A PROPOSED law giving PM Johnson’s government the power to reject parts of the Brexit agreement with the EU passed its first reading in the House of Commons by 340 votes to 263 on Monday night, with former Tory PMs, such as Theresa May, abstaining along with 30 Tory MPs, with two other Tory MPs voting against, and former PM John Major denouncing the measure from the sidelines.
Ministers say it contains vital safeguards to protect Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK from EU attack if negotiations on the current trade deal are sabotaged by the EU.
PM Johnson has had to stand fast since his government was not elected by just Tory votes. Millions of workers gritted their teeth and voted Tory in 2019 to get Britain out of the EU. They were sick and tired of Labour’s attempts to impose a second referendum to stay in the EU. They will not stand for any EU double dealing from Johnson!
Workers laugh at the Labour and Tory attempts to pose as the saviours of international law. They remember when Labour PM Blair supported President Bush and won the support of the Tories for a war on Iraq, that was based on lies that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and could use them against the UK and its base in Cyprus in 45 minutes.
The war was illegal, not supported by the UN, and led to the rise of IS and terrorism all over the world. The major war criminals, Bush and Blair, were never indicted by the House of Commons, in fact, they were lauded for their attempts at mass murder.
So much for the current crusaders and their current loyalty to the EU out of their ‘respect’ for international law. In fact, Johnson knows that if he gives way to the EU diktat he will be finished.
However, there is not the slightest doubt that the UK is moving into a revolutionary situation, where the ruling class is unable to rule in the old way and the working class is having all of its gains threatened with extinction.
The UK unemployment rate has risen to its highest level for two years to 4.1% in the three months to July, compared with 3.9% previously. Young people have been hit hard, with those aged 16 to 24 suffering the biggest drop in employment compared with other age groups.
Some 695,000 UK workers have disappeared from the payrolls of British companies since March, when the coronavirus lockdown began. The government is planning mass unemployment and mass wage cutting.
The government’s Job Retention Scheme will begin tapering off next month before ending on 31 October. It has seen 9.6 million people furloughed, that is the government initially paying 80% of a person’s wages up to £2,500 a month.
Despite calls for it to be renewed, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has ruled out extending the scheme past the end of next month. So 9.6 million workers will be facing BA-style treatment – that is: ‘sign vast wage cutting contracts or be sacked’.
The government is already up to its neck in debt with its banks engaged in £745 billion of Quantitative Easing and the Chancellor opting to raise taxes in the Autumn Budget.
A huge clash is looming between labour and capital.
No wonder Labour leader Starmer appealed to the TUC yesterday to join him in calling on the Johnson government to save millions of jobs. Starmer and the TUC are set to call for a national scheme to replace the Job Retention Scheme – arguing: ‘Imagine how powerful it would be if we could form a genuine national plan to protect jobs, create new ones and invest in skills and training.
‘I’m making an open offer to the prime minister: Work with us to keep millions of people in work, work with the trade unions and work with businesses, do everything possible to protect jobs and to deliver for working people.’ He is in fact offering Johnson a national government to try to save capitalism.
