May Day for Brexit and Britain

British Prime Minister May has (finally) accepted her much deserved fate. Besides the Brexit folly she was completely unable (unwilling?) to implement her other pledges after she took office in 2016. (Listening to her valedictory resignation speech was cringing.) Personal ambition was her real motor. May had no strategic aims. Her secret and tricky manoeuvres all fell flat. She was unable to connect with ordinary people. She will hopefully disappear off the political landscape as soon as possible.

But it would be a mistake to see May's collapse as the unavoidable intransigence of a hung parliament  - a condition that could certainly recur under a new Tory Prime Minister, according to most British political correspondents. Or to point to Farage's magic in capturing swathes of Tory Party members in the Euro elections, as the substantial reason to swap the Tories' leader in Parliament. May's dismissal is not just the product of the big, white, public school men, under pressure from the ancient and dwindling cadre of the Tory Party. May's failure (over Brexit) is ultimately the pressure of a ruling class, channelled through all parts of the relevant economic institutions, cliques, top universities, inns of court, Mayfair clubs and the rest, focussed on the Tory Party in Parliament. May inherited Cameron's ridiculous attempt to 'heal' the Tories (and place himself in the pantheon of Tory leaders). But Thatcher would not have agreed a referendum any more than she would have left the EU - despite all her jingoistic vitriol. She knew who ruled; who it was that could be called 'one of us.' 

Now May has gone, from a (ruling) class perspective the new leadership of the Tory Party has not one but two priorities. And the first is the destruction of Corbyn's Labour Party. Removing Brexit comes a serious second. 

A victory for the Labour Party based on Corbyn's 2017 Manifesto would be a disaster, a bigger disaster for the ruling class than Brexit. Why? The main Labour proposals are relatively mild in comparison, for example, of the 1945 reforms. But the reason for the ruling classes' fear is the direction of Corbyn's reforms, and the implication of their movement, in a society driving for radical change. It is the very opposite to the direction being taken by any of the major capitalist countries in the world, both economically and politically, including those led by new right wing demagogues. And it is these facts that will clarify what happens next in the British Parliament. 

Boris Johnston has always held himself aloof from the European Research Group - the faction that wants a 'No Deal' Brexit. Yet he apparently supports 'No Deal'. No he doesn't. Boris supports himself. When he ran London as the Mayor, he supported 'free movement' from the EU. He praised the EU. He fitted himself in to a Labour city that is run by the the Banks and by wealth management. More importantly, much more importantly, the British ruling elites believe that Boris would beat Corbyn's Labour Party. Indeed, only Boris, who, in his Churchilian way remained on the margins, deliberately, could recompose the wreckage of years of Tory infighting - around himself. Support me or you will be defeated! 

The most likely angle that Boris will take if he wins the Tory leadership is that only an early election can shift the answer to Brexit. He will face Corbyn's Labour Party's and call for a general election. If he were to win, and he has built himself as a dynamic outsider separate from the Westminster 'traitors', after a supposed victory he could do almost anything he liked.

He has two immediate options. He might try to rewind Brexit with new trade arrangements - after shouting his lack of fear of 'no deal'. Alternatively, he could do a Trump and turn a massive income tax cut in Britain turning the country in the direction of the largest cash haven in the world. (The City of London is halfway there.)

This is the political crunch. Boris Johnston is odds-on to win the Tory leadership. He will fight Corbyn's Labour Party; before Brexit if he can.  And he will fight with the fullest support of all the strength and force that a ruling class can provide. He will prevaricate on Brexit while shouting the noisiest bravado. He intends to lead a a big country. He will do whatever is necessary. Brexit, delay, no Brexit, return to the EU, whatever. He has other options. The Tories, mark-Cameron and May, are dying. His real barrier is Corbyn. And that's the fight which is now starting.   

EU Parliament on attack.

On May 23 Britain and the rest of the EU will vote for members of the European Parliament. Normally the EU parliamentary elections have meant very little to the bulk of the UK electorate. But Brexit now smothers all debate in Britain. New parties have formed, one around leaving the EU and another around remaining in the EU (refusing to join up with the other two 'remainer' parties). The EU parliament vote in Britain is therefore likely to become another surrogate for the Brexit argument. And a larger vote in the EU elections than normal in Britain could easily occur. Up to now most commentators believe that Britain's new 'Brexit Party', led by Nigel Farage, will win a majority of seats (thereby strengthening their demand that the British Parliament accept an immediate exit from the EU.)

So this time the European elections are likely to have a bigger impact on Britain's politics than usual. But half the story of that impact has not yet been told. The insular and chauvinist view that predominates the great majority of Britain's media in relation to the EU means that critical aspects of the coming election have so far been almost entirely missed. (One exception was the British 'Observer' newspaper on May 13, which offered a summary of most of Europe's voting intentions - available from various news sites, like Politico.)

Going through the facts of the EU election it is important to understand that immigration (or the stopping of it) is the main issue for most EU member countries and their voters. Immigration, followed by Terrorism are the two top concerns for EU voters. Also, for the first time in EU elections, all of the polls in EU countries show that the main parties that have led the EU parliament up to now, the European Peoples Parties and the Socialists and Democrats, will lose their historic domination of the EU parliament, to be replaced by the right and extreme-right parties. Polls (Politico's European summary) suggests that the traditional and mainstream parties of Europe will win 44% of the European parliamentary seats out of the 705 available. More concerning for those traditional EU leadership parties, is the fact that they lead in only two of the ten most populous EU countries. It is generally conceded that the right and extreme right will win the EU parliament by about one hundred and twenty seats.

In the polls that examine the view of EU members regarding the quality of their own country's democracy and that of the EU, 44% of French voters are unhappy with their own democracy and 47% are unhappy with that of the EU. (In Germany 26% are unhappy with their own democracy and 41% with that of the EU.) In Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria and six other countries, voters believe the EU democracy is better than that of their own country. This in part accounts for the fact that while right and extreme-right parties are dominating voting expectations this is not the same as in the UK. Britain, or mainly England has the Brexit Party, an extreme-right party, which is totally opposed to the EU. Most right and extreme-right parties in the EU currently support EU membership - and are seeking, in due course, to 'win' the leadership of the EU.

There are exceptions to this trend. More traditional far-right parties, like the previously named National Front, now National Rally, in France, are still flirting with versions of Frexit. But generally rightist parties in the EU seek leadership of the EU rather than its dis-aggregation - for now. Estimates suggest that general pro EU MEPs will number around 448 while MEPs hostile to, or just marginally critical of, the EU, will number only 250 in total. Of course that might shift if the new EU right does not win its goals for immigration, drastic reductions of human rights including labour rights and the dismissal of climate change. (About 82% of EU, 80% German and virtually all Polish coal power plants do not comply with a new EU regulation on industry air pollution emissions standards. The Polish government plans to expand its coal generation at least through to 2050.) But for now, Farage's Brexit Party is in a small minority in Europe's right wing when it comes to european unity.

The consequences of this drastic shift to the right in the EU parliament could be considerable in the UK but will take time to be processed.

The new reality of the EU - with its most directly 'democratic' component locked into a right and extreme right direction - will first change some of the credibility of British 'remainer' parties and movements in respect of their promotion of the EU as 'liberal' with a small 'L'. It turns out that Farage's Brexit party, and his likely success, will be the closest representation of the EU's political direction in Britain except, due to super-chauvinism in their case, it will not be part of it!

In 2016 when the Brexit referendum was held in Britain nearly 4 million had voted for a rancid and racist UKIP in the General Election. It followed that the racist swell in Britain's society had to be countered and those who saw that plague as more critical than whether or not Britain was in the EU as such, called for a vote in favour of the EU to stem the rightist tide; including this blog. Today there is a solid chance of a genuine left government in Britain. Indeed, that single fact has already forced Farage to say that immigration to Britain is no longer the main issue! And, meanwhile, it is the EU that is now about to wave the racist banner, from the EU parliament no less.

All this implies two, critical facts for the left in Britain today (and after May 23.) First, the EU was never anything but a machine designed to defend, at all costs, big capital based in Europe's larger countries. And second, one of its main institutions will shortly be going into battle to massively increase the Continent's racism as its version of a challenge to globalisation. The idea that EU represented any sort of moral, political, economic or social safeguard for European citizens is again to be tested to destruction. (The EU's 'wall' against immigrants from the African and Middle Eastern world, made tougher by the Lisbon Treaty, was already the moral compass provided for Trump's actual wall against Latin America.)

Today, the biggest question in Britain is whether or not a Corbyn-led government is established soon. But yet again it is a phantom question that is used to replace the main issue. For sure it is marginally better if a soft Brexit is agreed to prevent EU rules playing a part in the efforts that big-capital will make to mow down Corbyn's economic reforms. And the latest EU racism can quickly be substituted for the UKIP version if needed by the right in Britain. But frankly, it matters little whether a soft Brexit or remaining in the EU is chosen. For example youth support for Corbyn's Labour might be enhanced by a second vote. The pressing goal now must be to make an end of the Brexit parody altogether, clearing the way for a government that will begin to address the dismal decline for most people in British society.      

Brexit and democracy

Both sides of the Brexit argument in Britain insist that their view is the democratic view. But what is 'the democratic view'? For example, although the polls that show a small lead in favour of remaining in the EU, it turns out many people who initially voted to remain in the EU are now reported in the media as troubled by any idea that there should be a second vote over Brexit. The reason for this, at least in the discussions on the doorstep, when party canvassers have been trying to win votes in the local Council elections, is explicitly that a second vote would be anti-democratic.

Yet those seeking a second vote on Brexit also present two, apparently inescapable, democratic reasons why a new vote should happen. First, now that Britons face the reality of 'the deal' needed to get out of the EU, they are able to decide the reality of Brexit. This is a reality that was unavailable in the previous contention over the first referendum where all sorts of notions were presented to the public without any evidence. The second vote would therefore be more democratic than the first.

Second; the democratic weakness of the referendum campaign itself was a barrier to younger voters. The emphasis of the referendum campaign did not relate to younger people (who overwhelmingly, opposed leaving the EU but voted much less than older voters). Instead the de-facto character of the referendum campaign focused on those older voters with their dislike of a failing political class and their fear of the decline of social resources, underpinned by the impact of racist propaganda. This, according to those who want a second vote, undermined the legitimacy of the first vote because those who would be most effected by its result were least present in the traditional and essentially Tory led debate (on both sides). 

How can these 'democratic' arguments be decided against each other? Whose 'democracy' is biggest? And, more concretely, if there were a second referendum (which most polls suggest would produce a close result either way), what would be resolved? To understand this apparent conundrum it is necessary to take a step back. 

What is the true case for democracy in Britain today? It surely starts from the basic fact that Britain's democracy is, and has been for decades, a miserable thing. 'Fake news' some might call it. 

The Liberal Democrat Party managed to launch their assault designed to widen Britain's democracy from their long-standing platform of alternative voting systems. In 2011 this perfectly sensible proposal was voted on and 32% of the voters voted 'yes'. 13 million plus voters voted 'no.' The vote showed that whatever was the malaise in British politics it could not be dealt with via a new voting system - according to a vast majority of Britons - whatever its abstract and theoretical advantages. It was more the irrelevance of the issue than its errors as the UK strode into its first year of austerity that doomed its impact. 

Britain has proportionally the largest Parliament in the world. The largest part of Britain's largest Parliament is the House of Lords. 782 people play a major part in Britain's laws and none of them are voted in by anybody. Institutionally, Britain maintains, finances and allows a vast carbuncle that crushes whatever little squeak of democracy that might emerge from the aptly named 'lower house.' And yet the entire removal of the 'Lords' and their playground and their replacement by a voted Senate or a Federal House to represent the countries of the UK would not determine the critical question of Britain's democracy - however worthy such a step might be in its own right.

The absence of Britain's democracy does not lie in the voting system, although voting reform could become essential. Neither is it the removal of the 782 jokers who feed off their £300 a day expenses - although their removal would be more than a vital piece of surgery. It is something more basic. The bit of Parliament that British people can vote for do not have any power over the country's wealth or its power. Worse; it is a decision that the Members of Parliament and their Parties have made - for decades. Parliament has accepted the 'free market', the tax havens, the 'freedom' of the City of London. On and on it rolls. And that is the reason why Britain's democracy fails. And that is why millions smell something very fishy about the the political class that live there.   

While Briton's are fighting over Brexit a much greater issue has emerged that puts Brexit in its proper place. There is now a battle, led by the current Labour Party leadership, to win a government that will at least begin to reach the owners of wealth and the leaders with power and take some of their assets away - in the name of the rest of the people. If Corbyn's Labour Government emerges, Parliament will begin to face, and hopefully face down, the non elected, normally unreachable parts of society that now drive the engine of Britain's declining society. And that is the broadest and widest expansion of democracy that has been seen since 1945. 

And the Brexit vote? It is an important but secondary issue in relation to Britain's democratic future. The main concern is surely the political recomposition of the young, the old, the white collar workers and the workers without rights, the cities and the towns, the homeless and all those on the edge. Whatever the Brexit vote, the new democracy will have to bust through all the main EU economic rules. And that will be the best possible connection with Europe.   

Brexit; a democratic deficit or democratic dead loss?

It is easy to spell out the obvious flaws in modern, mainly western, democracy. Huge state institutions are much more powerful than any parliaments, and behind them are the class of people who own most of the world's wealth, land and property. Naturally these people spend their lives defending their dominion in society and preparing its future inheritance. In Mexico, chunks of the armed state are bought by the rich to kill opponents that challenge the status quo. In Britain most of the social crime carried out by the rich, and the more deadly of the state's interventions, tend to happen at points of crisis (Ireland after WW1 and the 1970s and 80's, the 1984/5 Miners Strike, the theft of state property under Thatcher, the general corruption of MPs etc). But the needs of the rich and powerful in Britain are constantly promoted through society, via select public schools, the 'City', the unelected House of Lords, the clubs, the Caribbean and other islands and, of course, the Tory Party.
Although these general features regarding power and wealth are brutally true, they are, nevertheless, remote abstractions for most people most of the time. Daily life for the vast majority, who are without wealth and power, is tricky, worrying, immediate, practical and, often painful. Much thought and effort is required simply to survive. Struggle against social unfairness, when it happens, often starts at a very local level, is family based and specific. As it expands, and workplaces and housing estates mobilise in collective action, the eruption is often inspiring and society is gifted with crucial, eye-opening moments. Such events often win reforms against the wishes of the rich and powerful, and the state. Collective actions are always dangerous precisely for that reason. Large demonstrations and more direct action that challenges 'the system' are immense steps out of the 'norms' of daily life and proportionately more powerful still. They can create new 'norms' and a fresh 'common sense' across the whole of society. For example the anti Iraq war march did not stop that war but it ended Prime Minister Blair's fortunes.
So when millions of people in Britain voted in higher numbers in the Brexit referendum than in decades of General Elections, it was novel, exceptional, and it was to be decisive and sovereign in respect of its results. All this looked as though 'the system' had at last provided some real democracy for the ordinary people. The fresh and untainted referendum was certainly counterposed by swathes of the public to the earlier years in politics where 'the system' had only provided two main political parties that were 'both the same', which was followed by the discovery that a lot of identikit MPs stole large chunks of money for themselves. The mass parties were declining in membership and committed to the same policies and Parliament was in any case just a honey pot. The referendum looked like a complete break from all this.
Except it wasn't
Despite all the discoveries of false claims and dodgy money surrounding Britain's referendum the potential loss of its meaning and power is acutely painful in society as thousands of canvassers in England's local elections are discovering - from both ends of the argument. Those who voted to leave feel that their decision is being overturned by wretched politicians. Those that voted to remain feel that people who voted to leave were cheated and led on by wretched politicians. But in reality it was the offer of Brexit that was the real lie. Staying in the EU solves nothing for the increasingly desperate lives of millions of people whose living standards are continuing to fall, whose lack of housing and welfare is getting worse in Britain. But leaving the EU under the Tories means getting exactly the same, maybe worse - if the Tory right get their way!
This blog has argued before that the 'leaver's' vote should be upheld. But this is not an argument that 'leavers' should have the benefit of 'democracy', which many do argue, from both the left of British politics and from the right (including previous 'remainers'). Tory PM Cameron did not launch his referendum as a democratic gift to the people. He made his decision because he wanted to unify the Tory Party and solidify his own post. The big corporations and Capital want to stay in the EU and, like Cameron, their 'choice' is not about democracy either. It is entirely calculated to the nearest Euro and has nothing to do with the real needs of either the British or of the European people as a whole. The reason to leave the EU, simply put, is that it would be easier for a Corbyn government to carry out its program - having to fight against the EU's rules. That's why leaving the EU is better than remaining in the EU, and that will remain to be the case until and unless political conditions dramatically shift away from the prospect of a Labour government in a big turn to the right.
EU exit is easier for a Labour government, but it is still not decisive. What is decisive in Britain now is the unification of working class people around the possibility of what is a real and fundamental change. The serious, genuinely democratic choice now is building the votes necessary for an opening offered by Labour's proposed reforms that can drive inroads against the system that now rules Britain. Corbyn provides a real context that is democratically worth a real vote. Brexit via Cameron and now May has no real context on its own that would allow the Brexit vote to have any real content. Their empty Brexit is the ultimate abstraction. The rulers would fill its shell with whatever pleased them. Brexit on its own, whether 'yes' or 'no', is the opposite of real democracy. It does not win the vast majority anything. It does not defend the people or provide any of the real choices if it is not tied to a Corbyn led government.
If Brexit is not it, have there been any concrete, practical examples of a real democratic fight, even in a class society,  which has been forced from British political system in recent times?
Yes. The 2014 Scottish referendum, which was dug out from the British government, reorganised itself into the opposite of a symbolic enterprise. It became, over the months and with the mobilisations of millions in debate and discussion, a great argument about what sort of society should be built if there were to be the chance of changing the whole Scottish nation. It was a referendum tied to an exciting context. Rich and moving, creating real fear across Britain's establishment, it had the chance of breaking up Britain into countries that would lose their echoes of Empire and create medium sized nations focused on the needs of their people. The Scottish referendum became a model of democratic decision making, despite the immense ruling class pressure.
In the end, the weight of Britain's economic heft stalled a future Scotland (and a future united Ireland, and the possible countries of England and Wales.) All who had participated knew that a possible moment of history had been lost. The British ruling class had prevailed, in part because many of the traditional Scottish Labour Party institutions had feared divisions between the working class of Scotland and the rest of Britain. This was a classic failure to understand that the international unity of the working class is not created by the arrangements desired by the capitalist order. Many on the left make the same mistake when arguing about staying in the EU. And now of course traditional Labour has diminished to a smidgen. The leading strength they once held for decades in Scotland has faded away.
'Democracy' is often used in the West as a useful abstraction, as a 'good thing', as a promise. And inevitably across the West, as the mass of the people have lived with the reality of 'democracy' that is actually offered to them, 'democracy' has become a totally passive, even marginal activity. That can include responding to a particular state's so-called 'democracy' by voting for prank Presidents or supporting playful if bitter mockery as responses to the empty promise of modern 'democracy.'.
What this proves is that the modern structure of democracy has now reached the point where it is merely a facade. Paradoxically, the bitter Brexit battle displays this most vividly. Democracy needs to be recreated, in action, by the mass of the people who need to make decisions and who must have change. In that way democracy becomes real. At the present it is just another poisonous trick which people can become desperate to destroy thus creating the real potential of long term disaster.  

Brexit's future - from All Fools to Halloween.

The logic of Brexit's present journey through spring and summer is obvious. But the continuing rage against the 'Brexit saboteurs' and the calls for various mini-Churchill substitutes for Teresa May as Prime Minister, in the Tory Party, in the newspapers and on-line, makes it worth spelling out just what the real possibilities in the next six months are.

The obstacle, which has meant that no Brexit 'deal' with the EU can get any sort of majority among the parties in Parliament, along with the failure of every possible arrangement of the MPs, might only be dissolved in one of four ways. Those four options are familiar but, not surprisingly, two of them also begin to expose the real nature of Britain's democracy.

First (and the worst) is that the chance there will be a long reflection among MPs who will then 'compromise' sufficiently so that a clear majority on Brexit emerges. Some MPs already believe the notion that Easter holidays and the evolution into a languid summer will chill hot-headedness and allow MPs to compromise and vote for PM May's 'deal. Others believe that the Labour Party will make a deal (as amended) with May's Tory supporters.

The second possibility would be the expansion of the plot marked 'the removal of Prime Minister May.' Her departure would pave the way for the unification of the Tories and their little helpers, the DUP. Thirdly, more time must mean that a trend towards a new referendum becomes more likely because the pressure from the public is increasingly leaning that way. And the fourth, the most unlikely and, apparently' the most irrelevant move, according to the mainstream media, the Labour Party's call for for a General Election would succeed and a Labour government would carry out its programme for Brexit.

Going through these ideas using simple logic, there is no reason why extending 2 years by another 7 months would substantially change MPs opinions. The big majority of MPs have worked and thought, both long and hard, as to what their interests are and where they lie, in the past, today and tomorrow.

Equally, the removal of May as leader of the Tory Party does not effect the number of votes in Parliament. Getting rid of May would look like something serious was being done. It would re-scramble the Cabinet. It would also dump any deal that the Labour Party might have foolishly agreed with May. But the numbers are still remorseless. It was not just May's original deal that has been shot down. A Labour influenced deal would entirely regroup the Tories and the DUP against it. A new Tory PM's main purpose would be the destruction of Labour's leadership as his or her's priority - even before Brexit.

The only two remaining routes to break the Brexit block in Parliament, a new referendum or a General Election, are different. Both measures change the face of Parliament. One alters it by the decision of the people's vote and the other, more substantially and cogently, by altering the MPs who are currently in Parliament. And it is the examination of these two potentially successful approaches to remove the Brexit block which lays bare something of Britain's hidden democracy.

Both such initiatives would shake up the now rigid numbers in Parliament. In the case of a new referendum, it would not change MPs but pressurise them, depending on the result. The consequence would be to re-align Parliament on the Brexit issue, according to the size of the vote in the country. The Brexit block would thereby be 'solved.' Hurrah.

But of course it wouldn't. Which now opens up the question of what is British 'democracy'?

It has been decades, three quarters of a century, since the British Parliament has really been able to decide on any major issues of wealth and power in Britain. For British MPs to determine deep questions for the country is extremely rare. The centres of great wealth decide issues of power in the UK. Indeed, the 'free' market', and its autonomy from democratic decision making, is the utterly ludicrous definition of a society in the West, and is offered as a principle of the Western, including the British, democratic system! The acceptance, indeed promotion, of a 'free' market is just one of the extraordinary contradictions the confronts genuine democratic decision making. And yet it is lauded as democracy's finest hour. Membership of the EU internationally reinforces, but does not create, the virtually total independence of Britain's wealth from Britain's democracy.

Why then has Britain and its people been mobilised primarily, and so passionately, around Brexit? Yes, Britain's large scale rulers loath Brexit and savour the reinforcement of the EU. So Brexit has symbolically been represented to the people as the reason for failure of that ruling class to maintain the living standards, the welfare and the social structure that makes life bearable for many. And yes; right wing political forces, from the right of the Tory Party outwards, nail the EU as the cause and centre of the failure of Britain - deliberately. First because a layer of revanchist capital in Britain smells low tax and big money. Second because the single minded focus on the EU, on Brexit, helps distort the reality of a City of London-led social and economic system that is breaking up its past, at least for the population that has to live with it. To that degree Brexit is a simple but gigantic diversion.

It should be understood that the effect of another referendum on Brexit will simply reinforce this diversion from real democracy. Deciding that the decisive issue is membership of the EU is, equally, the avoidance of the real, main source of Britain's malaise. More worryingly, the serious division of Britain's working class will remain and possibly deepen as the decision of the poorest sectors of society are rejected. The final 'success' of the EU option would, under current conditions, strengthen the poisonous class-collaboration in society so desired by ex Blairites etc. Because the Brexit 'solution' has, partially successfully, defined the resistance of the failure of the British economic and political system from the point of view of a large movement of people, a roll-back of of the 2016 referendum would be taken as a defeat by a large section of the British working class. In the narrow and deliberate context created for the British people, one that covers up the real necessities of democracy to change the system that they are forced to live in, a new referendum will simply deepen the fog and make change harder.

That is why the only effective way to remove the Brexit block in Parliament is a General Election. Why? Because the possible success of a Labour government opens the potential of winning, in practise, a different platform, a new 'common sense' over the Brexit block. If and when millions vote for a new government with a broad reform program, Brexit can find its proper place as one aspect of the need for change; a need for change primarily centred in British institutions with their global reach, which the EU reinforces, but does not define or create.

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.