ON JUNE 23 2016 the adventurers Cameron and Osborne, the then PM and Chancellor, came unstuck when they lost their EU referendum and were forced to quit.
The unelected May then took over the Tory leadership when she was appointed PM by the Tory Party’s 1922 Committee, who were anxious to avoid a Brexiteer becoming PM, and therefore stopped the leadership election.
Now she has taken an even bigger gamble with the calling of a June 8th general election, when one is not due till 2020 – and it has nothing to do with the Brexit negotiations. She said yesterday: ‘Last summer, after the country voted to leave the European Union, Britain needed certainty, stability and strong leadership, and since I became Prime Minister the government has delivered precisely that. . .
‘Britain is leaving the European Union and there can be no turning back. . . At this moment of enormous national significance there should be unity here in Westminster, but instead there is division. The country is coming together, but Westminster is not. In recent weeks Labour has threatened to vote against the deal we reach with the European Union. The Liberal Democrats have said they want to grind the business of government to a standstill.
‘The Scottish National Party say they will vote against the legislation that formally repeals Britain’s membership of the European Union. And unelected members of the House of Lords have vowed to fight us every step of the way. Our opponents believe that because the government’s majority is so small, our resolve will weaken and that they can force us to change course. . . If we do not hold a general election now their political game-playing will continue, and the negotiations with the European Union will reach their most difficult stage in the run-up to the next scheduled election. Division in Westminster will risk our ability to make a success of Brexit and it will cause damaging uncertainty and instability to the country.’
This is nonsense. Public support for Brexit is growing, and the opposition parties cannot halt the Brexit negotiations. PM May is seeking to do an Erdogan and assemble a parliamentary dictatorship because in the period ahead her government will be:
• Cutting, breaking up and privatising the NHS, closing scores of hospitals, endangering the health of millions of people, and destroying many tens of thousands of NHS jobs.
• Pushing through the most savage education and benefit cuts, wrecking the education of millions of young people, while students tuition fees and debt will be rising sky high, the disabled will lose any chance of a real life, and homelessness and evictions will
rocket.
• Using the anti-trade union laws against the trade unions to sequester their funds and illegalise their strike actions, as the massive rises in the cost of living from a surging inflation rate will force millions of workers to take strike action.
It will need a dictatorship to push through these savage anti-working class and anti-middle class policies. This is why today May, inspired by Erdogan, will seek a two-thirds vote in the House of Commons to call a general election.
Labour must rise to the challenge and fight the election with a socialist programme to end all of the NHS, education and benefit cuts, and to deal with rising homelessness and evictions by nationalising the land and the building industry to build millions of council homes.
It must avert a new banking crash by nationalising the banks under workers management and bringing in a planned socialist economy. Labour must also pledge to withdraw all UK troops from Syria and the Middle East, to recognise the state of Palestine, and play no part in Trump’s military adventures.
It must pledge to proceed with the referendum decision to quit the EU, and to campaign for a Socialist United States of Europe.