Mick Hall thinks talk of reforming the state is ultimately futile. 

The Guardian had a letter header recently "Labour needs a new blueprint for the future like Beveridge’s." 

And who could disagree with this? But this alone wouldn't change the UK in the long run. To put it simply, the rich would still get the cream and the less well off the dripping.

To change this the state and it's apparatus of power must be reformed, smashed into smithereens. However well intentioned tinkering around the edges is, it's not enough, because the ruling classes are so well entrenched. And why wouldn't they be given they have been ruling by violence and fooling for centuries?

It's worth noting although the Guardian doesn't mention it, Beveridge wasn't a socialist but a Liberal, who became a member of the unelected second parliamentary chamber. Socialism was anathema to him. He had no interest in reforming the State, removing the inbuilt inequalities and class prejudiced structure's which he himself benefited from. (Incidentally nor has 'Sir' Keir Starmer). 

William Beveridge was educated at Charterhouse, a leading public school followed by Balliol College at the University of Oxford. He was an active part of the system which has failed working class people - as I wrote above - for centuries because they have the real power tightly gripped in their hands. Thus we have witnessed time and again the overwhelming majority of gains made by the working classes have eventually been whittled away by the ruling classes.

In the long term only a political earthquake, a revolution will change the UK for the better. Until then one step forward two steps back for working class people will remain the norm.

⏩ Mick Hall is a veteran Left Wing activist and trade unionist.

Political Earthquake Needed

Mick Hall thinks talk of reforming the state is ultimately futile. 

The Guardian had a letter header recently "Labour needs a new blueprint for the future like Beveridge’s." 

And who could disagree with this? But this alone wouldn't change the UK in the long run. To put it simply, the rich would still get the cream and the less well off the dripping.

To change this the state and it's apparatus of power must be reformed, smashed into smithereens. However well intentioned tinkering around the edges is, it's not enough, because the ruling classes are so well entrenched. And why wouldn't they be given they have been ruling by violence and fooling for centuries?

It's worth noting although the Guardian doesn't mention it, Beveridge wasn't a socialist but a Liberal, who became a member of the unelected second parliamentary chamber. Socialism was anathema to him. He had no interest in reforming the State, removing the inbuilt inequalities and class prejudiced structure's which he himself benefited from. (Incidentally nor has 'Sir' Keir Starmer). 

William Beveridge was educated at Charterhouse, a leading public school followed by Balliol College at the University of Oxford. He was an active part of the system which has failed working class people - as I wrote above - for centuries because they have the real power tightly gripped in their hands. Thus we have witnessed time and again the overwhelming majority of gains made by the working classes have eventually been whittled away by the ruling classes.

In the long term only a political earthquake, a revolution will change the UK for the better. Until then one step forward two steps back for working class people will remain the norm.

⏩ Mick Hall is a veteran Left Wing activist and trade unionist.

6 comments:

  1. We have just lived through a revolution of sorts - Brexit- and it has not been pleasant.

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  2. Boris proper has increased his lead over Boris wannabe, Sir Keir, in latest opinion polls

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  3. Your right Barry but that left much the same hands on the UK state tiller.

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    Replies
    1. Mick

      Like it or not, the UK is a liberal representative democracy; change is effected through the ballot box and through adopting suitable hegemonic strategies in the manner Gramsci and Stuart Hall understood.

      A revolution led by a vanguardist Leninist outfit; no thank you!

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    2. I doubt Mick trusts that sort of revolutionary either Barry. I think the type of structural change a revolution can bring is worthwhile but the strategic question is how to achieve it without revolutionaries because with them the whole thing will end up with pigs on their hind legs at the farmer's table.
      In my view rejecting the 3Rs - racists, reverends and revolutionaries is a good start.

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    3. Mick if nothing else we can at least laugh at Labour in a way we haven't been able to since the days of Michael Foot. Sir Keir has made it wholly unelectable as he goes about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

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