TONY BLAIR’S government was Margaret Thatcher’s greatest legacy designed to ensure the continuity of the assault on national independence and workers.
 
Keir Starmer’s government is not of that ilk and has indicated a potential domestic shift from the decades of pillage and candy floss economics towards real production and industrial renewal. Wealth creation, not financial speculation now dominates government thinking.
 
Therefore Paul Nowak’s statement on behalf of the TUC welcoming constructive engagement with the government to rebuild our country should be heeded.
 
The election turnout at 57 per cent of the electorate was the lowest for 100 years and although Labour got a landslide, its share of the vote was 33.7 per cent, that is 20 per cent of the total number of those eligible to vote.
 
Many commentators are using such statistics to undermine the new government already and challenge its legitimacy.
 
I am however reminded of a great piece of graffiti that appeared in Colombia at a moment of intense pressure, yet prospects for the workers there. It read: “Leave cynicism for better times.”
 
Think of a union democracy comparison. A union branch has 50 members, its quorum is five. Six attend a branch meeting. They take decisions in the best interests of the majority. Who is at fault, the six or the 54?
 
The first-past-the-post electoral system is not entirely a construction of bourgeois democracy. It has suited our side well as a system in unions and community organisations and dissenting congregations for centuries.
 
Proportional representation would be more of a model of pure liberalism and perpetual fudge, validating opinion rather than firm decision-making.
 
The Tories, the most successful capitalist political party in the world, have just had a right thumping. Once again, we see how very strong the working class is. It voted Tory and against Labour to get out of the EU and stay out. When the Tories failed to deliver the benefits of being out, they were themselves dumped.
 
This is good, celebrate it.
 
At last, Scotland is largely SNP-free. Wales is not fooled by Plaid Cymru either. These are good signs. For too long the pretence of separatism has caused unnecessary divisions.
 
Also, elsewhere, the reunification of Ireland comes closer with Sinn Fein winning the biggest Westminster slice in the six counties.
 
It is time to appreciate these forms of progress and see what we can do to unite the country to rebuild brick by brick.
 
Forty-five years of a rampage by finance capital to make the working class suffer are coming to an end, especially if we can push our ideas further forward.
 
While the election of Labour lacked the popular movement of optimism that heralded the reconstruction of the country after the second world war, at a quieter, more deliberate level it reflects a new seriousness about rebalancing the country away from the City of London and the export of capital and import of goods and services, towards a steady collective effort to revive domestic manufacturing and the real economy. No government alone can achieve this. We, especially our unions, are needed.
 
It is important to recognise the political scale and depth of involvement in workplace struggles and strikes over the last three years. These led significantly to the Labour victory. The very leading role the unions have once again played has not been entirely because of the extensive strike action, but because of the near-universal formulation across the unions of policies to take each sector of the economy and society forward.
 
If the government were really smart it would create new standing mechanisms of policy development and implementation with unions, community organisations, professional and specialist bodies.
 
In Germany and parts of Europe, the EU elections have highlighted a fascist threat. In France too we have seen worrying lurches to the right skilfully outmanoeuvred.
 
The last time progressive France asserted itself was on May 29 2005 when the French rejected the EU constitution in a referendum. Other EU member countries, when given the chance to vote also rejected it. But the EU project was not to be derailed by democracy.
 
In a breathtaking display of arrogance, the EU establishment ignored the votes. The constitution was repackaged into a treaty, the Treaty of Lisbon, a document which, while not a constitution, was in essence the same as the one which the French had resoundingly rejected. It was then adopted by the French parliament. They didn’t risk another referendum.
 
What is of significance is that there was little opposition from the “left” at the time. That was the starting gun for the right to make inroads into French politics and the rest of Europe. One thing is certain, only the end of “free” movement, in a word, Frexit, will bring an end to the march of the far right in France and EU countries generally.
 
We should be careful about overestimating reflections of this in Britain. We led the charge against the EU. Going further back in history, the black shirt fascists around Oswald Mosely and the like in the 1930s had a maximum of 10,000 at one rally and were kicked off the streets as most subsequent small groups of that ilk have been ever since.
 
At a deeper level, the form of political and economic fascism involved in the dominance of finance capital over all other forms of capital is beginning to be challenged as people begin to plan a rebuilding of the productive economy. We will need a government we can influence and work with to do this. Their ongoing slavish support of US foreign policy will only get in the way eventually.