https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/e/the-next-election-will-allow-no-radical-changes

THE battle lines are being drawn for the next general election — but guess what? There is no real battle.

The British people are living through a masterclass in the nature of bourgeois democracy — that is, a system with democratic forms but capitalist-class rule.

Such a regime can only allow choices within fairly limited parameters: the needs of capital accumulation and the maintenance of the rate of profit push all governmental decisions in one direction.

That is not to say that competing parties offer no choices at all. Priorities can be reshuffled within limits, and occasionally strategic questions — like Britain’s membership of the European Union — are thrown up for decision.

But the imperatives of the Establishment are, at any one given time, firmly set. Capitalists hate unpredictability more than almost anything else, and so a major change of course at the will of the electorate every few years cannot be countenanced.

…

As a result, at the next general election, there will be no change in the main lines of government economic and social policy. Call it “Stunakerism” if you think this beast — public austerity in search of privately profitable growth — deserves a proper name.

Rishi Sunak has steadied the capitalist ship following the Truss squall; Keir Starmer has pledged that his Labour government will neither spend nor raise any more money.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/e/the-next-election-will-allow-no-radical-changes