Labour's Brexit future.

Labour's resolution.

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the British Labour Party, has started to implement the final part of the Labour Party's Conference resolution over Brexit. After challenging the Tory Government and its allies to call a General Election and after presenting Labour's alternative Brexit plan to Parliament, in the end both proposals were rejected by a majority of MPs. In that event the unanimous 2018 Labour Conference resolution called for opening up, once again, of a vote by the people, where 'all options would be on the table.' There follows the relevant and final section of the Labour Resolution;

'Should Parliament vote down a Tory Brexit deal or the talks end in no-deal, Conference believes this would constitute a loss of confidence in the Government. In these circumstances, the best outcome for the country is an immediate General Election that can sweep the Tories from power.

If we cannot get a general election Labour must support all options remaining on the table, including campaigning for a public vote. If the Government is confident in negotiating a deal that working people, our economy and communities will benefit from they should not be afraid to put that deal to the public.

This should be the first step in a Europe-wide struggle for levelling-up of living standards, rights and services and democratisation of European institutions Labour will form a radical government; taxing the rich to fund better public services, expanding common ownership, abolishing anti-union laws and engaging in massive public investment.'

What are the basics here?

Over the past two years this blog has made three arguments about the Labour Party, the working class movement and Brexit. The first argument was that the Brexit referendum was forced on us but was in practice a diversion from the critical measures that were needed to end austerity and transform Britain in 2016. (The dominance in society given to Brexit was created by a struggle in the Tory Party, led by a Tory Grandee who thought he could secure his party and divert the emergence of a credible Labour left, which was focussing on austerity and social change.) The second argument was that the 2016 referendum was led in practice by a new right in Britain, promoted by populist racism and which had a background endorsement in the more piratical section of capitalism who wanted a British national tax haven. Therefore, the second argument went, the referendum vote (without any illusions about the nature of the EU) should be against Brexit as, at that stage, its main product would be to build a new hard-right movement inside and outside Parliament. The third argument, largely based on the rise of a radical Labour Party and the hesitation and limits of the new right in 2017, was that a second referendum, if it took place, would increase EU power to curtail a Labour government's most radical policies and therefore should be rejected. All three arguments put the Brexit referendum as such as subordinate to the different stages and levels of the successes of the working class and the left in (and outside) the Labour Party as well as a possible breakthrough into government.

Notwithstanding the support for Brexit in working class areas in England and Wales (but not in Scotland or the main cities) and accepting the clear, opposite view of British big capital, to remain in the EU, it remains critical to understand that Brexit as it stands today is still working as a diversion. Whether to support or oppose Brexit therefore has to be subordinate to the wider interests of the working class of Britain, Europe and the world. For example, leaving the EU would be at its most significant if it was clearly demonstrated that it stood against specific and vitally important, radical, reforms in Britain. But in the case of a wholesale eruption in Europe against the EU political system a new alternative European alliance would be essential. The whole world is dominated by big Capital. Ultimately it is a tactical and political choice when and if a particular battle is immediate or delayed.

The reality is of course that Brexit is forced onto Britain and its social classes in the here and now. Brexit choices, however so far distorted, wrongly focussed and even reactionary, cannot be avoided and must be re-made.  

Labour's choice now.

The radical, extra-Labour left, and even parts of the Labour left itself, found themselves, up to Summer 2017, mainly marginal in their attempts at progressive approaches when either supporting EU membership or going for Brexit. In both cases they had very little influence among the mass of supporters of the EU or of Brexit - especially in England and Wales. In both cases more significant political forces and ideas dominated the mainstream debate in wider society. This was not an accident. Just as the choice to have a referendum on the EU was not an accident either. 

The actual terms of the debate over the EU up to 2017 were obvious from the ex Prime Minister Cameron's get-go and were virtually entirely developed from the right and from the Blairite 'middle way'. Britain was invited to accept a globalist, continental future or accept the full return of traditional British chauvinism. Cameron and leading advisors were more than aware of the rise of the left in the Labour Party and indeed Labour was never really able to break into that argument. Until, that is, when the Labour left in 2017 nearly broke through to government. And then Brexit became different, very concrete and open. The EU could and would try to block Labour's new policies. After 2017 a real issue, not a diversion, began to surface in society. Would there be a radical Labour government? What were the obstacles to such a government? 

The main obstacles now against a radical Labour government include both the national and the super-national capitalist class in Britain, the Tories, the mainstream media, a large bloc of Labour MPs and Chuka Umunna with his the mini-Macrons. And the EU is the main, immediate, international block to a radical Labour government. Which brings us back to the Labour Party's 2018 Brexit resolution.

Democratic choices?

There is a lot of incoherent jumble surrounding the 'democracy of Brexit.' (And sadly a lot of the left have got involved with it.) Does the debated and discussed 'democracy' of the Labour Conference stump the speculative referendum vote in 2016? (Was that a 'false' vote anyway?) Does a new vote contradict 2016 or simply extend it, now that we know what Brexit means in reality? Will the pro Brexit voters of 2016 never 'forgive' Labour if they promote a new referendum?

A future blog will discuss the real, substantial nature of modern, British democracy. What is crucial here and now is that the real character of the EU has emerged from out of the Tory, chauvinist and racist soup which previously defined the EU. The EU will be the main, immediate, international block to the last part of Labour's Conference resolution. The measures that Labour says it will carry out, including the 'democratisation of European institutions...' require breaking with the current EU (but also opening out the intention to move to a real international democracy of Europe's working class people and their organisations.)

Some rightwing Labour MPs etc., will insist on presenting Labour's last part of its Conference resolution as a 'remove Brexit' referendum. Others will insist that Labour back the overturn of the 2016 referendum as a defence of the international Blairite program. The left wing core of the Labour leadership will fail utterly if they allow that to happen. Given that both the Prime Minister May's 'deal' was massively rejected as well as Labour's 'deal' by Parliament, if Labour need to follow their Conference policy then both 'deals' should now be offered the people for a vote, with their relevant motivations. That upholds the legitimacy of the first vote and carries out the last part of Labour's Conference resolution in that it moves on the Brexit process (which Parliament cannot do without a new election) by explaining the goals of the future of the different prospective 'deals.'

In other words Labour should not offer a peoples' vote designed to to reverse the referendum of 2016 - not while it has a chance to establish a radical government. But it can ask the people which Brexit it wants - with a proper argument about the most important reasons.