Accurate description of the state of the major trade unions and the Labour Party.
However, there is no self-criticism of the Stop the War Coalition, especially the way it managed the protests prior and after the 2003 war on Iraq. There is no self-criticism of the undemocratic procedures they pursued, the selected, speakers, etc and most importantly, Stop the War Coalition’s timidity in radicalising the movement.
There is also the almost-usual-exaggeration and overoptimism you read in the speeches and articles by Stop the War leaders/organisers. Are not the components of the coalition themselves a hindrance towards radicalism in the face of compromises and in the face of cooptation?
Lindsey German repeats the same clichés about elections, which contradicts what the she herself states about the continuation of the UK imperialist actions in the Middle East and elsewhere regardless of the party running the British regime*. One should note how the interview completely ignored the war in Ukraine as if there was not global context in which imperialism operates.
But yes, the major factor, perhaps, is the weakness of bureaucratised trade unions. Despite of what happened in the recent decades, the trade unions have not been able to declare a general strike. It is a country that has not had a general strike since 1926. Even on the average days not worked due to strikes, UK is at the bottom of the scale.
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*There is a tendency to follow the mainstream liberal description of using the word ‘government’ rather than ‘regime’. The choice is ideological: the word government blurs continuity in order to divert blame to a governing party instead of a whole regime that pursues the same or almost the same policies, especially when it comes to war, support of authoritarian regimes, complicity in crimes, imperialist economic policies, privatisation, exploitation, support of businesses that do not allow trade unions, normalising hypocrisy, double standard, racism, coopting social movements, socialising losses and privatising profits, laying the ground for future wars, …
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