Capitalism’s fifth column in Britain – the ultra left – along with their allies in the liberal bourgeois establishment, have done their best to destroy any concept of a working class in this country. Their obsession with race, gender and sexuality has led to a situation where raising the issue of a British working class itself is dismissed by these bigots as racist, sexist or homophobic.
Now even Harriet Harman, during the week when she “ran” the country, can get away with saying that if the failed US bank Lehmann Brothers had in fact been “Lehmann Sisters”, we may not have a crisis of capitalism!
As the TUC Conference is riddled with this same claptrap, perhaps it is time to remind those delegates of the simple nature of class in this country.
Firstly, let’s nail the race issue. There is only one race – the Human Race. Secondly, if we work, then we are workers. Whatever kind of work we do, if we sell our labour power in order to live, we are workers. Thirdly, if we live permanently in Britain, irrespective of our origins, we are British.
Consequently if we sell our labour power to an employer in order to survive and we live here permanently, we are British workers and along with all the others who work and live similarly, we constitute the British working class. It’s not rocket science. But we need to recognise this so we can we begin to act and organise to defend and advance our class, as a class.