BOTH the sheer bankruptcy of British capitalism and the impotence of Tory Prime Minister Theresa May were on public display on Wednesday night as she turned up in Brussels to beg the 27 EU states for an extension of Article 50.
Article 50, which is supposed to trigger the UK leaving the EU, was passed into law overwhelmingly by the UK parliament over 2 years ago.
Since then the British ruling class and its loyal servants in the Tory party and amongst the right-wing Labour MPs have worked day and night to delay its implementation and overturn the Brexit vote completely.
The first leave date of March 29th was put off until today but to avoid it May rushed off for Wednesday night’s ‘crunch’ summit to beg for another extension until June 30th, promising to resign if it was any longer.
After hours of discussions, with May waiting in a side-room, the EU announced that they had graciously permitted an extension until October 31.
However, the UK working class, which voted to Leave, now has to put up with the humiliation of seeing the EU elections take place in the UK, when a new phalanx of EU careerists will be elected for the Brussels gravy train, determined to keep the UK in the EU at any cost.
As well Labour’s right wing now has another six months to stress that it will support May’s deal provided it contains a customs union and an ‘alignment with the EU’, and is then put to the electorate in another, second referendum, in which one of the questions will be whether the voter wishes to remain in the EU.
They are setting out to grind the working class into line over the next six months, but they are in for the second shock of their lives, after the shock referendum result itself, in 2016.
After the talks, Tusk said: ‘Maybe we can avoid the UK leaving the EU. This is obviously not my role, but it’s my personal, quiet dream.’
Tusk’s dream is one shared by the majority of MPs and the entire British capitalist class who recognise that British capitalism is so weak that its only chance of survival in the face of a world capitalist crisis – that is revolutionising the working class in Britain and across Europe – is to cling to the reactionary EU.
This is an EU that is itself facing economic collapse and the renewed threat from Trump of trade war that will plunge European capitalism over the edge.
The bourgeoisie see their only chance of salvation is in clinging together for safety and protection from a revolutionary working class that hates capitalism and the savage austerity imposed by the EU bankers to bail-out the banks after the 2008 crash.
The plan emerging from this summit is clear. The EU did not rule out any further extensions beyond October and left open the possibility of it ending even sooner if Brexit was derailed by parliament.
Guy Verhofstadt, the EU Brexit co-ordinator, said: ‘Revoke, a public vote or a sensible cross-party deal. Whatever the choice of the British people and parliament, I hope the Brexit nightmare ends well before Halloween.’
These are the choices the EU is dictating: A national coalition between Tory Remainers and the Labour Party to keep the UK tied within the single market, and a second referendum that will not contain the option of leaving without a deal, or if all fails, just junk Brexit entirely and knife the democratic vote of over 17 million people in the back, risking a civil war!
Both Labour and Tory parties have announced that they will obey the edict to hold the EU elections and have made preparations for the public to vote.
The working class, which voted overwhelmingly to leave with no deal, will have nothing to do with these elections. They must be boycotted and the entire ‘process’ of delaying and thwarting Brexit must be ended by millions of workers and youth decisively intervening and putting an end to all the scheming and conspiracies with the organisation of a political general strike to bring down the government and bring in a workers government and socialism.
A workers government will not only break from the EU. It will expropriate the bosses and go forward to a socialist planned economy in the UK.
This example will spread like wildfire throughout the EU, putting an end to that bosses’ organisation and replacing it with the Socialist United States of Europe.
