Brexit

The socialist left in the Labour campaign

The Tory campaign for this general election has more money, but the Labour campaign has more people. Tens of thousands of Labour volunteers are taking to the streets and the phone-banks. As socialist internationalists, we are with those volunteers. The labour movement is our movement, and we want it to win in this election against the Tories and Lib Dems. We also have more to do than adding our numbers to the general labour movement mobilisation. We have political tasks. The road to socialism, in our view, fundamentally goes through working-class organisation and struggle in the workplaces and...

Tell McCluskey: solidarity, not borders!

Len McCluskey’s intervention in the debate over freedom of movement is aiding the Tories, and promoting myths about immigration that the trade union movement should be dismantling. On 13 November McCluskey [general secretary of the Unite trade union] criticised the policy voted for at Labour Party conference, of defending and extending freedom of movement for all migrants. McCluskey said “It’s wrong in my view to have any greater free movement of labour unless you get stricter labour market regulation.” What does stricter labour market regulation mean? If McCluskey means more rights for trade...

Labour for a Socialist Europe publishes election leaflet

Labour for a Socialist Europe has published a big-circulation leaflet for the general election campaign. It will also be producing briefing papers, stickers, posters, and other materials (maybe beanies and scarves?) You can get large quantities of the leaflet by sending the pdf to a printer to order them, for example to Solopress , who will do next-day delivery. Click here for the pdf If you want a smaller quantity, order from L4SE info@labourforasocialisteurope.org , or c/o Simon Hannah at Lambeth Unison office, 020 7926 2858. To find out how AWL can help you get L4SE materials, email awl...

Corbyn: oppose Brexit!

Boris Johnson and most other candidates want to have Britain out by 31 October, even if that means a no-deal Brexit and a new hard border in Ireland. Dominic Raab says he might “prorogue” Parliament — send the MPs home — to prevent MPs stopping no-deal. Michael Gove says he might consider a “short” delay, but that would be to finalise a supposed “alternative to the Irish backstop” which May’s efforts over many months have shown to be illusory. The basic Tory-Brexiter aim is to “complete” the “Thatcher revolution”, to cut the UK free of EU pressures for social “levelling-up”, and to reorient it...

Corbyn is reactionary on Europe

Labour’s victory in the Peterborough by-election on 6 June was of course good news. It was also bad news. It seemed to vindicate the Labour leadership’s political cloak-work and shilly-shallying on the EU. In the 2016 referendum Labour fought Brexit. Now, behind the attempt to avoid alienating either the Remainers or the Brexiters, by fudging and mudging, the Labour leadership are committed Brexiters. They want Brexit, a soft Brexit, yes, but Brexit is Labour’s policy, no less than that of the May government — Brexit, and refusal to commit to a “people’s vote” that would include a Remain...

March on 20 July?

Unofficial word is that the next big broadly-anti-Brexit demonstration will be called for 20 July 2019, soon after the Tory leader election result is announced. Confusingly - since the choices will then almost surely be sharper, with a harder-Brexit Tory leader under pressure from Farage - there is talk of billing the demonstration as something more diffuse, like "People's March for Change". The previous big demonstrations, on 20 October 2018 and 23 March 2019, were billed as "People's Vote". One factor, it is said, is tensions between the bigger "People's Vote" outfit, in which Alastair...

The ship that turned away

Sometimes the starkest warnings come from events that don't take place. In this case, the warning came from Honda's decision to turn back a ship destined for the UK. It was the arrival that never happened. But its significance runs far beyond Honda's current vehicle production in Swindon, Nissan's plans for manufacturing in Sunderland, Toyota's plant in Derbyshire or BMW's production of the new Mini at Cowley, Oxford. Honda's ship was loaded with equipment needed for the next generation of electric vehicles. What turned away amounts to a bleak warning about post-Brexit Britain. It made a...

"Labour for a Socialist Europe": the 9 March conference and after

The crisis of parliamentary politics over Brexit is one of the biggest such crises ever. There is ferment in the electorate at large and especially in the Labour Party on the issue. The outcome remains very open. At least some delay of Brexit beyond 29 March is likely. Those facts set the frame for what the 9 March conference of "Labour for a Socialist Europe" can hope to achieve. It can pull together and organise a campaign inside the Labour Party against Brexit for the coming weeks and months. So far "Labour for a Socialist Europe" has operated through a ramshackle committee of volunteers...

Brexit's never-ending nonsense

Let's get the bad news out of the way first. Whatever happens, Brexit is going to dominate parliamentary politics for at least another year, maybe more. No matter how bored you are by it, no matter how tempted by the thought, "Oh, sod it, let's just jump and get it over with", the nightmare still has years to run. Why? Because Britain is nowhere near prepared for anything. The legislation for leaving hasn't been prepared or passed. No post-Brexit trade deals are in place (though we're told that one with the Faroe Islands is looking hopeful !!). And no 'frictionless trade', ongoing relationship...

Labour's National Executive on Brexit and immigration

These are the two reports so far published of the discussion on Brexit at the Labour Party's National Executive Committee on 29 January 2019. They show that redoubled campaigning is needed for the views of Labour's rank and file to find substantial expression in the top committees. Neither report indicates any discussion at the National Executive on Labour's attitude to the Tory Immigration Bill second reading on 28 January (the front bench first called for abstention, and then, late, after pressure, voted against). Pete Willsman The discussion on Brexit at the NEC was serious, well-informed...

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