THE FACT that a section of the capitalist state leaked the UK ambassador Darroch’s damning estimation of the abilities of President Trump and his administration, reveals just how deep and unbridgeable is the Brexit chasm between the two warring factions of the British ruling class.
The big issue for the ruling class – in a situation where the US and the EU are gunning for each other in a massive and developing trade war – is which bloc decrepit British imperialism will join.
The issue is now so divisive that sections of the capitalist state, that body of armed men and women whose job is to defend the bourgeois order, are breaking ranks, taking sides and fighting each other.
Sir John Sawers, the ex-MI6 chief, told the BBC that he is concerned about the calibre of Britain’s political leaders. He said: ‘We are going through a political nervous breakdown here in the UK.’
In fact, with the loss of empire British imperialism lost its base, and its leaders have now lost their heads. The brutal truth is that it cannot survive on its own, it needs a more powerful master to protect its
interests.
What is taking place is not just ‘Britain’s nervous breakdown’, but the death agony of what was the most powerful ruling class in the world.
Downing Street, led by the outgoing and discredited Theresa May, has now reaffirmed its ‘full support’ for the UK’s ambassador to the US after President Trump said he will no longer work with him.
The pro-Brexit wing is aghast at this and is demanding that Darroch be sacked at once and replaced. It is also urging that the UK takes on more ‘police work’ for the USA, following its boarding of the Iranian oil tanker off the Straits of Gibraltar.
The crisis of the British ruling class now resembles that of some South American dictatorship where the different factions of the ruling class and its state are permanently at war with each other.
The ruling class is, in fact, in the early stages of a civil war that will erupt as October 31 approaches. Like the master its servant – that is the TUC trade union bureaucracy – is also in the same Brexit crisis.
The major trade unions, with the exception of the RMT and ASLEF have leaders who are in love with the corporatist ‘workers on the board’ fraud of the EU, are opposed to leaving the EU, and are now wrestling with just how they are going to betray the working class as October 31 approaches.
At a meeting on Monday night, the leaders of Labour’s five biggest affiliated trade unions – Unite, Unison, the GMB, CWU and Usdaw – agreed to back a second referendum on any deal to leave the EU, or to back a referendum to stop a ‘no deal’ exit on October 31.
Stopping a ‘no deal’ on October 31, in alliance with the ‘Remain’ majority in the House of Commons, raises the prospect of right wing trade union leaders seeking to organise strike actions against Brexit, to force a second referendum, an issue that was actually raised at the last TUC Congress.
If there should be a general election that Labour is able to win, the union leaders want a ‘confirmatory vote’ – a second referendum – on any new withdrawal deal negotiated.
No wonder Labour Deputy leader Tom Watson welcomed Monday’s agreement as a ‘step in the right direction’ but said his party should not be supporting any form of Brexit.
In the event of a snap election and a Labour victory, the union leaders say that they would expect the new government to negotiate a deal to leave the EU – a position favoured by the Unite union to placate the millions of Brexit-supporting workers.
However, the deal would still be put to a confirmatory vote – a position favoured by Unison and the GMB – and in this scenario ‘Remain’ would also be an option on the ballot paper. However, 17.4 million workers supported the Brexit vote to leave, and a number of powerful trade unions, such as the RMT and ASLEF, continue to support ‘Leave’.
There is only one way forward. On October 31 the working class must take mass action to see that the UK leaves the EU. This must be prepared by a massive lobby of the September TUC Congress to defeat the right wing.
Workers must force the UK out of the EU on October 31 and go forward to a workers government and a socialist planned economy! This action will encourage workers in the EU and the USA to do the same!
