IN AN interview in Edinburgh on Tuesday Labour’s shadow chancellor John McDonnell brazenly broke with the official Labour Party policy of opposition to a second Scottish independence referendum and its commitment that a future Labour government would block any demands from the nationalist SNP to call one.
McDonnell stated that a future Labour government would not block a second independence referendum and that any decision about holding a vote would be up to the Scottish Parliament.
He said: ‘It will be for the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people to decide that. They will take a view about whether they want another referendum.’
He added: ‘We would not block something like that. We would let the Scottish people decide. That’s democracy. There are other views within the party but that’s our view.’ McDonnell was condemned by Labour MP for Edinburgh South Ian Murray, who said:
‘These are utterly irresponsible comments from John McDonnell that betray our party’s values.’ He added that Labour ‘should never seek to appease nationalists’. But that is exactly what McDonnell is proposing – to appease the nationalist SNP who are committed to taking Scotland out of the union and killing off Brexit, even at the cost of splitting the Labour Party nationally.
McDonnell has the audacity to call tearing up the votes of millions of workers in both referendums ‘democratic’. SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon immediately welcomed McDonnell’s statement, praising it for being ‘a statement of basic democracy’.
McDonnell’s pledge that Labour would reject a government of national unity to stop Brexit if the price was getting rid of Corbyn cannot be taken seriously, after his bombshell of opening the door to unity with the SNP ‘Tartan Tories’, offering them the prospect of a unity government that would meet all their demands for a second referendum to overturn the result of the 2014 independence referendum and for overturning the 2016 Brexit vote as well.
As a loyal supporter of the leader, he did not attack Corbyn openly. Instead, he insisted that Corbyn would ‘never’ step down if other opposition parties demanded his resignation as the price for forming a coalition government of national unity.
What is significant is that until now, no one, not even right-wing Labour MPs, have seriously proposed to dump Corbyn as the only way to achieve a coalition with the Tories.
By insisting that Corbyn would never resign, McDonnell is actually dangling before the right-wing the prospect that instead of plotting to dump Corbyn over ridiculous slanders of anti-Semitism, they should now concentrate on getting rid of him as the main obstacle to a coalition to overturn Brexit.
McDonnell is clearly inching towards the policy of a national government composed of right-wing Labour, Tory Remainers, the SNP and LibDems.
Who would be the leader of such an amalgam? – It is clear that McDonnell, after his pro-SNP intervention, has put himself top of the list.
In his interview, McDonnell proclaimed, ‘We want to change the world.’ In fact, it is clear that he has no intention of changing the world. On the contrary, he is attempting to keep things the way they are with the working class tied forever to a bankrupt EU run exclusively for the benefit of the bosses and bankers.
The working class delivered a massive blow to the old capitalist order when it voted overwhelmingly to break with the EU. It is now clear that, to carry this through to deliver a killer blow, workers must take decisive action and mobilise in a general strike to bring down this Johnson government and bar the way to any reactionary coalition that may emerge from the chaos and death agony of parliamentary ‘democracy’ by going forward to a workers
government.
A workers government will leave the EU on October 31st, expropriate the bosses and bankers and advance to a socialist society.
Socialist revolution in Britain will be greeted with massive enthusiasm by workers and youth throughout Europe and the world and open the way for the victory of the world socialist revolution.
Only the WRP fights for this policy – join us today!
