Peace and goodwill to all peoples have never really been part of imperialism’s offer. Indeed, ever since the emergence of monopoly capitalism around 150 years ago, there has probably never been a Christmas where there has not been fighting in one part of the world or another.
Britain will have been involved more often than not, and nearly always for no good reason. But there can have been no years since the end of the second world war as bloody as 2024, with war being waged on as many fronts with further conflicts brazenly threatened.
It is hardly surprising that most people are regarding the dawning of 2025 with a sense of foreboding.
Even Christmas cards come with inscribed expressions of anxiety, sometimes qualified by the expectation that next year cannot be as bad for the world as unloved 2024.
There are several reasons for the gloom — none of them, alas, are irrational.
The first is the failure of the world to stop the Israeli genocide directed against the Palestinian people despite a magnificent sustained movement of global solidarity.
Indeed, as the year ends, imperialism and its Israeli progeny appear to have secured something of a strategic victory with an advantageous ceasefire in Lebanon, the collapse of the Syrian regime and the apparent destruction of Iranian air defences alongside the unabated massacres in Gaza and escalated violent ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
Some are talking of a second 1967 — a major leap in Israeli expansionism and a further integration of Israel into the US-directed global war machine.
However, several things are different today — the growing international political isolation of Israel, the moves to legally sanction its depredations and its leaders and the vast movement of support for the Palestinians.
None of that was there in 1967. What was, and remains more vivid to this day, is the resistance of the Palestinian people to their erasure from their land and history, their staunch courage against overwhelming odds and their determination to assert their national rights, often despite indifferent leadership and Arab states playing footsie with Washington.
Right now, they are joined in their resistance by the Yemeni people, still standing strong in the teeth of Anglo-US and Israeli bombardment. No serious progressive should be in any doubt as to where they stand on that conflict.
Everyone’s first resolution for the new year has to be to further strengthen the movement against Israeli barbarism and for Palestinian rights. Put simply, we have no political or ethical right to slacken our efforts.
The second source of fear for the future is the imminent return of Donald Trump to the presidency.
It is true that his administration can scarcely be worse than that of the outgoing president “Genocide Joe” Biden, who has spent his time inflaming conflict everywhere he can. He will be remembered for his enabling and arming of the genocide in Gaza and little else beyond his evident mental deterioration while in office.
Trump’s first stint as president was not perhaps as bellicose as had been anticipated, at least by the prevailing standards of US imperial presidencies.
However, his belligerent support for Israel — no zionist excess too excessive — indicates that Benjamin Netanyahu will be supported to pursue his expansionist aggression unimpeded by the only power presently in a position to constitute an impediment.
On the other hand, Trump’s return to the Oval Office has been looked forward to eagerly by those hoping that the Ukraine conflict can be brought to an overdue end.
Certainly, there are factors, irrespective of Trump, pointing in that direction. Ukraine’s military position looks increasingly untenable, and certainly, Kiev’s dream of reimposing its authority on the areas now under Russian occupation is beyond realisation.
Nevertheless, securing ceasefires is notoriously tricky when one side or another is securing battlefield gains. Right now, that is Russia, so getting Vladimir Putin to come to terms will not be straightforward.
In fact, the latest informed speculation does not have the president-elect applying the full-court press on Kiev to settle that had been anticipated. Trump may indeed continue funding the proxy war, for now at least.
It is less likely that he will agree to Ukraine joining Nato any time soon. But what seems absolutely certain is that he will press European Nato members for massive increases in military spending.
There lies the third reason for midwinter gloom. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are increasingly in the grip of a frenzied militarism directed against China and Russia. Five per cent of GDP is believed to be Trump’s target for arms spending by each Nato member state.
That would involve more than doubling Britain’s military bill. The idea that such a target could even be approached without savage cuts in almost every other area of government spending is a fantasy. Warfare or welfare has seldom been posed so starkly.
The anti-war movement must continue to press for an end to British involvement in the Ukraine conflict and to advocate for a speedy ceasefire.
And every trade unionist should be brought to the point of awareness that passing resolutions urging more spending on worthy objectives is entirely incompatible with backing an armaments frenzy.
That, and the not inconsiderable risk that Britain might get involved in a war with a nuclear-armed power.
Will Keir Starmer stand against any of this? Here’s the fourth and final source of alarm. The Prime Minister is scrambling for all his worth to stay on the right side of Trump. We can be fairly sure that we will hear no more talk — not that it has amounted to anything in any case — of recognising a Palestinian state.
When Trump tells Starmer to jump, he asks only “how high,” and when told to spend more on arms, he inquires simply “how much?”
Yet, all of this is only one side of the story. The world order is changing, and year by year, the relative strength of the Starmers, Bidens and Trumps is diminishing. They have failed to rally most of the world to either their anti-Russian campaign or to the side of the Israeli criminals.
The influence of the Brics is growing. The fact that China brokered some form of reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia points to one future.
The determination of the US, with British support, to encircle China militarily and beat back its economic advance, utilising the Taiwan issue above all, points to another future, one of conflict escalating to war.
The better future has not arrived yet. Neither China nor the wider Brics grouping play the role in the world once championed by Soviet power.
But the shift to a world based on principles of coexistence, co-operation and universal respect for international law has powerful momentum and is well-grounded in economic realities. That is where the British people should be found, our bipartisan elite notwithstanding.
A world of social justice and, ultimately, socialism will be still better. It has always been imperialism’s main mandate to the people that if you want that world, you will have to walk through fire and wade through blood to get there.
And there is a heartbreaking amount of that right now. Yet it is generations since the rulers of the imperialist world have looked so insecure in their seats. Keep pushing.
Source: Morning Star