Devastation mounts in the Middle East. US and Israeli bombs strike cities in Iran daily, retaliatory strikes are returned. Meanwhile, southern Lebanon faces yet more escalation from Israeli strikes and ground invasion too; hundreds have been killed and hundreds of thousands forced to flee. Murderous violence against Palestinians, including in the West Bank, continues.

As in all wars, it is the working class and poor that suffer hardest, and it will be them that are asked to pay.

After plunging the region into war – in doing so bypassing the crumbling world capitalist institutions like the UN and without even a vote in the US Congress – Donald Trump has asked for other world powers to join a “team effort” in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, through which one fifth of the world’s oil supply travels.

Blocking the Strait with drone attacks on vessels, as well as with the threat of laying mines, is being used by Iranian forces as a strategy to try to exert maximum pressure on the world economy and on US imperialism.

US decline

So far, help on the scale asked for by Trump – “whatever it takes” – has not been forthcoming. Britain has so far declined to send warships, but agreed to send ‘mine-hunting’ drones. Whatever the scale of international coordination there ends up being, what is being played out for all to see is the reality of the relative decline of US imperialism, no longer an overwhelming dominant force that can dictate terms internationally.

Only 29% of Americans ‘approve’ of US military strikes against Iran. Trump’s actions are provoking fractures and splits in his own Republican party, and he continues to register record levels of unpopularity. In Britain, prime minister Keir Starmer has tried to use the conflict to present himself as being at odds with one of the only people more unpopular than him in Britain – Trump.

Of course far from strident defiance, after a brief delay, Starmer has given Trump permission to use US airbases in Britain for ‘defensive’ strikes against Iran – in reality, to launch bombers laden with huge missiles. The British military is involved alongside US forces and others in operations in Iraq and elsewhere. And now the mine-hunting drones.

After the immediate outbreak of war, echoing Trump’s criticism of Starmer as being ‘un-Churchillian’, Reform leader Nigel Farage described him as “pathetic”, and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused him of indecision and of cowardice, calling for Britain to join in striking Iran.

Tory and Reform U-turn

Less than a week later, both had U-turned. A motivating factor was no doubt the looming economic consequences of the war linked to the huge anti-war mood in society. A majority of Brits, including a majority of Tory and Reform voters, polled as being opposed to joining the US-Israeli offensive.

The economic effects of the conflict will ultimately continue to drive Starmer’s unpopularity and political instability.

There is a lot of uncertainty about the course and duration of the war. But whatever its course, even the current level of disruption to world oil markets will have big consequences.

The 400 million barrels of oil released onto the world market by the 32 big capitalist powers that sit on the board of the International Energy Agency – more than double the size of its previous biggest-ever release after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine – has so far not been enough to bring oil prices down.

Inflationary pressures

Despite those measures, and even if disruption to the Strait is relatively short-lived, the war will exert an inflationary pressure on the world economy. It is likely to stall the process of central banks pegging down their interest rates, and could lead to rises. And all this in what was already a volatile world economy with high levels of government debt and borrowing costs, and overinflated bubbles.

Pre-war, the British economy was stagnant with rising unemployment. In her Spring Statement to Parliament, just as the war was beginning, chancellor Rachel Reeves spoke of falling inflation and interest rates. No more. The working class will be asked to pay for the capitalist system’s war and crisis, again.

Acutely aware of just how unpopular that will be, the Labour government has made mealy-mouthed criticism of energy bosses, warning about ‘price gouging’. All while stopping well short of raising the question of energy nationalisation, which was Labour Party policy less than ten years ago when Jeremy Corbyn was leader.

The government has announced a £53 million package to ameliorate spiralling energy costs for those with oil heating (just 3% of households in England and Wales). The measures are extremely modest – well short of the measures taken by previous Tory governments for example. But already a spokesperson for the right-wing think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said: “What worries me is not, is this very expensive? It’s the precedent it might be setting for the future.”

It is likely that the government will come under pressure to announce further future measures too, which the capitalist class can be prepared to temporarily accept in order to try to buy stability. Capitalist governments’ responses to the Covid-19 pandemic proved that they can be prepared to spend way beyond what we are usually told is possible in order to stabilise and save their system.

The measures taken then, and in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s wholescale invasion of Ukraine when energy prices also surged, were not enough to prevent a devastating cost-of-living crisis – and they didn’t prevent the eruption of the biggest strike wave in a generation.

In fact, government announcements that it is taking measures to address the cost of living can spur workers to demand pay rises to meet the rising cost of living. For example, the millions of public sector workers in the NHS, local authorities and schools.

Starmer’s unpopularity

Starmer remains one of the most unpopular prime ministers ever. Even before taking office, he had already had his ‘Iraq moment’ over his support for the Israeli state’s siege on Gaza. As a consequence, big sections of Muslim workers broke with Labour leading to the election of four Independent MPs plus Jeremy Corbyn.

Now, less than two years later, most voters will be going to the polls in May’s elections motivated to punish Starmer’s Labour, over any number of issues. The effects of this war will only deepen the crisis Starmer faces, and so too the crisis facing the capitalist class.

The May elections do present an important opportunity, in thousands of councils seats including in most of the major cities in England plus the Welsh and Scottish parliaments, to put forward a working-class, socialist stand against austerity and war. To give that stand the biggest profile possible, join Socialist Party members in standing as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.

The Socialist Party says

The trade unions should call a weekend demo uniting the struggles against war, racism and austerity
Students and youth get organised in schools and campuses and protest to fight for a future free from war
Fight to build a new mass workers’ party that stands for socialism and internationalism, including by building for the widest-possible stand of socialist anti-war, anti-austerity candidates in May’s elections against all the warmongers
Capitalism means war. Fight for socialist change – nationalise big business and the banks under democratic working-class control to carry out a socialist plan of socially useful production to meet the needs of all
Fight for a socialist world, including for a voluntary socialist confederation of the Middle East, with full rights for minorities

The post Middle East war – the working class won’t accept being made to pay appeared first on Socialist Party.

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