Stopping the Brexit madness?

Yesterday (April 3) the British Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, the leading figure in the British Cabinet after the Prime Minister, said a new referendum vote over Brexit would be
'A perfectly credible proposition.'
A leading figure from the Democratic Unionist Party, which provides key votes to the Tory Party government in Britain's hung Parliament, suggested a Customs Union with the EU could be
'a staging post' in getting to Brexit.

Both of these 'opinions' are direct reversals of the Tory Government's positions on Brexit 24 hours earlier. They demonstrate chaos.

The video of 'the Paras' shooting Corbyn's poster demonstrates at least one preparation to 'resolve' this chaos.

Meanwhile PM Teresa May has invited the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn to another round of discussions to see if the Labour Party MP's can be persuaded to carry out her policy on Brexit - as her own party will not.

The fact is that there is no real government in Britain now. The PM has already announced her suicide (but has not spelt out the date yet.) Tory Cabinet ministers are providing their own manifestos as their party falls more deeply into its different Brexit factions. Paradoxically, while many Labour MPs and shadow Cabinet would-be ministers would get rid of Corbyn and McDonnell in a trice (if the vast Labour Party membership let them) Corbyn now 'leads' the British Parliament over Brexit.

How long this particular shake of the Brexit kaleidoscope will continue is not predictable but it is  unlikely to be long while. There is a social and political core here that will soon determine the shape of Britain's politics in the next years. Whether or not basic truths and their related opportunities are grasped by socialists inside and outside of Parliament is, however, yet to be seen.

What are these key messages?

(1) Brexit is not the most important issue in British politics. On the contrary, a huge part of working class people in Britain (and in Europe) are moving against their traditional rulers because their lives are getting worse and the political and economic systems don't work for them. Brexit will not answer that problem in Britain.

It is true that the main international obstacle (the US will come larger and second) to a radical Labour government is the EU rules against state reform of the economy. And stopping the EU's legal powers now would be sensible from a socialist perspective. But preventing a new right leadership in Britain, based on a Trump tax break and a Singapore tax haven, would be more critical. Brexit could become a route to popular misery. Brexit could still go either way as neither of the main social classes have the political momentum.

(2) Despite lots of studies that imply Brexit is a working class based revolt, and despite the fact that big Capital in the British and European ruling class promoted the EU, Brexit is not the critical determination in the evolving class struggle between the main social classes.

The Brexit vote in Britain took place after the immediate rise of a new, mass right wing party and movement. That meant the British working class were severely split. In Scotland, in most of the big cities, virtually universally among black, asian and other minority heritage working class people and among the youth, the vote was 'no' to Brexit. Why? Because of a reaction to Britain's right wing surge. The middle and upper classes were for the status quo and many working class leavers (including Corbyn) opposed the EU for anti-capitalist reasons, but it cannot be denied that the British working class was split.

Today, while a dangerous rise in fascism is emerging, the previous major right wing surge has been forced to retreat. It is wise therefore to use the opportunity today to deny the domination of the EU's legal, globalist menu and Labour's three-part policy, with a second referendum as a last resort, is sensible. But it is wiser still to unify all sections of the working class people on a platform that changes Britain. Brexit is not at all the centre of that program.

But, in reality, doesn't Brexit swallow everything before it? Surely everything depends on yes or no to Brexit? You can't change reality, can you?

You can. You must.

The decisive step to open out a radical dynamo to Britain's politics and economics, today, now, albeit in the maelstrom of Brexit, is to get a Corbyn led Labour government. It is that way round.

This is not at all a view that a Corbyn led government will be able or willing to solve the battles to come. Nor is it any pretension that such a government would be able to 'solve' the national issue in Scotland, or Ireland, or the City of London for that matter. But such a government will at least start from some of the key realities of Britain's society. From there, everything becomes possible. From there is the the potential of the mobilisation of the people behind the defence of the real issues which they need to change. And without that step society, including any Brexit, will make a serious shift to the right.

Brexit, the economy, immigration and the Labour Party

The hysterical pitch of Britain's public 'debate' about remaining in the EU or 'Brexiting' has had no room whatsoever for those on the left who argue that Brexit is in the interests of working class people of Britain and Europe and neither have the left who argue for remaining in the EU had any space. The only 'progressive' points on the side of Remain that surfaced at all in any of the large scale media were hyped up comments from Labour leaders about the merits of EU legislation on working hours, etc. (All of which are under attack in their own countries from the current European leadership!) Sadly, it would appear from the remarks made by those who follow it, that the on-line discussion has, on this occasion, largely taken its cues from the previously despised 'middle aged men' now in blue (not grey) suits.

Besides reflecting on the realities of the political relationship of forces in the UK and the wretched domination by billionaires and their frightened toadies that run the traditional British media, this absence of the voice of the left, and especially its most radical part, in Britain's European debate shows two things.

First, much of the left in Britain has no purchase on either of the two key questions on which the European debate has now centered. The Labour and the trade union leadership, while supporting Remain, have spent most of their time gleefully keeping out of what they immaturely believed was simply Tory bloodletting. Finally and belatedly, realising that a huge section of their traditional social base is in danger of being lost to a new right wing led by Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, they have simply defended the economic status quo 'for fear of something worse'.

There has been a call for 'more' reform in the EU, but nothing about the need for the root and branch overthrow of its leadership and structure as a loathed, unaccountable symbol of the worst of capitalism. Where are the economic arguments for anti-austerity; for a new equality, across Europe? Where are the demands for driving deep inroads into the power and wealth of the great corporations that, together with the banks, bestride it? Britons, like the inhabitants of many individual countries, are regularly told that if they do not continue with austerity then they will be punished by international capital. How is the call to remain in a European alliance used by the Labour and trade union leadership to offer the hope of a bloc of countries that might use their power to break the chains on labour and the poor across Europe, being forged by globalisation and the power (political and otherwise) of the super rich?

Similarly, but with one honourable exception, the left and its more radical component has had little to say on immigration. The honourable exception is the action mobilised by the Peoples Assembly to rally for Calais, in defense of the rights of those who are in the camps barring entry to Britain. This is already a hugely successful response to the terrible terms of the public debate about immigration in the UK. Otherwise and again, the Labour and trade union movement has been rehearsing the old mantras about the contributions made to the British economy by immigrants and reinforcing the view that British employers need cheap foreign labour! Labour's Deputy leader is now calling for a 'review' of the EU's policy of free movement.

This utterly defensive approach by Labour and the trade unions is a failure (rapidly) waiting to happen. It is already established that some of the greatest antipathy to immigration in the UK comes from areas like Sunderland in the North East of England - where immigration is small. In London, which has the highest levels of immigrants as part of its population, there is the least antipathy. What this shows is the fluidity in society and the potential weight of a fierce anti-racist policy; a policy to pull together a working class movement that unites against poor wages, which demands organisation and fair living standards for all, employed and unemployed, across the whole of Europe.

Ultimately, the timid failure of the leadership of the Labour and trade union leadership to give its own unique lead on the economy and on immigration, despite Jeremy Corbyn's (delayed) efforts, dramatically illustrates why Corbyn's victory in Labour's leadership elections is nothing like enough. In fact it shows that even Corbyn's leadership is, by itself, not even sufficient to rally what was Labour's traditional base before Blair destroyed it, much less to create a 'new politics' different enough to challenge our society. The huge numbers of British people and the large parts of the population who now oppose austerity and reject Britain's fear of immigration have not been brought together or nurtured by Labour or the unions and that is a failure that further opens the door to a more rabid right wing in British politics.