YESTERDAY’S ruling by three High Court judges that the Tory government does not have the right to trigger Article 50 is the latest and most blatant move by the judiciary to overturn the vote to leave the capitalist conspiracy that is the EU.
Article 50 is the mechanism which when activated by the government starts the two-year-long negotiations to exit the EU. In their judgement, these judges pronounced that they were defending the ‘fundamental constitutional principles of the sovereignty of parliament’.
A vote by MPs, they declared, was paramount over the wishes of the people despite the fact that they had voted overwhelmingly on 23 June to leave. So much for democracy, when unelected judges can overrule the ‘sovereign will of the people’.
Despite all the excuses being put out that this decision in no way subverts the referendum result and simply establishes the right of MPs to have a vote on whether the UK can start the process of leaving the EU, it is clear that blocking Brexit is precisely what is intended.
It is tailor-made for a capitalist class and their backers in the Tory party and the right-wing Labourites who are terrified at the prospect of bankrupt British capitalism leaving the EU and are mobilising to overturn the Brexit vote, at any cost.
The ruling class decided long ago that they were too weak to stand alone and that their survival depended upon being a part of the EU. This is an expression of their desperation. In fact, the EU life raft they are attempting to cling to is already badly holed and sinking by the hour under the weight of a bankrupt banking system and a mountain of debt.
However, for a desperate British capitalist class any straw is worth clutching at.
In upholding the sovereignty of parliament, these learned judges have completely ignored the fact that it was parliament itself that called the referendum.
Cameron when he was prime minister made sure that the commitment to hold an in-out vote was central to the Tory party manifesto at the last general election and, as the Tories never cease to proclaim, such a pledge is binding on the government. This was never challenged by anyone in parliament for the simple reason that it was taken for granted that the working class would blindly follow the lead of the Labour Party and the vast majority of trade union leaders in voting to remain.
What was not counted on was a working class enraged that its living standards and wages had been cut continuously since the banking crash in 2008, alongside the systematic destruction of the welfare state and the NHS.
While the bankers and bosses have wallowed in million-pound salaries and bonuses, workers have been reduced to living on handouts from food banks and scraping by on massive levels of personal debt courtesy of the payday loan sharks. It was this hatred of capitalist austerity that drove the Brexit vote and created a massive crisis for the ruling class.
With the majority of MPs, both Labour and Tory, against Brexit, it is clearly hoped that this judgement means parliament will be able to kill Brexit for good. However, a working class that is rising up in hatred over capitalist austerity and which is breaking free from its old reformist leadership will be enraged at this legal manoeuvre, and the commitment of the Labourites to help impose it.
The current demand that the TUC organise a general strike to bring down the Tories and advance to a workers government and socialism, or face removal and replacement by a new leadership that is prepared to lead this fight, will become unstoppable. Like the Gordian knot of legend, the only way to disentangle an impossible knot, like the current knot that has been created, is to wield a very sharp knife and cut right through it.
The sharp knife that is needed today is that of socialist revolution. A socialist revolution in Britain will be enthusiastically embraced by the working class throughout Europe and will fling open the gates of the European Socialist Revolution for the establishment of a United Socialist States of Europe.
So attend the News Line Anniversary Rally and join the WRP. This is the only way forward!
