Posts Tagged ‘Brexit’
Left Bloc at the People’s Vote March: On lâche rien!
At the Left Bloc Behind the Banner ‘Stop Tory Brexit’ (Photos from Mike H).
After short speeches in Old Park Lane, by a number of people, including Michael Chessum, Hilary Wainwright and Mary Kaldor, hundreds joined the Left Bloc at the People’s Vote March.
It was felt that a serious left presence was needed to show that the ‘another Europe is possible’ can be a political force within anti-Brexit protests, the Labour Party and the labour movement.
The intervention was well received, apart from unfavourable reactions from a few Liberal Democrats.
At the post-Demo discussion and Party in Lambeth, people thanked the organisers’ for their hard work, which had paid, off.
The strategy is now to build the campaign for a People’s Vote in the Labour Party and the trade unions.
There was serious discussion on the grounded, mass, and worked out alternative to the ‘Lexit’ sovereigntist left which needs to be built.
It was an exceptional day.
The warmth and enthusiasm of the left bloc reminded this writer of one of his favourite film moments – Blue is the Warmest Colour, (Vie d’Adèle – Chapitres 1 & 2).
On lâche rien!
After the March there was a Post-demo Party in Lambeth.
Thanks for to the gallery of photos by Mike Hirst.
And (nicked from LM):
Julie Burchill, Suzanne Moore, Socialist Worker…..On the Eve, more Reasons to Back the Stop Tory Brexit Bloc. Tomorrow.
“Lining up behind big business calls for a second referendum to stay in the racist, neoliberal EU.”Socialist Worker
I won’t be marching for a people’s vote. There has already been one
Ipswich’s most famous daughter, and former Punter on the Orwell Estuary, writes that “some of her best friends” will be joining the march.
I won’t be joining them. Not because I don’t care about their feelings or voices, but because of the strange denial of what this is all about.
She adds,
So half the country are racist, old, small-minded, poor people who were seduced by a combination of Aaron Banks and the delusions of empire? Spare me please.
Picture of where Moore used to go ‘punting’:
Spiked: ‘I love rebellion, and that’s why I love Brexit’
Julie Burchill on her new play, the working classes, sex and Brexit.
“People Like Us – a new play about sex and Brexit. ”
I was happy with my semi-retired life, doing volunteer work and having long lunches by the sea with my mates.
….
“People Like Us is billed as a play about sex and Brexit. What’s the connection?”
I think that the ruling class – even when they’ve been progressives and actually very helpful, like Marie Stopes, and the Fabians – have always had a parasexual fear of the working class. It’s probably to do with the sort of sex they imagine us having – animalistic rather than caring or whatever – and this is a dark backbeat to Brexit, that we’re seeking to wallow in our own filth, be it racial, sexual or otherwise. It’s not us who’s having erotic spasms – it’s the prissy Remainers, looking under their blameless beds for big bad Brexiteers to treat ’em rough.
It is hard to beat that…..
From our spaz side.
Only Labour can save Britain from this disastrous Brexit
As a trades unionist, negotiating for workers’ rights is my lifeblood. But never have I seen a negotiating hand played worse. May has led her cabinet into a hole and their inability to tell it straight to the British people means they can’t stop digging. British people crave straight-talking, and they crave a politics in which politicians treat them as grown-ups. Truth-tellers are respected. It’s the liars who can’t be stomached.
So with an extended transition deal set to turn Britain from EU nation state to yoked province, it falls to the people to rescue the country from Tory idiocy. But Labour, too, must rise to what is now becoming a national liberation struggle. The Brexit that was promised to leavers is not remotely possible. The backlash against May as this truth sinks in will finish her. For those of us committed to a Labour government, this is now Jeremy Corbyn’s moment. He can be prime minister-in-waiting if he leads the new battle of ideas for a different kind of Brexit.
Vassal state is not an option Labour can tolerate. Absolutely no one voted to be a colony. It is as ridiculous a political choice as it is unnecessary. The Tories are the party of the binary – we had a yes or no referendum and then a deal or no-deal Brexit. This is no way to do democratic politics. Labour’s position of keeping all options on the table subverts the Tories’ immature binaries – and enables a variety of democratic choices to prevail, including a popular vote on the outcome of negotiations and even a remain option should facts compel us to it.
What is now being offered makes staying berthed inside the EU look like a safe harbour. And Corbyn’s wait-and-see approach has ushered him to the threshold of government. The Tory shambles in which we go from EU nation state with full rights to irrelevant outpost should now be fully opposed. Retaining full EU voting membership until we have negotiated the future trading relationship with our European partners must become a Labour manifesto commitment. This won’t be easy as the EU itself has made leaving a red line for the start of negotiations about the future trading relationship. But the ace up Labour’s sleeve is the fact that we have not ruled out a popular vote once negotiations have been concluded. In the absence of a general election before 29 March, Labour must use parliamentary procedures to counter the government’s policy. To maintain the continued liberation of Britain now falls to Labour. We are ready.
• Manuel Cortes is general secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association
Alan Simpson, latest Labour left-winger to join calls from the Left Against Brexit.
Alan Simpson is a well known and respected figure on the Labour left, and a Labour MP from 1992 to 2010.
He is is currently the Shadow Chancellor’s Adviser on Sustainable Economics.
Meanwhile, living the dream of a People’s Brexit, Counterfire’s Lindsy German opines,
Most people will dismiss the claim that a Second Referendum, whatever the problems it poses, would help May’s tottering position.
This is rhetoric.
You can turn the Tory crisis into anything you want, PM
Bojo, Rees Mogg as future Chancellor…..
But it is very hard to see how a Second Referendum, which would be ferociously opposed by her right-wing Brexit mad MPs and a substantial layer of her members, would save her from….them.
German does raise a series of core issues which should be answered.
There will be a number of left wingers on it regardless, promoting the myth that ‘another Europe is possible’. It certainly is, but not if you pin your hopes on the EU. The position of ‘stay in and change the EU’ is simply utopian, since there is no democratic mechanism for doing so, and relies on a wilful refusal to look reality in the face. The growth of the far right in Europe is being fuelled by EU policies, and the resultant victories for far right politicians are blithely accepted in most cases. Flexibility at work, low wages, shameful treatment of migrants, all are deliberate policies from the EU. So it’s not the time to be sowing illusions in it, or giving failed politicians a leg up.
The British state has been shaped into a neoliberal institution – right down to the contracting out of the means to solve some of the mess created by Universal Credit to charities.
The government debt is owned by….bond holders, not the people. One might suggest that this indicates that it has something to do with capitalism.
Flexibility at work conditions has been a goal of successive UK governments; one of the constraints on it have been EU regulations (such as the Working Time Directive).
Did the EU stop Chancellor Merkel – while German’s grotesque Stop the War Coalition stood aside – welcoming Syrian refugees and other asylum seekers, more than 1.4 million, almost half of the total applications across the bloc in the last decade?
What are the prospects for democratic control over the economy outside the EU?
You cannot wish away the world economy, ‘globalisation’ and inter-Europe production flows.
People’s Brexiteers, so far as I am aware, do not propose to leave the World Trade Organisation(WTO).
This will be a key body regulating the famous “deals” with other countries in a post-EU UK.
The WTO is ‘neo-liberal’, though the polices of neo-liberal free trade at present caught up in the fall out from the sovereigntist attempts by pro-Brexit Trump to put ‘American First’.
Perhaps Counterfire would support launching a UK First campaign in retaliation.
These are just some responses.
For a more systematic reply to the Brexit Bolsheviks see;
Alena Ivanova and Michael Chessum (THE LEFT AGAINST BREXIT AN INTERNATIONALIST CASE FOR EUROPE. ANOTHER EUROPE IS POSSIBLE)
The British left is at a crossroads unlike any other in its history. Just as the Corbyn moment gives us hope, the Brexit moment presents us with an unprecedented crisis. Domestically, we face an entrenched regime of deregulation combined with an emboldened far right whose anti-immigration narrative has soaked into the mainstream.
The choices we face are not unique to us. From the emerging splits in Germany’s Die Linke to the ‘sovereigntist’ approach of some on the French left, the temptation to give in to the politics of nationalism and border-building is stronger than ever.
Our strategy for battling Brexit and the rising far right starts from an understanding that only the left can win against the encroaching darkness. Only a transformative, socialist vision can compete with the politics of hate and the reality of social crisis. And the agents of change will be workers and ordinary people – in all their diversity – not the morally bankrupt establishment. But what comes next is not just a question of understanding or analysis – it is a question of doing. Intervening into the mechanics of Brexit and trying to stop the train crash seems like an arduous task, but it is essential. The price of defeat would be the biggest expansion of immigration controls in Britain’s recent history, a decimation of 46 THE LEFT AGAINST BREXIT our rights, a deregulatory trading agenda that will make TTIP look progressive, and a major economic crisis.
Here is a further response:
STOP TORY BREXIT – MARCH WITH US ON OCTOBER 20TH
It’s time for the left and the labour movement to mobilise – and take the reigns back from the political establishment.
On October 20th, hundreds of thousands will march to demand that the people are given the final say. We cannot allow the anti-Brexit movement to be dominated by the political establishment.
The time has come for the left to march, with a clear message of hope and solidarity. We will bring a sea of red flags, green flags, placards, flares and banners. Bring your trade union branch, your local Labour Party, your local Green Party, your Momentum group, your activist network.
There is only one kind of Brexit on offer – Tory Brexit. It is an attempt to further deregulate the economy, attack migrants, and undermine the rights and prosperity of working class people. When the Tories talk about “getting rid of the red tape”, he means our environmental standards, maternity pay and human rights.
But the fight to stop Brexit is not a fight for the status quo. We want to build a better society, with a radical social and economic programme, and we want to take on the right wing establishment in Brussels just as much the one in Westminster. We need to end fortress Europe, not build fortress Britain.
Join us on October 20th. Meet from 11am outside the Hard Rock Cafe on Old Park Lane/Piccadilly, W1K 1QZ.
Force ouvrière union federation faces crisis as new Protests are launched in France against Macron’s ‘reforms’.
France 24 reports,
Around 160,000 people joined demonstrations across France on Tuesday, the interior ministry said, heeding union calls for President Emmanuel Macron to “maintain the social model”, which has come under threat from his ambitious reforms.
..
Around 20,000 people turned out in Paris, the largest of some 100 rallies across the country.
The head of the hard-left Confederation of Labour (CGT) union Philippe Martinez estimated turnout higher at 300,000 nationwide. The CGT said about 50,000 people marched in Paris at the urging of six of the country’s labour unions.
“We’re not complaining, we’re revolting!” the students, workers and retirees chanted as they marched in the first demonstration since the end of the summer holiday, referring to President Macron’s recent suggestion that the French complain too much.
Libération covers the 50, 000 strong Paris march organised notably by the union federations FO (which has undergone a ‘left’ turn this year) and the traditional left CGT.
The presence of Force ouvrière (FO) in these and other protests, traditionally a cautious union, based on a complex series of alliances between right-wingers, anti-Communists, and the ‘Lambertist’ trotskyist current, has not gone unnoticed.
Last week Le Monde published this article.
FO se métamorphose en « CGT bis »
Michel Noblecourt observes that under the new leadership of Pascal Pavageau the FO has undergone a “une rupture radicale avec le passé “.
The federation is now dominated by supporters of Pavagau in alliance with a variety of leftists (including for example, Marc Hébert an ‘anarchist’), but above all the sovereigntist ‘Trotskyists’ of the Parti ouvrier indépendant (POI).
Interestingly Noblecourt also mentions that said POI is now active in the CGT (once closely led by the French Communist Party, the Parti Communiste français, PCF).
That would perhaps explain why a somebody ‘representing’ the ‘CGT’ was present at a sovereigntist Camden rally for ‘left-wing’ Brexit before the UK referendum.
POI are not to be confused with their arch rivals, the Parti ouvrier indépendant démocratique (POID – how we chuckled at the ‘weighty’ name).
The two split, very acrimoniously, a couple of years ago.
POID ran their own pro-Brexit beano in Paris around the same time, attended by anti-internationalist forces from British unions, including the Aaron Banks backed Trade Unionists Against the EU, and which received fraternal greetings from the Morning Star.
The two are united in opposing internationalism in general and the European Union in particular.
Both groupuscules, though small in number – not that small, POID have a few councilors, like Christel Keiser, (Seine-Saint-Denis) – live, like the Socialist Party in the UK, from their hold on paid union positions.
Who says Lambertist says the dirty deeds needed to keep these places.
Whether they are linked to this skulduggery or not we do not, as yet, know.
This is the news today about FO, Pavageu’s mates apparently spent their time not just plotting against his predecessor, but building up large files of information against him and his supporters:
Des cadres de Force ouvrière fichés par des proches du secrétaire général, Pascal Pavageau
Morning Star – Brexit Bolsheviks join “La gauche antimigrants”, the anti immigrant Left.
Morning Star Says Brexit Means “Freedom to control our own borders.”
Le Monde has just published a long article on what they call the “anti-immigrant/anti-migrant” left”.
A ‘left in favour of national sovereignty and closing borders.
The French daily cites the German Aufstehn movement of Sahra Wagenknecht, the “ambiguities” of Jean-Luc Mélecnhon’s La France insoumise, and Danish Labour and ‘populist’ left forces.
Lo and Behold the Morning Star, Britain’s leading organ of the Brexit Bolsheviks has just published this (which will appear in the Saturday print edition).
Time to get tough with the EU and our own anti-democrats
The benefits of being free of the EU neoliberal restrictions far outweigh anything else, writes JACQUI JOHNSON.
What do we do when we are free of the membership fee and from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice? Any of these things is complex, open to offers and counter-offers, stand-offs and compromises, but none overrides the ending of our EU membership.
Here is a very prominent ‘benefit’.
Leaving means freedom to control our own borders. Immigration policy can be part of a comprehensive employment plan based on equal rights for all who live and work here.
…..
The benefits of being free of all of these neoliberal restrictions on our economic prospects far outweigh anything else. Rebuilding and transforming Britain does not depend on trading arrangements, it depends on investment in our people to produce and transform society. You can’t trade if you can’t produce.
The anti-migrant writer of this, Jacquie Johnson is former president of NATFHE, now UCU,.
She is, by no coincidence at all, linked to the notorious “Trade Unionist Against the EU” – which received funds from far-right millionaire Arron Banks.
From this year’s TUC Fringe,
EMBRACE BREXIT – REBUILD AND TRANSFORM BRITAIN
Brexit offers opportunities we never had while members of the EU. This is now being recognised by almost everyone, even the Guardian. Jeremy Corbyn said, ‘the next Labour government will … [take] advantage of new freedoms outside of the EU to allow Government to intervene to protect our industrial base’. The speakers will explore the opportunities offered by Brexit and discuss how the trade union movement can take part in this most exciting phase in the history of our country. Contributions from the fl oor will be welcome.
Speakers: Mick Whelan (General Secretary, ASLEF), Sarah Wooley (BFAWU), Kelvin Hopkins (MP), Professor Costas Lapavitsas (author of Left Case Against the European Union)
Chair: Jacquie Johnson (former President NATFHE/UCU)
Venue: The Briton’s Protection, 50 Gt Bridgewater St, Manchester M1 5LE
Refreshments provided.
Amongst her further comments we find this:
It is no accident either that one of the most virulent asset-strippers of Greece, former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, manages to drape himself in “left-wing” colours . He wants to stay in the EU, “but not this EU”).
“It’s no accident” ………
How that hackneyed phrase reminds one of these days:
John McDonnell argues for UKIP Voters’ Veto on Labour Brexit Policy.
Vetoed by UKIP Supporters, Says John McDonnell.
On eve of conference, shadow chancellor defies calls for party to promise second referendum.
The Guardian Political Editor, Heather Stewart cites this,
Earlier, speaking as Labour prepares to gather in Liverpool for its annual conference, with Brexit high on the agenda, the shadow chancellor told the Guardian he would expect his party’s stance to be similar to the one it took in 2017.
“We would be in the same situation there, where we would be saying: we’re accepting that original vote; this is the sort of deal that we want,” McDonnell said.
“I really think people want this sorted. That means negotiating a deal that will meet people’s objectives. So you don’t get hung up on the semantics; you do the deal that will protect their jobs, and address some of the concerns that they had during the referendum.”
He underlined his scepticism about the idea of a vote on the final deal, which will be discussed in Liverpool after more than a hundred constituency Labour parties, and the Labour-supporting unions, called for it to be put on the agenda.
“The debate around the next manifesto will go on, but I really worry about another referendum,” he said.
I’m desperately trying to avoid any rise of xenophobia that happened last time around; I’m desperately trying to avoid giving any opportunity to Ukip or the far right. I think there’s the real risk of that. We’re not ruling out a people’s vote, but there’s a real risk, and I think people need to take that into account when we’re arguing for one.”
Stewart notes,
Much of Labour’s manifesto, if there was a snap poll, would probably be based on last year’s document, The Many, Not the Few, drafted by Corbyn’s policy chief, Andrew Fisher. But the final version would have to be approved by a committee of senior party figures at a so-called clause V meeting – and would be expected to take party conference resolutions into account.
And, apparently, Labour Policy will have to be approved or least found tolerable by the UKIP and the far-right…
The new Pamphlet from the Left Against Brexit says.
“Brexit is a hard right Tory project – the only way to resist it is from the left. This pamphlet puts forward our distinct, left wing reasons to oppose leaving the EU.”
It’s increasingly clear that there is no such thing as a ‘good Brexit’, let alone a ‘people’s’ or ‘left’ Brexit – and this reality is gradually becoming obvious to millions of people in Britain. Brexit, after all, has always been a right wing project. Ardent eurosceptics from Nigel Farage to Daniel Hannan have long harboured a nationalist dislike for the idea of European unity – a hostility that has always gone alongside an aggressive support for Thatcherism and an extreme free-market ideology that yearns to emulate the US by, for example, abolishing the NHS.
….
There is a distinct radical case for staying in the EU, which starts from the assumption we cannot light a path to a new society through nationalist division. Instead, we need to work together with our allies across Europe to realise a bold and transformative socialism.Radicals need to make an unromantic assessment of the tasks at hand across the continent. The EU has many negative qualities – just look at its treatment of Greece (page 29). But the solution to this can only be brought about – like so many issues we encounter in the twenty-first century – through international cooperation, not ‘going it alone’. Staying in the EU and working across borders to tackle the many problems the continent faces is the best and only viable option. The alternative is to roll the dice on a Tory hard Brexit and hope for the best. Faced with this choice, leadership from the left is now required.
(Introduction, Luke Cooper).
Download this essential Pamphlet!
- Brexit and the hard right’s American dream . Nick Dearden
- Free movement: a workers’ right Ana Oppenheim.Railways and the EU: time for the truth Manuel Cortes
- Austerity and resistance in Europe.Marina Prentoulis
- The EU, a ‘neoliberal project’? Niccolò Milanese
- Corbynism and Europe. Mary Kaldor
- Conclusion: Alena Ivanova and Michael Chessum
From the Conclusion.
The British left is at a crossroads unlike any other in its history. Just as the Corbyn moment gives us hope, the Brexit moment presents us with an unprecedented crisis. Domestically, we face an entrenched regime of deregulation combined with an emboldened far right whose anti-immigration narrative has soaked into the mainstream.
The choices we face are not unique to us. From the emerging splits in Germany’s Die Linke to the ‘sovereigntist’ approach of some on the French left, the temptation to give in to the politics of nationalism and border-building is stronger than ever.
Our strategy for battling Brexit and the rising far right starts from an understanding that only the left can win against the encroaching darkness. Only a transformative, socialist vision can compete with the politics of hate and the reality of social crisis. And the agents of change will be workers and ordinary people – in all their diversity – not the morally bankrupt establishment.
This analysis parallels this present Blog’s views on Sahra Wagenknecht’s Aufstehen and the French sovereigntist ‘left’. One can add that the Brexit ‘left’, which may be in a position to dictate these view inside the Labour Party, may be visibly failing, but still needs to be defeated.
The alternative internationalist strategy of the Left Against Brexit needs active support.
As for the far-right, this is the best response:
It’s in this vein that Michael Chessum says that UKIP should not decide Labour Policy.
After May’s humiliation, Labour must seize the initiative on Brexit (Guardian)
By backing a referendum on the deal, Corbyn can prevent a split in his party and lay the foundations for electoral success.
This should be a moment of opportunity for Labour and the wider left. The Tories’ Brexit agenda was never about restoring sovereignty to ordinary people – its purpose is to deregulate the British economy and bring us more in line with the American mode, permanently shifting the balance of power in society. By deploying a narrative about the economic crisis that blamed immigration falling living standards, the Brexit project aimed, via the means of a popular vote, to be on the winning side of history.
..
The Labour conference is likely to be dominated by this debate. After a summer in which Unite, the GMB and the TUC have slowly moved towards backing a fresh referendum, 150 motions have been submitted on Brexit. In spite of attempts to weaponise the issue against Corbyn, this is now a campaign led by the left – a grassroots surge centring on the need to defend migrants and free movement, protect the rights and prosperity of working-class people, and push back against the ideological project that Brexit represents.
Everyone now recognises that defeating the Tories’ Brexit agenda is Labour’s only path to government before 2022. There is a consensus that Labour should vote against May’s deal, if there is one, when it is presented to parliament. There is also a consensus that a general election and a radical Labour government is the goal of the strategy. But Labour needs to clarify what it would say about Brexit in any manifesto, and it needs to be clear about its demand if, as is likely, no general election happens. On both points, there is an inexorable logic that points towards a referendum on the deal.
This is a difficult time for the Corbyn project. On one flank, it faces the prospect of an SDP-style split that would fatally undermine Labour’s electoral prospects. On the other, it faces a support base that is up in arms about attempts by unions and the leadership to block open selections and enforce a higher threshold for leadership elections.
There is an alternative to a split, and to using the “party management” machine to crush the left’s own grassroots. By backing a referendum and endorsing a roadmap out of the nightmare of Tory Brexit, Corbyn can kill off the political pretext for a split from the Labour right. Instead of horse-trading with union leaderships and placating the parliamentary party, Corbyn can stick to his principles and make the case for democracy – in the party, and, ultimately, in the country.
We heartily endorse this analysis and these views.
Socialist Worker Warns, Vote for Anti-Brexit Resolutions will be a “Huge Victory for the Right.”
“Right wing faction” Championing People’s Vote, says Socialist Worker.
Beware the union leaders’ moves against Corbyn at Labour Party conference
Socialist Worker. Today.
More than 100 Constituency Labour Parties have reportedly submitted motions calling for a “People’s Vote” on a future exit deal with the EU.
The motions have been championed by right wing factions in the party as a way of pushing Labour into opposing Brexit altogether.
As in…
The Independent says, “A substantial amount of the motions, however, are based on the left-wing statement backed by Another Europe is Possible and Labour for a People’s Vote. “
John McDonnell says,
“I’m still saying all options are on the table. We’re never going to reject any form of democratic engagement so a People’s Vote is still on the table – but I want a General Election.”
Left Foot Forward. (Today)
Socialist Worker, in its campaign to divide the labour movement, and ignore the threat from the far-right fomented by Brexit, says,
Labour’s leadership has rightly avoided both calling for a second referendum and opposing Brexit.
But since the vote to Leave, it has constantly fudged its own position—neither backing remaining, nor making a clear left wing case for leaving.
Instead it has made semi-retreats and compromises—such as seeking “access” to the pro-privatisation European single market.
Crucially, this has helped the right to sell opposing Brexit as something progressive to left wing, Labour members who support Corbyn.
If Labour conference votes to back a second referendum it will be a huge victory for the right.
At last year’s conference delegates overwhelmingly voted not to debate motions on Brexit that could have led to defeat for Corbyn.
Those opposing them included the influential Corbyn-supporting Momentum faction.
This year Labour’s leadership may not be able to avoid the debate—and the vote on whether or not to have a second referendum may not be so clear cut.
If it’s a close call, the votes of one or two major unions will probably swing it.
After the TUC union federation last week voted to support a “People’s Vote,” it looks likely that union delegates will back the right’s motions.
I think we can do without this Ladybird ‘History’ full of venom against the trade unions.
History shows why unions back the right wing’s People’s Vote initiative
Watch this instead:
