A few Labour MPs have criticised
their leader in the past few days for his imperialist stance on the question of
reparations for slavery. To listen to them speak, one might think that the
Labour Party is a bastion of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism. They’re
deluded – the Labour Party is as much an English imperialist-minded party as
the Tories. That’s how we are allowed to have elections in the UK: by ensuring
that nothing changes very much. If it wasn’t obvious to the ‘rebels’ previously,
surely the half-hearted
handover of only part of the Chagos Islands whilst retaining the UK’s ‘right’
to Diego García ought to have opened their eyes at least a little.
It isn’t only in relation to reparations that the
imperialist mindset operates; it also underlies the nonsense that the UK is a
major world power which can threaten (or maybe create) adversaries across the
globe. To say nothing, of course, about the continued possession of nuclear
weapons. Starmer has been at it again this week, telling
Iran that it must not respond to Israel’s ‘retaliation’, and that Iran and the
Palestinians must allow Israel to have the last word – or last airstrike, more
accurately – in the current tit-for-tat round of violence. Why either should
listen to a state which is the former colonial ruler of Palestine and which has
a history of using force to secure the economic interests of its capitalists in
Iran (and which itself therefore bears no small historical responsibility for
the situation in the Middle East) is a question which only a died-in-the-wool
imperialist wouldn’t even think to ask. That we need a ceasefire and proper
peace talks with the serious intention of seeking a just settlement goes
without saying; that the conflict can be ended by the historical school yard
bullies telling one side to desist is as delusional as believing Labour to be
inherently anti-colonial.
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