TORY leadership rivals Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt have found themselves leading the condemnation of Scotland Yard after a senior officer threatened to prosecute The Mail on Sunday for publishing more of the leaked cables of Sir Kim Darroch.
On Friday evening, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu suggested he would prosecute publications that print more information from the documents. Yesterday, The Mail on Sunday did precisely that.
Leading Tory, Health Secretary, Matt Hancock then called on the police to withdraw Basu’s statement while former chancellor George Osborne branded his comments ‘very stupid and ill-advised’. Scotland Yard is now at the centre of a furious row over ‘press freedom’ after warning journalists not to publish any more leaked cables from Britain’s US ambassador Sir Kim Darroch.
On Saturday, Basu still insisted that any further publication of the cables ‘now knowing they may be a breach of the Official Secrets Act (OSA)’ could also constitute a criminal offence – to which there was no public interest defence.
The Society of Editors executive director Ian Murray said the threat to the media in the police warning was ‘not acceptable’ in a free society … George Osborne tweeted in vain that to maintain credibility the Met Commissioner, Cressida Dick, should distance herself from ‘this very stupid and ill-advised statement from a junior officer who doesn’t appear to understand much about press freedom’.
Sunday Times political editor Tim Shipman asked if Dick had cleared the ‘sinister, absurd, anti-democratic statement … threatening journalists with arrest for printing government leaks?’ Meanwhile, Sir Ed Davey the LibDems leadership candidate said if Boris Johnson becomes the next prime minister, he wants to lead the effort to oust him via a no confidence vote in parliament.
If that happens, he continues: ‘We have to have an alternative’ ready to take over – suggesting Labour figures such as Yvette Cooper and Hilary Benn could be part of a new National Remain Government. They are looking to the state to put them into office! Gina Miller has answered their call and joined ex-Tory PM John Major to threaten legal action to secure a decision that prorogation in order to leave the EU would be unlawful.
What is happening to the amazement of all concerned is that Britain’s economic and political crisis has smashed up its bourgeois democracy. The ruling class is split over whether it will serve the US or EU capitalists. The different factions are now at war with each other. The ruling class is split and its state apparatus is now preparing an emergency regime to run the country and remain in the EU.
The police and military are preparing to help the law courts impose an anti-Brexit regime and maintain it against the mass opposition of the working class. They fear that unless this is done workers will elect a Corbyn-led Labour government, to fight to get back everything that the working class has lost since the 2008 crash.
The state has grasped that the bourgeois democratic game is up and that capitalism will only survive if the state manages to take control and impose itself over society through brute force and coercion. A massive collision between the working class and the capitalist state is rapidly approaching.
Would-be PM Johnson says that the UK must leave the EU on October 31st and if necessary he will prorogue Parliament to achieve it. Tory ex-Premier Major and businesswoman Gina Miller say that they will take legal action to make this illegal.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Hammond is saying that he will organise an occupation of the House of Commons by Remainers to prevent the UK leaving the EU. The LibDems are saying that they want a national government along with right wing Labourites such as Yvette Cooper and Hilary Benn who want to remain in the EU at any cost.
Any attempt by the bosses and the state to keep the UK in the EU via the law courts and the power of the state will bring millions of workers onto the streets. They will march on the House of Commons and following Cromwell’s example purge it of the malcontents. Britain is heading into an open revolutionary situation at breakneck speed. The working class will not allow the police, the secret police, and the army officer corps to dictate what is to happen in the UK.
Only the WRP has the policy for this crisis. We urge the masses to take general strike action on October 31st and to march on the Houses of Parliament to purge both establishments of Remainers and to bring in a workers’ government. This will leave the EU at once and take action to smash the capitalist state and replace it with a workers’ militia. It will also nationalise the banks and major industries under workers’ control to bring in socialism. This is the way forward! Join the WRP today.