THE EU’s Brexit negotiator Barnier has set the scene for this week’s ‘Brexit showdown’ in the House of Commons by rejecting out-of-hand PM Johnson’s demand for the Irish backstop to be scrapped.
Barnier said: ‘On the EU side, we had intense discussions with EU member states on the need to guarantee the integrity of the EU’s single market, while keeping that border fully open. In this sense, the backstop is the maximum amount of flexibility that the EU can offer to a non-member state.’
Meanwhile, the prime minister has told rebel Tories they face a ‘fundamental choice’. In an interview with The Sunday Times, he asked: ‘Are you going to side with those who want to scrub the democratic verdict of the people – and plunge this country into chaos. Or are you going to side with those of us who want to get on, deliver the mandate of the people and focus with absolute, laser-like precision on the domestic
agenda?’
His comments come after The Sun reported that No 10 would stop any Tory MP who votes to block a no-deal Brexit from standing for the party in a general election. Speaking on Sky News’ Sophy Ridge show, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said that a cross-party group is looking at introducing a legislative measure next week to stop a no-deal Brexit without parliamentary approval.
‘The technique of that will be published on Tuesday, and I’m hoping that we’ll have a debate in which we can bring the House together,’ he said. ‘The ultimate goal, very straightforwardly, this week, is to ensure that Parliament can have a final say … we cannot have a prime minister overriding Parliament – not just on this issue, on any issue.’
These are fine words from politicians who allowed Blair to lead them into the Iraq slaughter based on a pack of lies!
On Saturday, much smaller than expected demonstrations were held across the UK opposing Johnson’s plans to prorogue Parliament in the run-up to Brexit. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn accused Johnson of a ‘smash and grab on our democracy’, ignoring his own dumping of the 2016 people’s referendum verdict to leave the EU.
Many workers now consider that it is Parliament that should be suspended indefinitely, and replaced by a workers council now that it is rubbishing them and the referendum result.
The bosses and their agents see the struggle as one to decide whether they should attach themselves to the EU or the USA. The workers see the struggle as one where quitting the EU, will put an end to austerity and create the conditions for expropriating the bosses and the bankers to go forward to socialism. 90% of MPs see the 2016 referendum result as the moment when the working class and the middle class challenged their right to rule, a challenge that must be defeated they insist.
In fact the referendum result has created an Alice in Wonderland world that can only be put right by a socialist revolution. The truth is that the ‘irreconcilable’ Johnson leadership is terrified that if it does not ‘do or die’ on October 31st, the Tory party is finished and that UK capitalism will go down the pan with it.
In fact, Johnson, the so-called irreconcilable leader actually voted with May as did Gove and many other Tory leaders in the last vote on the May-EU deal. The irreconcilables collapsed. Johnson is desperate for a deal!
The Watson, McDonnell, Corbyn opponents of ‘no deal’ who supposedly want a deal, have voted against the EU-May deal on every occasion that it has been voted on! They are determined to chain the working class to the EU and its Court of Justice. They are desperate to stay in the EU!
The working class must now force the trade union leaders to support leaving the EU on October 31st, and at the September TUC Congress demand and win the vote for a general strike on October 31st to take the UK out of the EU, bring down the Johnson government, and bring in a workers’ government and a socialist planned economy, expropriating the bosses and replacing Parliament with a workers’ council.
This is the way to treat the treacherous Parliament. This is the way forward out of over a decade of austerity to the victory of socialism.
Quit the EU on October 31st with a general strike. Forward to Socialism!
