A Nightmare on Downing Street

Boris Johnson achieved his childhood ambition when he stepped into Downing Street this week. The successor to Mrs May has called on all Tories to close ranks around his new government that he says is going to “Deliver Brexit, unite the country and defeat Jeremy Corbyn”. But Johnson can’t deliver Brexit. He can’t unite his own party let alone the country and most pundits believe that the new government will be brought down in the autumn when Remainers on both sides of the House of Commons combine to block a ‘no-deal’ Brexit.

The Johnson camp talk about winning better withdrawal terms from Brussels but none of them seriously believe it’s going to happen. They say that the only alternative is to walk out on ‘no-deal’ World Trade Organisation terms – which is what we thought we were voting for in the first place. But that’s not going to happen either. The Remainers, who’ve been working day and night to reverse the results of the historic 2016 referendum, now have the numbers in the Commons to stop a ‘no-deal’ Brexit.

All the Labour leaders are now in the bag, The Liberal Democrats, the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, and the maverick MPs who have left the mainstream parties over Europe can now overturn the Government – whose parlous majority of two includes the 10 votes of the bigots from northern Ireland.

The Johnson team tell us that whilst Boris likes to play the fool a shrewd intelligence lies behind his oafish persona. To give him a common touch they call him “Boris” or “BoJo”.

But Johnson’s rivals prefer, in an equally childish way, to call him the “Heffalump” or “Bunter” in mocking reference to the new Tory leader’s supposed conduct and girth.

Johnson may not be an Einstein but he can clearly add up, so he must know that he simply cannot achieve in 100 days what Mrs May failed to get in her two and a half years in office.

Some might point the finger at the incompetence of the Tory Brexiteers who have been clearly out-manœuvred by the Remainers and the Europhile Establishment. But for us the lesson is simply that workers can never rely on any other class to defend their interests. The independent working class campaign to leave the European Union (EU), which the New Communist Party argued for time and time again over the years, was dismissed by those who tried to build an anti-EU platform with right-wingers, reactionaries and racists in the name of “broad campaigning”. Now, very late in the day, they understand the need for a Left Exit campaign to counter the Brussels propaganda that most of our unions have embraced.

In 2016 we took part in a referendum that asked a simple ‘In or Out’ question. Fifty-two per cent of the voters elected to leave the EU. We don’t want another referendum. We want a general election and a Labour government that respects the will of people.

In 2016 millions of people voted decisively to leave the EU. The alternative is the EU with its austerity regime, the highest food prices in the world, ham-strung unions, and mass unemployment in Greece, Spain, Italy and throughout eastern Europe. We voted for Brexit. That’s what we want.