Lindsey German considers the balance of forces and its implications for our tasks in 2025

The problem with trying to make new year predictions is that the world is embroiled in what some call a ‘polycrisis’, an unlovely name for a series of interlocking crises in multiple registers.

These include wars and the threat of greater wars, climate change, the emergent danger of the far right and fascist forces, the failure of the political centre, the erosion of democratic rights, and the existential threat to the welfare state.

Some of the tangible effects include floods, forest fires and storms across Europe, wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, far right riots in Britain, the election of Trump, and the rapidly declining popularity of the Labour government in the UK.

The only way to make sense of all this is to take the issues one by one and then see what they add up to at the end. So, first, let’s disaggregate the polycrisis. Here are some of my thoughts on these key issues and what we can do about them in 2025.

War and peace: one of the major and increasingly immediate threats is war: the continuing war in Ukraine, the conflicts in the Middle East with Israel at their centre; the wars in Sudan and the DRC; and the militarisation throughout the world with growing threats against China in the Pacific. They are of course linked by the system of imperialism which ensures that economic competition is matched with military competition. So 80 years after the Nakba, 35 years from the end of the Cold War, and now a near quarter century from the ‘war on terror’, the legacy of imperialist backing and intervention is greater fragmentation and ethnic cleansing of countries, huge instability world-wide, record levels of arms spending world wide ($2.4 trillion last year and rising), and an increased nuclear threat due to tensions between western imperialism on the one hand and China and Russia on the other. There may likely be some sorts of peace settlement in Ukraine and perhaps in Gaza, but these will be unstable and contain the seeds of future conflict.

The international solidarity movement for Palestine has been a highlight of the past year and it continues, but we have to join the dots. That means ending intervention by all outside powers in the Middle East, stopping Nato’s proxy war with Russia over Ukraine, and serious attempts to abolish nuclear weapons. None of this will be led by governments but by ordinary people mobilising to stop the destruction of millions of lives.

The environment: it is absolutely clear from Cop 29 that governments are failing on every front when it comes to climate change and environmental crisis. Even social democratic governments committed to supposedly green policies are reneging on them, not least here in Britain. There are far too many examples to list, but the floods and storms here and in Spain, the increasingly ferocious storms and hurricanes in the US, forest fires in Canada, the destruction of vegetation and wildlife, rising ocean and sea temperatures and polar ice melting all bring home that there is a growing crisis.

It is one created by an increasingly destructive capital – and blind accumulation allows it to continue. Construction and road building, above all the reliance on privatised motor transport, are key to this crisis. This year should be the time to link environmental destruction to this class exploitation. The determination by governments to try to reduce these problems to individual consumption puts the blame on us and individuals rather than on a system which is the root cause.

The far right: is growing internationally. The re-election of Donald Trump is its most important sign and gives a boost to the far right everywhere. The strength of Le Pen in France is extremely worrying given Macron’s abysmal presidency. Where has this come from? A combination of economic and political crisis, which has led to stagnation or decline in working class incomes, the failure of the political centre to address these questions, plus the relentless scapegoating of migrants, refugees, and Muslims, has created a dangerous conjuncture which benefits the far right. Reform UK has been boosted by electoral success in July, and the signs are that it will gain further MPs during the course of this parliament.

How do we fight it? We have to have a principled opposition to racism and fascism and to oppose the fascists where they try to mobilise. But that isn’t enough because we also have to undercut their support. The far right may be hideous but they aren’t always stupid. So Nigel Farage’s party opposes student tuition fees, wants Thames Water nationalised, and defends the winter fuel allowance. We need a left which can put forward policies that benefit working class people while rejection racism and scapegoating that comes from the right.

The failure of the political centre: the centre really isn’t holding and that’s a big reason the far right and fascists are gaining. Emmanuel Macron is politically isolated as French voters shift to left and right; Donald Trump walked to victory in the US as the Democrats failed to provide any alternative to working class people; here in Britain the hated Tory government was trounced in an election where Labour achieved a huge landslide but at a record low vote, and its poll ratings are already plummeting. The failures of capitalism to deliver on its promises, coupled with the centre and centre left parties’ determination to support that capitalist model, has done it. But so has the hollowing out of traditional working class organisation: the decline of labour and social democratic parties, the weakening of trade unions, and the atomisation of whole communities built round manufacturing and extractive industries.

Despite its fragmentation, there is a big left in Britain and we need a new left electoral party, but that won’t be built easily and will depend on the struggles now around housing, health, education, equality, war, and the environment. Labour cannot be reformed – the resistance to Corbyn from within its ranks shows that. And we don’t want to just replace it but build a serious challenge to capital, which Labour has never been.

Erosion of democratic rights: as capitalist crisis grows and as it is increasingly out of control and unable to provide the most basic needs for millions if not billions of people, the supposed commitment to democracy of the capitalist class becomes weaker. Governments increasingly act as technocrats with little engagement with the people they are supposed to represent. If they fail, they resort to even less democratic methods, like the president of South Korea’s attempted coup. They also turn to greater repression against anyone who challenges them. While the farmers can disrupt Whitehall with tractors because they are backed by some of the richest and powerful, the protestors over Palestine or the environment are subject to jail sentences. The right to protest is constantly under threat, as is the right to free speech over issues such as Palestine. The best means of defending our rights is to keep protesting and campaigning and supporting others who do so.

Existential threat to the welfare state: is becoming ever more obvious. Despite the obvious failings of privatised industries, from rail to water to post, there is little enthusiasm among social democratic governments to nationalise them. Health, education and housing are consistently underfunded or reliant on a market which cannot deliver. The idea that pensions or state payments should help to alleviate poverty and other social ills is regarded as illegitimate, and public spending is seen as a drain on the economy, rather than a means of ensuring a healthier, better educated and more equal society.

This Labour government has been brutal in its attacks on spending. The latest housing plans are a green light to build modern slums with no democratic recourse to local concerns. Public sector workers are promised further low salaries and cutbacks in their working conditions. All of this continues to promote the hideous levels of inequality now witnessed across capitalism internationally.  Levels of growth and productivity in Britain are very low, there are big health problems, and the only answer to these problems are draconian measures to force the sick and disabled into low paid miserable jobs. We have resist this new politics of the workhouse.

Resistance: we are constantly told that resistance is futile. It isn’t true. Nothing has been won for working class people without a fight, but this is hidden from us by our rulers, who want to pretend that it is their benevolence responsible for any good, and our failings for anything bad. But there is already resistance and it will continue. There is a widely generalised sense of discontent with government and political events, a very heavy burden economically on working class people, a fear for future generations and the attacks on living standards they face, a sense that the world is becoming more dangerous and that the climate emergency is now upon us.

Now is the time to fight – and it requires a fight against capital itself.

This week: I am speaking at a meeting on war and the nuclear threat on Wednesday, and then on holiday until the new year. I’m planning to read a few books and I’ve already watched Beatles 64 which is great. Very best wishes for a peaceful Xmas with those you care about, and a happy new year.