RISHI SUNAK claims that “Britain stands at a crossroads.” The tragedy is that as far as parliamentary politics is concerned, it doesn’t.

Sunak’s claim to represent the future while painting Keir Starmer as the past will be a tough sell, given almost the only policy difference between the two leaders is that one heads a party that has been in government for 14 years and the other doesn’t. The barbs at Starmer for going from (apparent) support for Jeremy Corbyn to embracing the toxic politics of Natalie Elphicke do highlight the Labour leader’s dishonesty, but public distrust for politicians in general is so universal now that it is unlikely to be a killer blow. 

The Conservatives are not unpopular because Labour is trying to depress people, the PM’s feeblest argument. If people feel down it’s because of years of wage depression, unaffordable housing, crumbling services and a world which is frankly more frightening, with erratic weather disrupting our food supply and the looming prospect of war. 

But the general election will provide no crossroads, with different directions for the electorate to choose between. The PM talks up alleged threats from foreign countries, and pledges to raise military spending: so does the Labour leader. The PM brags about deporting refugees to Rwanda: Labour’s leader last week sought to outdo him in anti-immigrant cruelty, claiming Sunak was presiding over an “amnesty” for migrants. 

Both take security as their watchword, but Starmer turns his back on the humanity of his predecessor who stressed the security that comes from a steady job, a secure home or a properly resourced health service. Labour has so diluted its new deal for workers the Unite union calls it “unrecognisable.” Its house-building plans rely on deregulating construction rather than grappling with the monopolistic firms whose market stranglehold allows them to profit through artificial scarcity. Its recipe for the NHS is the same as the Tories’, more privatisation and outsourced procedures.

You could conclude that there’s little at stake. But the stakes are enormous: one thing Sunak gets right is that the world is changing fast. 

We are closer to world war than we have been for decades: but the root cause of these tensions lies with the United States and its allies, foremost among them Britain, which are determined to uphold a rigged international system that keeps the global majority in poverty and underdevelopment. That is what makes a rising China a problem in their eyes, rather than an opportunity — which it should be, not simply in trading terms but because China is pioneering the green technologies needed to mitigate climate change, the disastrous consequences of which are already making themselves felt.

One of those consequences is the mass displacement of people, another “threat” Sunak talks up. The world refugee crisis is a catastrophe: not for Britain, but for the refugees forced to flee their homes. Rwanda is no solution. Only getting serious about a green transition and investing in peace instead of war could be that.

Our politicians say they want to protect us. But their trajectory places us all in danger. We need to break out of it: and the initiative must come from below, since the big parties have worked together since 2020 to seal the exits from their dystopian maze.

Contrast the Sunak-Starmer duet to the refreshing radicalism of food workers’ union BFAWU, with its “bakers’ dozen” demands for political change launched today. From energy to transport, workers’ rights to Palestine, it’s a template for peace and justice. The labour movement can, like the BFAWU, refuse to settle for whatever Labour feels inclined to offer, and hit the streets to demand politicians show they support us before they ask us to support them.