elsewhere – such as Fos-sur-Mer in France – have shown the possibility of workers’ strikes stopping shipments of arms to Israel.
If Unite were to organise mass action at all of Britain’s docks, linked to a political campaign against Starmer’s hated government, this could have a powerful effect on preventing the export of weapons and other military equipment; even more so if it was coordinated alongside those in other relevant sectors.
Propaganda engine
The first victim in any war is the truth. This fact has been drummed into the minds of millions since October 2023, as Orwellian slogans of ‘Israel’s right to defend herself’ are repeatedly blared out by the capitalist establishment, alongside smears of ‘terrorism’ and ‘antisemitism’ against peaceful protesters.
Imagine the impact on consciousness, then, if instead of lies on the frontpage of every right-wing rag, ordinary readers saw blank spaces and redactions, implemented by organised workers in the media industry.
Unite, for example, organises workers at various print sites. This includes Reach Plc, one of the largest news groups in Britain. The same union also has members at broadcasting stations like the BBC and ITV.
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ), meanwhile, organises 18,000-30,000 workers, with members at the BBC, Express, and Reuters.
At work, lower-ranking journalists are forced to follow the editorial orders from the bosses on high. In private, however, they mutter about the line – especially the most conscientious, who are painfully aware of Israel’s unparalleled persecution of journalists in Gaza.
Through a coordinated campaign, targeted to counter the imperialists’ war propaganda over Palestine, NUJ and Unite members could erase every outright lie from the pages of the bosses’ press.
The state
The government’s decisions themselves have to go through an immense state bureaucracy in order to get enacted. And acting under the diktats of government ministers and top-dog bureaucrats are an army of ordinary wage workers, organised in one of the country’s more left-wing unions: PCS.
It is clerks and administrators employed by the Home Office who have to implement the proscription of groups labelled as ‘terrorists’ for peacefully protesting. And it is civil servants in the Department for Business and Trade and the Foreign Office who must process the licences required to export arms to Israel.
PCS has itself picked up on this, with a letter signed by 300 members asserting that: “No PCS member should be put at risk of being liable for aiding or assisting genocide as a result of working on or actioning British government arms export licenses to Israel.”
#PCS is demanding an urgent meeting with the Cabinet Office over Gaza and the role of civil servants following comments made by senior officials which suggest civil servants should ‘resign’ if they disagree with the government over Gaza.
Members have ongoing concerns regarding… pic.twitter.com/tvO98WYN6p— PCS Union (pcs.org.uk) (@pcs_union) June 13, 2025
The letter added that: “PCS would fully back any member facing any sort of disciplinary action for refusing to action or work on any arms export license to Israel.”
Senior Foreign Office officials Oliver Robbins and Nick Dyer replied to this with the following contemptuous words:
“[If] your disagreement with any aspect of government policy or action is profound, your ultimate recourse is to resign from the Civil Service…This is an honourable course.”
This shows the potential power that unions like PCS have to jam up the machinery of the capitalist state through a workers’ boycott.
A word of warning, however: there should be no illusions whatsoever in the laws and institutions of the bourgeois state to defend workers in such circumstances.
Workers must trust only in their own strength and organisation. Only through mobilisation, militancy, and solidarity could such a campaign defeat the employers, the government, and their threats.
The military
Finally, there are the UK’s armed forces themselves – including direct operations by the British military in support of the IDF.
The army and navy are composed not only of overstretched soldiers and sailors, but also underpaid workers, providing various essential support and logistical services.
The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA), for example, is responsible for supplying fuel to Britain’s RAF base in Cyprus – which conducts reconnaissance trips over Gaza – and for provisioning the Royal Navy in its operations in the Middle East.
In the words of the Royal Navy itself:
“Without the Royal Fleet Auxiliary… the Royal Navy would largely be confined to home waters: warships rely on its personnel and ships to deliver fuel, first and foremost, but also ammunition, spare parts, water, fuel, engineering support and much more – all ‘on the go’, without having to put into port every few days.” (Our emphasis)
This same RFA was on strike not one year ago, fighting over pay and conditions. Both unions that organise RFA staff – Nautilus and the RMT – balloted and brought out their members.
Today is Merchant Navy Day.@RMTunion seafarer members working for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary are taking strike action today for pay justice ⚖️#FairPay4RFA #MerchantNavyDay
📸 RFA members in port at Diego Garcia in front of the RFA Vessel Argus pic.twitter.com/EwkbbWnbiU— RMT (@RMTunion) September 3, 2024
Division and passivity
Unfortunately, all of this immense potential is very far from being utilised by the trade union leaders.
On the one hand, union general secretaries like Sharon Graham (Unite) and Gary Smith (GMB) actively welcome British militarism, claiming that Starmer’s rearmament drive would be good for the UK economy, and urging for Typhoon jets to be ‘made in Britain’.
Workers at @BAESystemsplc and across the whole UK defence and manufacturing industry will be looking at the ending of the Typhoon final assembly production at Warton and asking how a @GOVUK promising to turn defence spending into ‘British growth, British jobs, British skills,… pic.twitter.com/97JuO6NFCX
— Sharon Graham (@UniteSharon) July 7, 2025
By emphasising the need to defend jobs in Britain’s military industries, these union leaders take an incredibly narrow, short-sighted, sectoral point of view.
Fundamentally, they do not believe in the power of the working class to change society. They therefore contain themselves to tinkering around the edges of capitalism and appealing for crumbs.
This, in turn, causes them to line up behind British bosses and British imperialism: calling for protectionism to export unemployment abroad; for defence jobs instead of solidarity for Palestinians; and, ultimately, for military expenditure over social spending – that is, warfare ahead of welfare.
Allowing different sections of the working class to be divided and played off against each other; sowing illusions in this big business government; and encouraging billions of pounds to be thrown down the drain on expensive scrap metal, at the expense of public services: all this only plays in the hands of the capitalists and imperialists.
In the end, meanwhile, the exploited and oppressed everywhere stand to lose.
On the other hand, leaders like Fran Heathcote in PCS and Eddie Dempsey in RMT, to name but a couple, have been more outspoken in opposition to the genocide.
This opposition has largely remained passive, however – for the most part, contained to participating in regular A-to-B marches.
Even where there is some kind of collective demand for workers to withdraw their labour, as with the aforementioned PCS example, this has not been taken further, due to fears of a backlash from the employers.
Question of leadership
There is a simple explanation for this passivity: the union leaders, even the more left-wing ones, do not really believe in the ability of the working class to impose their class interests and mark on the situation.
As such, they always defer to the ‘established fact’: the status quo laid down by the capitalists and their representatives.
Any action that challenges this – whether it be smashing through draconian anti-union laws, calling coordinated political action, or mobilising members to offer mass class solidarity – is deemed utopian and ‘unrealistic’.
Instead, they tell workers that the best they can expect is to win a few extra scraps; and not through action, but by appealing to the bosses and the government.
In reality, the mood in society is charged. There is an enormous accumulation of anger, just looking for a lighting rod to galvanise around.
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have directly participated in the Palestine movement. This includes many workers who are drawing radical conclusions; who want to see an end to the genocide, and ‘our’ government’s complicity in it.
Even outside of these layers, every worker in Britain feels the pinch of austerity, the stagnation of wages, and the suffocating weight of never-ending crisis, war, and instability.
On the basis of a bold class-based programme – linking the struggles against militarism and austerity, with calls for ‘healthcare not warfare’ and ‘books not bombs’ – the trade unions could mobilise millions of workers against the warmongers in Westminster, and thereby provide the Palestine movement with a strong backbone.
Such a force would be unstoppable. But for the trade unions to become this reference point, the union leaders need to realise their role and responsibility.
If they showed audacity and militancy, by providing fighting leadership, they could catalyse consciousness, give workers a sense of confidence and power, and thereby transform the entire political situation in Britain.
Coordination and organisation
The examples outlined above highlight some of the potential action that the unions could be taking.
To maximise the impact of such action, however, it would need to be coordinated. And this means not only unified calls from the top for workers’ boycotts across industries and workplaces, but also rank-and-file organisation between members of different unions.
It is workers on the ground themselves who will best know and understand how to hit the bosses and imperialists where it most hurts.
It was ordinary workers on the shopfloor at the Rolls Royce plant in East Kilbride, Scotland, in the 1970s, for example, who successfully sabotaged fighter jets destined for Pinochet’s junta in Chile.
Today, elected workers’ committees in key workplaces and industries could find out such information as what military parts are made, when and how they are being transported, what business deals exist, and so on.
By centralising this information, and making it public, these committees could expose the secrets of British imperialism in broad daylight – threatening the bosses’ monopoly on this information, and providing valuable information about where to target.
In turn, this would give workers a taste of their own power, posing the question: who should run our workplaces?
Capitalism to blame
At the same time, any action must be built for by organising mass meetings in all targeted workplaces.
Both amongst the conservative trade union leaders and ultra-left activists, there is often a belief that ordinary workers do not care about questions that are more distant from their lives, including political issues such as Palestine.
This provides both groups with an excuse: for the former, a justification for not organising and mobilising workers to take action against imperialism; for the latter, an apology for their lack of effort to engage with workers in relevant industries and their unions.
As far as such prejudices have any validity, this only underlines the importance of grassroots organisation inside the workplace, and of militant leadership at the head of the movement.
The task of the leadership, on the one hand, is to make every effort to aid rank-and-file organisation; and, on the other hand, to politically explain that attacks on workers at home and imperialist wars abroad are not separate from each other.
It is the same capitalist class and crisis-ridden capitalist system that is responsible for factory closures, degradation of working conditions, and wider austerity in Britain; and also for conflict and chaos in the Middle East and beyond.
It is the same capitalist establishment that is cutting welfare to pay for warfare; that is curtailing the democratic rights of both Palestine activists and trade unionists; that is serving the interests of the billionaires while exploiting and oppressing billions.
For these reasons, any mass mobilisation against Starmer’s government – fought around class questions and using class-based methods – would weaken the bosses and strengthen workers’ confidence across the board, opening the door to an offensive on all fronts.
To bring the power of the working class to bear against imperialism, the trade union leaders need to pick up their courage, break with Starmer’s Labour, and begin organising for an offensive against the war criminals, the billionaires, and their system.
