UNITE leader Len McCluskey has issued a statement refuting the claims that Jeremy Corbyn was responsible for Tom Watson’s ending the union-led efforts to re-unite Labour.
McCluskey said on Saturday: ‘I had made arrangements for a meeting of trade union leaders, Tom Watson and representatives of the PLP and the Party Leader for tomorrow, arrangements requested by Tom Watson and his colleagues, specifically for Mr Watson’s convenience.
‘In that context, when the possibility of a workable plan had never seemed closer, Tom Watson’s actions today can only look like an act of sabotage fraught with peril for the future of the Labour Party.’
He continued that: ‘Should there have to be a leadership election, I must warn that any attempts to keep Jeremy Corbyn, elected just ten months ago with an enormous mandate, off the ballot paper by legal means risks a lasting division in the party.
‘It is time for everyone to commit to a democratic and dignified procedure as the only way to avert such a disaster for working people.’
The right wing of the Labour Party have worked it out that with the Tories also in a desperate crisis, a much earlier general election is in the offing. They do not want a left Labour government elected!
They are now preparing to do on a much larger scale what the Gang of Four did on March 26 1981 when they broke away from the Labour Party, formed the SDLP, then joined the Liberals to form the Liberal Democrats before taking 4 million votes from Labour and ensuring that Thatcher won the 1983 election, despite a fall of 700,000 in the Tory vote.
The same LibDems formed an infamous coalition with the Tories that lasted from 2010 to 2015, which included former Labourites such as Vince Cable.
The mass of Blairite MPs have much more in common with the Cameron-Osborne-May wing of the Tory Party, its pro EU faction, than they have with the Labour left under Corbyn, or with the hundreds and thousands of new members that have flocked into the Labour Party since Corbyn’s election as Labour leader.
Watson’s provocative action is to create the conditions for a mass of right wing Labour MPs to split the Labour Party. If the NEC of the LP defies trade unions such as Unite and refuses to allow Corbyn to re-stand for the leadership of the party, then the NEC will start expelling those Labour Party members that do not accept this procedure, and in a purge that will put Stalin to shame, drive out of the Labour Party, all of the new members that the crisis has driven into it.
They are not only seeking to split the Labour Party they are seeking to split the TUC itself in order to further the alliance with the pro-EU Tories that flourished during the EU referendum campaign.
In the face of the Watson-led right wing decision to bring matters to a head and remove Corbyn, Labour’s left must act decisively. The old Labour Party is in fact dead, and rotting. The Blairite disease has rotted it to its core. A new Labour Party has to emerge out of the ashes of the old, capable of fighting for socialist policies, and for defending the basic rights of the working class.
This means that if the NEC of the Labour Party refuses to allow Corbyn to re-stand for the leadership, then the trade unions and all members of the Labour Party must refuse to accept such a decision and demand that the NEC be closed down, and a new body be elected to take its place. Further, that the trade unions must pay their subscriptions and all donations to the party directly to its elected leadership.
Trade unions such as Unite and Unison must demand a special meeting of the TUC General Council to back Corbyn and his right to re-stand.
Once Corbyn is re-elected, the party must then campaign for a general election now and mobilise the entire working class for the struggle for a socialist UK.
At the same time there must be a deselection of all Blairite MPs. They must be sent packing to join with the Tories.
The determination of the right wing to remove Corbyn, is an expression of the hatred that the right wing feels for the movement of millions of people that undid their EU referendum hopes. They know that the working class is on the march and they hate it and fear it.
Now the millions in the trade unions must be mobilised to put an end to Blairism and to go forward to socialism!