The Bollocks of a “Trump Brexit” and the myth of Left Remain

By Ben Soton

“Those at the top of society and those at the bottom have always understood each other; it’s those annoying people in the middle who don’t understand either who are the problem.”  This is a myth Boris Johnson is going to play on in his bid to win the next election.  He will claim to be fighting a culture war on behalf of ordinary folk against the irritating chattering classes and Brexit will be at the centre of it. 

By opposing Brexit Jeremy Corbyn is walking into a trap.  Not a carefully hidden “booby trap” but one that might as well have “TRAP” written on it.  At the Durham Miners Gala this year he talked about opposing a “Trump Brexit”; where American firms are given control of the NHS.  Arguably a bit pointless Donald Trump has ruled the NHS out of any possible trade deal.  Does this mean we should trust Donald Trump? No, but a look at some facts might be worthwhile. 

US and other foreign private companies have been involved in the NHS for some time.  Since 2006 the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) has formed a number of NHS HCA Ventures; these are partnerships with NHS Trusts that provide facilities only to private patients.  The HCA’s UK subsidiary is part of the Private Hospitals Alliance, a lobbying firm that calls for greater private sector involvement in the NHS.  Meanwhile US firms have also acquired UK healthcare companies.  In 2015 the US firm Tenet Healthcare acquired Aspen Healthcare, which operated a number of private hospitals in the UK.  On taking over the UK firm Tenet talked about privatisation of the UK marketplace and increased opportunities within the NHS. 

I can’t remember how the saying goes but it has something to do with a horse, a stable door and something having bolted.  Ironically, it is European Union competition law that forces governments to open up internal markets such as the NHS to private competition.  Even Polly Toynbee, an ardent Remainer, has said that bringing back all NHS services “in house” is impossible whilst in the EU. 

Despite what Remainers say Corbyn has always had one foot in the Remain camp.  For some time, he has insisted that he would only support a deal that guarantees jobs, employment rights and environmental protection.

 There is an economic system that stands in the way of these demands – it’s called CAPITALISM.  Meanwhile the EU never gave us these rights and benefits whilst we were in it and are they are not available to workers of other EU member states.

  EU membership doesn’t safeguard employment. The EU did not guarantee the jobs of those recently make redundant by Deutsche Bank and it helped the Ford Transit van factory relocate from Southampton to Turkey which is not even a member.  . 

After the Grenfell Tower tragedy The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) produced a pamphlet entitled the Grenfell Tower Fire: Background to an Atrocity.  The pamphlet explained how since the early 1980s successive Tory, New Labour and Coalition Governments introduced legislation to weaken Health and Safety Regulations.  This process took place whilst in the EU. 

We have been told time and time again about the “workers’ rights” given to us by the EU.  If these rights are so wonderful why are there so many people on zero-hours contracts? The Agency Workers Directive (AWR) is made effectively meaningless through the inclusion of the “Swedish Derogation Clause”.  This means that the rights to equal pay that will normally exist under the AWR won’t apply to workers employed on a permanent basis by an umbrella company or agency and who receive pay in-between assignments.  Suffice it to say we have seen the growth of umbrella companies in recent years.  Those “employed” by umbrella companies are forced to pay them “administration” fees and regularly pay their employers’ National Insurance contributions for them.

 I am sure those who work for these parasitic outfits are living in fear of losing these rights when we leave the EU. 

Some on the Labour Left advocate Remain and Reform (R&R) which is simply Remain Rebranded.  However, if the EU gives us all these wonderful things why does it need reforming?

 I shall not go into the discussion of the EU being unreformable but R&R is simply leftish sugar coating for a right-wing position.  Some advocates of R&R have become born-again Trotskyists by throwing arguments about the flaws of “Socialism in One Country” at Left Leavers; whilst forgetting about Trotskyism’s obsession with “unaccountable bureaucracy”.  In any case “Socialism in One Country” is better than Thatcherism in One Continent. 

At the last election the Corbyn leadership pledged to honour the referendum result while arguing for some sort of “customs union” with the EU. This “constructive ambiguity” over Brexit kept the Blairites and the pro-EU unions that control the TUC quiet while retaining the loyalty of millions of Labour voters who wanted out. Then all they had to do was present their popular manifesto to the public and make use of a leader who was not as unelectable as we were told.

Now Labour has more or less joined the Remainer camp in opposing a “no-deal” Brexit and supporting a second “final vote” referendum.

Labour calls for a general election but works with the Liberal Democrats and Tory rebels to bring the Johnson government down through legal challenges and procedural methods in parliament. But Parliamentary manoeuvre is no substitute for mass action. It’s a bourgeois game played to bourgeois rules.

Labour can still rely on the votes of millions of working people at the next election. But if they back-slide on Brexit they will fight it with one hand tied behind their backs.

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

1599 – 1658

OLIVER CROMWELL, the leader of the bourgeois English Revolution, died on 3rd September 1658. Cromwell, the MP for Huntingdon, was the leading Parliamentary commander during the English Civil War, which began in 1642 and ended in 1649 with the trial and execution of Charles Stuart and the abolition of the monarchy. The Republic of England, or Commonwealth as it was usually styled in English, was proclaimed soon after.

In 1653 Cromwell became head of state, the Lord Protector. By then the republic Cromwell led included England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, as well as colonies in New England and the Caribbean.

During its short life the Commonwealth became a force in Europe. Culturally it inspired the great poetry of John Milton and Andrew Marvell and other radical and pacifist religious movements such the Quakers who are still with us today. Oliver Cromwell was succeeded by his son Richard, who was neither a politician nor a soldier. Unable to reconcile republican generals with the demands of the rich merchants and landowners to curb the influence of the New Model Army, Richard Cromwell resigned the following year. The government collapsed. The monarchy was restored in 1660 and the New Model Army was dissolved.

These days most bourgeois historians simply dismiss Cromwell as an upstart general who made himself dictator, a “king in all but name,” through the might of his New Model Army. But Marxists have always recognised the historic role of Cromwell and the English Revolution

Engels said in 1844 that: “…because the English embodied within them both the elements which were responsible for historical progress on the Continent, they were therefore able, even without having much contact with the Continent, to keep abreast of development there and at times even to be ahead of it.

“The English revolution of the seventeenth century provides the exact model for the French one of 1789. In the “Long Parliament” the three stages which in France took the form of Constituent and Legislative Assembly and National Convention, are easy to distinguish; the transition from constitutional monarchy to democracy, military despotism, restoration and juste-milieu [happy medium] revolution [The French revolution of July 1830] is sharply delineated in the English revolution. Cromwell is Robespierre and Napoleon rolled into one; the Presbyterians, Independents and Levellers correspond to the Gironde, the Montagnards and the Hébertists and Babeuvists; in both cases the political outcome is rather pitiable, and the whole parallel, which could be elaborated in much greater detail incidentally also proves that a religious and an irreligious revolution, as long as they remain political, will in the final analysis amount to the same thing.

“Admittedly, this lead the English had over the Continent was only temporary and was gradually evened out again; the English revolution ended in juste-milieu and the creation of two national parties, whilst the French one is not yet complete and cannot be so until it achieves the result which the German philosophical and the English social revolutions have to achieve as well”.

Boris sings the Blues

 Boris Johnson is clearly as stupid as he looks. The Prime Minister fell into a Remainer trap this week. His attempt to side-line Parliament through prorogation played into the Remainers’ hands. They created a political storm that enabled them to shift the agenda away from Brexit and on to the “constitutional” crisis that they called a “coup”. It raised the prospect of stopping Brexit in its tracks and gave the Europhile grandees a “principled” position to justify bringing down their own government. It clearly worked.  

 Boris Johnson has now lost control of the House of Commons. The Remainers MPs on both sides of the House have closed ranks to take over the Commons agenda. They, not Johnson, will now decide the date of the next election.

Liberal-Democrat and Blairite efforts to side-step Jeremy Corbyn in Parliament have failed and the Remainers are now coalescing around the inevitability of a Corbyn-led government. Johnson wants a snap poll to save his skin. The Remainers may prefer the option of a “national government” headed by Corbyn but including representatives of the smaller Remainer parties as well as some of the dissident Tory grandees who will expect some sort of reward for kicking Johnson in the teeth. Such a Labour-led government could quickly lose the trust of millions of workers.

Not so long ago Jeremy Corbyn was being demonised as an “anti-semite” in the bourgeois media. Following a visit to Auschwitz former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt even tried to link the Labour leader to Hitler’s death camps and the genocide of six million Jews during the Holocaust. Bourgeois media pundits predicted the complete collapse of the British economy if Labour came to power while the usual suspects vowed to emigrate if Corbyn ever set foot inside Number Ten.

Now rebel Tory grandees like Kenneth Clarke say they would serve in a “national” government led by Corbyn if it meant stopping a ‘no-deal’ Brexit and at least some of the movers and shakers in the City of London are now saying they could live with Corbyn at the helm for the same reason.

It could happen. Labour has virtually abandoned its pledge to honour the 2016 referendum decision to leave the European Union. Talk of a “negotiated” withdrawal and the “customs union” with the EU have simply become stepping stones towards a second referendum that the Remainers have wanted from the beginning.

They don’t want a “Norwegian” or “Canadian” relationship with the EU. What they want is to reverse the decision of the original vote and keep Britain trapped inside the EU.

All this “Remain and Rebel” talk is nonsense. It’s just a variation of the “Another Europe is Possible” drivel that third-rate left social-democrats in Greece, Germany and France use to justify their treachery. The European Union is not some sort of paradise for working people and the Treaty of Rome cannot be reformed.

  We want a general election to get Labour in and the Tories out. We want Labour to stand by the people’s vote to leave the EU. We don’t want the bogus ‘people’s vote’. We want a people’s government that will restore the national health service and the rest of the ‘welfare state’ that existed until the Tories destroyed it

The only way out of the crisis is another general election and the only way to end austerity is to make sure that Labour gets the biggest possible vote when it comes.