Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Six prime ministers in ten years. Labour just lost fifteen hundred council seats. Has Britain become ungovernable?
In this week's Against the Stream, Hamid Alizadeh sits down with Adam Booth, editor of The Communist, the paper of the Revolutionary Communist Party in Britain, to give a Marxist answer to that question. And the answer is not what most commentators want to hear.
The episode traces the deep roots of the British crisis: from the deindustrialisation that began over a century ago, to the Thatcherite turn to financialisation and the City of London, to the mountain of debt that now costs Britain 110 billion pounds a year in interest payments alone. That is three point six percent of everything the British working class produces every year, going straight into the pockets of the banks.
The episode explains why the revolving door of prime ministers is not a problem of individual incompetence but a symptom of the terminal decline of British capitalism. Trotsky predicted this degeneration a hundred years ago, and the process he described has only accelerated. Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Keir Starmer are not anomalies. They are the natural political products of a speculative, financialised economy with no industrial base left to speak of.
The episode also takes on the bond markets, the so-called vigilantes who now openly dictate who should lead the Labour Party. It explains concretely what a bond is, why the markets reacted the way they did to Liz Truss, and why no government, however well-intentioned, can simply ignore these mechanisms under capitalism.
And crucially, it goes through the left alternatives on offer, including Modern Monetary Theory, borrowing to invest, taxing the rich, and defaulting on the debt, and explains clearly why none of these, on their own, offer a way out. Not because they are too radical, but because they do not go far enough. The only real solution is democratic control over the commanding heights of the economy.
New episodes of Against the Stream every Thursday at 6pm GMT on YouTube.
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS ⏱️
0:00 — Intro
0:58 — Is Britain ungovernable?
18:18 — How did we get here?
42:25 — What can be done?
1:15:23 — The Communist programme
🌐 LINKS 🌐
🫵 Join the Revolutionary Communist International: marxist.com/join-us.htm
📚 Marxist literature: wellred-books.com
🎧 Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/68nGNHz5lB8UZXICGIDMva?si=682ef70551644443
📱 Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/against-the-stream/id1777793987
📸 Instagram: instagram.com/revcomintern
💬 Twitter: https://x.com/revcomintern/
Six prime ministers in ten years. Labour just lost fifteen hundred council seats. Has Britain become ungovernable?
In this week's Against the Stream, Hamid Alizadeh sits down with Adam Booth, editor of The Communist, the paper of the Revolutionary Communist Party in Britain, to give a Marxist answer to that question. And the answer is not what most commentators want to hear.
The episode traces the deep roots of the British crisis: from the deindustrialisation that began over a century ago, to the Thatcherite turn to financialisation and the City of London, to the mountain of debt that now costs Britain 110 billion pounds a year in interest payments alone. That is three point six percent of everything the British working class produces every year, going straight into the pockets of the banks.
The episode explains why the revolving door of prime ministers is not a problem of individual incompetence but a symptom of the terminal decline of British capitalism. Trotsky predicted this degeneration a hundred years ago, and the process he described has only accelerated. Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Keir Starmer are not anomalies. They are the natural political products of a speculative, financialised economy with no industrial base left to speak of.
The episode also takes on the bond markets, the so-called vigilantes who now openly dictate who should lead the Labour Party. It explains concretely what a bond is, why the markets reacted the way they did to Liz Truss, and why no government, however well-intentioned, can simply ignore these mechanisms under capitalism.
And crucially, it goes through the left alternatives on offer, including Modern Monetary Theory, borrowing to invest, taxing the rich, and defaulting on the debt, and explains clearly why none of these, on their own, offer a way out. Not because they are too radical, but because they do not go far enough. The only real solution is democratic control over the commanding heights of the economy.
New episodes of Against the Stream every Thursday at 6pm GMT on YouTube.
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS ⏱️
0:00 — Intro
0:58 — Is Britain ungovernable?
18:18 — How did we get here?
42:25 — What can be done?
1:15:23 — The Communist programme
🌐 LINKS 🌐
🫵 Join the Revolutionary Communist International: marxist.com/join-us.htm
📚 Marxist literature: wellred-books.com
🎧 Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/68nGNHz5lB8UZXICGIDMva?si=682ef70551644443
📱 Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/against-the-stream/id1777793987
📸 Instagram: instagram.com/revcomintern
💬 Twitter: https://x.com/revcomintern/
