LABOUR leader Corbyn has been accused of organising a ‘Stalinist purge’ after he sacked ex-leadership contender and Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, Owen Smith on Friday, after Smith wrote an article in the Guardian advocating the UK remain in the EU.
Smith is demanding that a second EU referendum be called by parliament to cancel the decision of 17 million plus workers who voted ‘Leave’ in the 2016 referendum. Smith challenged Corbyn for the party leadership and was soundly beaten. He then appeared to accept his fate, and even rejoined the Shadow Cabinet on Corbyn’s invitation, only to rebel once again.
Smith and Labour’s right wing, after May’s retreats and the adoption of a ‘transitional period’, consider that the time has come for parliament, the majority of whose MPs are opposed to Brexit, to knife it in the back. This is why Smith’s sacking has not gone down well. Labour’s right wing have immediately rallied to the cause of a coup to end Brexit, with a former radical, Lord Hain, saying that Corbyn was carrying out a ‘Stalinist purge’.
Fellow EU supporter, MP Chuka Umunna, protested that Smith was ‘standing up for our principles’ and wailed: ‘What has happened to our party?’ The answer is that the working class is beginning to get some control over it! Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer, number two to Corbyn, equivocated, saying that the party was ‘not calling for a referendum at this stage’, implying that Smith’s move was a mite premature.
At the same time, a LibDem plot to end Brexit has been exposed by its premature exposure by LibDem leader, Cable. He had told the world that: ‘Following a working lunch between myself and European Liberal Prime Ministers in Brussels, we have issued a joint statement.
‘In that statement, the Prime Ministers said: “We regret Brexit, but acknowledge the choice made by British voters for the UK Government to negotiate withdrawal. We further acknowledge and support the Liberal Democrats’ call for the British people to have the final say on the Brexit deal. All parties need to seek a broad deal accommodating both the position of the UK government and the principles on which the European Union is built.’
Cable declared: ‘This statement is a clear signal from our European friends that they want us to remain in the European Union and would welcome an exit from Brexit with open arms.’
The same EU Liberal leaders took fright at early exposure, anxious to avoid the accusation that they were seeking to interfere in the UK and organise an anti-Brexit coup. They hastened to say that they had made no such statement. The eight prime ministers said to have agreed to the statement are: Belgium PM Charles Michel, Czech Republic PM Andrej Babis, Denmark PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Estonia PM Jüri Ratas, Finland PM Juha Sipilä, Luxembourg PM Xavier Bettel, Netherlands PM Mark Rutte and Slovenia PM Miro Cerar.
The truth that is now emerging is that the Labour right wingers, who assailed Corbyn as a Stalinist and jeered their leader when he would not follow May’s lead to denounce Russia, are queuing up to be part of a a ‘fifth column’ – agents of a foreign power, the EU – with the aim of aborting the democratic decision of the British people. They are now working out the best moment to openly move as a group of pro-EU Labour, Tories, Liberals and Scottish Nationalists to stage a parliamentary coup to keep the UK in the EU. The Labour Party must take action to discipline these would-be coupists in their own ranks, and get ready to deselect them in the event of a crisis general
election.
Workers are aghast at the way that the May Tory leadership has stamped on the jobs of the Scottish and UK fisherfolk in order to achieve a transitional period. What will they sell next? The truth is that in the event of an anti-Brexit parliamentary coup, millions of workers must be ready to march on parliament and close it down, replacing it with a national workers council and a workers government that will run the country, break with the EU and bring in socialism.
