The Labour Party long ago established itself firmly as a defender of capitalism in alliance with the bourgeoisie, a pro-imperialist party. Since then, working class politics in Britain has been polarised into two camps on the question of the correct attitude of communists to the Labour Party.

Below, we take the view that the division on the left in regard to the Labour Party is a political expression of a split in the working class. This division is between a relatively privileged minority of workers (the labour aristocracy^[1]) and the majority of the working class, whose material interests diverge.

The role of the privileged stratum (who benefit from the existence of imperialism) is to prevent the working class from breaking with the Labour Party, to protect imperialism and thereby to keep their privileges. This stratum has no interest in the socialist revolution because this would disrupt their privileged life-style. Consequently they oppose any struggle to break the masses from following the Labour Party.

This is the main political division in working class politics today.

The struggle against imperialism requires a struggle against social democracy, which in Britain is represented by the Labour Party and all those who are against the working class breaking from Labour. It is the duty of marxist-leninists to organise independently of the pro-Labour camp, to wage a struggle to break the working class from following the Labour Party leadership.

Communists must form a separate party, independent of social-democracy, to wage ideological struggle against the revisionist-pseudo-communist elements whose role is to defend the Labour Party in the revolutionary movement and in the working class.

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