THE Tory government and party is now split into warring groups, one of which is pursuing a leadership election to knife their leader May for her abysmal Brexit capitulation. Meanwhile, Labour is split, with its right wing more and more inclined to ‘put the capitalist nation first’, and to rescue May from her anti-Brexit rebel MPs by voting for her deal to become a vassal state of the EU.
They are in favour of remaining in the customs union, and following an EU agreed common rule book, to be supervised by the EU Court of Justice until the EU decides otherwise. As well, the deal cannot be unilaterally scuppered by the UK. May’s plan remains the best way for the UK capitalists and right wing Labour MPs to secure their goal of remaining in the EU, through a form of imprisonment, defying the mass opposition of the working class.
May has, in fact, with her pro-customs union plan consciously moved towards Labour’s ‘Six Tests’ to try to win Labour support to keep her government in office, at a time when the DUP and a number of Tory MPs will no longer vote for it. Former Brexit Secretary, Raab who lasted in the job for just a few weeks, has criticised the May government’s ‘lack of political will and resolve’, and condemned the EU leaders as bullies who must be resisted.
Such talk is cheap, however. Raab, who quit on Thursday over the Brexit deal has yet to put in his letter demanding a Tory leadership election. There is also a ‘gang of five’ at work in the Tory cabinet, led by Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom, and including Gove, Liam Fox, Penny Mordaunt, and the man who destroyed the rail network, Grayling.
They haven’t sent letters in to demand May’s resignation either, instead they are seeking to get her to change her policy, which she has made absolutely clear she will not do. They are ‘paper tigers’. The EU meanwhile insists that there cannot be any renegotiations, and that the deal has been made.
May has now said that there is a critical week ahead. Labour leader Corbyn said yesterday that her government should go back to the EU and ‘renegotiate rapidly’. He also said another referendum – as demanded by some of his MPs – was ‘an option for the future but not an option for today’.
Although he has in the past opposed the EU, he admitted that he voted Remain in the 2016 Referendum. Yesterday, he remained in his best position, on the fence, saying: ‘If there were to be another I don’t know how I would vote – what the options would be at that time.’
Corbyn is getting ready to save the May government by propping it up along with its EU deal. Right wing cynics are taking heart that it is a one-way deal, which can’t be broken unilaterally, and is their way back into remaining in the EU. Workers must now intervene in this struggle and insist that the referendum result must be carried out and that the UK must not only leave the EU, but must then expropriate the bosses and move forward to socialism.
There is no better time than now for carrying through this policy. Across the Channel, ‘Emperor’ Macron is currently involved in a life and death struggle with the French working class. More than 280,000 workers took to the streets of France, angry at rising fuel prices. The ‘yellow vests’, so-called after the high-visibility jackets they are required to carry in their cars, blocked motorways and roundabouts. They are ready to bring Macron down!
In Italy, the EU Commission has ordered the Italian government to rewrite its budget and the latter has responded that they will need troops to do it. In Greece, police clashed with young protesters in central Athens on Saturday, after thousands marched to mark the anniversary of the violently quashed student uprising in 1973 that helped topple the military junta. Police responded with tear gas and stun grenades as other protesters built street barricades with desks and chairs.
Throughout Spain and Germany workers are marching against fascism. Decisive action by the UK workers will lead to revolutions throughout the EU. The working class of Europe is ready to put an end to the bankers and bosses EU, and replace with the Socialist United States of Europe.
