BORIS Johnson revealed his plans for a Brexit deal at the Tory Party conference yesterday before formally putting his proposals to the EU.
Johnson’s deal is little different from that proposed by Theresa May, the difference being that it attempts to ‘solve’ the issue of the Irish border backstop by creating ‘two borders for four years’. This involves the UK leaving the EU on 31st October followed by a transition period until 31st December 2020.
On January 1st 2021, the UK would leave entirely except for the north of Ireland, which would remain tied to the EU single market through a ‘special relationship’ for at least four years.
After four years, Johnson is promising that the Northern Ireland Assembly will have the final say on whether or not the north continues to remain in the EU or stay part of the UK, in effect a veto designed to win the support of the DUP, and also of the Irish Republic that will see the move as enhancing the prospects for Irish unity.
Johnson’s plan involves customs checks ‘away from the border’ with the Republic and even checks carried out in the sea around Ireland, although Johnson admitted that exact details of these customs checks will be subjected to ‘tough’ negotiations with the EU.
Johnson’s ‘radical new plan’ immediately ran into the brick wall of the EU who dismissed it out of hand when the details emerged.
As far as the EU is concerned, they are not prepared to agree to anything they believe will undermine the EU single market and the free movement of goods between states, including a ‘fully open’ border between the north and the Republic.
The EU aren’t interested in negotiating any deal with Johnson to get him off the hook of his pledge to ‘die in a ditch’ rather than beg for an extension of Article 50 and remain in the EU after 31st October.
They are confident that their allies in the UK Parliament will destroy any chance of Johnson getting a deal by invoking the Benn Act passed just before parliament was initially suspended which makes it illegal for Johnson to refuse to ask for an extension.
The Benn Act, a product of the Labour Party and Remainer-dominated parliament, will be used to kill any ‘No Deal Brexit’ and open the way for a second referendum to overturn the vote in the 2016 referendum to keep the UK forever in the EU.
In his conference speech, Johnson insisted that the only alternative to his deal was a ‘No Deal Brexit’, but the truth is that parliament has taken upon itself the powers to stop this.
The reality is that the weak British ruling class is hopelessly split and incapable of taking any independent position as a class over whether to stay tied to the EU or become nothing more than a vassal state of the US.
Having called the referendum in 2016, the bourgeoisie has proved to lack the backbone to carry through the decision to leave the EU on the 31st October and are now resorting to the state and its courts to try to make sure that it doesn’t happen by threatening Johnson with being hauled off to jail for defying the law if he carries out his No Deal pledge.
What is clear is that the only force today that is strong enough to carry out the decision of the referendum is the working class.
In his opening remarks to the Tory conference, Johnson said that ‘if parliament was a school Ofsted would declare it failing, shut it down or put it into special measures’.
No section of the bourgeoisie is capable of carrying out this necessary task. The only really revolutionary class in capitalist society is the working class.
The time has come for this revolutionary class, the working class, to take mass political strike action to close down this failed parliament permanently and replace it with a government of workers’ councils and a workers’ government that will definitely leave the fast collapsing capitalist EU on the 31st October without any deal.
A workers government will not stop at leaving but will go on to expropriate the bosses and bankers at home to advance to building socialism, while giving all the Irish people themselves the right to abolish their border, and also giving encouragement to the workers of the EU to tear it down and advance to the Socialist United States of Europe!
