‘A new era for defence and security’
There have been several significant announcements this year involving the British military. Firstly, the ‘Strategic Defence Review’ led by former NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson contained two recommendations for schools1:
1) To develop an understanding of the Armed Forces among young people in schools amid a new era for defence and security.
2) Expand cadet forces in schools and communities by 30% by 2030 with a greater STEM focus, sponsored by private companies.
This was followed by the government announcing a commitment to almost double military spending to 5% of GDP on defence2 by 2035, a higher spend than the education system. And finally, five new “technical excellence colleges” will be set up across the country as well as targeted short courses and STEM schemes for school students to pursue careers in the defence sector. The government says this will ‘“break down barriers to opportunity for people in every corner of our country”3.
These developments represent the British state’s (a capitalist superstructure with interests often aligned with the government but capable of acting against it) and the government’s desire to embrace what it calls ‘securonomics’, an economic growth strategy via the military-industrial complex and imperialism. There has been significant dissent against Britain’s ‘securonomics,’ particularly against its support for the war in Ukraine and genocide in Gaza, and the state has responded through the same securitisation framework; in particular, through the use of its counter-terrorism legislation.
The British state, in order to manufacture consent for ‘securonomics’ has identified schools as sites of amendable minds, and desperate for graduate employment to propagandise for institutions of war and imperialism. The question is then: what role is to be played by communists, abolitionists and anti-imperialists opposing state violence inside and outside the education system?
A flailing behemoth
The election of the Labour government represented a continuation of an economy providing huge profits for capitalists, tied with meagre wage increases and declining living standards for the working classes.
The government is already incredibly unpopular, and a repeat of the 2023 strike wave, catalysed by a cost-of-living crisis, could prove terminal. And Britain’s flatlining economy4 continues to restrict the government’s ability to placate dissent by raising living standards. This brings us to the ‘securonomics’ strategy, where the government is attempting to increase growth through an increasing harmonisation between themselves, the military and arms companies. The latest egregious example is Elbit, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, being awarded a £2 billion contract to train 60,000 British soldiers. The proscription of Palestine Action, which isolated and targeted Elbit and its subsidiaries, is clearly no coincidence, and it points us right back to the ‘securonomics’ agenda that this was done on the basis of ‘national security.’ What the government failed to spell out is that it was the ‘national security’ of their new economic-securitisation agenda.
Unable and unwilling to redistribute wealth, the state builds its support through nationalism, with challenges to the imperialist ‘common sense’ suppressed under the auspices of being threats to security and ‘British values’. However, it should be obvious that nationalism, as racist pogroms this and last summer have shown, and the appearance of Union and St George’s flags as expressions of ‘whiteness’ is the biggest threat to the security of multi-racial working class communities across the country.
This nationalism is projected into schools through the ‘teaching [of] British values’, which are enshrined in teaching standards as: ‘democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs’. These ‘minimum standards’ are needed to gain a teaching qualification in British schools and must be evidenced throughout early career teaching.
The state’s use of ‘British values’ is clearly a politically contestable term but, alongside the police and army, it is presented as ideologically neutral (truly the highest point of hegemony!). As we know, the police and army are instruments of state violence. Hegemonic ideology frames them neutrally – they enforce ‘rule of law’ at home and abroad – when, in reality, they are enforcing the domination of the capitalist class, private property and imperialist states. These contradictions are sharply revealed by the spectacle of the state, with its claimed ‘British values’ of ‘democracy’ and ‘individual liberty,’ arresting those protesting genocide and threatening them with sentences of up to 14 years. Palestine Actionists, targeting Elbit, aren’t the only ones – we’ve surely all seen the images of crowds of pensioners being arrested under counter-terror legislation after they held up signs saying ‘I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.’ Here, too, we can see the intricate relationships between policing in the imperial core, support of colonial and imperialist expansion, exploitation and oppression abroad, executed by states like Israel, and the protection of military-economic interests that link Britain with allied imperialist projects elsewhere.
The juxtaposition between the state’s self-described values and reality is, in general, most clearly illustrated through Britain’s diplomatic, media and judiciary support for Israel. The ethno-nationalist settler colony is imperialism’s arrowhead, destabilising the region, and it functions as a laboratory for counter-insurgency tactics and weaponry.
But when there is oppression, there is resistance. Israel’s genocide in Gaza has sparked the largest anti-imperialist movement for a generation and radicalised masses of people. This has been reflected in street protests of millions, the proliferation of Palestinian solidarity organisations, and the election of several Independent MPs. In order to prevent imperialism becoming the state’s grave digger, the major political parties, police, and judiciary have converged to categorise protest against the genocide – and more widely British imperialism – as threats to national security.
My prediction in 2021 that ‘government-defined extremisms’ and counter-extremism measures, including surveillance regimes such as PREVENT, would expand to include radical movements has unfortunately been proven correct5. However, this proves that anti-imperialist campaigning has effectively challenged the power of the British state, forcing the government to answer for its direct involvement in the genocide. Grimly, it should also be a warning of what is coming for those of us in communist organisations if we ever break out of our isolation.
Palestine Action’s proscription is a clarifying moment: an attempt by the state to decapitate, criminalise and divide the Palestine solidarity movement into ‘extremists’ and ‘sensibles’. We cannot rely on or expect the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a ‘popular front’ group linked with trade union bureaucracies, to meaningfully oppose the proscription. The threat of financial assets being frozen, and particularly state loyalism in the case of the trade union leadership, both result in a timid approach, overly reliant on lobbying MPs in a fundamentally undemocratic system.
The ‘securonomics’ nexus across the government, judiciary, security services and military cannot be untangled from Britain’s imperialist aims. As outlined earlier, these are increasingly vital components to the functioning and reproduction of the state. This underlines that ‘arming Ukraine’ via the British state and its arms companies under the guise of ‘national liberation’ is a gross demand made by some ‘communist’ organisations, such as the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty. The AWL which calls on the government to ‘increase in aid with critical weapons and to strengthen military capabilities’6 may support the Ukrainian war effort however in practice increases the profits of arms companies and constructs a deeper ‘war time’ nationalism in this country. Opposition to the arms companies ‘liberating Ukraine’, therefore, can be cast as a threat to national security – feeding the same ‘securonomic’ machine committing genocide in Gaza.
To underline this point, David Lammy, former government Foreign Secretary, current Deputy Prime Minister and future resident at The Hague, remarked that banning the sale of arms to Israel ‘would undermine the global F-35 supply chain that is vital for the security of the UK, our allies, and NATO’. This is further proof of how closely entwined the interests of the government, arms companies and imperialism are, as actors across the globe, where opposition to each individually can be suppressed based on being a threat to the other.
To build an effective anti-imperialist movement, a merger must form between the thought and organisation of resistance to state violence against the police, army and other occupying forces at home or abroad. There is great potential and necessity in such a merger, particularly in the context of British capitalism’s contemporary project-building, centred on borders, transphobia and racism.
The communist tradition, despite its isolation, remains the standard bearer of an alternative world system to capitalism, with 170 years of revolutionary movements – encompassing our victories, defeats and thinkers on state domination and working class rule.
As its instruments of violence, dismantling the state must necessitate the abolition of the police, army and prisons, in order to transition towards a democratic workers’ republic with radically different conceptions of safety, defence and rehabilitation. In a global capitalist system, this process could not happen in isolation as it would be fiercely resisted by imperialist powers. In this sense, communism, abolitionism and anti-imperialism are organisations and movements that must merge in order to succeed on their own individual terms.
However anti-state resistance is siloed in isolated and fragmented communist, anti-imperialist and abolitionist movements. These contain organisations and comrades engaged in worthwhile activity but lacking in mass character and the ability to challenge the state due to their separation from each other. Single-issue campaigns are capable of rapid growth during spontaneous waves against oppression but often without political organisation, struggle to challenge the totality of the capitalist state.
The ‘Kill the Bill’ campaign resisting laws restricting the right to protest developed an impressive coalition of abolitionist organisations; however, it dissipated once passed through the state’s parliamentary and legislative systems. Black Lives Matter also sparked mass street mobilisations, highlighting contemporary forms of racist colonial structures; however, it failed to formulate political demands on the state. The result was the uprising’s co-option into an ‘anti-racism from above’, for example, individualised ‘unconscious biases’, social media campaigns and politicians taking the knee whilst capitalism continues to reproduce itself through racial hierarchies, policing and borders.
In both cases, the existence of a mass communist party with a political programme capable of uniting abolitionist struggles under its banner would have made co-option more difficult, radicalised its organisers towards a long-term emancipatory project and developed an ‘institutional memory’ from these campaigns. A communist party with a socialist liberatory horizon is more likely to retain organisers once spontaneous waves have ebbed away, ensuring hard-earned experiences are not lost. And in the other direction, abolitionism can infuse organising strategies, unite wide layers of the working class beyond a narrow economism and a pedagogical effect ‘stretching Marxism’ to build an understanding of capitalism’s various technologies to differentiate and hyperexploit labour, including race, gender and border regimes.
An example of anti-imperialist and abolitionist thought merging into a communist organisation is the open ‘Partyist’ faction, the Marxist Unity Caucus in rs21, who developed the organisation’s position on anti-imperialism towards a more explicit anti-militarism. This included leading debates in local and national structures on the role of communists resisting their own imperialist governments. The caucus has also been involved in bringing together abolitionists, anti-imperialists and communists into a local organisation. Imagine if this was replicated in the much larger anti-war group ‘Stop the War’ currently demanding ‘a ceasefire’ and ‘reduced military spending – milquetoasts demand that can be framed as pacifism and towards a more state oppositionist ‘main enemy is at home’, i.e. channeling the anti-war movement into a mass anti-capitalist organisation which connects war abroad to policing and border regimes at home.
The election of independent MPs on a platform of opposing the genocide in Gaza should underline the potential of anti-imperialism to permeate the capitalist political system. However, no political programme exists uniting these MPs or red lines on chauvinism (as highlighted through MP and landlord Adnan Hussain’s transphobic comments) or democratic accountability and mandate to an organisation. Clearly, MPs accountable to a programme committed to trans liberation, that all members had to accept, would be a step forward than a constellation of single-issue MPs. In practice, this is one example of how liberation politics can begin to articulate demands on the state through a political programme developed and enforced by a mass membership via radically democratic structures.
In response to growing resistance, the state is seeking to popularise its own interests by normalising militarism in more public spheres, including schools. This presents an opportunity for campaigning in workplaces, but limited to a single sector and without a political organisation, such as a mass communist party, the ability to challenge the state will always be limited.
Fighting state loyalism
The state presents schools as ‘apolitical’ spaces. In reality, they are crucial in their own reproduction; plainly, capitalism needs workers with knowledge and skills. It cannot be true that a significant site of knowledge production and employment exists in an ideological vacuum. To clarify, the government is increasing the presence of the military and arms companies in schools, as recommended in the ‘Strategic Defence Review’.
As discussed earlier, this is driven by the government’s need to build support for its ‘securonomics’. Placing pressure on schools to ‘develop understanding of the Armed Forces’ in practice means cheerleading the army as ‘defending this country’. All the while, the RAF is playing an active role in the genocide in Gaza and has bombed Palestinian regional allies. Instead of being a neutral institution, it’s the enforcer of imperial interests, at the expense of working-class sovereignty abroad. It is therefore a brazen expression of class interest for the military to use schools to launder their reputation and encourage children to join the cadets, a pre-graduate training scheme for the military.
It’s not only the military who have a presence in education, though. BAE Systems, the largest arms company in the UK and a major profiteer from the genocide in Gaza, has invested £230 million in education and early careers activities such as STEM workshops, apprenticeships and career fairs since 2023. Other arms companies, such as Babcock, have a deeper relationship with schools, including attendance monitoring and pupil assessment.
Similar to the military, the partnership between arms companies and schools allows these manufacturers of weapons to ‘STEM wash’ their reputation and access a captive audience of potential future workers/recruits. For schools suffering from over a decade of austerity, this situation is an opportunity to provide free enrichment for pupils. And, for the government, it normalises the ‘securonomics’ agenda and pathways for graduate employment.
In both cases, the military and arms companies are presented in schools as providing safety, learning and job opportunities. However, an individual challenging militarism presented as ‘politically neutral’ risks disciplinary action from their employer and even a PREVENT referral for undermining ‘British values’ and institutions maintaining the ‘rule of law’. In this context, opposition to militarism in schools is best done through collective trade union organising.
Challenge brings opportunity
The genocide in Gaza has resulted in rank and file led anti-militarist organising in schools and other workplaces. ‘Disarm Education,’19 an organisation set up by educators and now nationally affiliated to the National Education Union, aims to kick arm companies out of schools. Educators wanting to practically resist the genocide, answer calls made by Palestinian trade unions and resist the government’s ‘securonomics’ agenda can join ‘Disarm Education’ – a campaign rapidly organising workplace meetings, actions at arms fairs and building a network of activists.
In my school, we organised a workplace ‘Disarm Education’ meeting where we discussed the relationship between arms companies, the military, schools and the genocide in Gaza. We debated then passed a motion affiliating to the campaign with our members refusing to host arms companies in our school.
Anti-militarist organising was a valuable experience for workers in my school on deliberative democracy, where developing political positions through debate, tabling motions, voting and acting on actions is a valuable one. These democratic experiences provide the space for political ones such as demonstrating practical solidarity with workers in the global south, the relationship between arms companies and British imperialism and the diverging interests between the state and the working class. It should be obvious that we have more in common with workers in Gaza than a British army officer.
However campaigns like ‘Disarm Education’, without a mass communist party co-ordinating activity beyond the education system will always have a limit. It’s up to the anti-militarist organisers engaged in workplace actions to connect militarism with anti-capitalist political organisation.
This example represents a practical example of the need and potential for merging the communist, trade union and anti-imperialist movements outlined as crucial in challenging capitalism. In this case, what can appear as challenging terrain in a school, where individuals critiquing state institutions is disciplined through school-and-state apparatuses, can result in an effective and politicised rank and file trade unionism through the collectivisation of these issues.
As in the case of the proscription of Palestine Action, the trade union bureaucracy cannot be relied on or expected to lead a struggle on anti-militarism in schools. Proving this point, the Association of School and College Leaders, General Secretary Pepe Di’Iasio commented on the Strategic Defence Review, ‘’we look forward to hearing more detail about how the government intends to further develop understanding of the Armed Forces and expand cadet forces in schools”. Therefore opposition to the new normal in schools must come from workers and worker-led campaigns like ‘Disarm Education’.
Freedom from domination
To conclude, two immediate tasks lie ahead of us:
- All those opposing state violence to merge the communist, worker, anti-imperialist and abolitionist movements, into the form of a mass communist party
- Educators join ‘Disarm Education’ and resist the ‘securonomics’ agenda in schools, opposing the presence of arms companies and the military in their workplaces.
Both tasks need collective activity through workplace and political organisation. Workers intrinsically yearn to be free from domination by their CEO, landlord, police officer, occupying force, or oppression experienced through race, gender and borders. However as outlined earlier, spontaneous and single-issue actions will not express themselves into mass demands without a party. And in the opposite direction, Marxism cannot hold the banner for the widest possible sections of the working class without those at the sharpest ends of capitalism.
A mass communist party remains to be built but ‘Your Party’21 presents an opportunity to prefigure and develop the base of the revolutionary party of the future. A political party with 800,000 will contain a significant number of Marxists and those open to communist politics.
Whilst it will be a reformist party, fighting for democratic structures including a right to form open factions and a political programme including no compromises on chauvinism that all members including MPs and councillors must accept and face recall if they do not is within our grasp. In order to achieve this, an communist faction incorporating abolitionism and ant-imperialism will be crucial to radicalising Your Party members to a socialist liberatory agenda.
A communist faction inside Your Party would function as a pole of attraction to those committed to a communist programme, merging all those movements opposed to state violence and chauvinism. This would bring together communists and abolitionists under the same banner in order to win over wider layers of the party. Put plainly, unite the advanced, win over the intermediate and isolate the reactionaries.
This ‘strategy of patience’ replicated successfully over time, might result in numbers large enough to form a mass communist party from Your Party. An organisation capable of taking political power, not just office, once it had sufficient support to fully implement its programme.
The struggle against ‘securonomics,’ involving militarism, imperialism, state surveillance, and political proscriptions, must be seen as the same struggle against domination, in this country and abroad. Their politics is one of nationalism and death, ours is internationalism and liberation. As workers and educators, it’s our duty to maintain our workplaces as sites of learning and community rather than the reproduction of the capitalist war machine – a fight we have not chosen, but one we must take on and win.
References
- “The Strategic Defence Review 2025 – Making Britain Safer: secure at home, strong abroad”, Ministry of Defence, 2025, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-strategic-defence-review-2025-making-britain-safer-secure-at-home-strong-abroad ↩︎
- Aletha Adu, “UK will commit to spending 5% of GDP on defence by 2035”, The Guardian, June 23, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jun/23/uk-will-commit-to-spending-5-of-gdp-on-defence-by-2035 ↩︎
- Alexander Brown, September 06, 2025, Defence training ramped up to ‘wartime pace’ in boost for students”Defence training ramped up to ‘wartime pace’ in boost for students”, https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/defence-training-ramped-up-wartime-35861142 ↩︎
- “How fast is the UK’s economy growing and what is GDP?”, BBC, September 12, 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0j7p38jg15o ↩︎
- Vik Chechi-Ribeiro, “Imagining a Socialist Education System”, Tribune, July 25, 2021, https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/07/imagining-a-socialist-education-system ↩︎
- Dan Katz, “Ukraine: the left can do better than this”, July 17, 2025, https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2025-07-17/ukraine-left-can-do-better ↩︎
