THE world appears to be on the brink of a brutal escalation of the war in the Middle East. Some 10,000 US troops stand ready. Israel’s rulers are using the opportunity to extend their wars of territorial conquest in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky is signing deals with Gulf sheikdoms for the supply of aggressive drone technology.  

Collateral damage is already being inflicted on those who can no longer afford to heat their homes or buy the food they need.  

What is the position of our own government? To equivocate. Factories in Britain still contribute to the production of weapons used by the US and Israel. Both in Britain and also, it seems, elsewhere in the Mediterranean and Pacific, British military bases still enable US planes to refuel and utilise their targeting technology.  

Our Prime Minister professes himself unhappy. Yet in the past week the Metropolitan Police, despite contrary legal judgements, have resumed prosecutions of anyone displaying support for an organisation whose crime it was to draw attention to Britain’s material complicity with Israel.  

By contrast, last weekend we saw 500,000 marching through London to demonstrate the scale of popular revulsion against the doctrines of racial hatred. This demonstration marked a key moment in bringing together for the first time for some years a progressive majority in Britain.  

Yet an underlying question remains. Can it be stabilised? Can it move forward politically to address the more fundamental issue: the material concerns of the millions that constitute the electoral support base of Reform and allied organisations?

What are the concerns? For the great majority they are material. They are not necessarily racist. They concern the way existing parties have presided over the erosion of welfare provision, the collapse of public infrastructure, the crisis of the NHS, in many areas the total lack of affordable housing and decent jobs — all in the context of the failure of economic growth for almost two decades.

Socialists could, and should, point to the nature of our economic system. The extremes of wealth and power in the hands of a few monopoly concerns and the financial institutions that control them.

Immediately, however, it is the threat, and cost, of war that is most obvious and dangerous cause and for this our own governments in Britain bear a heavy responsibility.  

It was Britain under Boris Johnson that joined with Joe Biden and the US to militarise the Pacific and break existing agreements about the status of Taiwan as a province of China. It was also Britain under Johnson that backed the US in torpedoing peace in Ukraine in April 2022 — despite opposition from Angela Merkel and other European leaders.  

It was our present government that then worked with the US to relaunch Nato in Europe and preside over an escalating process of militarisation, one making immense profits for the armament companies like Rheinmetall in Germany and Britain’s BAE Systems.  But little else.  

This addition of a few well-paid jobs in the defence industries has demonstrably been at the direct expense of many more in the public sector — often organised by the same unions that have been persuaded to back economic militarisation. Neither in Germany or in Britain has this expenditure resulted in economic growth.

Many demonstrations will be organised across Britain by CND and Stop the War over the coming weeks. They need to be supported on the same scale as Saturday’s march against racism. But to follow it effectively, their demands must link peace to welfare, to economic and social reconstruction and the materials needs felt by all — including those who have marched behind the banners of Reform.