Roger Silverman in London writes the New Year message he’d like to hear from Jeremy Corbyn:
British PM Theresa May.
Her Brexit plan has been rejected.
As we go into 2019, Britain under the Tories is hurtling towards disaster. May’s Brexit plan has been rejected from all sides, by those who voted Leave and Remain alike. Within weeks we will find ourselves staring into the abyss of a no-deal outcome. Far from “strong and stable”, this government is on the brink of collapse.
Tory Britain is haunted by spectres not seen since Victorian times: workers queueing up at food banks, children going to school hungry, ex-
Meanwhile, homelessness has reached epidemic proportions in Britain
soldiers sleeping on the streets. That’s the real reason why millions of people rose up in protest by voting for change. What counts now is what we’re going to do to give people back their hope and dignity. And that is impossible under this government of billionaire crooks.
That’s why I’m calling on the British people to stand up and demand their voice be heard. Let’s take a tip from our fellow workers in France and around the world. We need a general election now and a new government with a fresh democratic mandate for real change. I’m not prepared any longer to confine my contribution to parliamentary manoeuvres. I’m calling on everyone: Leave or Remain, workers, students, unemployed, pensioners, migrants… Whether your family roots are in Britain, Bulgaria, Bangladesh, Poland or Pakistan… Come to Parliament Square and make yourselves heard in the corridors of Westminster and Downing Street. We want at least 100,000 people there, with or without your yellow vests, chanting with one voice: May Resign! Tories Out! General Election now!
You will ask: but what alternative programme can Labour offer? My answer? Whether or not we leave the EU, what matters is to defend and promote the rights of ordinary working-class families. We will put our collective skills back to work, invest in growth, restore decent pay and conditions and trade union rights, take back control of our transport and energy resources andof our health service, put a stop to austerity poverty and corporate greed. We won’t let anyone stand in our way, whether from Brussels, Washington or the City of London. A Labour government will seek to negotiate a Brexit deal which gives us the freedom to achieve these goals. If we fail, we will go back to the people for their decision. What I will guarantee is that, in or out of the EU, no Labour government from now on will submit to the dictates of unelected corporate bosses.
That is the only way we can achieve a genuinely Happy New Year.
Categories: Europe, poverty & hunger
I hope Corbyn maintains the course that the vote was already settled and the British working class want’s nothing more to do with the IMPERIALIST tool, the EU. Hope the EU flies apart.
Here’s some figures on the reasons people voted to leave:
“Nearly half (49 percent) of Leave voters said the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the EU was the argument about sovereignty—“the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK”. One third (33 percent) said the main reason was that leaving “offered the best chance for the UK to regain control over immigration and its own borders”.
“Immigration looks like a proxy for racism for many of these voters. Just 14 percent of Leavers thought immigration was a force for good, a massive 62 percent said it was a force for ill. Remainers, however, saw immigration as a force for good by 57 percent, and a force for ill by only 17 percent, with 26 percent seeing it as a mixed blessing.” (from this article: http://isj.org.uk/the-left-and-brexit/?fbclid=IwAR0uIqtypt9sWBE3xLhGLaRM7mNpSCGTqLxVyi8tYY8olXvmH8ZMndie7qo)
The “Lexiteers” completely ignore the reactionary politics that drove the “leave” vote. It’s no accident that not a single one of the left groups in Britain (that I know of) has ever even commented on the spate of increased attacks on immigrants and on people of color that started around the time of the vote and increased significantly in the aftermath.
As for the idea that leaving will enable “decisions about the UK (to be) taken in the UK”: That is a complete dream world. Not even in the US is that the case. It’s the international markets and international capital that controls the entire capitalist world today. What that meant, in practice, was the idea that British workers have some common interests with British capitalists.
The Lexiteers are operating on the premise that anything that destabilizes capitalism should be supported. That is the completely wrong way of looking at matters, completely the wrong starting point. Our starting point should be that we support whatever strengthens the working class, whatever clarifies the situation for the working class, whatever helps increase the unity of the working class, including international unity. Brexit is doing the exact opposite.