More on Brexit
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So, after last night’s EU decision and if/when May’s deal is rejected, then the choice, by 12 April, will be no deal or taking part in the European parliamentary elections in May. From our own narrow party interest, the UK having to take part in the Euroelections would give us another chance to get our name of the ballot paper in an area with millions of electors like we did last time in 2014 in the South East Region (electorate nearly 7 million, i.e. bigger than many EU countries, including Ireland). A no-deal would be an unnecessary nuisance and disruption of everyday life for a while, even though things would eventually settle back to humdrum normality with nobody noticing the difference.
A petition calling on the government to revoke Article 50 has already been signed by almost 3 million people.
Article 50 refers to a section of the Lisbon Treaty which states: “Any member state may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.”https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit/revoke-article-50-how-does-uk-stop-brexit/
Parliament wouldn’t dare do that, i.e. withdraw the request to leave, as that would blantantly be over-riding the result of a referendum. From a democratic point of view this could only be done by another referendum. But what this shows that is tomorrow’s anti-Brexit demonstration in London could well be the biggest one since that against the Iraq War in 2003. That’s why we will be there, not of course to support the demand for a second referendum, but to leaflet the hundreds of thousands who will also be protesting against the xenophobia of the Brexiteers (not that we have got that many leaflets). Meet at Speakers Corner Marble Arch at 12 noon.
Why is the Guardian promoting a proven charlatan? Shame on them. It is not even funny.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/22/uri-geller-promises-to-stop-brexit-using-telepathy
“..he felt “psychically and very strongly” that most Britons were anti-Brexit and promised to stop the process telepathically…”
Shame on me for also giving him the oxygen of publicity on this forum.
Indicative votes. We’ve got them too:
“This conference resolves that from 2014 indicative votes of delegates at conference shall be recorded in the conference report for all instructed resolutions and amendments.”
Come on…another Guardian promotion of Uri Gellar…what’s going on, here?
And in this there is no qualifying “alleged” or “supposed” psychic powers but straight reporting, the only doubt is calling him an illusionist, irrelevant to this article.
Has the Guardian lost all traces of reason to attract readers.
Well I have cast a evil magical spell upon Gellar (I have one eye on the tv and it’s the Shrek movie on) and he’s going to turn into a fool …see it’s worked
It is interesting (perhaps) to speculate on how a minority of Socialist MPs might be instructed to vote on the various indicative options MPs could be called to vote on next week. Bearing in mind that the criteria are how any measure might further or harm the interests of the working class and/or the socialist movement and that the issue at stake is the trading arrangements of the capitalist class, how about:
Revoke Article 50: doesn’t really matter except that this could be seen as undemocratic (overturning a referendum result) even if not unconstitutional (the referendum was in law only indicative). Express concern, but not actually vote against?
Second Referendum: this would inconvenience the working class by involving them in arguments about a purely capitalist issue. So, not support. Abstain rather than actually oppose? Wouldn’t matter if it passed because it would provide an opportunity to run a campaign for a mass write-in vote for world socialism.
Leaving without a deal: this would quite unnecessarily inconvenience the working class even if only temporarily. So oppose, maybe even vote against it if there was a chance of it being carried?
Theresa May’s deal, Norway Plus, Common Market 0.2, (re)join EFTA, Canada + and all the rest. Couldn’t care less which one the other MPs choose on behalf of the capitalist class. Irrelevant, so not even take part in the vote, just go fishing? Or maybe make a speech saying this (and advocating world socialism) and then conspicuously leave the chamber?
If and when there are a group of socialists in Parliament the political scene would be dramatically different if socialists MPs were being elected.
IMHO, there would be have been an abstention in the votes but with each and every debate, Socialists MPs would be voicing anti-nationalist sentiments, both anti-Brexit and anti-Fortress EU. The pro-Europeans seem to forget that they are still for the exclusion of people. Socialists would be trying to focus the conversation on a much serious humanitarian crisis – the movement of migrants and the need for open borders rather than just the free movement of EU citizens. This debate would have pre-dated Brexit referendum, if the hypothetical Socialist Parliamentary group had existed and that whole exercise would have been very different.
And, of course, there would be a supplementary socialist presence (and probably a stronger one) in the European Parliament, influencing attitudes there.
The expressions of political positions would be radically different and the amendments from MPs imaginative and subversive. Politics in general would be growing more polarized…pro or anti capitalism, rather than pro or anti EU
Saturday’s demonstration would have had a significant and visible socialist participation – a very vocal Red Bloc – carrying banners and placards very similar to the one posted you posted on the other thread.
Oh, I should have mentioned that more than likely if there was a rise in socialist activity that resulted in socialist MPs, there would be a million or more marching about the climate change crisis rather than a constitutional change crisis.
Meanwhile in Ireland
“There has been a removal of the border in people’s minds as well. People don’t think of that border any more…” said Bernard Boyle, a member of Border Communities Against Brexit, “…The local people will not accept a border infrastructure.”
Nearby at Ulster University’s Magee campus, Hollai Nic Conaill Oig wishes she could have had a say in the referendum, but was younger than 18 when it took place.
“There’s no place for a hard border, there’s no place for a border at all really,” said the Irish language student. “…To even think about getting your passport out to go shopping or to see your grandparents is ridiculous.”Not sure of domestic coverage in the UK since I have seen little reporting but does it take a foreign TV channel to report what the folk on the border think.
Just standing back a bit from this whole rigmarole…in a way I’m amazed at all the political contortions over the last couple of years. I’d have thought, in my simplistic way, that the big players in the ruling class, i.e. the manufacturers, industrialists and other capitalists who wanted to stay in the EU, would immediately after the referendum have strong-armed the government into ensuring as soft a Brexit as possible.
Why didn’t this happen? Did they not have that much clout after all?
You raise a deep question of Marxist political theory there ! What is the relationship of the exploiting class to its state? How do they control it?
It’s not the case that they control it directly either by occupying themselves the top positions in it or by giving direct orders to those who do. One reason for this is that the capitalist class is not a monolithic block but there are different groups of capitalists each with their own sectional interest which might conflict with that of other groups.
Parliament evolved as the arena where these sectional interests confront each other and where either one section gets its way or some solution is found in the general capitalist interest, the so-called “national interest”. In other words, the capitalist class controls the state through its political representatives who don’t have to be capitalists themselves and who, today, are chosen for them by the votes of the people, the great majority of who are members of the working class. This gives the political representatives some leeway (including to pursue their own careers) and why they might not necessarily do what the dominant section of the capitalist class might want. For instance, it is quite clear that even the Prime Minister is putting the interest (preventing a split) of her party before the “national” capitalist interest.
The Tory party used to be the party of big business, but it now seems to have been taken over by representatives of small provincial businesses producing for the home market and so not directly concerned with customs unions and overseas markets. Ironically perhaps, it now seems that on this issue the Labour Party is representing the interests of big, exporting businesses better and it may be that their support, with that of those Tories who still remain committed to the interests of big business and of the Scottish nationalists representing small businesses there, will see Big Business win in the end in the form of a “softer” Brexit that retains unfettered access to the single market. We shall see. The internal argument within the capitalist class, via their proxies in parliament, has not been settled yet.
One thing is certain, I don’t think David Cameron expected this situation to arise when he let the genie out of the bottle and for the sake of party unity under his leadership, chose to decide to let the “people” decide…the way he thought they would – but didn’t.
Strange how he stays silent
As a world socialist party perhaps these are the aspects of Brexit that should concern us the most.
“…EU citizens living in the UK would be stripped of their freedom of movement, housing and social security rights by Home Office legislation introduced to regulate immigration following Brexit, a parliamentary report has warned.
Despite repeated government reassurances that their privileges will be protected, a study by the joint committee on human rights (JCHR) concludes that more than 3 million Europeans living in Britain would be left in legal “limbo”…Irish nationals’ rights, guaranteed by separate common travel area agreements, would be “diminished”. Their ability to bring in a spouse from a non-EU state, for example, would be limited…Without the necessary protections, the bill could leave individuals in a precarious situation over such issues as “housing, social security and property rights”..”Yes, freedom to move over a wider area was an advantage for the working class of the UK belonging to the EU, probably the only one. But it works both ways. Those who voted Brexit to “keep the Poles out” probably didn’t realise that one consequence of this would be a restriction on their own freedom to work and settle in other parts of Europe.
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