AS IS to be expected the Labour leadership has been unable to hold fast to the Corbyn line that the party will support Brexit. It is now stampeding to form a common front with Tory, Lib Dem, Scottish Nationalists and other MPs to organise Parliament to vote down Brexit to teach the working class a lesson on the crooked nature of bourgeois democracy.
The fact that it was Corbyn’s support for Brexit, contained in the Labour Party general election manifesto that allowed the party to shatter the Tory majority, and would allow it to win the next general election, has been cast aside.
The simple reason for this is that the Labour Party leadership is a bourgeois leadership that supports capitalism. They are now rushing to try to prop it up in its crisis, and stab the working class in the back.
Leading the pack is the Labour shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer. Without any condemnation from Labour leader Corbyn, he has been able to announce that Labour will back Conservative rebels over Brexit. Labour intends to lead an attempt to force a vote on the final EU deal, meaning that Labour will vote to reject a final deal and cancel the referendum result, to remain in the EU.
Hundreds of amendments to the bill have already been tabled by Tory MPs, as well as opposition MPs. Writing in the Sunday Times, Starmer demanded that ‘MPs get the final say on whether to approve the withdrawal agreement and how best to implement it.’
The shadow Brexit secretary wrote: ‘I believe there is a consensus in Parliament for these changes. And there is certainly no majority for weakening rights, silencing Parliament and sidelining the devolved administrations… Labour will work with all sides to make that happen.’
Labour shadow foreign secretary Thornberry yesterday publicly joined the Starmer gang. Thornberry said: ‘I think what we may be seeing is the Europeans trying to make it clear that it is not their fault that there are these difficulties – the intransigence does not come from their side, it comes from Theresa May’s side.
‘And in the end I think the reality is the intransigence is on Theresa May’s side, because she doesn’t have the strength or the authority to be able to control her backbenchers, let alone her cabinet. And I think we are heading for a no deal, and I think that that is a serious threat to Britain and it is not in Britain’s interests for that to happen.’
Labour, with Corbyn silent, is seeking to work with Tories to amend a key plank of Brexit legislation – the EU Withdrawal Bill – so that Parliament has the power to reject whatever the outcome of the negotiations turns out to be.
Quite clearly, the Labour leaders would rather lose a general election because of this pro-EU line in order to play a decisive role in organising a Parliament to overthrow the 2016 EU referendum result, introducing a new form of Parliamentary despotism over British workers.
As is very well known the entire political establishment from the Tory and Labour leaderships down to the leaderships of the TUC were ‘remainers’ in the 2016 Brexit referendum. They were with the bosses and the bankers 100% in their determination to defeat it. They were all shattered when their referendum stance was rejected by the working class, especially since Parliament had voted to let the masses of the people decide on the issue.
Now they are moving to establish a Parliamentary despotism over the people so as to allow the British bosses and bankers to have their way at the expense of the British workers. However, workers will not stand idly by and watch this would-be dictatorship at work. They will look back at their history to find a way forward.
In the 1640s Oliver Cromwell shut down Parliaments that refused to carry out the wishes of the people. In fact, he and others signed a death warrant for a king who thought he ruled by divine right.
Parliament and MPs now seem to think they can treat the votes of over 17 million workers in the same way as Charles 1 treated the people. Driving forward this struggle is the growing world crisis of capitalism. This crisis is already turning the EU upside down. The British working class must now use its huge strength to organise a massive political general strike to bring down this Parliament and carry out a socialist revolution to see that the referendum result is carried out to the letter.
