IT is rapidly becoming crystal clear how important it is to vote ‘Leave’ in the June 23rd referendum on the EU.
A ‘Leave’ vote will bring down Cameron and his split and divided government and create the conditions for the working class and its trade unions to drive forward to take the power and establish a workers government and socialism.
This is the revolutionary road that will have to be taken since the vast majority of Labour MPs and the Labour Party are supporting the EU, and would be both unwilling and unable to carry out a ‘Leave’ referendum vote of the electorate.
A ‘Leave’ majority is the way forward since any attempt to ignore such a referendum verdict in the UK, by Labour MPs, the Cameron Tories, and the SNP, or to organise a re-run of the referendum as was done in Ireland and Denmark, will touch off a general strike and a revolution in the UK.
It has now emerged that the Prime Minister has given some thought to the dangers in the current situation for the Tory party and the ruling class, and has blurted out a fraction of these thoughts over the ITV while being questioned by Robert Peston who put a viewer’s query to him.
He was asked if the UK would be ‘stronger, safer and better off’ in the EU under Labour or out of it under the Tories. Cameron replied: ‘Well, I think you can have the best of both worlds, you can stay in the EU and have a Conservative government, I think that is the right thing to do.’
Told he was ‘dodging the question’, Cameron continued: ‘But if you ask me what is a more important decision, a General Election or this Europe vote, actually the Europe vote is more important.
‘Because if you don’t like the government, you can always get rid of them in five years’ time. I obviously don’t like that bit. But that’s the truth. Whereas if we make this decision to leave the EU and get out of the single market and hit our economy and hit jobs, it would be very, very difficult if not impossible to reverse that decision.’
The Prime Minister later claimed: ‘I don’t think I quite said that’ when Peston accused him of saying a Labour government would be better than Brexit. Never before has a serving Tory prime minister suggested or even hinted that a Labour government would be preferable to a Tory regime. The fact that this issue has even arisen testifies to just how deep the economic and political crisis of UK and EU capitalism really is!
Concretely, what the PM is hinting at is that if the Brexit camp led by Johnson, Gove and Duncan Smith are defeated in the referendum and the Tory Party splits, he is prepared to appeal to Labour’s right wing to do their national duty and form a national government with the Cameron Tories, as they did with Baldwin during the 1931 crisis – this time to secure Britain’s membership of the EU.
This move would no doubt split the Labour Party but there are more than the required number of right wing Labour MPs ready for such a ‘save the capitalist nation’ job. In fact, his reaction to the Peston question has already provoked a furious response inside the Tory Party, with angry protests that Cameron is suggesting that even a Corbyn-led government would be better than a Tory regime if it could keep the UK securely in the EU.
Up and down the Tory Party, Cameron is now being called a ‘traitor’, and the knives are being sharpened for a leadership challenge after June 23. British capitalism is now in a desperate economic and political crisis, very much a part of the deepening world crisis, and the expectancy that there will be a new banking crash that will require redoubled austerity measures.
That this is the time to build the revolutionary leadership of the WRP and the YS there is no doubt. In fact this type of leadership, of the Fourth International, must be built world-wide as the major capitalist states, including the US, are gripped by the economic and political crisis.
On June 23 British workers have an enormous opportunity to strike a heavy blow at UK and EU capitalism by voting to leave the EU and taking mass actions to bring down the government and bring in a Workers Government and Socialism,
This action will evoke a huge response throughout the EU and in the US where workers are already struggling against the bankrupt capitalist order.
Vote ‘Leave’ on June 23 – Forward to a Workers Government and a Socialist United States of Europe!