LAST Tuesday afternoon, in the House of Commons, the knives were out for the Brexit referendum result, and for the millions of workers who voted ‘Leave’ in the 2016 referendum.
Tuesday’s debate was on the anti-Brexit amendments put down by the non-elected House of Lords to sabotage the Brexit result and organise a parliamentary coup to keep the UK in the EU, against the will of the majority of the British people. Leave MPs pointed out in the debate that the referendum was decided upon by parliament itself to allow the British people to decide whether the UK remained in or quit the EU. Theirs was the decision to make, not the House of Commons, whose job was to carry out their decision.
In fact, the advisory leaflet to every home in 2016 clearly stated: ‘This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide.’ The question that appeared on ballot papers in the referendum was to the point: ‘Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union? The masses answered by voting to leave by 17,410,742 (51.89% of the vote) compared to 16,141,241 votes (48.11% of the vote) to remain.
The closer that the UK gets to the leaving date, the more frenzied gets the parliamentary opposition both in the Lords and the House of Commons, and in the ruling class as a whole, to the decision made by a majority of the working class and the middle class, at the invitation of parliament.
The reactionaries are now being forced out into the open, displaying their true counter-revolutionary colours.
Ex-Tory Justice minister Phillip Lee, who resigned early on Tuesday, had supporters parading with posters outside the House of Commons with his picture and an over-the-top ‘Walter Mitty’ logo declaring ‘Great British Hero’ as he arrived to reveal the depths of the reaction.
He told MPs: ‘Resigning from Ministerial Office was an incredibly difficult decision in order to support my Right Honourable Friend in his attempts to amend the government’s amendment to the Lords and I am devastated to take this decision. ‘I believe in the Burkeian principle that our institutions guarantee our human rights. Most important of all is the government’s responsibility to protect its citizens. This is usually understood in military terms, but I believe it applies more generally.
‘It means that sometimes when the majority of our people want something that is against the good of society, government and Parliament have the responsibility to protect us.’ Lee, who the Daily Telegraph alleges is working with the billionaire George Soros’ ‘Best for Britain’ campaign, reveals that a dictatorship by a minority representing the bosses and the bankers constitutes ‘society’, which must be defended whenever the majority decide on a course that is judged to be against the interest of this society, that is the interests of bosses, and billionaire speculators.
It is now crystal clear that the UK ruling class and its parliamentary supporters intend to prevent the 2016 referendum result being carried out, and to see the UK kept in the EU, against the wishes of the majority, by dictatorial means.
It is clear that what Lee is proposing is an illegal dictatorship of the minority over the majority.
He has forgotten that the people of Britain have a history of dealing with usurpers. In fact, Charles I who believed that he ruled by divine right and that he in fact constituted society, was put on trial by Cromwell as a traitor to his people, who went on to purge parliaments and shut down the House of Lords, proclaiming a republic.
Workers, who are now being told that the defence of society demands that they are forced to remain in the EU, must in fact mobilise to teach the new usurpers a big lesson. Workers and their trade unions must mobilise in their millions to march on parliament and insist with MPs that they must take the UK out of the EU at once. Further, the House of Lords must be abolished, and the House of Commons replaced by a workers’ soviet to clear the way for the British socialist revolution. This is the way forward!
