The Excel Centre in East London has been converted into a hospital with a 4,000 capacity for those suffering from Covid19. Some people will recall that the Excel Centre has been the annual venue for Arms Fairs, where weapons, torture implements and devices and implements to quell civil disorder are put on sale every year and where some of the world’s most repressive regimes come to buy.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock recently called for firms to change at least part of their production to manufacture ventilators, and that especially arms companies should turn to making ventilators and other vital medical equipment.
But why shouldn’t the Excel Centre remain a hospital with the end of the coronavirus crisis and not return to being a market for weapons designed to kill civilians and shut down protest?
Why shouldn’t arms firms be completely converted to producing medical equipment after the crisis? Production of goods and services should be only for useful purposes, to benefit society and weapons production should be stopped.
Why shouldn’t the private health sector be requisitioned and merged with the NHS, and the NHS be placed under control of its workers?
In fact, why shouldn’t we boot out all of the parasitic ruling class and create a society based on need and not profit?
We repeat, when the coronavirus crisis is over, there should be no going back to the way things were. The boss class will attempt to claw back the profits they have lost during this crisis and will attack wages and conditions of workers. We, on the other hand, should be calling for radical changes. Capitalism cannot handle the coronavirus crisis, it created it, it cannot handle climate change, it created it.
Time for change! No going back!