THE PLOTS by the Labour right-wing, led by the deputy leader Tom Watson, to completely split the Labour Party and remove Corbyn have accelerated dramatically over the past few days.
Last week Watson, a bag carrier for Gordon Brown when he was Labour leader, declared that he would be setting up a parallel organisation within the party to deal with disciplinary measures against anyone accused of anti-Semitism.
Watson attempted to hijack Labour’s disciplinary procedures by demanding that all complaints against members are sent to him personally – a demand that he has no authority to issue.
Watson then announced that he is planning an inaugural meeting of a ‘social democrat’ policy platform group within the party.
Yesterday Watson said he would meet with Corbyn today to warn him that Labour faces further defections by MPs following the resignation of eight right-wingers two weeks ago to form the Independent Group.
In a report in yesterday’s Telegraph Watson said that he will tell Corbyn that he, Watson, will be forming a party-within-a-party called ‘Social Democrat’ at a face-to-face meeting – the first since the eight defected. Only this, Watson claimed, would prevent further defections to the Independent Group.
This new party within Labour will not be merely a ‘policy forum’ or platform as Watson previously claimed but a fully fledged independent party. According to Watson, his new group will have as many as 50 Labour MPs and they will be considering plans for their own policies in opposition to agreed Labour policies.
In addition to developing separate political policies Watson stated that his group of ‘social democrats’ will also consider putting forward their own spokespersons and making their own whipping arrangements completely separate from the official parliamentary Labour Party.
Both Watson and the Independent Group of right-wing Labour splitters, plus three Tory defectors, were given fulsome support by Tony Blair in an interview on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday.
Blair told Marr that he is in contact with the Independent Group and that he has ‘a great deal of sympathy with what they are doing and what they are saying’ and that he thinks ‘they’re courageous in having done it.’
Blair insisted that he would not be leaving the Labour Party – he much prefers to stay, like Watson, and destroy it from within.
Blair heaped fulsome praise on Watson for having ‘shown great leadership’ in recent weeks in organising a prospective coup to smash up the Labour Party completely, he added that the ground for a new party is extremely fertile.
The years of plotting by the right-wing of the Labour Party to dump Corbyn, despite the fact that he has been overwhelmingly elected as leader by the membership on two occasions, now revolves round this twin approach.
The eight Labour MPs who quit have established a rubbish bin to catch disaffected Tory Remainers while Watson, supported by Blair, is setting up an independent party with its own rules within Labour.
Both these plots have one aim – to move towards the formation of a national government that would put the interests of a bankrupt capitalist class above those of workers and their families.
What they fear is not Corbyn the man, who is still clinging to ‘unity’ with these class traitors and moving even further to the right in order to keep them on-board, but with the prospect of a Labour government propelled into power by a working class determined to break with the EU and put an end to capitalist austerity and the rule of the bankers and bosses.
This revolutionary movement of workers and youth dealt a ferocious blow to British capitalism when it voted to break with the EU, a blow which has shattered both Tory and Labour and which is providing the fertile ground not for a ‘national government’ but for socialist revolution.
This crisis has created the conditions for the very rapid expansion of the revolutionary party and building up the WRP and Young Socialists into a mass movement that will provide the revolutionary leadership that the working class requires to take the power and put an end to capitalism and advance to a socialist society. We call on every worker and youth to join us today.
