THE May government has now entered the world of the surreal. It has just about been able to schedule a Queen’s Speech of sorts for this Wednesday, but is still without the guaranteed support of the DUP to try to ensure that it survives the confidence vote at the end of the debate.
Nevertheless, the government has cancelled next year’s Queen’s Speech, without the support of parliament, and presumably without the support of the Queen, so May can have a clear run at a Brexit deal without the risk of being brought down by the House of Commons.
This cancellation is despite the fact that the government cannot be sure that it will survive this Wednesday’s Queen’s Speech. In fact, all the different Tory factions have ripped up their party’s general election manifesto into shreds.
In the real world, May still does not have the support of the DUP to try and keep it in office, after a major faction of the British state has warned that it is opposed to any liaison with the DUP that could mean the breakdown of the Good Friday Agreement and thousands of British troops having to return to Ireland.
As it is, Wednesday’s Queen’s Speech has been twice rescheduled, and now will be truncated since the Queen cannot stay at parliament for any great length of time since she has to rush on to Ascot for the races.
However, the Tory party is now in complete disarray, so that even if May gets the votes of the DUP, a faction of her party may well vote with Labour on a motion of no confidence to bring the government down.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Hammond has already spoken out to criticise May and insist that ‘no deal with the EU would not be better than a bad deal’, while the pro-Brexit wing of the party have told her that if she weakens they will have her out in 24-hours. The May government is indeed a ‘dead man walking’.
It is a laughing stock, but it is no joke for the surviving tenants of Grenfell Tower, whose friends and relatives were burnt to death because the safety recommendations made by the Lakanal Tower Inquiry into the fire there in 2009, that killed six, was rejected by Tory ministers and councillors.
It is also no laughing matter for large numbers of council tenants who live in tower blocks all over the country and can’t sleep at night because of fears about them and their children being consumed by fire.
May in fact cooked her goose when she decided to go to see the firefighters and security personnel at Grenfell Tower but not the surviving tenants, echoing the behaviour of the Kensington and Chelsea Council. May’s refusal to speak to the tenants meant that the Royal Family had to intervene to prevent an insurrection of the local people.
As it is everybody knows that the firing of Grenfell Tower was a product of Tory deregulation and massive fire service cuts so that proper inspections of the tower blocks could not take place. The crux of the matter is that the Fire Brigade arrived minutes after the fire started but it could not do a thing to stop the blaze that was so fierce and spreading so furiously.
The issue is now crystal clear. The Tory party is split, divided and tearing itself apart. It is incapable of running the country, no mind carrying out proper regulation to prevent killer fires.
The comedy of Wednesday’s much postponed Queen’s Speech will give way to next year’s cancellation in advance of the same Queen’s Speech – a very crude attempt at dictatorship.
It is clear that Labour has a duty to put down a vote of no confidence in the government at the end of the debate at this year’s Queen’s Speech, to bring the government down and bring in a minority Labour government to organise a new general election.
If the government manages to desperately hang on then there must be a massive mobilisation of millions of workers by the trade unions to march on parliament on July 1st and to drive the Tories out of Downing Street and out of government.
If the government refuses to leave, then the trade unions must call a general strike to bring the Tories down and bring in a workers’ government that will carry out socialist polices, putting the interests of the working class first, and then bring in socialism.