IN A statement passed overwhelmingly by Unite’s policy conference in Brighton, the union stressed that its priority is to push for a general election in order to deliver a Labour government, which would be more capable of, and committed to, securing the best possible future for working people.
In fact, the best way to achieve a general election would be for Labour leader Corbyn to put down a motion of no-confidence in the May government, and for the Unite leadership to go to the General Council of the TUC to push through a motion calling a general strike to bring down the Tories, and to bring in a socialist UK by nationalising the banks and the major industries, which would of course mean leaving the EU.
This the Unite leadership is definitely not doing! So it is left in a position where it remains opposed to the UK leaving the EU, but is too frightened to openly call for a second referendum because of the fact that millions of workers, including many Unite members, voted to leave the EU when asked in the 2016 referedum, by the government, to instruct it what to do.
McCluskey’s policy is to do nothing. Instead, he is waiting for the May government to explode under the weight of its own contradictions and then be replaced by a coalition of anti-Leave UK forces, from Labour to the Scottish Nationalists, to vote to carry out a parliamentary coup to remain in the EU, stabbing the working class in the back.
They won’t have a second referendum in case they get a bigger shock than they did with the first referendum result! They are certainly not supporting Labour standing in a general election with the same policies that removed May’s majority in 2017: central to these was that Labour was in favour of leaving the EU, the single market and the customs union.
This is why McCluskey is emphasising that Unite is not calling for a second referendum, re-running the 2016 vote, but is saying that voters must be allowed to pass their verdict on whatever agreement the UK government secures with the European Union – which is likely to be a rotten compromise, unsatisfactory to all.
In his speech to conference, McCluskey said: ‘As democrats we respect the vote to leave. It is however impossible to respect the way the government has conducted itself since. ‘The negotiations as to how and on what terms we leave the EU, and what the new basis of our relationship with our nearest neighbours and largest market will be, has been entirely overshadowed by negotiations to try to hold the Tory Party together.
‘Theresa May has lost all authority, all capacity to make decisions, all power of initiative.
‘She is held prisoner by the dogmatists and fantasists of the far right. These people see in Brexit the chance to turn Britain into the low-wage, deregulated, race-to-the-bottom society of their dreams. ‘We are not, I repeat for my friends in the media, not, calling for a second referendum … but we remain open to the possibility of a vote on any deal the Tories come back with.’
Then, once what the Tories have to offer is rejected, Unite and the TUC will recall their real position – that the UK must remain in the EU, in the single market and the customs union. McCluskey is preparing to stab the millions of workers that voted to quit the EU in the back, in order to remain in the EU, which all the bureaucrats like so much since they will sit as workers’ reps on big business boards, with the job of selling what the bosses want to the working class. This job is just up their street! It is the summit of their ambition!
The working class must now take the matter in hand. The 2016 referendum result was, in fact, the first shot of the developing British revolution. With the Tories split and the Labour and TUC leaders plotting to remain in the EU at any cost, the working class must now make another leap.
It must sack its union leaders and take general strike action to bring down the Tories and bring in a Workers Government that will not pay the £39 billion ‘Danegeld’ to the EU, but will nationalise the major industries and the banks to bring in a socialist UK.
This will then resolve the crisis of the EU by appealing to the workers of Europe to rise up and overthrow the bankers’ and bosses’ EU and bring in a Socialist United States of Europe. The working class, the only really revolutionary class in society, is more than capable of such action!
