The Midterms: Democrats “Can’t Right the Ship”

 The Midterms: Democrats “Can’t Right the Ship”

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

Perhaps the most talked-about political event in the US mass media today is the November midterm elections. Given that a majority of Americans have expressed unfavorable views of Trump and his presidency, the elections are widely being discussed as an opportunity for major gains by the Democratic Party.

It is almost impossible to gauge what will happen. Trump’s erratic behavior and constant threats, including his threats against Iran and the deployment of another aircraft carrier to the region, keep people on edge. In an interview published this week, he said he had not ruled out using the Insurrection Act of 1807 or declaring a national emergency around the elections because of the possibility of civil unrest. With ICE at his disposal, there is certainly reason for concern.

We are clearly living through very volatile times, and the mood in general is somber, to say the least. Trump is so hated outside his hardcore MAGA supporters that many people feel a Democratic victory is crucial.

What about organized labor?

Michael Sainato, who writes on labor issues for the US edition of The Guardian, appears very excited about the midterms. “The US labor movement is having a banner election year,” he wrote on September 19 in a piece titled Revenge of the Labor Movement.

The title caught my attention because organized labor, with millions of members in critical industries, has the potential to change the balance of class forces in the US. I got a little excited myself until I read the remainder of the title:

“Democrats with union backgrounds aim to retake Congress.”

Sainato points out that more than three dozen nominees for open House and Senate races across the US have backgrounds as labor union representatives or members.

Unfortunately, having a union background, while certainly not a bad thing in itself, doesn’t guarantee much when it comes to US politics.

US workers have no political party of our own. The Democratic Party has therefore been the main electoral alternative for marginalized groups, environmental campaigners, gender-rights groups, organized labor and others, and these forces tend to populate its left wing. But the Democratic Party’s power base is on Wall Street. The same billionaires we witnessed at Trump’s inauguration would just as easily attend the inauguration of a Democratic president.

As OCAW’s Tony Mazzocchi * used to say, “They have two parties; we have but one.”

The Democratic Party is more accurately described, in my view, as the party of the labor bureaucracy. Its proponents are finding it increasingly difficult to push a party that millions of working-class people abandoned years ago after realizing that their living standards decline regardless of which party is in power.

In addition, the Democratic Party is a bridge to political office for some union activists, labor officials and union staffers seeking a career as a politician “of the people.” That may not be the intention of everyone involved, but this political vehicle is not the means through which working people can achieve economic or political freedom and choices will have to be made, sides taken.

In 2022, Joe Biden, who claimed to be the most pro-union president ever—a claim repeated by many union officials—joined with Nancy Pelosi and Congress to impose a settlement on railroad workers and prevent them from carrying out a legal strike. There was apparently no problem “reaching across the aisle” on that one.

The House passed the legislation by a vote of 290–137, with 211 Democrats voting in favor and only eight voting against.

As Rampant Magazine reported at the time, the legislation was passed after business groups demanded congressional action to prevent a railroad strike. Biden called on Congress to intervene and impose an agreement rather than allow workers to strike.

The majority of House Democrats, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman, Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush and Ayanna Pressley, voted to impose the contract. Rashida Tlaib voted against blocking the strike.

Organized labor’s role

For readers not familiar with US politics or the organized labor movement, Michael Sainato’s headline is misleading. The railroad workers and Biden is an example of how weak the Democratic Party’s support for organized labor and the US working class can be when workers' interests come into direct conflict with those of business.

The Democratic Party is a capitalist party. Nancy Pelosi made that point herself when she responded to a rather naïve young man at a town hall meeting. Good capitalists, she said, make decisions that encompass everyone’s well-being. She called it “stakeholder capitalism.”

It has been a few years since Pelosi made that point, and the Democrats have not exactly won the hearts and minds of young people.

Liz Shuler’s Labor Day Message
In the video above, Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, tries to boost morale on Labor Day 2026 in preparation for the November elections. For me, it is nauseating to watch.

Shuler repeats a message that older trade union activists like me have heard many times, and there is nothing in it that would inspire young people or the millions of workers outside organized labor.

“The economy is not working for working people,” Shuler says, citing surveys conducted by the unions. Then she asks her audience:

“But how do we build a better one?”

“Growing the power workers have,” she says, answering her own question, “building numbers so we can demand more.”

There are numerous references to “worker power,” but power to do what?

What does this worker power consist of?

Building numbers and getting more workers organized into unions is certainly a good thing. But how do we bring them into the unions, and on what basis? More importantly, what are we going to do with the power we have built?

Shuler says it is very difficult to organize workers into unions because of the “rigged” labor laws. But it is here that the strategy of the leadership of the AFL-CIO becomes clear when she stresses:

“If we don’t right the ship, in November, it gets that much harder to build an economy that works for all of us.”

There you have it.

We have to elect Democrats in November to save ourselves.

She offers working people a remedy that has failed to cure the disease time and time again. What Shuler is incapable of grasping is that the ship is sinking. It can’t be righted—or, to put it differently, the Democratic Party is incapable of righting it.

This failure of the Democrats to produce the goods is one of the reasons we have seen a shift to the right and the rise of Trump.

Shuler can’t deny the truth on the ground. She admits that workers are “sick and tired of both parties,” but she is still calling on workers to put the Democrats in control of Congress.

Her excuse is that “some” Democrats are the problem—“too many,” apparently. It is a little like Netanyahu’s “bad apples” explanation for settler violence in the Israeli-occupied territories.

When Shuler talks about a robust plan for labor to get “two million more workers into unions over the next five years,” the goal is essentially the same as the reason five unions left the AFL-CIO in 2005: recruit more members, increase union strength and increase worker influence at the ballot box.

But the idea that workers should rely on their own power in the workplace and their ability to stop production—or develop an independent working-class political party—is not on the table

The 2005 split involved disagreements over organizing and how unions should build their membership and political influence. But breaking the political dependence of organized labor on the Democratic Party was not on the table then either.

Even so, the possibility of a major split in the AFL-CIO shook the Democratic Party, which relies heavily on the labor movement for money and manpower on Election Day. Organized labor has provided billions of dollars and countless foot soldiers for Democratic candidates over the decades, manning phone banks, walking precincts and knocking on doors.

The Democrats were “anxious,” said Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia at the time.

But what has all this electoral activity produced for working people?

Millions of Americans are disgusted with the political situation in this country and, when it comes to national elections, many have simply opted out. More than one-third of eligible voters did not vote in the 2024 presidential election.

At the same time, dissatisfaction with the two major parties remains widespread. Gallup found in 2025 that 62% of US adults said the Republican and Democratic parties do such a poor job representing Americans that a third major party is needed. That figure was 63% in 2023.

This is the dilemma.

The era in which the two major capitalist parties have dominated US political life is not necessarily coming to an end because a third party already exists. It is coming under increasing strain because millions of people no longer believe either party represents their interests.

Can the Democrats right the ship?

Given the extremism of the Trump administration, and assuming he doesn’t use legislation, ICE or other means to derail the electoral process, a Democratic victory in Congress could reverse some of the administration’s more odious decisions.

But what is paramount in my mind is that in an era of capitalist decay and as the influence of US imperialism on the world stage continues to decline, the more dangerous the US ruling class becomes. The offensive at home will continue under a Democratic administration.

War On Iran
I watched some of the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing where Democrats grilled Hegseth about the Trump administration’s war in Iran. Jon Ossoff, a liberal Democrat, attacked Hegseth ferociously over the war but, as I understood his remarks, did not openly oppose the war itself. His criticism was directed largely at the administration’s handling of it and its failure to achieve its stated objectives.

This distinction is important.

The Democrats can criticize Trump’s conduct of a war without challenging the broader foreign-policy assumptions behind it. They can attack Hegseth as a liar and condemn Trump and his administration for failing to win the war or develop a clear strategy, while still accepting the basic framework of US military power and imperial conquest.

That is not an alternative foreign policy.

The reason the Democrats cannot offer a serious program that meets the needs and desires of US workers and much of the middle class is that the Democrats are a capitalist party and will defend the interests of the class it represents.

The heads of organized labor have the same problem. They cannot mobilize the power of their members against the capitalist offensive because they share the same basic worldview as Pelosi. They believe that the capitalist system is the only possible form of social organization and ultimately look to the market to provide the answers.

To mobilize the potential power of working people to act in our own self-interest can only lead to chaos in their minds. This worldview is the primary source of their class collaboration and concessionary policies.

What are the alternatives?

Here are some statistics from recent years, and I doubt the fundamental situation has changed much. If anything, it may have become worse.

Providing solutions to the problems represented by these statistics is impossible for the Democratic Party because doing so would undermine its power base. 

Gallup found in December 2024 that 62% of Americans said the federal government should ensure that all Americans have health coverage.

Nearly four times as many voters supported increasing public transportation funding as supported reducing it.

A 2023 survey found that 70% of respondents agreed that providing people with more transportation options was better for health, safety and the economy than building more highways.

Housing is another example. Investor purchases accounted for almost one in four homes sold in 2021, while rents have reached record levels and millions of renters spend 30% or more of their income on rent.

Another survey found that 82% of Americans favored policies designed to make housing more affordable.

These figures don't mean that Americans have suddenly embraced a particular political program. They do, however, demonstrate that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the existing situation and substantial support for policies that address basic needs such as healthcare, transportation and affordable housing.

Sanders had an opportunity to lead a break from the Democratic Party ten years ago, but instead chose to remain within it and continue recruiting people to its electoral campaigns.

The alternative cannot simply be another appeal to vote for Democrats every two or four years.

It will take a mass movement on the ground—in the workplaces, working-class communities, schools and universities—and an independent working-class political formation born out of that movement to change course.

Such a movement could begin to change the balance of class forces in the US and open the door to a different future for working people here and internationally.

*Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers

 

France: towards an authoritarian regime

Reprinted from the UK Socialist Website Left Horizons

1 October 2026

By Greg Oxley

The reactionary trap of the “citizens’ initiative referendum”

If the party of Marine Le Pen, Rassemblement National, wins the next presidential election and obtains, alone or with other parties, a parliamentary majority, France will find itself under the heel of its most reactionary regime since that of Marshal Pétain under the Nazi Occupation.

The program of Rassemblement National (RN) poses a very serious threat to all workers — including those who will have brought it to power — on the social, economic, democratic and environmental levels.

The RN’s xenophobic policies are aimed at scapegoating “foreigners”, a category which seems to include, in addition to migrants, all French citizens of Muslim faith or culture. Once in power, the RN will wield the power of the state apparatus to sow division and impose draconian austerity policies. With the guaranteed support of major media outlets, the RN will heap blame on “foreigners” for falling living standards and a range of social problems, to justify repressive and discriminatory measures against them.

Tragically, the left will find it difficult to prevent the RN from coming to power, given its own historical record. Brought to power time after time, on the basis of commitments to the needs of working people, it systematically betrayed the trust of its supporters. Once in government, the Socialist and Communist Party leaders carried out policies in line with the interests of the ruling class on all essential issues. We are still paying the price of these betrayals today.

General rise of nationalism across Europe

The failure of the left in the past does not alone explain the RN’s progress. It is also part of a general rise of nationalist and protectionist tendencies throughout Europe, fuelled by the social and economic consequences of capitalist “globalisation”. But by repeatedly letting down their own social base, the left parties have greatly facilitated the far right’s march to power.

Today, the policy of the Socialist Party (PS) is quite similar to that of Emmanuel Macron. For their part, the parties of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, La France Insoumise (LFI) and the Communist Party (PCF), put forward a wide range of relatively audacious social reforms, and even speak of the need to break with capitalism, without, however, having any serious strategy to achieve this.

If the leaders of these parties had prioritised the struggle against the RN and the right before their mutual rivalry, they would be waging a common campaign around a single candidate, making it easier to mobilise the left-wing electorate. An electoral alliance of this type would not have prevented the expression of political differences between the left parties, where they exist.

As it is, the left will go into the 2027 elections weakened and divided. All is not lost, however. The presidential election and the following legislative elections will only be stages in what must necessarily be a broader and longer struggle.

Even if the elections bring Marine Le Pen to the presidency and give her a viable parliamentary majority, she will face strong popular protest movements, in the streets, in neighbourhoods and in the workplaces. The policies of discrimination and persecution in the RN’s program will lead to very serious consequences, opening up a period of intense social instability and turbulence. 

Social security reserved for the ‘French’

Can we stand aside while state authorities introduce discrimination in hiring, social benefits or the attribution of council houses according to origin, skin colour or religion? Le Pen wants to reserve social security for the ‘French’, to make access to benefits conditional on five years of work in France, and give priority to the French in employment opportunities. She also wants to put an end to processing of asylum applications in France and to withdraw the residence permit of any foreigner who has not worked for a year.

Can we accept the abolition of the right of nationality by birth and the mass deportation of “foreigners” under various pretexts? Beyond the ballot box, massive mobilisation at grassroots level will be the key to resisting and defeating the authoritarian and xenophobic regime that Le Pen wants to bring about.

The referendum, a classic instrument of authoritarian regimes

One of the subterfuges that Le Pen wants to use to support her regime is a so-called “citizens’ initiative referendum” (RIC). She says she will start with a referendum to validate a set of repressive measures concerning immigration, then a second to ban the wearing of the “Islamic” headscarf  in public spaces, including in the street. It should be noted in passing that during her 2012 campaign, Le Pen targeted both the traditional Muslim veil and the Jewish kippah, but today, she only mentions the “Islamic” headscarf.

Historically, the referendum has often been used as a weapon by dictatorial or authoritarian regimes. France has known this since the time of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, who came to power after the defeat of the 1848 revolutionary outbreak. He then proceeded to acquire the status of hereditary emperor through a referendum in 1852! Adolf Hitler, too, used the referendum to consolidate and extend his power, in 1934 and again in 1936.

Presented as the direct expression of “the will of the people”, the result of a referendum is given an almost sacred ‘legitimacy’, but in reality, it is more about how public opinion can be manipulated. A referendum is not a process that allows the dissemination of often complex and nuanced information and informed discussion – that is the basis of real democracy – but one where the establishment and the media mobilise opinion with simple slogans and highly slanted news. A referendum may have the appearance of “democracy” but in reality, it serves to undermine and destroy it.

A more recent example of political manipulation by referendum is the UK referendum on leaving the European Union, which produced an outcome as a result of an agreement between the Tory party right wing and the far right around Farage’s then UK Independence Party. Nothing better summarises the simplistic panaceas of the Brexit campaigners than the message on the side of a bus – “We send the EU £350 million a week, let’s fund our NHS instead“ – a total lie, of course. According to the supporters of Brexit, leaving the EU would stimulate the national economy, free up huge sums for the NHS and improve employment through the expulsion of European workers living in the United Kingdom.

NHS on the verge of collapse

And for what result? Today, the National Health Service (NHS) is on the verge of collapse and Brexit has cut between 6 and 8% off the UK GDP. As for employment, the United Kingdom officially had 1.78 million unemployed in May 2026, an increase of 4.7% in one year. Over the same period, the number of unemployed young people increased by 109,000, according to government statistics. The nationalist claim that the presence of too many “foreigners” was weighing on the economy and the standard of living of the British was nothing but a reactionary lie.

Le Pen is now planning a similar operation on immigration in France. She wants to use referendums to impose a policy of xenophobic harassment against the Muslim population, sanctioned by the “will of the people”. By reducing a cleverly formulated question to a simple “yes” or “no”, the referendum is a political tool perfectly suited to authoritarianism. Le Pen will use it to marginalise the opposition, while adopting the posture of a “democrat”.

We must denounce the populist demagogy of the RN and expose the reactionary trap of referenda. This task is however complicated by the support of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and PCF leader, Fabien Roussel, for so-called “citizens’ initiative” referenda, which they, too, present as a form of “direct democracy”. They probably think that a referendum could impose positive social reforms, without realising that they are a political device that can and will be used against the very interests they seek to defend.

What we expect from the LFI and the PCF is not supposedly “democratic” tricks to validate this or that individual measure or set of measures. In the hands of a reactionaries, this same tool can easily legitimise austerity and the persecution of ethnic or religious minorities. Fabien Roussel and Jean-Luc Mélenchon seem to underestimate this danger.

Asked on BFMTV and RMC in 2019 about the RIC demanded by some of the “yellow vests” (a widespread protest movement in France eight years ago) Fabien Roussel said he was in favour of the organisation of referenda “on all subjects“. Asked about same-sex marriage or the reinstatement of the death penalty, he replied: “But why not? On all subjects, let’s not be afraid! […] Of course, if the French want it! We must not be afraid of debate.”

The left confused on the issue of the referendum

Roussel’ position, like that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has not changed since then. Therefore, if Marine Le Pen organises, possibly with a prior “popular” petition in hand, a referendum on “national preference” or the criminalisation of the wearing of headscarves (incidentally just for Muslim women, since for non-Muslim women, a headscarf is merely a fashion statement!), must we now expect Fabien Roussel to answer: “Of course! If the French want it, why not?” And if the vote establishes blatant racist discrimination, will he then advocate respect for the “will of the people?”

The “Citizens’ Initiative Referendum” is a reactionary trap that the left must not support. It must be removed from the programs of La France Insoumise and the French Communist Party.

Rather than making concessions to populist demagogy, we need a left with a program of implacable defence of the rights and freedoms of all citizens, a program of social, economic and environmental reforms to improve living conditions.

And above all, these immediate and defensive objectives must be linked to the need to put an end to the economic power of the capitalist class, to the dictatorship of capital. This can only be accomplished by a massive extension of the public sector, by the nationalisation of all large companies to pave the way for democratic planning of the country’s productive and financial resources for the benefit of society. Only the mobilisation of the youth and workers around a program of radical transformation of society will make it possible to defeat the right, the far right and the ruling class they represent.

[Greg Oxley is the editor of the French Marxist website, La Riposte, which can befound here]

Michael Roberts: Labor's Share

Labor's Share

by Michael Roberts

In a recent post, I pointed out that US corporate profit margins (that’s profits as a share of national income) had reached record levels, 19.4%—the highest recorded in the US since the 1940s!

The converse was the case for labour’s share which had fallen to a new low.

If we measure the ratio of profits to wages in Marxist terms, namely as the rate of surplus value, we find that it has never been so high and thus an important counteracting factor in driving up the US rate of profit (that’s surplus value divided by the stock of the means of production plus employee compensation), particularly visible since the end of the pandemic.

Source: BEA NIPA, author’s calculations

However, these measures of shares of profits and wages in US national income have been challenged by the Tax Foundation. The Tax Foundation considers itself as the world’s leading nonpartisan tax policy think-tank. “For over 85 years, our mission has remained the same: to improve lives through tax policies that lead to greater economic growth and opportunity.”  The TF argues that it is incorrect to use the gross national income measure to gauge the share going to profits and wages.  And contrary to the conclusion above, it is not true that that capital is taking an ever-increasing slice of the economic pie or that labour’s share has fallen from nearly two-thirds in the 1950s to about half today.

Why are these conclusions wrong?  As the Tax Foundation correctly points out, total national income is not made up just of profits and wages received but also from depreciation.  Depreciation is the amount of national income that companies must take into account as investment to replace obsolete and used up machinery, plant and tech etc i.e. not investment in new means of production. So depreciation must be deducted from the profit that companies make from sales. In other words, the share going to profits or wages should be measured against net total income ie after depreciation is deducted.

When this is done, then labour’s share is not at all-time lows, according to the Tax Foundation: “labor’s share is both higher and more stable than the BLS series suggests.” On this net measure of national income, labour’s share was about 69% in the late 1940s, rising to about 75% in the 1970s, and is now 68.3% today – hardly any different from the 1950s. “Labor share, in other words, is not at a “never before seen” level”.

But a closer look at the data and time series provided by the Tax Foundation produces a more accurate conclusion, in my view.  First, let me say that ‘depreciation’ is an accounting deduction from gross profits. It is still value that has been appropriated by capital from the exploitation of labour. If gross profits are reduced by depreciation, so must the value of the stock of fixed assets, so that net profits are measured against the net stock of capital. Ceteris paribus, the rate of profit on capital will thus not be reduced by deducting depreciation from national income.

As for shares of national income, even if we use the Tax Foundation’s measure, the previous claim that labour’s share is at all-time low is nearly confirmed. That figure of labour’s share of US national income at 68.3% in 2026 was still the lowest since 1948 and correspondngly the profits share was also near its highest since 1948.

Source: Tax Foundation calculations

So the claim that labour’s share is at all-time low is only a slight exaggeration and the Tax Foundation is making much ado about not very much.  More important, the graph above reveals that it was at the end of the 1970s that labour’s share peaked.  From the 1980s, labour’s share fell and correspondingly the share going to capital rose.  This was the start of the so-called neoliberal period of attacks on trade union rights and organisation, privatisation, cuts in benefits and public services and the shift of manufacturing jobs to the cheap labour areas of the world. This enabled a rise in the overall profitability of US capital.

Moreover, if I convert the Tax Foundation’s share measures into Marxist categories, the rate of surplus value has risen 57% since 1980 and since the end of the Great Recession by 32%, and since the end of the pandemic by 17%, to reach near the immediate post-war peak.

Source: Tax Foundation, author’s calculations

This increase has been a key counteracting factor to Marx’s law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, leading to a rise in US profitability in the neo-liberal period (1982-2000), then after the end of the Great Recession and in the last five years since the end of the pandemic.

But there is a caveat. The vast bulk of these increased profits have been accumulated in just a few key sectors of the economy.  In the last year to mid-2026, US corporate profits in domestic industry (ie excluding profits made by US companies abroad) reached $4.4trn. That’s up $738bn, a huge 17.7%. 

Of that rise, the finance sector (based on the stock market boom) contributed $185bn, or 25%.  The energy sector (riding high on sharply rising energy prices) contributed $135bn, or 18.2%.  But it was the technology sector (software and hardware) that led the pack, contributing $214bn of the $738bn profits increase, or 29%.  If you exclude finance, and just consider the non-financial sectors, the energy share of the profits increase rises to 24% and tech sector to 39%. So nearly two-thirds of the rise in non-financial sector profits in the last year comes from just two sectors. 

Source: FRED https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release/tables?eid=18673&rid=53

This suggests that if there is any decline in tech profits from a bust in the AI-driven stock market, overall US profitability will dive, triggering a recession. So nearly two-thirds of the rise in non-financial sector profits in the last year comes from just two sectors. 

Reporting of the RAF Fairford arrests blows the idea of a ‘free press’ out of the water

Reporting of the RAF Fairford arrests blows the idea of a ‘free press’ out of the water

When the establishment media deals with issues in which the West’s war industries are most heavily invested, it happily jettisons even the semblance of critical distance from the state

Johnathan Cook Sept. 30 2026

It’s easy to forget that the western media – the so-called “free press” – likes to distinguish itself from media in authoritarian regimes on the basis that, unlike them, it asks critical questions of the powerful, reports facts objectively, and formulates its analyses dispassionately. 

They do propaganda, we do news – or so the western media argues. 

The feverish coverage since five men were arrested in the early hours of Sunday morning close to RAF Fairford in the UK is blowing that claim all too obviously out of the water.

Here are the known facts so far. 

Three white vans, bearing the logo of a genuine fuel transit company, were spotted by a local farmer on the road outside her property as she returned from a party. Police arrived promptly and arrested the men, who were all British nationals in their twenties. 

On Tuesday, it emerged that one of the arrested men actually called the police earlier – seemingly the reason police were on the scene so quickly.

Although the men were initially arrested on explosives charges, no “viable” explosives were found. Although they were arrested on terrorism charges, which allow for 14 days of detention, they were released on bail under normal criminal laws in less than two days. 

Jonathan Cook 2d UK police can hold terrorism suspects for 14 days without charge. Had police any grounds to believe the men arrested outside RAF Fairford had even the slightest terrorism connection, they would not have been released. They'd still be behind bars. But watch the BBC's Daniel Sandford, like every other establishment journalist, desperately try to sustain this as an Iran terrorism story. This isn't reporting. It's… 353 39 130

It has also emerged that the men had several empty “barrels” in their vans, plus one that contained what police described disturbingly as an “accelerant”. 

Actually, that was simply a reference to petrol. The stuff that goes into vehicles to make them accelerate.

Jonathan Cook 14h I'm sure the BBC's Daniel Sandford is scornful of social media users for speculating that the men arrested close to a farm near RAF Fairford were there to steal fuel. Sandford, meanwhile, is still busy helping the security services spin this as an Iran terrorism story – by speculating that an "accelerant" found in the men's vans – that is, petrol – could have been vital to a planned "attack or sabotage". 43 5 13

British prime minister Andy Burnham held a rare national emergency Cobra meeting over the incident. 

Meanwhile, the Trump administration got involved because RAF Fairford, despite its name, is in reality a US air base from which American planes are waging an illegal war of aggression against Iran, with the UK’s blessing. 

US Secretary of state Marco Rubio has said the incident “clearly involves the hands of a foreign actor”. When asked whether Iran was that actor, Trump replied: “It might be.” He added: “I know the answer... I can be very specific, but I'd rather not say.”

According to a report in the New York Times, “American and British intelligence services worked with Israel and Western countries to discover the threats against US bases, including ones in Germany.” [my emphasis]

Despite these sparse facts, the British media have uniformly rushed to a single conclusion: that this was almost certainly part of an Iranian terror plot to target the US airbase and its planes. The only room for debate allowed is whether the five men were witting or unwitting actors in that plot. 

As the Guardian reported in its Wednesday edition, referring to this as a “complex investigation”: “An Iranian link to the bizarre events in the Gloucestershire countryside over the weekend is seen as increasingly likely.”

As a preface, let us note the following: that British and US officials have every interest in trying to hype this incident as an Iranian “terror plot”, whatever the actual evidence suggests. 

Why? Because the US is waging an illegal war on Iran, and the UK is allowing it to do so from British soil. Under the rules of war, Iran has every right to attack RAF Fairford. 

If the British state and billionaire-owned media were actually serving as a truly “free press”, they would be offering the context that RAF Fairford is a legitimate military target and that any attack on it by Iran would not constitute terrorism. 

Of course, none have done so. 

Instead, they have loyally regurgitated the British and US security services spin of a “terror plot” – based on no tangible evidence at all – that paints Britain and the US as the victims of sinister and unwarranted Iranian aggression.

But context aside, an objective, sceptical media – a “free press” – would be reserving judgment on what had happened. It would be asking difficult questions. It would be offering plausible counter-narratives. 

Again, none of this is happening. In the British media, there has been a lemming-like rush towards accepting uncritically the very conclusions that best serve British and US state interests. 

The constant highlighting of a terrorism connection to the arrested men – for which there is no apparent evidence – is precisely the kind of coverage you would expect from state media in an authoritarian regime. This is about whipping up a public mood of fear, not about transparent fact-finding. 

Notably, unlike the British media, the New York Times report does allow for another possibility, even if it instantly ignores it and then joins the British media in treating what evidence there is as proof of an Iranian terror plot. 

The Times opens with a question: “The potential ambiguities – were the men Iranian operatives, petty gas thieves, or both? – added to the confusion surrounding the arrests that the authorities have yet to fully explain.”

“Petty gas thieves”! Men in vans with empty barrels close to a farm in the middle of the night. Is it possible they could simply be criminals? 

In fact, this conjecture has been all over social media since the first reports of the men being arrested surfaced. As new details have emerged, those suspicions have only grown. 

And yet Britain’s “free press” has uniformly ignored this counter-theory in favour of the US and British security services’ narrative. 

Doubtless, British journalists covering this incident would call the idea that this was simply a criminal group caught in the act unhelpful “speculation”. 

But how is their no-more-plausible, and possibly less plausible, theory that this was an Iranian terror plot not equally speculation – if in their case, speculation that happens to be extremely helpful to the British and US security establishments?

There are other theories we could posit too, given the known facts. Israel, which pushed for the original illegal and disastrous war on Iran, has been looking for a way to persuade the Trump administration to return to a full-scale bombing campaign. 

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An attack on RAF Fairford – or the appearance of one – would be an ideal way to pile on the pressure for renewed strikes on Iran. It’s not, after all, as if there are no examples of Israel carrying out false flags. 

If the “foreign actor” of Iran can recruit a gang of petty criminals to unwittingly spark a major security incident outside RAF Fairford, why can the “foreign actor” of Israel not do exactly the same? 

I don’t know what happened outside the airbase. I’m not claiming to. I am keeping an open, critical mind while what facts there are emerge. If only our “free press'“ were doing the same.

There may be those reading this who find the claim that the media in our “democratic” societies is not confrontational to, or at least distant from, the state hard to believe. Such an idea may be new to them. 

That should not be surprising. After all, how did each of us form our foundational view of the world – of who are the good guys, and who the bad – if not from spending a lifetime reading and watching media owned by billionaire-led corporations and the state? 

Since quitting the establishment media myself a quarter of a century ago (I worked for the Guardian), I have dedicated much of my time to identifying some of the most egregious examples of skewed journalism – reporting that consistently presents events in ways that serve not their audiences’ interests but those of the powerful: the corporations themselves; western security establishments; and Israel, the lynchpin of the West’s war industries. 

In such cases, the establishment media readily abandons even the pretence of neutral, fair or dispassionate reporting. It serves as little more than a propaganda factory. (You can read my detailed explanation of how the Propaganda Model works here.)

This has been all too visible in the coverage of Israel’s mass-slaughter in Gaza, a genocide that could not be named as such. 

It was visible in the coverage of Russia’s “unprovoked” invasion of Ukraine that had, in fact, been provoked by Nato for decades, as it expanded across Europe with a clear intention: either to corner Moscow militarily or drive it into a retaliatory attack on Ukraine that would provide an opportunity for the West to bleed Russia on a proxy battlefield.

It was visible in the sustained media campaign of antisemitism smearsagainst Jeremy Corbyn, that rarest, and most dangerous, of things: a leader of a major party who promoted socialist policies for the benefit of the public, not billionaires, and was a vehement critic of Israel long before it showed its genocidal hand. 

It was visible too in the media pile-on against Julian Assange, whose Wikileaks whistleblower platform exposed British and US war crimes while also threatening to destroy the media’s top-down model. Having ridiculed him for claiming asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy for fear Washington would seek to extradite him for exposing its crimes, the media then treated his seizure by British police and incarceration for years in a high-security London prison, while the US sought his extradition for exposing its crimes, as entirely unremarkable, as barely worth reporting. 

I could go on and on. There is consistent pattern when the establishment media deals with the most important issues, the very ones in which our national security states are most invested. Then the media jettisons even the semblance of critical distance from the state. 

RAF Fairford is just the latest example of how, in such critical moments, the media serves as nothing more than the security state’s loudspeaker.