ALB
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We still don’t know at the moment whether or not Euroelections will take place in Britain on 23 May. That depends, apparently, on whether the government and the Labour Party can agree on the future trading arrangements of UK plc outside the EU. An opinion poll has suggested that a quarter of electors have decided to boycott them. Which quarter would that be? As more than 60% of electors have boycotted these elections in the past. In fact a quarter boycott even general elections.
If they do take place they will inevitably be a proxy referendum, with the leaders of both the Leave and Remain camps setting out to attract voters. Most pundits expect Farage’s Brexit Party to win, with Tommy Robinson going to Brussels too. Farage’s party can be expected to do well, but at the expense of the Tories. (which is why they are so against them). Labour can be expected to be squeezed too, with many Remainers showing their support for this by voting for unambiguous Remain parties such as the LibDems, the Greens, the Nationalists and even perhaps Chukky Ubama’s “Independents”. If it is a proxy referendum there could well be a higher turnout.
In any event, if these elections do take place, the Socialist Party will be taking part as, on Saturday, our Executive Committee gave the go-ahead for preparations to contest the South East and Wales regions (as we did the last time in 2014).
For the record, here’s some more crazy stuff from Trotskists about Brexit.
This is the best from 3 April issue The News Line, the daily still brought out by one of the WRPs:
INDICATIVE VOTES ARE REJECTED FOR A SECOND TIME — UK MUST LEAVE EU ON APRIL 12th! (… ) The determination of the current British ruling class to put the ‘backward and ignorant people back into their pre-refertendum place’ is now angering millions of workers and inviting the same fate as the previous ruling class. Without a doubt, this arrogance will drive the working class to rise and settle the issue by shutting down parliament and bringing in a workers republic, run by workers councils managing a planned socialist economy.
Yes, without a doubt!
Second best is this from a “Spartacist League” leaflet:
Down with racist, anti-worker EU! No second referendum! Corbyn aids Brexit betrayal ( … ) The decisive leave vote in the 2016 referendum was a stunning defeat for the City of London, whicgh it has been trying to reverse ever since (…) Britain out of the EU now! (…) Our call for a leave vote in the 2016 referendum explained: “Amid the growing chaos besetting the EU, a British exit would deal a real blow to this imperialist-dominated conglomerate, further destabilisiung it and creating more favourable conditions for working-class struggle across Europe — including against a weakened and discredited Tory government in Britain.”
So worse is best. But is it?
Our opponents are:
Folkestone & Hythe District Council Harbour ward (2 Seats): Gurung and Wallace (Tories); Field and Keen (Labourites); Anson (LibDem) and McConnell (Green); Lawes (Foundation Party).
Folkestone Town Council Harbour ward (3 seats): Gurung, Wallace and Wallace (Tories); Field, Keen and Le Fanu (Labourites); Lawes (Foundation Party).
Notable that there are no UKIP candidates. The Foundation Party, however, has been formed by ex-Ukippers.
The Brexiteers are claiming that if Brexit doesn’t happen political democracy in Britain will be crippled and there will be rioting on the streets. The result of the Newport by-election held yesterday shows this to be empty rhetoric. The turnout was only 37%, i.e. 63% are indifferent and couldn’t care less whether or not Brexit happens. True, UKIP increased its share of the vote from 2.5% to 8.6% but, in numbers, this was an increase of only 923 compared with the 2017 general election (from 1100 to 2023). On the other hand, the three pro-Remain parties (LibDems, Greens and the Welsh Nationalists) also increased the number voting for them, by 657.
So, there is some slight increase in both directions of those concerned about the issue, but 63% of the electors take up our position that Brexit is not an issue that concerns them either way. They are just not interested in the trading arrangements of the UK capitalist class. Far from rioting in the streets people will just get on with their life as before.
For the record, despite spending pots of money and favourable press coverage, the Renew party came 7th with 879 votes (3.7% of the votes cast). Hopefully, this means we’ll never hear about them again. But the person with the money who funded their campaign might want to keep on trying.
Support for the view that those Tories calling Corbyn a Marxist are wrong has come from an unexpected source, the Tory-leaning Spectator:
The news that Theresa May is having talks with Corbyn has got some Tory supporters hot under the collar. Some are cutting up their membership cards. ‘Don’t talk to this Marxist!’, they cry, suggesting they’re in dire need of a dictionary so that they might look up what the word Marxist actually means.
The last time MPs voted on holding a referendum it was lost by 292 votes to 280, with all 29 Cabinet ministers abstaining. As you need to get about 310 votes to get something through, the proposal needs another 30 or votes. Where are they going to come from? That would require some of the 292 opponents or those who boycotted the indicative votes to switch or the whole Cabinet to vote for it. It is much more likely that the opponents will find the 20 extra votes they require to defeat the proposition. We’ll see as it’s almost certain to be put to a vote again.
Part of the trade of a political correspondent is being a bit of a shit-stirrer by highlighting and to that extent contributing to differences within parties. As there’s no majority in parliament for another referendum (so, thankfully, we should avoid that inconvenience being inflicted on us), the government and Labour could agree that parliament should decide whether or not any agreement they may reach should be put to a confirmatory referendum. In fact the government has already hinted that it might itself propose an indicative vote on this. When it fails they will be happy and Corbyn will be able to say I tried but that the numbers weren’t there.
The other thing that happened in parliament yesterday was that an a bill got passed in only 4 hours. That deals with one objection that used to be raised to our policy of using elections and parliament as part of the process of abolishing capitalism and establishing socialism. It shows that, in this country at least, capitalist property rights could be abolished constitutionally as well as democratically and in less than four hours. As the bill was passed by just one vote that disposes of one silly objection to our policy about whether by majority we mean 50% + 1. We don’t but if this was the case it could still be done.
p.s. just heard while typing this a government minister, Mike Hancock, call Corbyn a Marxist (at 8.16 on BBC Radio 4). They’re all at it. Still, Corbyn would no doubt prefer to being referred to as that rather than as an anti-Semite, though neither are true.
And here’s resigning junior minister, Nigel Adams. More to come no doubt.
You don’t have to be a Marxist to recognise that there are two classes in society. Anyway, there seems to be a concerted campaign amongst the extremist Brexisteers to label (smear, in their eyes) Corbyn as a “Marxist”.
Here’s Andrew Rosindell, Tory MP for Romford. And here’s Ian Duncan Smith calling the whole Labour Party “Marxist”:
Speaking to the BBC in the Palace of Westminster’s Central Lobby, the former Tory leader raged: “This is no longer Conservative government policy. This is policy dictated by what I think is a Marxist and rather nasty Labour party.
In the past they’d have simply called him a “Communist” but that wouldn’t go down so well these days. Hence “Marxist” as their new term of abuse. Even so, I am not sure that, outside the Tory Party and the further-right, it will be taken as this.
According to Rees-Mogg, Jeremy Corbyn is a “known Marxist”. That’s probably news to Corbyn who didn’t know this and who has never even claimed to be one. And of course he isn’t. He is just a known leftwing reformist. In theory Labour and Tories should be able to reach a deal on the future trading arrangements of the British capitalist class; whether or not narrow party politics will allow this to happen in practice is another matter. A real Marxist would tell them both that the trading arrangements of the capitalist class are of no concern to the majority class of wage and salary workers — and not to inflict on the majority class the temporary inonveniences of a no-deal crash-out.
You are right, Alan. I was being a bit Britocentric. What I should have said was that it shows that “money can’t always buy votes” since, as Marcos has just pointed out, in some (most?) parts of the world money can literally buy votes and everywhere money does distort elections, primaries and, even in Britain, referendums. What I was meaning to point out was that in the British context you need more than money to get a new political party off the ground.
I think those behind the Renew party were trying to copy Macron in France (though I am not sure, given the result in France, that they are still saying this). There was also another would-be centrist party out on the streets of Newport yesterday, the Social Democratic Party, a left-over from an attempt in the 1980s to get a new centrist party off the ground (kept going after most of them joined the Liberals to form the LibDems, including its current leader, a former Labour councillor).
The Renew Party is contesting the Newport West by-election on 4 April. They were out in force in the centre of Newport this afternoon. One of them told us at our street stall that 50 of them had been bussed in and that at 4pm a plane would fly over advertising their candidate. It did but, unfortunately for them, the only word you could see clearly was “Vote” not who for. We were told that this and their piles of different glossy leaflets had been financed by a large donation to contest the election. Their political line, apart from being anti-Brexit and pro-business, seemed to be that people should be represented in Parliament by ordinary people rather than career politicians (no chance then of them merging with the so-called “Independent Group” of ex-Labour and ex-Tory MPs). They hoped to finish third behind Labour and Tory though they’ll probably only get a few hundred votes and be in the lower middle batting order of the eleven candidates. At least this will show that money can’t buy you votes.
The papers are saying that the Protestant Ulster Unionists of the DUP might settle for the UK staying in a customs union as that would mean no backstop threat of Norther Ireland’s trading regulations being different from the rest of the UK.
That’s always been their red line not a hard Brexit. What do they care about UK capitalism being able to make its own trade deals? And they certainly don’t want a no deal exit as that would lead to Northern Ireland being treated differently. They would settle for anything as long as Ulster is treated the same as the rest if the UK.
The choice May had between the devil and the DUP wasn’t really a choice at all. Either from her point of view was a pact with the devil as she has just found to her cost.
Talk about the legacy of dead generations weighing like an alp on the brains of the living.
