First Published: Vanguard, Vol. 1, No. 10, November 1964.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Ian Roberts, Paul Saba and Sam Richards
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Since the formation of Mr. Harold Wilson’s Labour Government the British wars of aggression against the peoples of South Arabia and North Kalimantan continue. Indeed, recent reports indicate that they have been stepped up. Thus the National Liberation Front of occupied South Yemen (the Aden Protectorate) reported on October 20th that a British military vehicle was destroyed and four British soldiers were killed and several wounded in a recent engagement in South Yemen. On October 25th Omani commandos reported that three British soldiers were killed and several others wounded in a clash with British forces in the Daffar region. On October 25th the Indonesian Kalimantan military district reported that 18 British soldiers were killed when they intruded into Natukov, in Eastern Kalimantan, and attacked an Indonesian frontier post.
The British military occupation of South-East Asian and South Arabian countries, and the wars of aggression against their peoples, are intended to maintain the positions and the profits of the British monopoly capitalists (and in particular their oil, plantation and mining interests). In Malaya, for example, British capitalists have at least £350 million invested in immensely profitable tin mines and rubber plantations. (Dunlops is perhaps the best-known of the giant monopolies that operates in Malaya.) In North Kalimantan there are rich oilfields controlled by Shell.
“Malaysia” is a desperate attempt to maintain military and political control over Singapore, Malaya, and North Kalimantan (Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo) by bringing them all under the Malaya Prince Abdul Rahman’s government, which is itself tightly controlled from London. Under treaties dictated to this Prince the British ruling class station in these countries more than 60,000 Army, Navy and Air Force personnel. Nearly one-third of the whole Royal Navy is based in Singapore.
Even more vital to the British monopoly capitalists are their oil interests in the Arab lands of West Asia, and particularly along the Persian Gulf; with Aden the main military base from which British forces operate against the Arab peoples who are fighting for the liberation of their homelands. Only the Directors of Shell and British Petroleum know exactly how many thousands of millions of pounds they have invested in oil production in Arabia, for the greater profit of the few thousand capitalists who own most of the shares in these giant companies. For a veil of secrecy conceals the extent to which British imperialism is looting the Arab peoples, in ever close alliance with United States imperialism.
One fact may, however, be cited. The Financial Times, in January, 1959, revealed that 21 British oil firms (all of them subsidiaries of Shell and British Petroleum) made more profit in the preceding year than all 456 British engineering, iron, steel and shipbuilding firms put together. And the Persian Gulf area is the main field in which these companies operate. The overall position has not drastically changed in the intervening years.
British imperialism is using force, as it always has, to maintain its hold over South-East Asia and the Arab countries. But its aggression is meeting with growing resistance from the peoples of these lands. Since 1952 the amount actually spent overseas for military purposes has more than doubled to about £300 million each year. (The total military budget is, of course, much larger.) It is becoming more and more costly for the British ruling class to maintain their imperial bases. At the same time capital exports continue to increase, for the competition with rival imperial powers forces the British capitalists to search ever more feverishly for cheaper raw materials and for surplus profits within the economically under-developed lands. These capital exports are now running at record levels; between £300 million and £400 million, according to conservative estimates.
Taking overseas military spending and overseas investment together, perhaps £700 million is being spent overseas each year which must be paid for in foreign currency. This is imperialist expenditure pure and simple; and is, of course, over and above what is spent on importing goods for British industry and the British people. It is no coincidence that the gap in the balance of payments, about which Mr. Wilson is now talking, is somewhere around this same figure – £700 million.
British monopoly capital must invest for profit overseas, or it will be defeated by its foreign competitors. The “safeguarding” of its overseas investments in face of the rising national liberation movements in Asia and elsewhere requires ever greater military expenditure. The demand for foreign currency, therefore, steadily increase. How can this be obtained? Only by exporting more British goods than would be necessary to pay for British imports. How can these additional exports be obtained? Only by squeezing the living standards of the British people, by making sure that they buy fewer British goods. Alternatively, of course, if the demand for imported goods can be cut back then foreign currency is saved. But, either way, the standard of living of the British people must fall.
This is where Mr. Harold Wilson’s Labour Government comes in. For it has now taken over the direction of the British capitalist state precisely in order to force down the living standards of the British people so that British capital exports and overseas aggression can be maintained. It is easier for a government which pretends to stand for Labour to get away with attacks upon the people than it would be for a Tory government (which stands openly for the capitalist class).
In fact, Mr. Wilson’s strategy involves two complementary lines of action; the forcing down of British living standards will be accompanied by a policy of still greater subservience to United States imperialism. He aims to cut down on a good deal of “unnecessary“ British capitalist spending on nuclear arms, and other equipment, which United States capitalism can produce more efficiently, and therefore more cheaply.
How will Mr. Wilson reduce the amount of goods that we buy, to “release” them for export? Firstly, by implementing his “incomes policy.” This high-sounding phrase means nothing other than the freezing of wages, so that, when prices rise, real wages (what we can buy with our money) fall. For this purpose Mr. Wilson must seek to carry the trade union movement with him. Most of the right-wing leaders of the big unions present no problem. The most powerful “Left-winger,” Mr. Frank Cousins, of the T.G.W.U., has been drawn into the Cabinet. (He might have been expected to cause some trouble if he had not been given one of the plums of office.) And since the leadership of the C.P.G.B. is pursuing its usual line of causing no more embarrassment to the Labour Government than is necessary for appearances sake, Mr. Wilson is likely to make fairly easy headway among official trade union leaders to his wage-freezing “incomes policy.”
The one thing that can disrupt the Labour Government’s plans to force down real wages is mass action by the industrial working class – strike action. It is for this reason that our Trade Union rights are likely to come under sharpening attack. Mr. Gunter, the Minister of Labour, has already made this plan. The full force of the law will be used by this Labour Government against “unofficial” strikes – if the Government can get away with it. United action by the working class, linking industry with industry, will be needed to defeat their plans.
Another move against our living standards has already been announced; the 3/- in the pound levy on all imports, except for food, basic raw materials, and tobacco. A growing range of consumer goods has been imported in recent years, particularly from Western Europe; this measure will therefore mean sharp increases in the prices of many clothes, shoes, cars, cameras, wines, and other goods, bought by the housewife in every High Street. But the effects will not end there. The industrial capitalists of Western Europe can be expected to retaliate against our exports, in order to protect their own balances of payments. The result? Rising unemployment in several British export industries, and a further fall in the living standards of many British workers.
The reaction to Mr. Wilson’s move, among West European governments, has been generally hostile. It further confirms their belief that the British capitalist class, whom the Labour Government represent, are becoming still more subservient to United States imperialism. The abandoning of Britain’s independent nuclear bomb, and the projected scrapping of the Anglo-French Concorde airliner also point along the same road of servility to the United States ruling class. President Johnson has already made known his full approval of the measures which our “Socialist” Prime Minister Wilson has announced.
The “left-wingers” in this Labour Government can be under no illusions about the role which it is playing on behalf of British imperialism. Cousins, Barbara Castle, Antony Greenwood, together with all the members of the Government, will be held responsible to the working class for the death of every Asian patriot and every British soldier in these wars of aggression against South Arabia and South-East Asia. They will be held responsible, along with their colleagues, for every attack by this Government upon the living standards, and the Trade Union and democratic rights of the British working class and people. Whatever the superficial political complexion of any individual members this Labour Government is the instrument through which the British capitalist class now rules. All its members must be treated accordingly.
The only way forward for the British working class and people in this period of deepening crisis for British imperialism is through resolute struggle against all the attacks of the employers, and the Government. We must reject their policies of overseas aggression. We must fight to liberate our country from United States domination. To this end we must challenge the ruling class in the only way it understands; by mass action, and in particular by industrial action.