The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here for a monthly donation via GoCardless. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
A vote in a General Election which may come shortly is in effect a vote on Brexit provided Johnson doesn’t crash us out first.
“A vote in a General Election ….is in effect a vote on Brexit”
No it isn’t, Jack – and that’s the problem. A GE is about a bundle of issues and allegiances Neither of us is going to vote for the LibDems or the Greens just because they want to ditch Brexit. And a lot of others will have a similar problem. However, a promise of a comprehensive referendum does somewhat settle that problem.
A new referendum is the only way forward on Brexit itself. This site devotes a lot of space to the venality of the propaganda press, which corrupts democracy – there is no democracy without good information.
We can’t get rid of the media, but the three years since the corrupt referendum does alter the balance towards better information, and an opportunity to also make the electorate more representative and the options clear. That’s democracy.
RH, it all depends upon what we put in our manifesto and I’m not holding my breath for my preference which would be to say we are going to withdraw art50.
The electorate would then have the options of a Tory deal/no deal or no Brexit with the Lib Dems and their policies – whatever they are, I certainly don’t, or no Brexit with Labour and our policies which have proven to be so popular with many people. If we did it this way it would remove the problems of a devisive second referendum and also pull the rug from under the Lib Dems.
We should campaign heavily to emphasise that the referendum was only introduced to try and save the Tory Party from itself and because of the mood change in the country since more information is now available about the disasterous consequences of Brexit, we are ditching it. There would of course be squeals from the dinosaures in the Party but it’s now time, if it hasn’t already passed, for decisive leadership.
Maybe so – but if we want to heal divisions in the country I strongly believe we need to campaign on our other manifesto ambitions and commitments and emphasise that Brexit, though it’s taking so long, is a temporary, transitional thing.
Stress that what matters, and what Labour is all about, is a better life for the many – and that that is not the ambition of all politicians.
However there is nothing temporary or transitional about having to discard supranational agreements which bind Britain to a capitalist economic policy.
Once we are free of the EU trash, there are plenty of other agreements made by the politico-economic elite binding us to a capitalist future regardless of democratic politics.
These need to be discarded – and there’ll be future ones which need to be fiercely resisted. Supranational agreements are now the predominant way in which the 1% tirelessly preserve their wealth and power.
You cite discarding supranational agreements as a solution to the dominance of the 1% as if being a non-signatory would protect us – clearly it wouldn’t.
The US-dominated half of the world would be required by the US to sanction a dissenting socialist UK on pain of being sanctioned themselves.
Given that the 1% and the markets they dominate are global they could prevail over us even without the US – they have the financial power and the dedicated self-interest to wreck any economy.
Moving finance from the City to Frankfurt and Paris would probably be enough to sink us on its own.
All supranational agreements do is give the petticoat of international law to sanctions that could be applied just as decisively to non-signatories as signatories, if in different ways.
The only way for a socialist UK to even try to avoid the concerted attacks of the world’s 1% would be isolationism – but a small, cold country like the UK needs to trade with the world far more than the modern world needs to trade with the UK.
WTO rules? We don’t control the WTO – the the world’s 1% control it through acquiescent governments – we play by their rules whether in or out of the EU.
The only way socialism wins is by convincing the world that it’s the better system. For that reason Capital has always been united – It’s isolated socialism and even gone to war to crush it.
An isolated UK has no chance of resisting all-out US/RoW sanctions and heroic failure won’t convince anyone.
Outside the EU we’re everyone’s victim and we probably deserve it for what the empire did.
The EU however is obliged to defend its members from outside attack.
If we prove our case the EU and then the world will follow us. If not the planet continues with capitalism and it’s finished for certain.
It may already be too late to save the oceans that keep the planet alive. There’s no way to know.
This poll is a joke, Skwawkie. Labour wants ‘input from voters’ you say ? Get real, Labour today seems ever more determined to IGNORE the rather significant ‘input’ from voters in 2016, and the significance of the huge pro Leave vote in the very recent EU MEP elections, and work all out with UK Big Business to keep the UK in the neoliberal EU. We now have the apparent ludicrous emerging policy that even if a Labour government negotiated a new EU Brexit deal – it would then campaign AGAINST IT !” Madness on stilts ! Labour is getting ever-nearer to the new Lib Dem policy of , ‘just ignore the 2016 democratic vote and repeal Article 50, without even a new Referendum’ (because those pesky stupid voters might choose Leave again).
That someone who posts constantly on here, very dim and immature as he obviously is, McNiven, apparently thinks Brexit , ie leaving the neoliberal straightjacket of the EU, or indeed NOT leaving, is somehow a ‘temporary or transitional’ issue, beggars belief . But that does indeed now seem to be the new Skwawkbox-led ‘line’ to the Left Liberal ‘Corbynistas’ in the Labour Party – ie. let’s just ignore this profoundly divisive issue. And pretend to ourselves in our Left Liberal bubble of delusion that we can carry out a radical Left Manifesto whether we are outside or inside the EU. This is real ‘whistling in the dark’ stuff from the now politically collapsing ‘Corbyn circle’ – as the Labour Conference seems ever more likely to lump us with a hard line Remain and Second Referendum position . According to The Observer , there are 60 hard-line pro Remain motions from branches for Conference – plus a new 100 strong Labour councillor statement supporting unconditional Remain. Plus key members of both the inner Corbyn circle and wider Shadow Cabinet now committed to supporting unconditional Remain even if Labour was to negotiate as new deal with the EU.
This suicidal election strategy is now hardening up regardless of the so-recent EU MEP elections in which the Brexit Party won 29 seats, and the biggest share of votes, after only a month as a party ! 14 of those seats were in our Labour heartlands in Wales, The North, and Midlands. Yet the regular Trolls on here will still repeat their old Mandelson supplied script hokum that ‘It’s three years since the Referendum, and Remainers are now in a majority’.
Historians will scratch their heads in disbelief that a supposedly post 2015 ‘Left insurgent’ Corbyn-led Labour Party, nominally committed to significant re-nationalisation and pursuing an anti austerity economic path, chose to betray its 2017 Manifesto promise on Brexit, betray its heartland working class Leave-voting supporters, and open the electoral door to a new radical Right Populist Party to supplant itself in its traditional Labour seats, and destroy itself as a working class-supported mass party – all to stay in the root-and-branch neoliberalism-enforcing EU ! But then the more acute historians will examine the predominantly middle class activist membership of Labour today, and their overwhelmingly entirely non-socialist Left Liberal excuse for politics, and the historic disaster of the 2019 General Election for Labour will become much more explicable.
“as if being a non-signatory would protect us – clearly it wouldn’t.”
This is the massive, towering flaw in the Lexit non-argument.
The naive Leaver brigade with two left feet seem to think that the world is some repository of unformed innocence, waiting to be shaped to the UK’s will.
… which is about as naive a belief as you can get (if it is a belief rather than a pretense).
Remainers are just pragmatists who simply recognize that staying within Europe on current terms is simply and unequivocally the sane option – as three years of Leave obsession has demolished any shadow of an argument.
I notice jpenny is still banging away at the same tattered drum that defines simple uninformed lumpen majoritarianism as “democracy”, whilst flinching at the very thought of giving a more informed electorate a chance to reconsider. Well – I guess in these terms, a policy of continuing austerity and service demolition is the ‘democratic’ ‘Peeple Swill’.
You have to laugh at someone who bangs on portentously about ‘socialist analysis and theory’ has such a slender uninformed grasp of such a central political concept as ‘democracy’ and its implications.
The image of Jimmy’s proud father keeps coming to mind – the one who celebrated that his son was the only one in step in the passing out parade.
You have to laugh at someone who bangs on portentously about ‘socialist analysis and theory’ has such a slender uninformed grasp of such a central political concept as ‘democracy’ and its implications.
Yes.
Yes, WE do. Especially at someone eternally grateful to the fat fuck watson for acting the c**t to get him his ‘lifeline’ of a 2nd ref/ remain option WITHOUT it being passed by congress, as would be the DEMOCRATIC process.
At someone who thinks that 52 is less than 48
Or that 17 is less than 16.
Or that people who don’t vote at all count as a vote for his side.
You’re even weirder than those weird kopite cultists who made up a few million false email addresses each, in order to vote jordan henderson – Yes HIM, that f**king joke – onto the cover of one of the FIFA video games a couple of years ago.
They THEN claimed that he was chosen by neutrals worldwide because he was ‘De best in de werldddd….laaaaaa’.
Do us all a favour…
Thing is though,you are preaching to the choir.People who come on here are generally Labour supporters.
The TORIES don’t want us to have a say on Brexit. They democratically gave us a referendum, but have not honoured the result!
LABOUR doesn’t want us to have a say on Brexit. They democratically give members a vote on party policy, BUT when Boris offered us a GE, specifically so that we voters could decide who to send to Brussels as our PM, Jeremy refused us that opportunity for what would have been a truly meaningful people’s vote!
The LIBDEMS don’t want us to have a say on Brexit. They don’t do democracy. They just want to revoke and Remain!
All three of those parties ignore the fact that we have already had a say on Brexit and we said: Leave. They are still pretending that they don’t quite understand what Leave means.
The Brexit Party is the only party that wants us to have a say on Brexit. Like Labour, TBP democratically gives supporters a vote on party policy. Unlike Labour, they haven’t reneged on their promise to give what we vote for.
Catherine, the referendum to save the Tory Party was more than three years ago, how do you know a majority of the electorate still feel the same, especially now that people know more about the disastrous consequences of Brexit?
The Brexit/UKIP/BNP party dont do by-elections and dont have a snowball’s chance in any GE,
The best they can hope for is to hamstring the cheap and nasty Tory party, which is a worthy cause,
I’m praying the spiv stands in the North East, definition of insanity is!
Catherine terrie…Why do you quote the brexit party,they are a one trick poney…..Nobody said Labour is perfect but they have the policys to change Britain for the whole population Farage and co are little more than a Tory hybrid and have no sound policy on the future.Why do you think Farage worked amongst the city slickers and parasites,Because he’s one of them.Labour and Jeremy Corbyn have real plans for real people…. Don’t get left behind in concentrating on one issue..I havnt despite having reservations!
Cameron :
“Boris Johnson is a liar who only backed the Leave campaign to help his career and Michael Gove was a “foam-flecked Faragist” whose “one quality” was disloyalty, David Cameron writes in his memoirs
“The former prime minister [also]poured vituperation on both his former colleagues Priti Patel, the current home secretary, and Dominic Cummings,”
Bit f.ing late to get a grasp of the bleedin’ obvious, isn’t it?
“What do we want? Input! When do we want it? Now!”
Meh.
I don’t think so.
This Skwarkie notion is really lacking in political nous even by his own dismal standards of failing to catch the public mood. There’s scant demand for additional “input”. There is however a demand from the majority of the British people (forming majorities in more than 400 parliamentary constituencies) to respect the referendum result and leave the EU.
We have after all already had the “input” of the biggest vote in British history! 85 per cent of MPs were elected on the promise of respecting that vote, including all Labour MPs, yet at the behest of the British politico-economic elite we are still in the EU.
Skwarkbox is trying to construct a demand for “input” in his imagination but it will leave the voting public cold – not least in our own Northern and Midlands heartlands and in the vital 70% of Leave-voting Labour-Tory marginal target seats which we have to win in order to form a government.
Furthermore Skwarkie is a humbug, He presents this additional “input” as an asset having spent more than a year rightly campaigning against a second referendum/PV becoming party policy He now joins the PV ship just as the Lib Dem rats have sunk it.
A strange situation indeed, in which , pretty much all the previously verbally sparring factions on Skwawkbox over the last few years, from the little infestation of paid trolls who monopolise the comments day in – day out for their Mandelson paymaster, to the previous supposed Lefties (who held to the ‘respect the Referendum’ , no to mandelson’s PV and Remain sabotage ploy for so long) , are all now singing from the same Remainer hymn sheet. Behold the left and right faces of Left Liberalism. And goodbye to the hopes of the Corbyn Left insurgency post 2015.
And they are all getting very shirty and snippy with those few of us still sticking to a socialist analysis of the EU, and spelling out the electoral disaster looming from Labour adopting a Remain position. Even The Toffee seems to have joined their gang ! Tragic stuff !
Translation : “Nobody agrees with me, except a few other inhabitants of the dark shack in the wilderness of politics. Waaahh! Waaaahhh! Waaaaaah! But the ERG still loves us!”
Now : what’s the *sole* insight? Errr … that the economic policies of the EU reflect neoliberal assumptions. Like every other significant trading block. Wow! What a revelation!
I love a ‘socialist analysis’ that would put the Labour Party way out on the fringes of the bug-eyed Right. With an appropriate vanishingly small membership. Here’s the News : the Tories do it better.
For those who want a socialist analysis of the doings of the now Neo-Liberal EC I highly recommend the brilliant Wolfgang Streekt in the latest New Left Review.
As a working class socialist who accepts the Referendum result I believe the reality will be after Conference, a line of a GE, a Labour Victory (hopefully) then a Labour Better Brexit Deal put to a public vote with a Remain option.
It will be the working class socialists putting the case for this approach on the doorstep which is probably our only hope for a GE victory and I will be out there on the front line too!
Last time it was about getting Jeremy out direct to the people and while doing this again, this time it’s about getting us left wing democratic socialists out direct to the people on the doorstep and particularly the working class ones!
If we win the GE then perhaps better if PM Jeremy sits the Public vote campaign out (like Harold Wilson) and some left wing democratic socialists in Labour (like me) will campaign for Labour’s Better Brexit Deal whilst others in Labour will campaign to Remain but I believe we will beat the poorly read political lightweights (and I sadly include some of Labour’s Shadows).
A tuetonic plate may be about to shift, I believe we can win this for progress as Neo-Liberalism crumbles.
We could be on the cup of history if only we can steer the storm in a left wing democratic socialist direction.
The question was never really Leave or Remain but how can we build a left wing democratic socialist society as an example to other countries – via the EC or via independent nation states co-operating and option 2 won!
Solidarity!
Great socialist analysis of Neo-Liberal EC by Wolfgang Streekt in the latest New Left Review.
Is likely after conference we will have to fight on the line of a GE, a Labour victory (hopefully), Labour’s Better Brexit Deal with a Remain option.
In the last GE our best hope was getting JC out direct to the people and while doing this again perhaps this time our best hope is getting left wing democraic socialists out on the doorstep and perhaps particularly in working class areas?
If we win the GE, in the followng public vote JC as PM may perhaps have to sit the campaign out and some of us will campaign for Labour’s Better Brexit Deal and some others will campaign for Remain.
But at least there could be light at the end of the tunnel!