Labour's defeat. Part One.

Labour's defeat in the 2019 General Election is definitive. Labour is the only major party that reduced its votes across all of the UK countries, regions and towns since the 2017 election. Labour took approximately 10 million votes on the 12th of December. In 2017 it had achieved 13 million votes. While the Tories won more seats in Parliament, their overall 14 million votes were not much greater than Teresa May's overall numbers in 2017. But their successful attack on the working class vote in England and Wales in the current election changed their pattern of votes into seats in Parliament. The 2019 election was not 'won' by the Tories, it was 'lost' by Labour.

However Labour's loss of votes is not just the victim of smart footwork in key marginal constituencies, organised by the Tories electoral gurus. Nor was it just Labour's late and lack-lustre approach to Brexit. Its 6% decline in many of the big cities speaks volumes that have not yet been fully understood. The core of Labour's wholesale defeat goes deep; deeper than Labour's obvious weakness about Brexit.

Starting at the very end of the election campaign, an odd contradiction emerged as Labour's left leadership began to re-define themselves and the party that they were trying to build. In the last months of 2019, a new political language emerged on the Labour left. Labour was not now so much a party as a 'movement'. Labour's program was not a Manifesto so much as 'a Transformation.'

It was all meant to reflect the large size and democratic power of Labour's membership and the shift by Labour from narrow politics to a change in society. But two separate and largely contrary ideas began to circulate. The journalists poked away at cultish aspects of Momentum, Corbyn's necessary support organisation that held back the impact of the large right-wing of Labour MPs. At the same time, barriers after barriers were being erected against possible political forces that might have been gathered, including some splits from the more radical parties and movements that were outside of Labour. There were openings to those making a big impact on society, as with the current wave of strikes, Extinction Rebellion and the ecology movement, the Greens, or the Peoples Assembly. Meanwhile the 2019 Manifesto had 'transformed' itself into an ideology, a new way of changing society. Yet it was an ideology that was meant to stand the ground with millions of people because it had a guaranteed budget!

So we had a 'movement' that drew lines against real possible movements - like the left that campaigns for a socialist Scotland; and a 'Transformation' that was defended to journalists as a successful European capitalist model, like Germany. Suddenly left-Labour had become an ideological circus - and utterly incomprehensible to millions. The success of the 2017 Labour Manifesto was in its definition. 'End Austerity now'. And millions understood. They backed the state ownership of services. The NHS proved it worked. By 2019 defending the NHS had become who is offering the biggest money pile, and, and, and... Many voters lost their way between 'Transformation' and their day to day life. In the end they did not believe the 'Transformation.' They wanted it specific and straight.

And that was the weakness. Make the successful 2017 Labour story again, but bigger and therefore better. Not so. The great changes that inspired populations across history, were those that sought for the political and economic ideas that rose to the level of the concrete. 'Land, peace and bread' said the Russian revolutionaries. 'Now, win the peace' said Attlee.

The self-created contradictions of Labour's left have a fundamental origin in the contradiction of the Labour Party itself; in that the party as a whole shelters not one but two classes in society. It is encompassed, as a party, by a state and an economy that clashes against the interests of one of those classes. Most Labour MPs, officers and trade union leaders support Britain's status quo. And that cannot and may not be 'transformed'. It can only be broken out of. Even the left of the party can be soaked by Labour's fundamental history of patriotism, defence of the state and Britain (not the people) first. This class problem at the core of the party, dominated by a big majority of MPs, can only now surface more furiously than ever.  It will try to finish what remains of Labour's left - only, of course, trend up destroying the mass support, the energy and the effort that kept any real mass Labour Party alive.

A great deal of the legacy of Blair (and the Milibands) are behind Labour's defeat in 2019. Part of the reason why a large number of would-be Labour supporters sincerely doubted the Labour left's cornucopia (which appeared like a childish competition with the Tories) is the shrieking silence by Blair, then by Brown and then by (both) Milibands as they covered up the seminal role of the banks in the 2008 crash. Instead, the madness of the Tories that Labour caused the crash and created the need for austerity became 'common sense' instead. This idea remained lodged in the minds of millions of British people.

Why did all parts of Labour cut their own party's throats, for more than a decade? Because the banks and finance corporations were (and remain) the centre of British capitalism. And this fact was still only whispered, even by Labour's left leaders in 2017 and now. The 'Transformation' spoke relatively nothing about opening the terrible truth regarding Britain and its financiers. How was the City to be nationalised? How can the tax havens be raided? Instead we had a proposal that state finances would create a new economy from money gathered from the top 5%. Does anybody believe the top 5% would shell out? Where, and most importantly how, would the Labour led state get its money? Would the billionaires really give it all up? This mess was a concession made by the left to Labour's leaders' murky history and their failure to attack the banks. But that meant no fundamental or believable base was created for the 99% to stand on, at least when it came to proving you really can move large amounts of wealth from the billionaires to the poor.

The failure to call-out the core of British capitalism and the need to break it down was yet another reflection of the unresolved contradictions of the Labour Party, including among much of the Labour left.

Which brings us, finally, to Brexit and to Corbyn.

There is a good reason why the Brexit issue and the anti-Corbin offensive combine. Starting with Brexit, the argument that the 2019 election was won by a brave, apparently 'to die for', Boris Johnson 'getting Brexit done' hides the really dramatic decision that was made inside the British ruling class following the extended catastrophe of Teresa May. As everybody knows Boris himself took the route of Brexit because it was his only hope to be Prime Minister. What has been hidden is the determined shift in the City of London and the multi-nationals to wreck Corbyn's Labour Party as the first and most critical priority - if necessary dropping the Tory grandees and accepting for the time-being the Brexit route. After the 2017 General Election, Corbyn's Labour Party was getting stronger and it had to be destroyed at all and at any costs. Ruthlessly reorganising the Tory Party and accepting the maverick Johnson was the cost worth paying. After all, Johnson would happily come into line in a future soft trade treaty. It was this ruling class led, absolutely fundamental step, not Brexit itself, that destroyed Corbyn's Labour.

Johnson was successful in splitting millions of working class voters on the Brexit issue. It should be remembered however that the Tories were not much further in their triumph than the vote they achieved under ex PM May in 2017. It was Labour's failure to marshal their vote from 2017 that gave the Tories their majority. The Labour vote fell most dramatically in the Midlands and the North East of England. But it fell right across the board. Labour made mistakes over Brexit but did not fail only because of its unsuccessful Brexit policy.

The 2016 Brexit referendum has changed its character over time. Leaving the EU itself was, and remains, simply a frame that surrounds different pictures. It was the political and economic context creating an emerging new leadership in society that shaped the real content of the 2016 Brexit referendum.

In 2016 the huge majority of those voting to leave the EU nominated immigration as their reason for their vote. Voter's anger with the establishment was expressed by hostility to immigration as the perceived reason for the collapse of vital services and reducing income. It was not surprising. Immigration was the immediate and daily sight that was new and which was apparently changing daily life. It was Blair who had set up the conditions for that particular social confrontation. In other words the initial wave of Brexit was undoubtedly an attack on the elite and their system - but from the right.

More. The 2016 Brexit mushroomed the significance of the extreme far right - who took the leadership of the Brexit movement under its banner of radical racism. The majority of Brexit voters were not fascists or even radical racists. But their initial leadership was. And you can still hear the echoes of the 2016 referendum when mainly Asian heritage children are told that they have to 'go home' when Brexit comes. Brexit meant an end to 'political correctness gone mad' and a huge eruption of racist slurs, comments and attacks - extended mainly to Asian heritage people. In many impoverished towns and cities the old working class culture, built by communal work and by the effects of the trade unions, had gone. This was the context, the real content of Brexit in 2016. Which meant among other things, that the working class had been split. Millions in the bigger cities, among young people, in Scotland and London, and among virtually all the ethnic working class, voted, holding their noses, to remain in the EU. 2016 was about breaking up the momentum of the national racist right in British politics. Voting 'remain' was anti-racist act and was essential.

Meanwhile, the ruling class in Britain turned away from the social dangers that were emerging. Their main party, the Tories, flew into chaos. Leaders of the establishment bleated about how Brexit would mean poverty. For the poor that had little effect because they were already there.

What began to shift the 2016 Brexit was social impact of the rise of the Labour left and Corbyn. Racist attacks are still higher than 5 years ago but while the new Labour left could not substitute for the missing millions of trade unionists, they shifted the character and the political debate in society through 2016 and 17.  First the youth were mobilised and second the growing extreme far right were minoritised and then isolated. During this time the Tory government did nothing to break the far right. In part they absorbed it. PM May continued her extreme immigration measures.  But by 2018 even Farage himself denounced the active far right and stated that Brexit was not primarily about immigration. The polls showed that immigration was no longer the main reason to support Brexit. This leap forward, led by the Labour left and anti-racist movements, changed the 2016 Brexit in society, at least its context and therefore its real meaning.

The nature and role of the EU is stark and obvious. It is a global centre of modern capitalism. But Brexit has rarely been about that - at least in its British aspect. Brexit has turned into a mirror of the shape of UK society. As Brexit shifted away from racism so its resistance to the British status quo, always there, became the dominant issue for Brexit supporters. Farage noticed this shift too, a shift that meant a new effort to get on the new bandwagon. The prominent issue became the democratic right of millions to be heard and supported. The tottering May government became the symbol of an elite that had failed.

It was then that Labour left missed the trick. Shocked by the enormity of the gathering onslaught on Corbyn, the new content of Brexit was missed. There were three reasons for this; first 'No Deal' now became the new flag for the far right. It appeared to the Labour left to be another extreme right initiative that had to be defeated at all costs. 'No Deal' offered the end of all positive rules and regulations regarding work and labour. Towards the end of May's premiership 'No Deal' looked like a likely outcome. But it turned out that 'No Deal' was a diversion. Nevertheless many Labour MPs, including even those hostile to Corbyn, could 'unite' to get a new referendum, which seemed a necessary and sensible response to the disaster of 'No Deal'. Second, there was fear that the Labour left would lose millions of young people who were opposed to Brexit unless there was a concession to their original views and third, it was argued that a promise of another referendum might even coalesce both sides of the working class. (There was quite a large aspect of 'uniting' Labour's MPs about this too.) The Labour left had led the move to change the direction of the 2016 referendum. But it began to retreat from any positive policy to break from the EU (which would have been an immediate and essential act should Labour get into power and carry out its Manifesto promises!)

In 2018 the ruling class decided on their main move, even accepting for a time the danger of 'No Deal'. The Labour leadership were thrown into retreat and their defence by the most ferocious attack by the media and large sections of privileged society in modern history. The Labour leadership missed the shifting understanding and depth of the new, democratic question for Brexit voters. Even more importantly, the strength of that fact among those who voted against Brexit was also missed. The Labour left had detached its leadership from the working class both across the Brexit supporters and those non Brexit voters who had decided to uphold the democratic rights of the Brexit voters. Brexit had moved on. The Labour leadership was going in the wrong direction.

Would Labour have won or have at least managed another hung parliament if it had risked 'No Deal' and insisted on maintaining the Brexit result as it stood? Unlikely. By 2018 Labour's new left had lost its momentum in the wider society, bombarded by a focused onslaught set up by the owners and managers of wealth and power in Britain and their allies and mouthpieces. The left were immediately hampered by the structure inside their political organisation where dominance remained with pro-capitalist MPs, despite the Party's membership and supporters. Labour was fighting inside as well as out. Even if the Labour left had retained their 2017 manifesto promise to support the result of the 2016 referendum, Corbyn's attempt to find a version of Brexit that shielded ecological and working class conditions would have rapidly been defined as 'dither and delay' and would almost certainly have lost to Boris's 'at all costs' program. This was the effect of the direct action of a ruling class that put the destruction of the Corbyn-led Labour Party above all other costs, including, temporarily, Brexit.

Corbyn's name emerges well from out of the Labour left's failure. He focused on key possibilities longer and more coherently than many of his team. He stayed as closely as possible to the 2017 manifesto promise to accept the referendum result. At the same time he fought publicly and fiercely against racism (until he was constantly side-winded by the farcical claim that he was an anti-Semite.) He was the best of Labour's left by far. And the assault which he suffered demonstrates, if it ever needed to be demonstrated, that those who genuinely challenge the system of capitalism have to prepare for every possibility thrown at them from the most powerful forces on earth.

Significantly, and yet again, the the absence of nation-wide working class organisation prevented a coherent and widely understood response to the establishment, the elite the political class, the captains of capitalism. Corbyn became remote and regionalised, as his personal authority and sincerity was torn to pieces. A large part of the base of the Labour Party could never be enough. Instead, for millions of people, Corbyn became the very elite that he was desperately trying to defeat.

The next article will address the possible future for socialist organisation on a wide scale now that tens of thousands stand inside the wreckage of Labour's left. In essence, Momentum and those sympathetic MPs that remain socialist need to avoid using their energy and motivation parlaying with Labour's furious right - which intends to smother their colleagues (if they stand firm at all.)  The way to use the gains that have been made is to accept the spilt between Labour's two opposite classes. It will come anyway in the form of expulsions of Corbyn's supporters. Instead Momentum and its allies need to work towards a new type of socialist party, with some MPs if at all possible, but most of all together with the working class communities and organisations as they struggle day to day and prepare for action against a (very early) future, run by a dangerous, trapped, right wing government. In other words begin the leadership of the recomposition of the new British working class - with all of its real and actual decisions, in Scotland, Northern Ireland being part of building the new movements, erupting against the goals of Capital across the continent.

By way of a conclusion so far ... The most basic reason of all why the Labour left has failed is because it could never win - not without grasping the new and fundamental political reality of modern capitalism (which is decisively not contained in Britain by any particular stand on Brexit!)

As has been suggested earlier, the left social democratic approach to decisive reform is no longer viable (which is not to say that the effort and struggle for reform is worthless. It remains the most effective activity that humanity can make.) The problem is that the political structure of social democracy is an obstacle to progress. It is part of the delay and is forcibly shared with those who seek the opposite.

Post WW2, after the defeat of fascism and the strength of the USSR vis a vis the US and Europe, millions of workers and their organisations in the West were able to make substantial changes to their conditions and their lives. It was not at all a direct product of the poisonous Stalinist regime as such, but rather the impact of the heroic efforts of the Russian people and the weakness of Western capitalism in a devastated Europe while facing the rise of anti-colonialism. across the world.  Social democracy was at its heyday in the West under these circumstances. But such conditions are long gone.

Capitalism has gone global and finds labour across a world among the cheapest conditions. Finance has cut its ties from production and from any particular nation. Nations now are organisations which are safety nets for smash-ups in the disassociated flow of capital. The social democratic route to substantial reform is now closed. Revolutionary action is now the route to reform, and working class organisation in the new societies of the West needs to be redefined. It is virtually impossible to return to the days of Attlee or even Roosevelt. The consequences of the new dispensation are both good and bad, and are already all around us. Syriza (not the Greek people) flopped because they had to take a revolutionary step to win their reforms. Direct and often violent action against the state in France by the Gillet et Jaunes was the means to directly move 6 billion Euros a year back to the French people.

This is not an argument against organisation. A short term positive response by the state to gather time is just that - not any sort of long term change. In France, Macron is now embattled in a bitter and prolonged struggle cut pensions. And the centre of this battle is the French trade unions.

Unfortunately the political use of the term 'betrayal' has now spread widely, from disappointed sections of the far left across the world, to the day to day politics of the western mainstream. If the argument about Labour's left is reduced to 'betrayal, across the whole group, or its leaders or even all those under pressure from the right wing of the Labour Party, it simply tells us that only a tiny expert number can produce the the right way for humanity.

The fundamental issue here is the nature of the structure of Social Democracy. It is a vehicle that had an historic success in the West and now cannot deliver a serious inch of social progress. Accordingly, under leaders like Blair, the social democratic Labour Party becomes the operative shadow of the Tories. In many parts of the West, social democracy has shrivelled. In others it has genuinely transformed into total capitalist parties. Corbyn's new Labour left tried to struggle out of its Social Democratic history. But, as even Brexit shows, it becomes immediately outflanked by the organised action of big Capital. This experience contains many mini 'betrayals' and more mistakes, but that is not the point. Brexit was never going to be a Social Democratic victory. And now the new Labour Party leadership is about to devour its left, its mass base, its challenge to 'the system.' As a consequence the British Labour Party may well end by by devouring itself. Many social democratic parties in the West have done just that.

The melee in Britain will begin with the demand that Momentum be dissolved, as a foreign carbuncle on the now healthy body represented by the Chuka Umunna's of this world. That will start Labour's collapse. The process will happen behind the big news of Boris Johnson's restored honeymoon with the main leaders of Capital in the UK and a fresh wind for Calais.

It is an essential and even desperate purpose to maintain the thousands in Momentum and all the bits and pieces of Corbynism that remain, inside and outside parliament. It is truly unlikely that will happen within the walls of the dieing Labour party.

Britain's last General Election?

There is an international frame for all of the various crises that have been rolling across the West since 2008. And these crises (which are constantly unresolved) do have more coherence than is often understood. For example, Trump's America appears primarily to be attacking China's economic rise. China's subordination seems to be Trump's main goal. Less understood and more surreptitiously, Trump is actually at economic and political war with the EU.

The 'strange' and 'personal' behaviour of the US President in relation to Putin, often explained by Trump's 'macho male' attraction, becomes more explicable when Russian leverage in the EU is added to the strain and pressure on the EU and its German leadership. Trump wants a decline in the Chinese economic influence across the world. He also wants that in relation to the world's biggest market, the EU. But he needs the destruction of the EU, as opposed to his acceptance of the Chinese regime. 

The Trump leadership sees the crisis of 2008, and its invariable recurrence, solved by the simple, straight-forward subjugation of the US over China and the necessary dissolution of the European Union. The total supremacy of the dollar (tied to the US's financial state machinery, starting with the 'Fed') would then be able to 'solve' the world's next financial crisis through US global political leadership and its financial domination.

The great battles of the new capitalism are played across a vast theatre in which the relatively minor disputes being fought out in Britain, for example, are small beer. Nevertheless, Britain's part of the crisis is going to be big enough to reorganise its nation and most of what was the post war British society - in a more substantial way than any time since WW2. Brexit has provided Britain's crisis with its current title. But much more substantial movements than Brexit are underway. 

The would-be the next Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has a primary slogan of 'Getting Brexit Done' as he and his extreme right Tory Party fall into the General Election. It is a fatuous fantasy even in its own terms. Boris's main slogan sums up the emptiness of the election he wants to win and believes it works because it is empty, because it covers up the real and rotting politics and economics of British society. Boris's Brexit, if he gets it, will only begin the British agony with the EU - spreading over years and years.  

What will actually unfold through and after Britain's election? What is the real British crisis?

Brexit is not and never has been the critical question for Britain's future. The main issue for Britain's future has always been the direction that British capitalism takes. It has been a dilemma over the decades since Thatcher, and in turn it has created a smouldering political crisis. Britain's political crisis did not start in 2008. It was initiated by Labour leader Blair's 1997 election which welcomed American wars and the financial legacy of Thatcherism. And it was Labour's Gordon Brown that pulled away the last restraints that might have limited the the whirlwind of the British-based banks and their epic financial storm. It was the madness of the Royal Bank of Scotland - the largest bank in the world (read the biggest purchase of the largest debts - called its assets) that forced the British state to have to turn its financial resources into propping up international finance in 2009.  And it was an election which reflected the disappointment with Blair's Labour Party that duly sent the people of Britain into the depths of austerity in 2010, under the banner of the Tories and the Lib Dems.

The politics of the 2008 crisis and its political ramifications in Britain have now become simple. It took a while to get there but Labour has begun to draw together a leadership and program that challenges the direction of international finance and its associated globalisation. The Tories, the main party of Britain's rulers, has decided for Trump. The relationship to the EU has always been secondary in this battle. (The Tories pretend that Brexit is over if they win the election, whereas years of Brexiting are ahead.)

A new General Election has always been the decisive political issue since the 2016 Brexit referendum vote - not because Brexit itself is the decisive question and not because Britain's democracy is a particularly incisive or any sort of successful instrument for most of its population, but because there is no other effective alternative for change - for either of the two main social classes. (There are the partial exceptions to Parliament's importance, including the extinction rebellion battles and some ferocious trade union struggles - set up by managers expecting a Tory victory.) For the population as a whole, the fight between Labour's program of social democratic reform and the Tory restoration and expansion of British based finance capital - with all of its associated requirements (cheap labour, slashing legal restrictions, sales of state property etc.,) are the only political leaderships and directions that seem to be available.  

But just as a genuine, long term Labour victory would require a relentless battle with national and international capital - led in the first place by the EU - so the prospects for a Boris 'victory' are equally shaky

The political orientation that Britain has had since it gave up its navel superiority to the US in 1921 and the remnants of its Empire in 1956 to 1961 (minus Hong Kong) has been to rely on the US as part of an Anglo-Saxon bloc. As Britain grew weaker it decided to carry the Anglo-Saxon banner into Europe and what has become the EU. This assured, among other things, the continuing global role in the expanding world of finance via the City of London, a seat on the UN's Security Council, shared war materials and wars etc. But Boris proposes to cut away any influence on the EU which, inevitably, diminishes the 'Anglo-Saxon' presence in Europe and increases the reliance of Britain on the direct requirements of the US regime.

This means that Boris will be the subject of Trump in virtually all spheres (attitudes to China, imports and exports, food, health etc) excepting the City of London. And the City will use the opportunity to expand its financial liberties to the detriment of the overwhelming population of the country. 'Singapore on the Thames' as one EU administrator suggested. This is Boris's proposed future for 63 million people.     

More significantly still, both Northern Ireland and Scotland are already politically convulsed, supposedly by Brexit. In reality a decade of austerity, the contradictory issues across Britain around racism and identity and the possible re-opening of the routes to a united Ireland and an independent Scotland will boil over with Boris in charge.

The fact that both NI and Scotland are ahead of Britain as a whole in their opposition to Westminster reflects the alternative political leaderships and the mass political initiatives that have evolved over decades - including through civil war in the case of NI.) Both countries are pressed by the increasingly Little English leadership of the UK Parliament that prefers its own minority political blocks in both countries rather than accept the indigenous politics. The United Kingdom in different ways and with different answers has already failed to accept the democracy of two parts of its united nation. An organised, coherent and thought out Irish nationalist leadership in NI and the experience, the popular movement and the political party in Scotland will act decisively against the minority core in Boris's Westminster should it come to lead the so called UK.

The break up of Britain and worse is the likely result of a Boris win in the General Election. The consequent drive against labour, with a small 'L', essential to British Capital's new rules, will produce anti-parliament or non-parliamentary reaction by tens of thousands, being driven into Britain's new 'third world.' Proto fascist and racist currents, bolstered by state action, are then most likely to be the preparation or the response against any sort of resistance, of the sort which is now emerging across the world in Hong Kong, Iraq, Chile and France. As the shifts in big Capital re-arrange the world, so Britain will echo the battles now emerging.

A victory for Corbyn's Labour, while contrary to the expectations, claims and hysteria from virtually all of the mainstream media, has the potential to mobilise the peoples of Britain, rearrange the UK nations - and wider. It will need to. At the heart of the matter is whether our crazy system inflates another financial ball of empty air in its scrabble for wealth or whether the citizens across the world decide to stick in the pin before their society becomes yet more unliveable... 

The Boris Brexit is over.

Yes. Because something else is about to start.

UK Prime Minister Boris has turned the final key and truly Trumped himself. He still holds, now at its height, a bloc of 39% of voters that support 'No Deal.' But Boris shares that 39% with Farage's Brexit Party. And the minority 39%, that Boris has been using to lead the whole of society - denouncing the Brexit 'surrender', fuelling active, public anger - is fraying.

A small part of it is the new Supreme Court ruling which stops Boris shutting Parliament. 49% of voters supported the court and 30% did not. The court was determined to keep the 'remain' door open on behalf of the City, the large corporations etc - but for the time being the court cuts down Boris's charge for outright victory.

Second, Boris's next ploy, which was to set up an immediate General Election, is now in the slow lane and in any case cannot happen before the October 31st. The number of voters that wanted an immediate election before October 31 was always well under 50%.

Finally Boris promised to 'die in a ditch 'if he did not get an exit from the EU by 31 October. And that too looks pleasingly possible. It certainly breaks Boris's main promise that he swore to his core support. That 39% core would not go away if there was a failure on the 31st, but they would split to Farage and, most importantly, they would cease to provide the political lead, behind Boris, across society in general.

There will be tricks and slights of hand before October 31 but the problems that have surfaced for Boris means that he is now desperate to get a 'deal'. Boris's secretive pals have always seen the possibility that getting a 'deal' is different to exiting the EU. They have always known that the bargaining with the EU could start after Britain's exit. But now that a quick election is probably delayed until later November - at the earliest. That would mean a lot of rough weather in the economy before the Election. An early 'deal', pre-November, now looks like it could delay the economic mess of a full Brexit and therefore provide a good chance of a Boris victory in the coming election.

Boris's 'deal', 10 pages of waffle if he's lucky, would have to shove the backstop over Northern Ireland and other key problems to 'guaranteed' futures. A great hullabaloo around Boris's plan, carefully keeping trade issues for the future, would try to re-set all those extreme brexiteers back together with the wider population that is completely exhausted with the Brexit argument, bringing them together as a new bloc that could back Boris and his made-up deal. If the economy still hangs on for a few months, a General Election over Xmas might then provide a Tory victory. Boris is out of his ditch and can then set about his version of Trumpington.

Or so he imagines. Times are changing and views are shifting.

Most of Britain's people are certainly exhausted with Brexit and want the whole mess to go away. Recently however, a there is a growing sense that new politics in Britain are desperately needed. Its first reflection is seen in the wide sense of failure of Britain's political class as a whole. Paradoxically, this has been picked up by both the Tory Party and by Labour. For example there is complete denial from Boris and the Tory Party in general that the negotiations with the EU will still be front and centre whatever happens or does not happen on October 31. The Tories are trying to win the race against Labour based on the prominence of their policies on the NHS, policing, and infrastructure. The difference with Labour is that they have begun to put a further proposition to the population on Brexit. The Tories lie and say that Brexit will be over by November 1st. But now Corbyn has yet again won over the Labour Conference, on a different plain. His proposal, besides the social reforms set out in the Labour conference, is a proposed reunification of the working class over Brexit.  

Boris to a large degree, Farage, and now the Lib Dems both in total error, are deeply inclined to continue to ramp up the Brexit hysteria and are thereby beginning to miss a growing mood. The most obvious evidence of this shift is the reaction to the Lib Dems now that they intend to bypass a referendum if they get into government! Their own grandees are faltering. Amongst other things, if the Lib Dem leaders press the Brexit button, and only the Brexit button, then they will need to explain on the doorstep why they are the Party who rejects the 2016 referendum without a vote! A significant point now often accepted by many of those who voted for Remain.

The Brexit pantomime is a wearing distraction.

What is really the main political issue in Britain today? It is surely the question, can a radical socialist party win the government? That is the real next period in British politics and it begins only weeks away. Frankly, the upshot of Brexit, so long as a temporary compromise can be settled, is neither here nor there, in that context. The number one issue is the unification of the working class, centred on the need for a shift in wealth and power in society. The fight with institutions, like the EU, can wait.

To win radical government, real and immediate dangers must be overcome right now. Boris must not become a settled PM. Otherwise a soft Brexit, another vote, deals after Brexit, none of it will count. The softest possible landing with the EU either way, through a friendly deal, a new vote etc, helps most, for the time being. But Boris's 'heroic' platform; 'out by Halloween - at all costs'; has to be stopped with or without his fake deal - not because it will mean lorry jams at Dover but because it will secure a Boris victory. Boris must be broken and his faction in society isolated. To do that Boris must fail and the unification of Brexit built.

Can the Labour Party carry through a radical socialist program? That's another question entirely.

Breaking up Britain's new right wing.

It is entirely possible that if Boris had managed to keep to his 'No Deal' ultimatum, then the EU might well have spawned a version of a deal that looked like more concessions to the UK. After all, the EU leadership has already 'proved', a hundred times over, to those considering the British route, what a fractious turmoil that exiting turns out to be! But Boris's 'deal', and especially his 'no deal', would both have amounted to a new austerity, another drastic attack on the British working class.

A political choice needed to be made.

Breaking down Boris's leadership is not 'clever politics'. It is not some tactical dance. It is a major, class issue. This is not because of his right-wing block of Tory and Farageist Brexiteers in the country, which barely count for 25 - 35% maximum of potential voters. It is not because of the potential lack of the Irish Backstop, which would inevitably have to involve Westminster control of Stormont - to the delight of the reactionary DUP by provoking the wreckage of the Good Friday Agreement, etc., etc. It is because Boris was beginning to win over the leadership of society.

Since the end of the 19th century the British Parliament has rarely played a decisive role in the real decisions regarding issues touching matters of wealth and power. It is therefore rare for Parliamentary figures to really lead society in the sense of creating a shared 'common sense' among the majority, even among those who may have had contrary ideas.

Such political leadership goes beyond a specific, minority bloc in society, and, as perhaps surprisingly, Lenin once wrote, beyond a single class. 'From the standpoint of Marxism the (working) class, so long as it renounces the idea of hegemony or fails to appreciate it, is not a class, or not yet a class, but a guild, or the sum total of guilds.' And while the British working class are not in a sea of peasants, the evolution of Britain's modern working class has yet to fully centre itself socially and politically, let alone fully regroup with its potential allies.

The point of Boris's potential across society was that he could take dramatic hold of a majority view at least inside the English working class on Brexit - as the starting point, the platform, for his defining leadership across all of decisive political matters. Most especially, as far as Boris is concerned, to hook a large section of the working class 'back', now semi-detached from the new radicalism of Corbyn's Labour Party via the predominant call 'to get Brexit done', into a renovated Thatcher/Trump/Tory scenario and existence.

Breaking this process up is part of a class struggle. The defeat of Boris and his remaining allies will begin to dissolve his leadership role and potentially reframe the content of an early General Election. A General Election before 31 October would be entirely framed by Boris's 'common sense' to get Brexit done - and that will be the overriding issue for the majority of English voters. Of course the ruling class will seek any avenue and be constantly searching to renew the cause of remaining in the EU. Although a National Government including the Corbyn part of the Labour Party is deeply unlikely. But the reality will grow; that some Brexits renew austerity. That really ending austerity means a soft Brexit at best. That Brexit, or not Brexit, is only a tiny part of the story of change that needs to come.

Don't over-estimate Brexit.

There is a growing vision of the deep and hidden manoeuvres swirling around the current British parliamentary struggles over Brexit. The substance of this idea is that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is following the tactics developed by his adviser Cummings. For example Johnson deliberately says 'shit' to Labour leader Corbyn in the House of Commons (shock, horror) when talking about Labour's economic plans.

This idea of who really runs Boris and who, malevolently, will do literally anything to gain Boris's goal of 'No Deal', has some truth. Boris's rudeness, his ruthless dispatch of the creaky old Tory grandees, his tricks pulled out of the hat, do have a 'mess it up; keep it wild' flavour. And that does not come from the words of Boris's headteacher at Eton when he speaks to the young gentlemen being sent off to run Britain. It comes from the studies made by Cummings, a mini version of Steve Bannerman. And so it is that the right-wing kernel of the new Tory shock troops can barely wait for 'No Deal' to get going with the British version of Trump.

But the substance of the crisis of Britain's Parliament does not lie with Parliament.  It is centred among the tens of millions that have suffered most intensely during a decade of austerity. And, at the moment, the removal of the Tory government and the victory of a Corbyn government, is the only serious opening for a root and branch alternative to the British's peoples misery and anger.

For now, this has been entirely tangled up with Brexit. Brexit has become the cover for the deep malaise of the British people. The energy and anger caused by two miserable decades as the rich got spectacularly richer and the poor's lives fell apart, has been swallowed by the fatuous strains of the UK's relationship with the EU.  

An example of the disoriented thinking that this has caused is shown when some argue that the radical Labour leadership should accept Boris's demand for a General Election before the fight for 'No Deal' is over. This is despite the possibility/probability that Boris would win the election hands down. Boris would win because he would say 'I want a final Brexit after three terrible years; Labour is stopping us.' Even if Labour promoted 'a more pro-worker's deal with the EU - but we need more time', type proposal, the sickened population of England, at least, when it comes to Brexit, would almost certainly give the election directly into Boris's hands, assuming that at least one misery would be over.

The idea that Labour should ignore the fight to stop a 'No Deal' Brexit and go immediately for Boris's election is partly to do with the simplistic view that the way you do politics is to start from the opposite of your enemy. Blair said it; therefore it must be wrong. In reality, simply putting a cross where your enemy puts a plus is a hopeless way to decide 'what is to be done'. Unfortunately a much deeper, studied analysis, rising to the level of real life, is crucial.

In the case of Labour's potential to form a government, it is essential to expose and break down the Boris/Cummings's fantasy that somehow austerity can be swept away because Brexit is resolved, in the pretence that the EU will disappear after October 31. But breaking down that powerful feeling depends on the concrete failure of Boris's initiative. Argument on the doorsteps will not, itself, be anything like enough. Boris's 'dream' has to be physically broken, before the active political feelings of millions of people currently aroused by the political crisis, simply return to indifference as a consequence of the difficulties of daily life - or worse.

Here we come to the essence of the matter. It is vital that 'No Deal' fails, because 'No Deal' is the new austerity in Britain. And it is important that there is a 'soft' Brexit deal. By itself of course it will do little to damage the role of the EU, its corruption and its institutions, essentially propping up globalisation, even in a Britain which leaves the EU. Trade deals etc will still point in the wrong direction for the new economy that Britain has a chance of building. But most important of all is that Boris must be busted, whatever the Brexit outcome. And that cannot be done unless his core policy is smashed. That is the decisive next step and the Corbyn Labour Party must focus on that issue first and foremost, without restraint.

Brexit starts after October.

Two apparently key events will decide the next stage of Britain's expanding crises. The most obvious one, and the one that has just put Boris Johnson on his throne, is that Britain is shelving the EU on 30 October. The second, which is the real meat in the sandwich, is the coming General Election.

These two events will set the future for the UK. Except that one of them; Boris's great promise to the people who are sick to death with the EU whether they were 'leavers' or 'remainers' - that the UK is finished with the EU - turns out to be 'fake news' (in the delightful terms used by Boris's own coach.) 

The idea that the UK (or for that matter, the EU) will stop organising trade etc., after the 'No Deal Exit' is fatuous. That's when the real negotiations will start. There is even the chance that Boris will get an EU 'deal' before the end of October. It is truly absurd, as some of the media correspondents and old Tory gurus would have it, to expect the EU will insist on some moral rejection of their trade rather than deal the cash. The EU has already got its main result. The UK's pathetic performance, the total collapse of its long term reputation of political savvy across the world, has done the damage that the EU needed to prevent any further break up in its own camp, at least for the next few years. After October 30 the EU will ferociously demand a deal from the UK. And Boris will accept it - if he's still around.

The reality is that Boris's Brexit will just be be the start of the negotiations with the EU, under conditions where there has been a considerable shift in the relation of forces between the two contenders. Brexit does not finish on October 30. When the Brexiteers cheers finally fade away, that's when it all starts. 

And an early General Election? Well, here's a gap even smaller than the number of days offered to MPs to stop 'No Deal'. The next General Election, which will effect the real political and economic future of Britain, will instantly follow October 30 - whether MPs manage to block Brexit or not. If Boris is blocked he will call the election 'for Brexit.' If he gets it through, he will call the election on the immediate effect of his 'successful' promise (before the roof falls in.) 

That is the big game. The election, believes Boris, is the critical issue for his own future because it is the most important issue for Britain's economic and political elite. If he can break the prospect of a radical Labour Government then he opens the renovation of the Tory Party as the political instrument of the ruling class once more. (So long as his victory is big enough in terms of the number of MPs, he will also try to dump his some of his more manic, Brexit-believers.) 

Polls all show that Boris's Tories are now 5 or 7% above Labour. But both Labour and the Tories are being bitten from the margins. The current 18% for the Lib Dems is shaky, particularly after its leader rejected Corbyn's place as temporary Prime Minister if the Tory government was voted down. (Even the Tory grandee Kenneth Clark was for it.) Similarly, Farage's 14% is needed for the Tories to do better than their current, tiny, jiggered, majority. But the 'science' of polling is practically meaningless in Britain, as was clear in the last election. 

The substantial issue of the coming election partly lies with the ability (or lack of it) of the leadership and of the conference of the Labour Party, ideally promoting mounting mass action against Boris across the country and building key alliances which presents a popular, practical and attractive future.  Boris's spray of a few £millions, plus a false end to Brexit, is not a future. It is a Trumpite disaster. The future is a different economy, because the one that Britain has doesn't work; it is concentration on health, education, welfare and redistribution as the key jobs of government and it is stopping getting into Trump's wars and fights across the globe.

The current crop of Labour MPs, even including a hopeful new selection, will not be enough as a large number remain who are hostile to all things radical and socialist. They hang on to the Blairite history, where it was supposed that all classes, in practice mainly the rich, were well supported. Besides these MPs, more dangerous is the fact that the general population is not receiving an alternative message - one that stands against Boris's bombast. If Labour starts setting up concrete agreements now, particularly with the Scottish Nationalists and the Greens, that would make a radical future seem far more real. Support for the ridiculously under-represented Green Party requires a large-scale Labour outreach to them and an open, publicly-shared support in common for a new green economy. Millions of young people see the centre of their political lives in a battle to be green. Equally, the dissolution of the House of Lords would allow for the great cities and their leaders to build a new institution that raises democracy among local people. All of these steps and others, starting now, would demonstrate powerful  images of a different, better society which everybody can understand. 

Mass-action and a radical Labour, projecting a new version of the sort of country (and countries) that could be won by millions of ordinary people across the whole of the UK, will build a new vision in society. That is yet to be won. There needs to be a different picture of the future in the countries of the UK. Radical Labour and its allies need to de-centre Dunkirk and the all the other remnants of Empire, and create a new majority in society. In turn a new majority will help a new unity among the working class and its allies that can put Brexit in its proper place - with Brexit measured as a part and only a part of the much wider future that needs to be constructed. These are essential goals to be won through mass action and political clarity. 

If Boris wins and gets through, he will start failing very, very fast, both inside his party and outside in society. And then it will be the fight against fascism that will become the priority. 

Revolution? In Britain?

There were small but angry crowds protesting in several of Britain's main cities when the news spread that Prime Minister Boris Johnson was closing Parliament for five or more weeks in the run up to his ultimatum to leave the EU by Halloween. Several leading journalists called for mass action on the streets to challenge what was described as a coup against Parliament. A major rally is being built by the Peoples Assembly and others in London on 3 September. Lots of similar actions are underway across the country.

From the point of view of the vast majority of Britain's population, Johnson's drive to Austerity mark two, courtesy of Trump, will be a disaster of epic proportions. But the vast majority of Britain's population are currently split over the EU. That is exactly what Johnson wants just now and he has built his real political project on that basis. His main plan was not so much designed on leaving the EU as such, but has always been focussed on decimating the Corbyn led Labour Party.

PM Johnson could not care less about whether the UK leaves the EU without a deal or if there is a last minute deal that is enough to pass in Parliament before the 30 October. His entire concern is to make sure he can get to and win an early General Election decisively before the roof comes down, when the 'no deal' or the 'half deal' starts to bite in society. Any delay would be fatal because a large shift to a radical Labour Party will happen, both fast and vast, in those circumstances.

In any case, Johnson believes that once Labour is defeated and when he is ensconced in Westminster after the election, he will probably be able to play around with a set of new negotiations with the EU. Similarly he doesn't particularly believe in any long term future for the shock troops of the right wing of the Tory Party. He believes he can weather any storm once Labour is defeated. The British ruling class see the destruction of Corbyn's Labour Party as of greater value and, if necessary, worth some longer term mucking around with the EU. And Johnson has bet his political future on that.

In the meantime the coming General Election, either just before 30 October if Parliament blocks the October exit, or just after if Parliament fails, is going to be based by Johnson entirely on aggravating the split inside Britain's working class and their allies. Johnson will lead the anti-immigrant, anti-Parliament show after spraying out some dodgy sweets to the 'more discipline, lock them up' brigade.

But Britain's history is moving faster than Johnson's stratagems (derived by Dominic Cummings.)

The political crisis has already becoming a social and economic crisis in society. And the so called United Kingdom is dividing.

First; the anger over Johnson's action is rising. And like most peoples' hatred against austerity, the Brexit split, which Johnson is currently relying on, does not apply. For example the actions against Johnson that have been called by the main political campaigning organisation in England, the Peoples Assembly, are echoed by Momentum movement inside the Labour Party. Together, they will produce a profound effect in the September multi-thousand Labour Party Conference which in turn reduces the power in society of the Brexit division. 'Down with No Deal, Johnson and Austerity' is a potent political mixture.

Second; Johnson's current capture of the leadership of society ('I can end the bloody Brexit carnival!') despite his base in a minority political and social bloc, is very fragile. Not just because mass action to a different tune (see above) is acutely on Britain's agenda but also because the emerging role of the US's President on the one hand, and the the growing associations with the far right on the other, are already emerging, will surface more, and are generally loathed by 75% of British population.

Third; the creeping economic catastrophe across the West, called the 'second face of 2008' by some economists, will be earlier and doubled in Britain if there is 'No Deal' or even a Tory Deal. And the obvious question arises, who is going to pay for the next 2008? Fear of this development, particularly if it starts breaking into people's hearing, is why Johnson is now spraying £millions across the land. He is desperate to close down Corbyn's Labour Party before the economy really begins to shake. After that he thinks he can fiddle with the EU if necessary to hold it all together.

Johnson is on a knife edge. The two things that can bring him down are a new protest on the streets, designed, as with the Anti-War movement against the war in Iraq and the Poll Tax protests, to win over society, to make the opposition to Johnson the prevailing 'common sense' of the majority. Coupled with such initiative and action, Labour's September conference cannot be dominated by an argument over Brexit. Instead the active, daily, overthrow of Johnson must take precedence. A calm and united Brexit decision and an end to the fake divisions among ordinary people has to be presented as a necessary result - of the defeat of the ten year, mangled, deadly, right wing Tory government, now finally led by the trickster Johnson!

Britain's future.

About 20 to 30% of British people consistently support Britain's Prime Minister, Boris Johnston, when he calls for an exit from the EU at the end of October - with or without a deal. Opinion polls generally flutter between these two figures. For example a recent poll (21 August) by 'YouGov' headlines the 'news' that voters are now 'neck and neck' when it comes to their belief that Boris will leave the EU at the end of October. ('Neck and neck' turns out to be 39% of voters now think Brexit will happen in October versus 40%, who still doubt it.) But another poll on the same day from Kantar points out that only 23% of Britons preferred leaving the EU without a deal and 'more than half' of the poll's respondents' backed a second referendum on any Brexit agreement.

What's happened in Johnson's premiership so far is that he has patched together a social and political bloc, which is a relatively small minority in Britain as a whole, but is now leading the whole of British society.

Politically, Johnston's bloc is composed of three fifths of the Tory Party membership, more than 60% of potential Tory voters, virtually all of the potential Farage's Brexit Party voters and a third to two thirds of Tory MPs. This political force is, ultimately, a reaction to globalisation and it is suspicious of, and even hostile to the majority of the traditional British ruling class - in respect of its detachment from a nationalist, British type, capitalism.

The social construction of Johnson's bloc combines a small but vibrant, nationalist, streak of the ruling class, the upper classes, many on them based on land, and the lower middle classes - created by Thatcher - mainly to be found in Southern England. But the greatest part of Johnson's social potential is to be found in the large minority of the working class in Britain, especially among those who experienced the destruction of their work in the Midlands and parts of the North of England, and who express the damage of their lives and welfare primarily in terms of rising immigration. And if Johnson is the captain on the bridge sailing this new social combination through society, the boiler room includes a core of new fascists (who, inevitably as history has it, Captain Johnson sincerely believes he will 'get rid of' - in 'due course'.)

The majority of the working class in Britain, including lower middle class professionals and state workers, especially in the main cities and among youth, oppose Johnson. They either reject the Tory version of Brexit but still decline the EU because of its big business substance or they support remaining in the EU for what seems to them to be the best of two bad worlds. (The false understanding that there is a great wave of positive support for the EU that is now propelling the Lib Dems, will prove an empty shell if unity against Johnson, across Brexit, could be achieved.) But this huge social layer, a majority in society, does not yet see how to build common ground. They do not assemble yet around the only alternative to Johnson, which is Corbyn. Partly that is because the hierarchy of Britain's ruling class, and the politicians like Blair etc., repulse both 'leavers' and 'remainers' who seek progressive change. And partly that the Corbyn Labour Party is itself riven by internal battles.

But Boris Johnson is not really interested in Brexit. His goals are much more far-reaching. The longer term aims of Johnson, and he hopes his bloc, are to defend the capitalist system at all costs (now in danger from the growing anger of the western working classes.) He accepts, for the time being, that defining the crisis as one of confronting the 'international acceptance' of mass immigration (a la Germany) is useful. But all of the different pieces of the current Johnson bloc have far greater political ambitions than Brexit. And those ambitions, designed by Johnson as a return to Churchilian domination (nurtured by the embrace of the US) will produce a deeper social crisis and sprout a more corrupt and poisonous core in British society.

So, what is to be done?

The reason why another, majority bloc, both socially and politically, cannot win the leadership of society in Britain, is that there is no systematic mass mobilisation against austerity as partly achieved by the French gilets jaunes initiative - but there is a ferocious class war inside the Labour Party!

Labour leader Corbyn has taken a principled position, based entirely on the Labour Conference decisions, and supported by the membership of the largest political party in Europe, to place Brexit subordinate to the conditions and the future of the British working class. The conference respected the 2016 vote for leaving the EU. But it also respected the millions against that decision. What happened then is the most grotesque offensive against Corbyn in particular and against the Labour Party in general, that has ever been seen in the history of the Labour Party. Here is why.

Corbyn and the 2017 election were not as radical as the 1945 Attlee success against the Tories and Churchill. But what Corbyn and the 2017 Labour manifesto meant was the partial but dangerous reversal of the the economics and politics of the West over the previous thirty years. This was the opposite to a world that had just defeated fascism. Syriza in Greece had defeated themselves. The big new left parties in Spain, in Italy, in France and in Germany made progress, but were and are nowhere are near government. Corbyn's new radical Labour Party came within twelve wretched Northern Ireland reactionaries away from government. But, in the absence of large scale mass movements and a step into government, that moment changed.

The subsequent offensive against Corbyn's leadership and Corbyn's party now means that here, there and everywhere - in the Labour Party and especially among Labour MPs, there is a constant battle to destroy the Labour leadership. An example is the flippant and ridiculous response to Corbyn's completely appropriate proposal that the leader of the opposition in Parliament should form a temporary government via a General Election to call together all those opposed to Johnson's insane 'no deal' initiative. Political flotsam and gypsum among the Tories and the Liberals, who defined themselves as opposed to 'no deal', were prepared to risk everything to refuse contact with Corbyn! They were able to do this because many Labour MPs made it possible to reject Corbyn.

What has to be done is decisive now. The battle for Labour has to be fought, front and centre. Starting from the Labour Conference in September, those MPs that refuse conference decisions, or state such an intention, have to be expelled. The split of the Labour Party in Parliament now needs to be an offensive and not a defensive act. Even if this means losing a Parliamentary majority, even if it means only 200 MPs at the beginning who are willing and able to campaign for socialism, this is now the only way to create a group in Parliament that are ready for the fight. Because even if Corbyn's Labour Party, as it is today, was able to form a new government, Labour's rightwing would bring it down and propel it into a much worse position for the remains of the radical wing of the Labour Party (and for tens of millions who now have to fight the new right in Britain.)

The large bulk of the Labour Party's members will support direct measures against those opposed to Labour's Manifesto. And once there is a Parliamentary Party that is tied to the membership's politics, the reformed Labour Party can help build a mass movement for change, in society as well as in Parliament. It is that new platform that opens the possibility of a new social and political bloc against Johnson and his reactionary future. It can help create another, different bloc in society. A bloc that understands the disaster of Johnson, the danger of racism and fascism and the possibility of an entirely different economy and politics. A majority bloc that wants a new type of future and that will fight both inside and outside Parliament to get it.

As has been seen most recently in capitalist countries, in Hungary, Poland, in Turkey and in Egypt and Syria; in Brazil and Russia; in the hints in France, the latest moves in Italy and the monstrous political crisis in the US; - the coalition called the nation of Britain is facing the same strain produced by globalisation - the result of the ultimate freedom of Capital. The political answer in all the countries mentioned is to focus on making the enemy of the people all those from another world and making home into a state policing, deep repression. Its the only mechanism which 'saves' capital from its own, vast contradictions. Temporarily. And, with the Trump's 'help' it is the core of Johnson's political project.

Now it is Britain's turn. Now the effects of globalisation will have to be fought in the different countries of Britain. Starting from a relatively small, but a coherent, mass socialist party, with a hundred or more MPs and millions of supporters, whose core is the overthrow of austerity and the defence of mass action by those prepared to act against the economics and the politics of the old and failing ways - that is the battle that has to happen. That is the opening, now, to a different genuinely democratic future.

That's where Britain is today, unresolved, on the brink. And that's where it will be tomorrow.

Boris Johnson, a mini-Trump

Boris Johnson believes he is the modern Churchill. He even walks like Churchill. He sees himself as the outsider of British politics - just as Churchill was in his marginal years. Boris thinks he will deal with the modern equivalent of Dunkirk (when the British army was saved from the Nazi's) by leading a Brexit battle and a Corbyn war. Like Churchill, Johnson's key partner in the world is the USA. But unlike Churchill with his decaying British Empire, Boris has far fewer resources to play with. He will need to be a 'supplicant' to the US, a term that was used to describe Britain in the EU by Johnson's campaign manager in the recent Tory Party vote. Even so, Johnson simply cannot accept his and the UK's status as number 2 (or 3) in a modern Europe.

Churchill hated the Nazis and then the 'Reds' and believed he would unite the country and win a partnership with the US on that basis. Boris thinks he will unite the Tory Party if he gets some sort of Brexit and then he will unite the country by getting rid of the Corbynite 'Reds'. And then of course the US will truly kick the British door in, courtesy of Boris.

In reality Johnson is not so much a Churchill as a mini Trump. Unlike Churchill he doesn't speak well in Parliament. He tries to shout to people over the heads of the Tory Party and Britain's MPs. Unlike Trump, who's strategic desire is to break up the EU as one of the three, great capitalist, competitive blocks, Britain's mini-Trump could not care less about the EU or Brexit (anymore than his apparent recent love for British democracy.) When Boris wrote his famous two articles for the Times as the EU referendum started, one for remaining in the EU and the other to leave, he was working out which would provide for his future leadership. His conclusion was that breaking up the rich, Etonian elite, who called Boris 'the Yeti' at school and were amused by, but not interested in him, using the EU referendum as a battering ram would better serve his purpose to get himself to the leadership of the Tory Party and the country. Boris has achieved his goal. Britain's government is now the most right wing government since Thatcher and it will go much much faster than Thatcher if he has his way.

Johnson's goal is not ultimately related to Brexit. He wants Brexit out of the way. He speculates that the EU will probably accept some compromise on a deal. But it does not really matter. If he can sweep Brexit away, if necessary without a deal, he can call his General Election, hopefully defeat Labour, then make any deals he wants or can get. He will use the summer recess of Britain's Parliament to go out on his Trumpety campaign - for a new, greater Britain! Hurrah!

Obstacles.

Despite the continuing bitter manoeuvres inside the Labour Party (a fight to the death led by many Labour MPs and the Deputy Labour leader over anti-semitism and over Corbyn's leadership) social polling continuously shows deep support for radical changes in the economy and the politics of austerity Britain. These views were reflected in the support for Labour's 2017 Manifesto, especially among the young and they continue.

Meanwhile, despite Boris's promise of a 'Golden Britain', his brutal 'removal' of Brexit is more likely to lead to yet more sacrifices, very quickly, for the least well-off in the UK. This changes the dominant focus on Brexit itself. It returns people who are suffering, back to the more basic issues of poverty, welfare and want. The social damage of an ill thought out Brexit applies either with a bodged up version of ex PM Teresa May's 'plan,' or with the UK coming out of the EU without any deal. Even if Boris throws £ billions at various services etc, it will not be fast enough to turn the realities of decline anytime soon. Boris, like Trump, claims he is opening up a golden future. Sadly and inevitably a golden future is well over the horizon. And a rapid General Election, based on Boris's dependence on harsh US trade deals and on the decline of key economic infrastructure, is both a likely and a deadly event for him. The image of a renewed 'great Britain' blows away as quickly as it was concocted. Already it does not appeal to the majority in the UK who did not grow up in the imperial sunset. If there is a focal point provided by mass movements, by the Labour leadership and the active hostility to Boris which smolders today, it will be blown away.

Somewhere in Johnson's misty nightmares is also the prospect that the UK itself may fall apart. But he's not sure when or why that might happen and it's too alarming for him to seriously consider for now. No; he intends to sort Brexit - then Corbyn, in that order. Then he might consider the Irish and the Scots.

But Johnson will have to face the shift in Northern Ireland as the half-dead Democratic Unionist Party get trapped by a 'no deal' or whatever version of it that is presented as Boris's 'breakthrough'. The majority of Northern Irish people who voted to stay in the EU will begin to force a Northern Irish election. The extinction of the DUP as the majority party in the province is perilously close.

Boris is also (un)cordially hated in Scotland. His leadership of the UK reignites the memories of Thatcher, Scotland's democratic deficit and the hated Poll Tax. It stimulates a second wind in favour of an independence referendum on the entirely correct basis of political oppression in an outdated Britain. Again, 'a greater Britain' is not welcome. Scotland, alongside Northern Ireland have already begun the physical break up of the 'great' in Boris's version of a new 'Great Britain'. One has the second largest mass party in favour of Britain's dissolution and the other has the government pushing for independence.

Charades

The noise and glitter around Boris suddenly uniting a desperate, lazy and worn out Tory government is as fragile as a firework on a rainy night. His appeal to 'making Britain great again', the real, Trumpite vision of the new British Prime Minister, is as fake as his news which he made up for the Times. (And got sacked for.) Which is not at all to say that this charade doesn't need to be challenged, and challenged by a more coherent, practical and exciting alternative. The British do seek change. Its society is not working for the vast majority. They are going backwards. The big majority are insecure, declining in health, homes, in wealth and in basic rights. A dramatic vision of a different sort, with a set of countries coming from Britain that dedicate their political and economic principles to the lives of all who are its citizens, without the public schools, without the pure white judges, the declining living standards for 90% - all and more of which is getting worse, has yet to be presented, in full - and as a great and deep democratic future for all.

Labour leader Corbyn can't win - can he?

The attacks on Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party are building to a crescendo. Since the 2017 General Election with its surprise advances that were won by the new style leftwing Labour Party - and the start of the Tory Party government's slow-motion car crash - Corbyn in particular has been systematically denounced by all the the main media in a hundred different ways. For example he has been wrong for following Labour Conference resolutions on Brexit; he was unpatriotic and pro-Russian for failing to denounce Russia before any evidence, in the case of the attempted murder of the ex-spy Sergei Skripal; he was a 'pathetic pacifist' when Britain's Tory government added their own little load of bombs on Syria; he was the cause of an exciting new Blairite party break-away, which fizzled in a month; and on and on.

But the most relentless attacks on Corbyn have been the charges that he is anti-semitic. Some of these are farcical, often down-right pernicious, but ultimately they get nowhere. A recent example was started up by the aptly named Baroness Hayter from the (vast, pendulous and unelected) House of Lords. She wanted to get in with a pile of Lords that had already taken out an advert in the liberal British Guardian newspaper denouncing Corbyn as anti-semitic. She was sacked as the Labour Brexit minister in the HOL when she said about the Labour Party leader,
'Those of you who ... have the seen the film Bunker, about the last days of Hitler, where you stop receiving any information into the inner group which suggests that things are not going the way you want.' She was referring to Corbyn's 'failure' to deal properly with anti-semitism in the Labour Party. She hopes to get Labour Peers in the HOL to line up for a vote of 'no-confidence' against Corbyn in response to her terrible treatment. Why can't she stay a Labour spokesperson and also state to the world that her leader is compatible with Hitler?

It should be noted that virtually the entire anti-semitic tirade against Corbyn comes from parts of the Labour Party. Naturally, all the enemies of change in Britain, from the Tories to Farage, jump, to varying degrees, on the anti-semitic band wagon. Most bizarre currently, is that the Equality and Human Rights Commission are now examining Labour's attitude to anti-semitism! This has happened starting in May 2019 completely ignoring the October 2018 all-party House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, which held an inquiry into antisemitism in the United Kingdom. The committee found 'no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of antisemitic attitudes within the Labour Party than any other party.' Nevertheless, the EHRC launched a formal investigation into whether Labour 'unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimised people' from the Jewish community, saying it had received a number of complaints about Labour’s handling of allegations - from Labour members and leaders.

The source of the anti-semitism attack on Labour is the spearhead of a class offensive designed by its (Labour) leaders to destroy the Corbyn leadership of the Labour Party. And the rising tempo, noise and fury erupting in the name of this cause is almost entirely to prevent the Corbyn leadership going into the Labour Conference as still dominant and able to win a Corbyn led government.

The Labour Party has always held a latent combination of class interests. Its membership and voting base are most likely to defend the cause of those seeking serious social change - as diametrically opposed to MPs, some union chiefs, the party organisation etc. This is a shifting condition in time and in context.

In 2017, a radical Labour leadership proposed significant incursions into the capitalist economy in favour of the working class. Because of its success, up to this moment, still nobody in the Labour Party is able to challenge the 2017 Manifesto. Accordingly new 'sins' and 'heresies' are needed as cover to weaken the foundations of 2017 and its leaders. A scapegoat must be identified and slaughtered. Just like a scapegoat, so the sins of the world, which certainly include anti-semitism, are pinpointed onto an innocent source. A layer of the European Jewish population, rightly frightened by the rise of the nationalist right, can and often does identify support for the Palestinian revolt as a part of that danger. It can provide an initial base for antagonism to Corbyn's history of solidarity for the Palestinians - as well as an increased dependence on and acceptance of, the reactionary Israeli government. It is this worry and fear that becomes an opportunity in other's hands.

While the great corporations were not scared of Labour's program per se, they nevertheless understand that once you open the door to some real change then new forces start to act directly in their own interests, particularly after a decade of austerity. And, as they look at France and the movements on climate change, it is this opening that must be crushed. As a result, getting rid of the Brexit song and dance routine cannot not thereby be allowed to become an opening to new movements that begin to develop their own political and economic directions. That is exactly what the Corbyn leadership risks if in government with its program. That is what has to be removed. Who better to act on this than most of Labour's MPs, the Party organisers and the fellow travellers who are entirely reconciled to the maintenance of the status quo and their own golden future - in the name of the overthrow of anti-semitism - for the moment named Jeremy Corbyn.

President Trump's racist tricks.

When President Trump says that he is 'very clever' he is not judging himself academically, or even claiming that he is knowledgeable. Trump is sly. He knows he is sly. Sly is what Trump means by 'clever.' Getting 'one over' shows that he is clever. Trump believes he is smarter than Obama. Obama knew a lot of stuff. He sounded good. But he did not get one over anybody! And of course what really shows it up is not that Obama couldn't get anything done. It was that Obama was unable to hide it!

Trump is a racist. Trump (and his dad) have 'form' when it comes to racism. From legal battles about racist employment issues going on to support for 'good people' among the militant fascist groups in the US, the Trumps bend towards the extreme right wing. His 'camps' for immigrants on the Mexican border are the latest vile initiative which demonstrate that.

But everything in Trump-land has another purpose. Many Trump actions are deliberately designed to cover up previous Presidential claims and start new directions. For example, Trump's camps are covering up the colossal defeat of Trump's wall. It was number 1 or 2 of his promises when he stood for election. The wall has been hidden away from national controversy for the time being. Trump's racist attacks on 4 Democratic Congress women have two, clever/sly objectives. (Britain's two candidates for Tory Party Leader and UK Prime Minister were too scared to call-out Trump as a racist!) First, Trump believes that many traditionally blue-collar Democratic voters will vote for white supremacy. Second, he believes he can split the Democratic Party itself by using the socialist credentials of the women he has maligned. (Fox news is already calling them communists.)

New jobs yes, but mainly folding boxes or serving coffee; wages static; no wealth trickling down from Trump's monster tax relief for the rich; no alternative to Obama-care; gun nuts still on killing sprees and teachers taught to shoot back; the black population criminalised; abortion under threat. It rolls on.

What does Trump offer as he campaigns for a second round? White supremacy and 'get' the communists. In Trump's mind, that is 'clever.' It substitutes for policy.

Trump's view of the world is that the US is big enough, as a nation, to tame the international corporations - especially if he can break up or isolate the huge geo-political blocks like the EU, or China's international grip. That's his answer to globalisation. But his drastic failure to dominate, or accommodate, or even to get close to the great digital giants, most recently with his totally laughable attack/acceptance of Huawei, illustrates that even the greatest capitalist power in the world is unable to 'rewind' globalisation.

That means there is no way that the US's ex-blue collar workers have any real future following Trump's direction - or the genuine, US, middle classes. (Just has they had none under Clinton or Obama.) But Trump has no intention of failing like he saw the Clintons or Obama did. And as he cannot stop the basic trend of capitalism, it means Trump has to do something else. He has to fiddle the elections (for example reducing or removing voter registration, using Supreme Court action to increase 'State Rights); he has to up and up racism and the fear of minorities; he has to use the Democrat Party weaknesses - in that its leadership have no answers either, and he has to create sly initiatives to keep the whole, empty show on the road. In the end, his bellicose trade 'wars', up to now relatively harmless, might spill over into the real deal. After all, Hitler secured his domination through international war. But as Trump is so sly, he could do it just by accident!

Corbyn, Scotland and the end of the UK

On the 27th of June the former leader of Scottish Labour said 'there is a serious prospect' that Jeremy Corbyn would agree to hold a second independence referendum (in Scotland.) Kezia Dugdale said she believes Mr Corbyn would give consent for indyref2 if he needed SNP support to form a government after a general election. Despite the clear call in the Labour Manifesto of 2017 to keep the union and not to hold a new referendum on Scotland, Corbyn has personally stated that he would support a second referendum if 'the Scots' called for one'.  

In part, this was an item of news buried in the BBC News on the Internet and generally unmentioned in TV news in England. But it was and remains a critical question for the UK's future. 

The very ex-Tory leader Teresa May made a speech about the UK's Union (4 July). Most commentators who bothered making any comment about her plan to review Devolution ... and her big new thought about how the THE UNION should work ... cringed at the hypocrisy and emptiness of May's discovery - that there were all these other places, besides England, who, it turns out, were in the same country!

One result was Boris Johnson (Britain's next Prime Minister) spending a whole sentence or two on how he was going to be Prime Minister of 'The whole Union!' Now that North Sea Oil (and its wealth) is out of the way (the strange Norwegians mostly put their oil returns in 'The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund', which reached $2 Trillion this year) the Scots could however at least be sure that they would be as poor as the rest of the overwhelming majority of the UK.

The fight for Scottish independence has a long history. The Scottish Labour Party backed independence in the late teens and early twenties of the 20th century. But it was the emergence of the national movement from the late 1970s and 80's that revealed the main basis of Scotland's right to its own self-determination. Scotland (unlike Northern Ireland, but similar to Wales) have both experienced long periods in their modern history where they have been politically oppressed; by an English government and its state. Northern Ireland, on the other hand, was set up as a ruthless, imperial toehold, built to undermine full Irish independence. The apartheid state, set up by Britain in Northern Ireland, was dominated by a totally second rate existence, socially, religiously, economically, racially, as well as politically, for all republicans. The Northern Irish arrangement was created and dominated by British imperialism. 

Both Scotland and Wales were not created by British imperialism.  Although there were significant echoes of the Irish national experiences (the organised hostility to waves of immigration of the Irish to the west of Scotland, the second rate treatment of Welsh miners etc.,) these countries were not established as imperialist colonies and, in a general sense, were not ruled as imperial colonies. (For example the first British King was Scottish and the Scottish ruling class, eg in banking and financial services, has always been a significant part of the British ruling class. The industrial revolution, denied in whole or in part to Britain's colonies, was never blocked in Wales or Scotland.)

This distinction, between the Irish question and current national movements in Scotland and Wales, is relevant to what is happening now to the UK. Historically speaking, British imperialism was finally brought down by independence movements across the whole globe, including in Ireland, following the two World Wars. (In Northern Ireland the war of independence has only recently finished.) The process now emerging among the movements organising for the separation of mainland Britain, is instead a decisive political act, within what remains of Britain's imperial heartland. And its fundamental character, in Britain's mainland, is that it is a key step towards overturning the whole of Britain's role in, and its subservience to, the domination of globalisation. The 'break up' of Britain is, in that sense, a thoroughly progressive act; an act that is a key part of the reorganisation of the politics and economics of Britain itself. Scottish (and if called-for, Welsh) independence are necessary acts to reverse Britain's political and economic systems  - but they are not sufficient. 

Why necessary? Why not sufficient?

It is necessary because the deeply required, indeed essential, disruption and transformation of British politics and economics is currently held up by the siege towers built over centuries, designed to protect Britain's ruling class. And those siege towers; the City of London, the 'First Passed the Post' voting system, the 'Home Counties', the public schools and Oxford and Cambridge universities, the Monarchy, the Lords, the select judiciary and the rigid class structure of the armed forces and on and on, are rooted in southern England. Breaking domination of these institutions in Scotland, in Wales will not be possible unless these parts of Britain become separate, critical nations - for themselves. Breaking away from the UK is a solid platform - for breaking up Britain. If the separation is denied or fails to carry through in the struggle to create a new type of nation, a great, not to say historic advance will be lost not just for the new nations but for all in Britain.

The paradox is that the unification of working class people across Britain (see current divisions over Brexit) can only open out once the core structures of Britain, post imperial Britain and its 'special relationships' are denied and then broken down. 

Not sufficient? 'Solving' the national question in Scotland (and Wales) however will not be sufficient. Precisely because these struggles are not a battle to overthrow imperialist domination. They are struggles to identify and then secure the political system which those nations reflect and want - as against their participation in political systems which constantly deny their political choices. But of course the political wishes and requirements of the Scottish and Welsh people (should they demand it) lie on a bedrock of economic foundations that criss-cross the globe. To begin the process of moving the predominant economics in the world, in order to meet the requirements of most of the people in your country, is eminently an international requirement.

Again, the paradox of the new nations of the old Britain, is their requirement to reach to all those who seek the same destination as themselves wherever they can be found - not as a kind act - but as an essential necessity. 

The future politics of Britain

Britain is experiencing a farce. This is Act 2 and it is provided by Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt. They are trying to win the votes of the richest, whitest, oldest, most male and the smallest, mainstream party in the world. Potentially, 75,001 Tories will make Hunt or Johnson Britain's next Prime Minister - in a country of 66 million.

Hunt constantly calls himself 'an entrepreneur' because a lot of business (mainly men) are Tory Party members and they have the vote. (They also run Britain's Rotary clubs and the Freemasons.) Hunt's claim to be an entrepreneur comes from his three business failures, followed by access to his father's resources which, as his father was an Admiral, ended up providing for a 'jolly good' fourth shot at 'entrepreneuring'. Finally, this meant Hunt could grab £14 million for himself.

Hunt was that very typical sort of British 'entrepreneur' that repetitively fails. This of course results in loads of dumped employees and living on the edge of criminal debts. Then, when Hunt finally succeeded, he sells his fledgling company to a big corporation for all the money he can get. And Hunt is now free from any unpleasant labour. He can share his exceptional experiences with the world and manage the rest of us without petty distractions.

Hunt told the BBC's senior political editor recently that he had wanted to be PM for 30 years! That means he decided his political future at age 22. (Which was somewhere around the first or maybe the second business failure.) His own squirmy glee at his announcement in the interview suddenly worried him and so he tried instead to look amused.

Hunt's main political claim to fame was his time as Health Minister and his attack on junior doctors which has led to the worst results in the NHS health delivery since targets were set. Unsurprisingly perhaps - because he was described by many NHS doctors as the worst Health Minister in its history. Maybe his early judgement of the NHS, when he wrote a co-production of a pamphlet entitled  'Direct Democracy: An Agenda For A New Model Party' in 2005, which called for the de-nationalisation of the NHS, explains this, his first, major, political failure. Sadly, even an Admiral can't sort that out. (Although it is perhaps noticeable that Hunt is now proposing a big money hike for the armed forces.)

In other words Hunt is a deep-down Tory stereotype, with a doubtful past and whose main fuel is ambition.

And then there is Boris. Unlike Hunt he is a well known political pop-star (who manages to have less ideas than Trump!) Because he is well known and a lively figure he sits perfectly in Act 2 of Britain's political farce. It is not necessary to describe his characteristics or his history because all of it is well known. His attraction to those participating in Britain's farce so far is that when he was 5 he wanted to be 'king of the world! 17 years ahead of Hunt. He's tubby, like Churchill, and the serious Tories hope that he's funny enough to stop the victory of Corbyn's Labour Party in a General Election. Billy Bunter has taken over the 6th Form common room at Greyfriers /Eton /Oxford/ the establishment. Yarroo!

These are the 'Punch and Judy' who are leading in Act 2.

What was Act 1? Act 1 started with the Brexit Referendum and ended with the political death of Mrs May. Act 1 turned the Tory agony over membership of the EU into the prevailing issue across the whole country. Before Act 1 really got started, the main issues in British politics were the rise of Corbyn into the leadership of the Labour Party and its novel left-facing direction; the overturn of the Tory snap election in 2017, and the huge, social support for Labour's new Manifesto. And then followed the shock of the Grenfell fire, which underlined a decade of austerity and the years of anti-government anger, which had started to show in the streets. All of this, the politics and the public action, was replaced in 2017/18 by the megaphonic noise of Brexit, ballooned into the whole of society, starting from the Tory government's particular turmoil.

And the Act 3 to come? It is rare indeed for a farce to provide unique developments at the end of its show. The audience are waiting for a solution that, in their heart of hearts, they know is coming. Normally the characters and the events of the farce are turned on their head, with the effect of making all come right. Alas, Britain's political farce cannot continue. Economic and political forces are too powerful to allow the show to go on. Britain's political farce is about to blow up.

Act 3 and the Westminster theatre will therefore start disintegrating in an indisputable war between the remnants of a ragged Tory government, topped by its new PM, besieged by Farage and the new right, all mobilising against the Labour Party in England and Wales; the SNP in Scotland and the rise of Republicanism in Northern (and Southern) Ireland. The weakness of the Westminster government and the strength of the government's opponents means an early General Election. Either immediately this year with the breakdown caused by 'No Deal', or as the Brexit agony deepens, more and more effecting the 'insecuriate' UK population, the current Westminster government will fall. And as the Peterborough bi-election already shows, Labour has a good chance of breaking through the dominance of Brexit and restoring the prominence of its social program, which challenges the social and economic malaise, at least in England. In any event, a Johnson Tory government which is constructed to deliver a catastrophe, will not stand.

As the current political farce collapses, two further, interwoven, developments will, in one form or another, certainly rise.

First, any Labour Party led government will finally fully face its class contradictions as the Brexit wind blows in its different directions. That means most of its MPs will finally refuse to carry out Labour's social and economic program - because it is too difficult, because business is not yet ready etc etc. On the other hand most of Labour members and some of the Corbyn supporters in Parliament are likely to fight to carry through Labour's Manifesto. But even parts of Labour's left will believe that 'Labour unity' is more important than Labour's program. The previous Brexit Westminster has also energised more Labour MPs to pursue their 'independence', read defend their personal seat in Westminster. So the regroupment of a class struggle Labour could be very small - at least in Parliament. The best possible outcome from this process depends on the second of the two developments.

The early Grenfell spirit desperately needs restoring. And among the growing chaos of Westminster that spirit has the new possibility of connecting to the lead shown by the Glasgow women fighting their local authority for their equal pay, to the battles against the corporations who deny workers rights, to the movement that is growing against racism and fascism. Action by millions, including those MPs willing and able to carry out a radical social and economic program that would also ally with anyone, from any party and none, and supported Labour's program in action - could change Britain's politics both inside and outside Westminster.

It is the failure of the Westminster Parliament in the first quarter century since the millennium that is now creating Britain's political future. As Britain bumps and grinds its way past Brexit so the real possibilities begin to arise. Britain can become a series of small and medium style countries, with new, genuine and humble democracies, involving all, focusing their priorities on the daily needs of the people. And grateful that the wretched Empire is really and finally over.

Labour MPs back Boris.

When 8 Labour MPs opposed the Labour Party's vote in Parliament which was aimed at preventing a 'no deal' Brexit, they defeated the Party's resolution and thereby secured the current Tory Government's immediate future. At what a cost! The 8 effectively decided that maintaining the worst government in Britain since World War 2, with the guarantee of austerity multiplied, was better than agreeing either a possible manageable Brexit deal in Parliament and/or a further vote on Brexit. Sectarian, anti-working class madness. This was the first, significant attack on the Corbyn-led Labour Party which has a potentially drastic outcome for huge numbers of people, that has been thrown up by Labour MPs.

309 to 298 votes in Parliament now allows the virtually unchallenged Tory heir to the throne, Boris Johnson, to maintain his fantastical vision of a Brexit future. A future where his 'no deal' threat is supposed to force the EU into compliance and which will actually lead to new depths of impoverishment for millions - even should any emergency measures be temporarily accepted. If the 8 had abstained, as 13 other Labour MPs did, then Boris (and the mini-Borises') would have started to lose their platforms. The Tories would then have split under pressure of Farage's Brexit party and there would likely have been a very early, anti-Tory, General Election.

What is the engine driving these degenerate acts? Undoubtedly sickening self-aggrandisement generally contests with basic fear among those MPs who identify themselves as the masters of politics and the arbiter of all important decisions. They turn the (very rare) major, contested, political issues in Parliament into the smallest scraps of individual consequence. More significant than the psychology of the hangers on of the political class is the utterly false understanding of the meaning of Brexit itself. It is not addressed as it should be understood, that is from the point of view of the interests of the working class (which is supposedly the basis for the Labour Party's political representation.)

The fundamental object of a political party is to change (solidify or reverse) the conditions of the majority of the people. The drastic decline of Britain's majority, in contrast to every generation since 1945, means that it falls to the Labour Party to reverse the big trends that have created that condition. Uniquely (in Europe) the current British Labour Party not only has a chance to form a government, but it does so on the basis of a radical program of reforms. And this is by far the most important issue in British politics today.

Throughout political history, the most effective changes, including the development of democracy itself, are mostly created by the sustained mobilisation of ordinary people in all the areas of day-to-day life. (The 'yellow vest' movement in France is such an example.) While there have been mass actions in Britain in the last three years, from the point of view of many (but far from all) ordinary people, they have been wracked by the Brexit issue and not focused on action needed against their sinking conditions. Instead it is Brexit that has (deliberately) stood as a symbol of the capacity of ordinary people to change things, which has stirred a third of Britain's population but is of course a genuine fake! And this idea has been heated by classes on the margins of Britain's dominant rulers and by political movements that define a whole system of society by its local enemies rather than any of the great issues of life.

While attachment or otherwise to the EU is a serious question, it is, in reality, utterly subordinate to the immediate changes necessary and possible in Britain's society. The EU is not a neutral organisation. It is the largest international block against radical reform in the UK (or elsewhere in Europe.) But today's question is getting rid of the Tories and backing a new, radical government. (The Peterborough bi-election is a hint that it is possible to get beyond Brexit in a strongly Brexit borough.) The last thing it involves is defending, as our 8 Labour MP's did, a Tory Brexit which is meant to prepare a Tory election victory in 2 years time.

In the way that history can begin with the end, so the mass movements to come in Britain will probably be those which take the cautious reforms of Corbyn's Labour and turn them into the actions that challenge a whole system of society. But it is that door, winning a Corbyn government not fiddling with this or that version of Brexit, that must be opened now.