THE NEW Tory PM, Boris Johnson, now has a cabinet dominated by ‘Leavers’ after his massive clear-out of ‘Remainer’ ministers, following his victory in the Tory poll for a new PM.
In his maiden speech outside 10 Downing Street on Wednesday afternoon he was at his most militant, forecasting that those ‘who have bet against the UK will lose their shirts’.
Blasting the ‘gloomsters’ he asserted that: ‘To those who say we cannot be ready I say do not underestimate this country.’
He then took full responsibility for seeing through Brexit on October 31st saying: ‘Though I am today building a great team of men and women, I will take personal responsibility for the change I want to see. … Never mind the backstop, the buck stops here.’
He insisted: ‘The government will deliver Brexit – people voted for it, and the decision must be respected.’
It was an oration in the ‘Henry 5th’ tradition of ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or, close the wall up with our English dead.’
Unfortunately, facts speak much louder than even the most valiant of words and the hottest of speeches.
And it is a fact that despite more than half of May’s cabinet – 17 out of 30 – either being sacked or resigning, the overwhelming majority of his new ‘Leave’ cabinet of ‘irreconcilables’, including Johnson himself, Gove, Leadsom, the new chancellor Javid, and others, voted for May’s ‘withdrawal agreement’ in her final vote. They have already voted to accept the backstop, and they are capable of a repeat performance!
Workers will not be fooled by Johnson’s latest Shakespearean antics. He has already voted once for the backstop, and he will do the same again for a few minor changes in the EU’s political declaration!
This is why the working class of the UK, which played the leading role in voting ‘Leave’ in the 2016 referendum, must now take the lead in the struggle to carry out the ‘Leave’ instruction of the referendum on October 31st.
The crux of the matter is that if Johnson buckles under the heavy EU counter-attack that is going to be launched, a combination of this with the antics of the Remain ‘all-Party EU Fifth Column’ in the House of Commons, in alliance with law court moves to illegalise the UK leaving the EU on October 31st, could see the EU referendum decision dumped.
This means that there must be an immediate campaign to organise the trade unions for general strike action to ensure that the UK leaves the EU on October 31st, come what may.
If a Johnson government does leave the EU on October 31st, it is guaranteed that the bosses and the bankers will seek to punish the working class by moving their capital out of the UK, closing down whole sections of industry to bankrupt the economy.
In this circumstance, the Johnson regime will simply seek to hand over the UK and its working class to the USA for the American capitalists to super-exploit and make billions out of privatising the NHS.
Once again the working class must be ready to take decisive action in this situation. It will again have to mobilise to bring down the Johnson government and replace it with a workers government and socialism.
In fact, the only way out of the crisis of EU and US capitalism is through the workers of the UK, the EU and the US overthrowing the rule of the bosses and bankers, through their frontmen like Trump, Johnson, and the EU Commission, to bring in socialism.
The British socialist revolution will have a gigantic impact throughout the EU and the USA.
In the EU, the workers in France, Italy, Greece and Germany are already angry at the loss of millions of jobs and the huge wage cuts that have taken place with more job losses on the way. The US workers know that millions of their jobs are threatened by Trump’s trade war.
The socialist revolution is the only way forward! Forward out of the EU. Forward to the British socialist revolution, and to the victory of the world socialist revolution.
