Watson: be the party of Remain
Warren Murray, Groan, sep 11 2019
Labour deputy leader Tom Watson is to call today for his party to “unambiguously and unequivocally back remain” and push for a referendum before a general election. An election alone “might well fail to solve this Brexit chaos,” Watson is due to say. MPs looking to stop no deal are exploring ways to bring back a version of Theresa May’s Brexit deal plus a vote on a second referendum in the last two weeks of October after parliament returns. Ken Clarke, one of those fired from the Tories by Boris Johnson last week, has said he would be willing to be an “honorific figurehead” for an alternative government seeking such a compromise. The EU has said a NI-only backstop, previously rejected by Theresa May as a threat to the UK’s integrity, might be back on the table to salvage a deal. Downing Street has denied considering it, after the suggestion rattled the DUP. On the Today programme the Labour MP Owen Smith, who unsuccessfully challenged Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership in 2016, said he agreed with Watson that there was no such thing as a good Brexit. Smith said:
An argument in principle that there is no such thing as a good Brexit deal, that all versions of Brexit are going to leave Britain poorer and more isolated in the world, and that’s why there is no good reason why Labour should be supporting that. It’s at odds with our values, it’s at odds with the electoral interests of the Labour party and it’s at odds with the prospects for a better future for our constituents, so we should be opposed to it and we should be clear that Labour doesn’t believe Brexit is a good thing and critically we shouldn’t be bamboozled or bullied by Boris Johnson into going into an election on his terms.
But the Labour MP Gareth Snell said:
I disagree with Tom Watson. I think the numbers simply do not exist in parliament for a referendum. The public don’t want a second referendum, either. The withdrawal agreement bill, which is a very different thing, that was the outcome of the cross-party negotiations, ought to be presented to parliament as a basis on which trying to find a deal. I think minds are sharpening, I think people are seeing what damage could be done from a no-deal Brexit.
Tom Watson to break Labour’s uneasy truce over Brexit
Heather Stewart, Groan, Sep 11 2019
Labour’s divisions on Brexit will be laid bare on Wednesday, as Tom Watson urges his party to “unambiguously and unequivocally back Remain” and to push for a referendum before a general election. Speaking at a Creative Industries Federation conference in London on Wednesday, Watson will argue that Labour can win back the Remain voters who deserted it in May’s European elections, but only if it now becomes an avowedly anti-Brexit party. Watson will insist that it is not too late to win back Remainers attracted by the Lib Dems’ simpler “stop Brexit” message. He will say:
Boris Johnson has already conceded that the Brexit crisis can only be solved by the British people. But the only way to break the Brexit deadlock once and for all is a public vote in a referendum. A general election might well fail to solve this Brexit chaos. If there is a general election before a referendum, I will be arguing that our position going into that election should be totally clear. We must unambiguously and unequivocally back Remain. My experience on the doorstep tells me most of those who’ve deserted us over our Brexit policy did so with deep regret and would greatly prefer to come back. They just want us to take an unequivocal position that whatever happens we’ll fight to Remain, and to sound like we mean it. There is no such thing as a good Brexit deal, which is why I believe we should advocate for Remain.
His stance contrasts with Jeremy Corbyn’s insistence on Tuesday that any referendum must include a “credible leave option.” This leaves the door open for Brexit voters to support Labour. Addressing the TUC in Brighton, after twice whipping his MPs not to support Boris Johnson’s bid to trigger a snap general election, Corbyn said:
A general election is coming, but we won’t allow Johnson to dictate the terms. We’re ready for that election. Johnson is pursuing a Trump deal Brexit, hijacking the referendum result to shift even more power and wealth to those at the top. We’re ready to unleash the biggest people-powered campaign we’ve ever seen, and in that election we will commit to a public vote, with a credible option to Leave and the option to Remain.
Corbyn later met leaders of the key Labour-affiliated unions, and agreed the party should stick to its policy of backing a referendum, but ensuring they have something to offer leave supporters. one person with knowledge of the meeting said:
The policy is clear. If it is a bad Tory deal, then Labour will formally back Remain. If Labour is in government, it will negotiate the best possible deal it can and let people decide between that deal and the current deal as EU members.
Shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer will echo Corbyn’s language about a “credible leave option” when he addresses the TUC on Wednesday. He will promise that MPs won’t be “silenced” by Johnson’s decision to prorogue parliament. Starmer will say:
Just as we worked throughout the summer to pass a law preventing no deal, so we will work each and every day we are shut down to enforce that law. Prime minister: you can hide from parliament for a few weeks, but when we return we will be ready.
Watson’s intervention is likely to be viewed as less than helpful by the Labour leadership. One Corbyn loyalist in the shadow cabinet said:
This speech does not reflect Labour policy in any way. Tom has been increasingly detached from mainstream Labour thinking. He often misses shadow cabinet these days. Many on the left of the party are suggesting that he wants to avoid an election at all costs, out of fear that Jeremy may become prime minister.
By contrast to Watson’s claim, party strategists believe the most ardent remain voters will be all but impossible to win back, but hope they can offer a pragmatic way out of the current crisis for both leavers and remainers. There was disquiet among some around Corbyn that the chaotic events of the past week in parliament risked allowing Johnson to present the Labour leader as part of a Westminster cabal, trying to block Brexit. But they hope that once a general election campaign kicks off, focus will switch to Corbyn’s radical policies, including the increase in workers’ rights he outlined in Brighton on Tuesday. One Labour source said:
Once we get out of here, there isn’t any way to establishment up Jeremy.
Labour’s Brexit policy has shifted in a series of incremental steps over the past 12 months, from a referendum being one option “on the table,” to its preferred route out of the deadlock in parliament. Some members of the shadow cabinet, including Emily Thornberry and John McDonnell, have already made clear they would campaign to remain in a referendum, whatever deal Labour was able to secure from the EU27. McDonnell suggested on Sunday the party would not seek to open lengthy negotiations with Brussels, but would be hoping to rubber-stamp something like Theresa May’s deal, with the addition of the compromises Labour had secured during the cross-party talks earlier this year. These included continued customs union membership until the question of whether to leave could be settled at a general election; and closer alignment with the EU on workers’ rights and environmental standards.
The Financial Times lays down the law to Labour’s Corbyn
Thomas Scripp, WSWS, Sep 11 2019
After running a series of articles under the general title “The Corbyn Revolution,” analyzing Jeremy Corbyn’s programme for a Labour government, the Financial Times has delivered its verdict. The FT’s Sep 8 editorial laments:
(We face) a hideous choice between a likely no-deal Brexit under Mr Johnson’s Conservatives, or the revolutionary socialist project of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour.
It rejects both and instead calls for a “caretaker government” of the “Rebel Alliance” of pro-EU MPs, comprising Blairites, Lib Dems, the SNP and two dozen recently expelled Conservatives. This would be “headed by a more trustworthy and less divisive figure than Mr Corbyn” to guarantee against a no-deal Brexit and then hand over power to a more stable government. However, the FT is acutely aware that, given the absolute dysfunction of the ruling Conservatives and the hatred towards them among working people, there is a possibility of a Labour government coming to power, or at least being essential to the formation of a “government of national unity” made up of the pro-Remain parties. To meet this possibility, the FT series leaves no doubt about what is expected of the Corbynites. Corbyn has been put on notice by his masters that he must either withdraw or renege on his election promises and do exactly as he is told by the financial elite, or he will be put out of office one way or another. This is threatened despite the FT’s very sober assessment of Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell’s strictly limited economic programme. One FT article notes that Labour’s pledges on infrastructure spending will run up against the limit set by the party’s own “Fiscal Credibility Rule,” devised by McDonnell before the 2017 General Election. Another points out that the tax rises promised in Labour’s 2017 manifesto, assuming they were actually implemented, would not be enough to fund the party’s current pledges, even while “ending austerity” on only the most minimal of definition. Corbyn’s Labour would be no more “generous” to the NHS than the Tory party, notes the FT. Whereas Labour claimed it would raise £48b/yr from tax increases, the Institute for Public Policy Research has suggested that more than £100b/yr would be needed to end austerity and enable “prosperity and justice.” Yet in the same series a quote from Terry Scuoler, former head of the manufacturer’s lobby Made UK, describes the prospect of a Labour government as “nightmarish” A “senior Labour figure” claims:
They don’t give a fuck about the city of London!
The FT’s editors screech:
A Labour government under Mr Corbyn would destroy investor confidence and usher in economic disaster.
Another article in the series, headlined “UK’s Labour would seize £300b of company shares,” deals with McDonnell’s proposed transfer of 10% of shares from all companies with more than 250 employees to their workers. Under the scheme, employees would be eligible to receive up to £500/yr in dividends, with the rest going to social funds controlled by the government. The scheme would be gradually implemented over 10 years, with the FT and its sources noting that it would likely be held up in the courts and WTO for even longer. It does nothing to touch the capitalist profit system, yet its impact is described in apocalyptic language. The FT notes that the Adam Smith Institute rails against “expropriation” and “the biggest raid on all of our nest eggs in living memory.” The FT gravely cites “long-standing Marxist” McDonnell’s comment of several years ago:
Change doesn’t come from people having tea at the Ritz. It comes from people storming the Ritz.
The source of the contradiction between this furious reaction and Corbyn’s very timid programme is twofold. Firstly, the standard set for any forthcoming government is not simply to preserve the power of the ruling class, but to respond to the demands of an unprecedented international capitalist crisis and cut-throat struggle for profitability and geostrategic advantage. A Corbyn government will be required to deepen the vicious attacks on workplace and social conditions begun under Margaret Thatcher. There is no difference whatsoever between the Leave and Remain factions of the ruling elite (Corbyn supports remaining in the EU) on the necessity to wage war on the working class. In Nov 2016, Thatcher’s former chancellor Nigel Lawson wrote:
The Brexit project is our opportunity to finish the Thatcher revolution.
Now the FT, speaking for the pro-Remain sections of UK business, asserts:
Mr Corbyn (might) undo much of the Thatcherite revolution of the 1980s, while often brutal, led to a necessary shift in the balance of power between labour and capital that helped deliver stronger economic growth.
Secondly, the relentless attacks made against the slavishly compliant figure of Corbyn serve as a coded message to the strategists in the ruling class. The social elite undoubtedly fear a “revolutionary socialist” development from below and “expropriation.” However, they know that the threat doesn’t come from Corbyn’s warmed over reformist nostrums, but from the seething discontent in the working class after years of their living standards being decimated by successive governments of all political stripes. The attacks on Corbyn are a warning to him, McDonnell et al that they must toe the line or they will be dispensed with. The FT states:
Mr McDonnell’s first task may be to say ‘no’ and disappoint many people on the radical left.
In other words, Labour’s first task will be to attack the working class as brutally as the Tories. In an interview with the FT, one of Corbyn’s advisers claims French Socialist Party President of the 1980s Francois Mitterrand as a predecessor. Even given Mitterrand’s own despicable record, this is an absurd comparison. The Socialist Party president came to power in 1981 in a period when crumbs could still be given to the working class. A more accurate antecedent to a Corbyn-led Labour government is Alexis Tsipras’s Syriza party in Greece. Elected in 2015 on an anti-austerity programme, Syriza instead carried out deeper cuts and more sweeping privatisations than its predecessors, backed by an army of riot police. This has resulted in the devastating impoverishment of Greek workers and their families. Corbyn has maintained close relations with Syriza going back as far as 2012, and met Tsipras for discussions on several occasions as the Syriza leader was busy imposing austerity on the Greek population. At a conference of the Party of European Socialists in Brussels in Oct 2017, after Syriza had been in power for nearly three years, Tsipras told Corbyn:
Nice to see you. We’re very proud of what you have accomplished.
Corbyn responded:
We are following your example. I believe we will succeed soon.
Under today’s conditions, the assault Corbyn would carry out against the British working class would make Syriza’s record in office pale by comparison. Whereas Greece is a relatively small and uninfluential country on the periphery of Europe, Britain is one of the world’s major imperialist powers—home to one of the most important centres of global finance, and a leading military partner of NATO. Not one inch can be given to the working class if British imperialism’s world position is to be secured. Under instruction from the ruling class, Corbyn’s pledges to end austerity, nationalise utilities and railways, abolish tuition fees, and everything else would melt into thin air, to be replaced by a programme of deepening austerity, rampant militarism and attacks on democratic rights. Since taking the Labour leadership four years ago, Corbyn’s record is an uninterrupted line of conciliation, retreats and betrayals carried out in the name of serving the “national interest”—from working with the unions to ensure the isolation and defeats of strikes, to reversing his opposition to NATO and the EU, to allowing his supporters to be witch-hunted by the Blairites out of the party on bogus charges of anti-Semitism. If Corbyn was not able to fight a few hundred politically toxic Blairites and kick them out, despite having the backing of hundreds of thousands of Labour members and supporters, he will do whatever he is told when it comes to defending the interests of the predatory financial elite of the City of London and British imperialism internationally.