A former Senior Policy Advisor on Equalities to the Mayor of London, Lee Jasper has stated that the Labour Party leadership through Ed Milliband and his predecessors Gordon Brown and Tony Blair are playing a dangerous game by aligning themselves to the super wealthy and the banking class at the expense of the nation.

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” Labour to carry on with the project of disowning the trade unions when it is clear that the market and the huge banking institutions have virtually led to the bankruptcy of the country, is a huge critical mistake” he indicated.

The former Senior Advisor made these remarks in an interview with Voice of Africa Radio yesterday when he commented on the trade unions proposed civil disobedience strikes in November.

Asked if the unions’ accusation of a nonchalant attitude by Labour in supporting the widespread strike action over cuts in the public sector was credible, Jasper answered in the affirmative.

“I think what has gone wrong is that the Labour Party is continuing to play the game of new liberalism in so far as their focus is on trying to please the daily mail, the sun and the daily telegraph or the right wing papers because they believe that middle England will not support the strike.”

Jasper noted that Labour’s position was clearly erratic because the state of the cuts and the impact on people’s working conditions and pensions was so huge that the vast majority of the people will support the strikes.

“I think that when it comes to issues of pensions, which there are going to be shared strikes for on the 30^th of November, the vast majority of the people will support the proposition that you should leave public sector pensions alone and increase taxes for the wealthy in order to make up the deficit difference”.

“We are looking at huge increases in our electricity and gas prices, we are looking at the utter destruction of hope for our young people within the city by virtue of increased universities tuition fees, the slashing of the education maintenance award,"

" The closure of day nurseries for working mums to have their children looked after, that is not because this government does not have money to pay, but that is because government is trying to penalize the poor and leave the rich to enjoy their wealth” he argued .

According to Jasper, there have been attempts by the leadership of Labour to marginalise what they see as the left wing of the party which he thought emanated from a misunderstanding of the constitution and a misreading history.

“I think that is why you find it a bit of a surprise today when you hear Ed Miliband’s speech which is rumoured now to be considered extremely “left wing’s speech”

The British Activist called for the creation of momentum for radical reform within the party, capable of meeting the challenges of the times and was not surprised that there are elements in the party that will want to infiltrate trade unions to get their message across.

“As always the party doesn’t belong to the leadership, it belongs to the members, and it’s up to the members, both old and young together to create a momentum for a radical reform within the party.”

In an answer to whether big businesses and western democracies have taken over the party machinery, Jasper said there has been an increasing impact of multinational businesses brought in famously by Tony Blair who ‘cosied ‘off with the extremely rich

“Inequality between the rich and the poor grew under the last labour government which has come at a great cost to the country, I think that even now when you look at the financial crisis right across Europe and the world it is the market that are forcing the speculations of the weakening of currencies”

He argued that the European Union’s search to create a 2 trillion pounds bailout to prevent the economic default of Greece, Italy and other countries, will not work.

“The market has said that no that is not enough, these people who make money are not investing in America or Europe, they are quite happy to take it China or India as long as they can keep making money and their alliance to any particular country is dictated only if they can make profits.”

“I think we have seen that with the virtual collapse of the British economy, virtual collapse of the euro and the European Union and that the virtual collapse of the dollar”.

Jasper re-iterated that under the last labour government the inequalities between the rich and the poor grew to the extent that corporate tax evasion in the country amounted to One Hundred and Twenty Billion pounds a year enough to pay off the country’s entire deficit.

“They sought to raise taxes on the poor while giving freedom to the rich to employ high flying tax evasion lawyers so that they can avoid their corporate tax commission.”

Labour, he said failed to recognise how important it was to ensure that working class people had decent working conditions, decent salaries and wages and a decent pension.

Jasper accused the coalition government of “engaging in a full ideological assault on the poor, the black and Asian minorities, Muslims and people who don’t fit the daily mail and the daily telegraph stereotypes of what a British person should be”

Asked if he would participate in the upcoming strikes Jasper noted “I support civil disobedience that is why I think that in the forthcoming wave of strike actions that we will be taking, I will be looking forward to people to say how they are going to support trade unions who are seeking to protect our services, protect our pensions and protect the future of our children.”

By Florence Simpson/Voice of Africa Radio/UK