ALB
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It won’t happen. By waving the possibility that it might Johnson is seeking to strengthen the UK’s negotiating hand. The same goes for his announcement that he won’t extend the transition period beyond 31 December next year. Some commentators are saying that this latter could prove to be counterproductive as, assuming that the threat of no deal is a bluff, it puts pressure on the UK government to reach a quick deal and so strengthens the EU’s hand.
Fascinating stuff for nerds but unlikely to interest Leave voters who will regard leaving on 31 January as having got “Brexit done” as far as they’re concerned (and as far as it concerns them).
It is now clear that the UK will formally leave the EU on 31 January but the nature of the trade arrangements with the EU remain to be settled. The status quo — of being in the customs union and the single market — will apply until at least 31 December 2020.
Johnson wants a free trade agreement with no tariffs and no quotas but the EU won’t agree to this unless there is a high degree of regulatory convergence (on state aids, environmental standards, workers’ rights, etc) to avoid unfair competition from UK companies. They will insist on “a level playing field”. What exactly this will be is what is going to be negotiated over the coming year. It needn’t be fully regulatory alignment but could be mutual recognition of each other’s regulations.
We’ll see. But once the UK has formally left I think that will satisfy the vast majority of Leave voters. I can’t see them getting worked up — or being successfully stirred up — over the details of what is or what is not a level playing field for UK-EU trade. Trading arrangements was never the real reason why they voted Leave or for the Tory or Brexit parties last Thursday.
If this is right then Brexit will no longer be a popular issue let alone the main one. Good thing too.
I agree with Robbo here. The people likely to be more receptive to our arguments will be disillusioned Labour activists and voters who already agree that the interests of the few are not the same as the interests of the many and that the interests of the many can be pursued via the ballot box.
There will be stiff competition for their attention coming from Trotskyists saying that what is needed is a disciplined vanguard party to lead the workers and anarchists calling for so-called direct action in the streets to get reforms.
How pathetic but how typical. Less than a week after an election which confirmed and re-enforced Johnson as Prime Minister the anarchists organise minority “direct action” to try to overturn the result. It sounds, though, from the report that they were just there for the brawl.
What’s the point you are trying to make? That most workers are thickos who will never understand socialism because they can’t? Lenin at least thought they could understand trade unionism if not socialism!
Your friend seems to be in the running for the Snob of the Year Award. I bet they don’t know who won the Cup in 1987 or who the current world snooker champion is. Or who won Strictly Cone Dancing. I don’t either. Or is it the Private Frazer Award for Pessimism that he’s after?
If the media are so powerful that they were able to stop Corbyn coming to power how come they weren’t able to stop the Scots Nats winning so overwhelmingly? After all, a breakaway by Scotland would cause more harm to the British state than any passing damage that a bungling economic policy by a Corbyn government would do.
But he seems to have linked up with the Communist Party of Great Britain Marxist-Leninist which can definitely be called Stalinist.
The article on the front was written by a comrade in the Indian party and used as the editorial in the September Standard. And also as a leaflet for some climate change events that month.
People in London don’t mind “foreigners” and get on with them. It’s people in the middle of nowhere that have never seen one that seem to see them as some sort of threat and even then change their mind when they do meet one.
And you’ve got to be over 50 to remember the 1970s. Given younger people a break ! Anyway most of the politicians of the period were eminently forgettable/ George Brown? Reginald Maudling? Who were they? Or were they the 1960s?
“Investors are sure the Tories promises are not going to be implemented but just didn’t know if Corbyn’s might have kept his pledges (unlike ourselves who did believe he would break them).“
Of course we didn’t believe that he would try to implement them but, rather, that if/when he did they wouldn’t work due the nature and operation of capitalism. So it would be more accurate to say “unlike ourselves who didn’t believe he could deliver them”. Mind you, investors were right to worry about the economic disruption that would result when a Labour government did try to implement them.
But you didn’t have to be a socialist to believe this. Workers have sufficient experience of the way capitalism has worked in the past to know that the Labour Party was promising something that they couldn’t deliver. Of course this will also be a reflection of the cultivated view that it is not capitalism but the way the world has to be that prevents things getting that much better.
Yes, the media did destroy and character assassinate Corbyn and they are still kicking him now that he’s down. I am not sure that this was entirely or even mainly due to Labour’s radical reformist programme, but will have had more to do with his pro-Palestine position. After all, Labour’s programme wasn’t the most radical they’ve had, even in living memory. And although they made fun of Michael Foot it wasn’t vicious as it has been in Corbyn’s case.
In any event the media are not all powerful. Otherwise how did the state-capitalist regimes in Eastern Europe collapse? In fact, how come we exist? If we can escape it, so can the rest of the working class. In fact, our whole case is based on this assumption.
An electronic copy of “World News” has been sent to the Internet Committee to put up at an appropriate place on this site.
That article by Jonathan Cook is, as usual, well written and he makes some valid points. However, his conclusions that the political system is rigged and that therefore the answer is to take to the streets is wrong and even dangerous.
Yes, the private and state owned media are biased and they do manipulate popular opinion, but there is no evidence that the electoral system does not accurately reflect the views of those who vote. After all, it didn’t prevent the election of over 200 Labour MPs. And there is no evidence that it could have prevented the election of the 326+ needed to for Labour to have become the governing party. It was that on this occasion not what a sufficient number of voters wanted.
The system that is “rigged” is not the electoral system but the economic system as all reformist governments have found and as a Corbyn one would have too. The working of the capitalist system require that priority be given to profit-making and that any government that doesn’t respect this will provoke an economic downturn.
The answer is certainly not to take to the streets and try to reform capitalism by “direct action”. That won’t be able to overcome the economic laws of capitalism either and, being the action only of a minority, would provide the state with the pretext to crack down with popular support. If such direct action had majority support it could use this to win an election, not that that would allow their reformist programme to be implemented given the nature of capitalism.
No, the lesson is that the battle that needs to be won is the battle of ideas, which is fought not on the streets but in leaflets, meetings, social media and even by contesting elections. Until a majority want to reject capitalism and replace it with socialism then it’s not going (to be able) to happen.
