THE UK was changed forever when the over-confident Tory leadership of Cameron and Osborne got the House of Commons to agree a resolution to authorise a ‘United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016’.
The advisory leaflet was titled: ‘Why the Government believes that voting to remain in the European Union is the best decision for the UK’. This leaflet also clearly stated: ‘This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide.’ The question that appeared on ballot papers in the referendum before the electorate under the act was: ‘Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?’
The result shattered the Tory leadership and shocked the world. The masses voted to leave by 17,410,742 (51.89% of the vote) compared to 16,141,241 votes (48.11% of the vote) to remain.
Its immediate results were that Cameron and Osborne resigned and a Tory leadership election was halted in order that the 1922 Committee of the Tory Party could impose a ‘Remainer’, May as the new Prime Minister.
Speaking to the BBC yesterday, the former Labour PM, Gordon Brown, who at one time boasted that he had overcome the boom-to-bust crisis of capitalism, spoke up to say that Parliament had not yet grasped the ‘drivers of the dissatisfaction’ that led to the 2016 vote to leave the European Union.
He warned that unless these ‘root causes’ are addressed, ‘We will not be able to unite as a nation and we face a future where we are paralysed into inaction by our failure to get our act together and move on.’
He listed stagnant wages, ‘left-out communities’, migration, sovereignty and the NHS as issues that needed to be addressed alongside Brexit. He described the referendum result as a ‘huge political earthquake’, and then warned, ‘there are still real risks in the financial system.’
The truth of the matter is that the political establishment, the big bosses and the bankers, and also the trade union leaders have spent every day since the referendum trying to cancel its result, so as to stay in the EU, using whatever tactic it takes to achieve that end.
The Labour Party in 2017 stood in the general election on the policy of leaving the EU and the single market as well as a number of socialist policies such as the renationalisation of the railways, the ending of students’ tuition fees and as a result wiped out the Tory government majority.
Since then, Labour’s right wing has spent every minute of every working day conspiring to get rid of Corbyn, so as to stab the Brexit referendum result in the back. The unelected, reactionary House of Lords, that enemy of all real progress, has been their weapon of choice.
A number of House of Lords amendments to the EU Withdrawal Bill are due to be voted on in the House of Commons on Tuesday June 12. One of them stipulates that Britain must remain in the European Economic Area. Over 70 Labour MPs are ready to vote for this amendment that would keep the UK in the European Union.
Labour leader Corbyn’s reaction to this has been to seek to split the right-wing vote by moving an amendment that would keep Labour permanently tied to the single market and thus bound by the decisions of the European Council and the European Court of Justice.
Corbyn is betraying the Labour pledge to carry out the ‘Leave’ referendum result that won him enough support in the 2017 general election to wipe out the Tory majority. By appeasing the right wing, he is assisting them in their preparation of a right-wing coup, with an extra-parliamentary leadership, the billionaire George Soros, to reject Brexit and the referendum result and to secure a second referendum, under Soros’ ‘Best for Britain’ label.
What is becoming crystal clear is that the closer the time comes to exit the EU, the more determined are the pro-EU majority in the Houses of Parliament to abort it with their coup. The truth is that a socialist revolution will be necessary to secure the Brexit referendum result. One that will shut down the Houses of Parliament and expropriate the bosses and bankers to bring about a socialist UK. This will prove to be the beginning of the end for the EU and lead to the Socialist United States of Europe.
