THERE IS VERY great resistance to the proposal of Labour leader Corbyn that he should put down a motion of no confidence in PM Johnson and his government, and that it should be replaced by a time limited government of national unity led by Corbyn.
This is despite the fact that its task would be to prevent a no deal Brexit, and then renegotiate with the EU on membership, to be put to a second referendum, one of whose options would be to ‘remain’. Corbyn could not be more cordial! This is exactly what the ‘Remainers’ want.
Yet, Tories have not rushed en masse to embrace Corbyn’s way out. Lib Dems and right wing Labourites are no keener. They see Corbyn as part of the problem, and not part of the solution.
The UK ruling class has never got over the way that the working class brought down the Heath government after the TUC was forced to call a 24-hour general strike in 1972 to secure the freeing of the dockworkers who were jailed after breaking anti-union laws by picketing the Midland Cold Store.
That defeat for Heath saw the working class surge forward with miners and dockers strikes that ran Heath out of office and brought in the Wilson government of 1974 that was forced to repeal all of the Tory anti-union laws. The working class was rampant and the Trotskyist movement leapt forward with the Workers Revolutionary Party being founded in 1973 at the Hammersmith Odeon with more than 3,000 members present, and able to launch Wembley Pool mass rallies of 10,000 plus.
Today, after over 10 years of super austerity, with the working class paying out billions to save banks, the masses are again on the march. The last thing that the ruling class wants is the eruption of another even more revolutionary period. This, in fact, was opened up by the Brexit referendum result.
This is why they want nothing at all to do with a Corbyn led government of any kind, in case it opens up the door for millions of workers to erupt through, and push forward with a revolution to regain all that was lost in the over decade of austerity.
In fact, all through the period of the 1960s Wilson governments leading up to his ‘shock’ resignation and his replacement by right winger Callaghan in 1976, the ruling class were discussing not just a new government but a fully fledged coup, to impose their own government.
Yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph printed an article by Patrick Sawer which states that ‘Lord Mountbatten came close to leading a cabal of industrialists, generals, and tycoons plotting a coup against an elected Labour government, a news book claims’.
The article continues that ‘The 1968 plot was designed to replace Harold Wilson, then the Prime Minister, with a coalition government to bring the country together, during what Lord Mountbatten and the conspirators regarded as a time of national crisis.’
It continues: ‘According to a new biography of Lord Mountbatten, the Prince of Wales’s great uncle and mentor, it took the intervention of the Queen to persuade him to cut his ties with the plotters rather than acting against Wilson, his cabinet and parliament.’ This new biography is by Andrew Lownie.
The Telegraph article continues: ‘Cecil King, the industrialist and chairman of publishing giant IPC began gathering senior figures around him who wanted to act. He believed Wilson, who had been elected in 1964 and 1966, should be replaced by a “national government” led by the likes of Oswald Mosley … or a figure of the stature of Lord Mountbatten.’
On 16 March 1976, five days after his 60th birthday, Wilson stunned the nation when he announced his intention to resign, a decision that he claimed he had made two years previously. James Callaghan succeeded him to the role of Prime Minister, and prepared the way for Margaret Thatcher and civil war with the miners!
Today the bosses and their state fear revolution. They want a counter-revolutionary national government led by people prepared to use the army and police against workers as Mountbatten, General Kitson and others were prepared to do.
The lesson from the 60s and 70s is that the working class still must use its power to see that the UK leaves the EU on October 31 and that the Johnson government is brought down by a general strike to bring in a workers government and socialism.
