PM MAY, having refused to quit the EU on March 29th which is still the official legal date for leaving, has paid the political price, with anti-Brexit MPs on Monday taking control of House of Commons business as part of their anti-Brexit coup!
The government was defeated by 329 votes to 302, with 30 Tory MPs voting against, including three ministers, setting the scene for a vote on having a second referendum.
The three Tory ministers – Richard Harrington, Alistair Burt and Steve Brine – resigned to join the rebels, Harrington accusing the government of ‘playing roulette with the lives and livelihoods’ of Britons.
The motion was tabled jointly by Tory MPs Oliver Letwyn and Dominic Grieve plus Labour MP Hilary Benn.
Tory MP Nick Boles, one of the main supporters of the Letwyn amendment, said after the vote: ‘If Parliament refuses to listen to what Parliament has voted for we will bring forward a bill that will require the government to reflect Parliament’s wishes’. It is to be a dictatorship of the ‘Remainers’, and to hell with the wishes of the 17 million-plus workers and youth who voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum.
Labour leader Corbyn also congratulated the mutineers saying: ‘I would like to congratulate the House for taking control. The government’s approach has been an abject failure and this House must find a solution and I believe it will succeed.’
Anti-Brexit MPs are now determined to force a further extension before ‘no deal’ comes into effect on April 12, so that the UK will be able to take part in the EU’s forthcoming European elections. What a provocation this will be!
Parliament will soon hear an indicative resolution that will call for a second referendum, with two questions for voters – ‘Do you accept the May deal with the EU?’ or ‘Do you want to remain in the EU?’
This is despite the fact that the letter to every home accompanying the announcement of the first referendum assured voters that their vote would be acted upon and legislated by both Houses of Parliament.
Voters were told that it was their duty to vote. There was no mention of the prospect of a second referendum if the Houses of Parliament did not like the result of the first. This betrayal will bring millions of ‘Leavers’ onto the streets.
Both Houses of Parliament decided overwhelmingly to legislate the results of the 2016 referendum! All this is now being rubbished by the mass of ‘Remain’ Tory, Labour, Lib Dem and SNP MPs.
The current crisis is being compared to the crisis in the 17th century when the House of Commons opposed the ‘divine right to rule’ of the monarchy.
This led to a civil war that resulted in the parliamentary forces, led by Cromwell, putting on trial and executing the monarch of the day, Charles 1, as a traitor, abolishing the House of Lords, purging the House of Commons and establishing a Republic.
Today the House of Commons is seeking to establish the ‘divine right’ of Parliament to rubbish the decision made by the over 17 million voters who were asked by Parliament to decide on the issue of the EU, and voted to leave.
Workers must now mobilise to take action, both political and industrial, to shut down the Houses of Parliament and establish rule by workers’ soviets.
The Houses of Parliament have no ‘divine right’ to rule over the people. They must be replaced through a socialist revolution that will expropriate the big bosses and bankers, and bring in a planned socialist economy.
This will have the massive support of the working people of the EU, and its example could prove highly contagious in the EU where French troops have already been given the right to shoot working class ‘Yellow Vest’ demonstrators and where the economies of Germany and France are in a huge crisis.
The struggle of the UK workers is supported by millions of European workers, and the example of British workers taking power will spread like wildfire throughout the EU bringing it down and replacing it with the Socialist United States of Europe.
This is the way forward. UK workers must take the revolutionary road!