Britain: Boris Johnson and the Tories win the General Election with an 84 Majority!
Labour suffers its worst defeat for many years!
Article by Joseph Adams, RCIT Britain, 19th December 2019, www.thecommunists.net
The Tories in the 2019 General Election fought the election campaign on one issue and that was Brexit. Boris Johnson had said ‘get Brexit done’ and that is what he did. This election was fought on clear class lines between the bourgeoisie and the more advanced sections of the working class and the middle class. The Liberal Democrats, the main Remain party was being eclipsed by the SNP who won the majority of seats in Scotland. Jo Swinson, the right wing leader of the Liberal Democrats lost her seat to the SNP. The bourgeois media has produced graphs as evidence to show how Labour supporters in the North and the West Midlands (Labour’s heartland) stayed at home or voted for the Tories.
“The resounding Conservative victory was driven by a dramatic swing of working-class support away from Labour, according to an FT analysis.
Boris Johnson’s party secured a big win in Thursday’s election as Labour collapsed across the country, leaving the Tories with a majority of 80 seats as Labour fell to its lowest number of MPs in 84 years. The Conservatives won 365 seats to Labour’s 202.
In seats with high shares of people in low-skilled jobs, the Conservative vote share increased by an average of six percentage points and the Labour share fell by 14 points. In seats with the lowest share of low-skilled jobs, the Tory vote share fell by four points and Labour’s fell by seven.
The Remain tactical vote, however, made little headway. One of its biggest successes came in St Albans, where the Labour vote fell by 14 percentage points and the Lib Dems ticked up by 18 points, lifting them above the Conservatives into first place.”.[1]
Although the Brexit party took no seats in the election, Nigel Farage and his right-wing, racist party damaged the Labour vote and helped to increase the vote for the Tories. More backward layers of the working class and the lower strata of the petty-bourgeoisie have been attracted by the Brexit party.
“The data also suggest the Brexit party played an important role in the Conservatives’ success. Where the Brexit party contested seats, they took more votes from Labour than the Tories, and Labour suffered greater losses on average where the Brexit party stoodthan where it did not”. [2]
Graphs show that it was the age range of 55-64 who largely voted for the Tories. The figures show 45% of the vote for the Tories and 33% for Labour. When it is broken down into gender, it shows 48% male voters for the Tories and 29% female amongst the 55-64 age range. Amongst younger voters there was generally greater support for Labour.
The Campaign to Stop Corbyn
The bourgeoisie used all its resources to issue a torrent of lies against Corbyn. The press led by the BBC printed vitriol of abuse and slander against the Labour leader accusing him of being a terrorist, anti-semitic, racist and a threat to national security. The full weight of the ruling class was to support Johnson whatever he said or did. Within Labour’s ranks the Blairites and the Zionists dredged up a filthy campaign denouncing him at every opportunity. Zionist MP’s like Ruth Smeeth working as an ally for the Israeli Embassy heaped lays and slander onto Corbyn at every opportunity. The Chief-Rabbi and the Archbishop of Canterbury used their religious authority to slander Corbyn as anti-semitic and racist. Corbyn has a long record in campaigning on human rights issues and in consequence defending Palestinian people against Israeli wars. The Zionists in the Labour party however defend and support the state of Israel irrespective of its imperialist, racist and colonial apartheid character. As the RCIT stated in a recent article: “The origin of these attacks on Corbyn stems from the Blairites and right-wing Zionists who are determined to see Corbyn and his supporters removed and expelled from the Labour Party. Corbyn, a known supporter of Palestinian rights has criticized the Zionists in Israel for their slaughter of Palestinians and Arabs in the torture camp they call the West Bank. Defenseless women and children have been gunned down by Israeli police and the IDF. Corbyn’s weakness is that his reformist backbone has pandered to the Zionists and conflated anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.” [3].
Other factors in Corbyn’s defeat was the whole issue of Brexit, which was decided at the Labour Party conference in which Corbyn argues for accepting the result of Brexit and if elected to campaign for a second Referendum. The Blairites were determined to impose on Corbyn a remain position which engulfed the Labour leadership drawing John McDonnell, Emily Thornberry and Diane Abbot, his closest supporters to support a remain position. Research proved that many Labour supporters in the North and West Midlands supported a Leave position but the Blairite wing of the Labour Party ignored this position. Labour paid the price in the General Election for getting involved too much into the Brexit/Remain debate instead of elaborating a correct, defeatist position and instead of concentrating on crucial questions of todays class struggle. Much of the responsibility of this debacle was the role of the trade union bureaucracy who pushed the Remain agenda against the decision of the Referendum. At the top of the bureaucracy is a layer of Labour aristocrats who have backward and even pro-racist views which contributed to Labour’s defeat. Together with the Blairites this white Labour aristocracy are mainly to blame for Labours’ s defeat.
Laura Kusenberg breaches Election Law
Laura Kuenssberg is political editor for the BBC and a known Tory. She has been hostile to Corbyn and launched attacks on him using the most blatant racist newspapers like the Daily Mail and Daily Express. She was instrumental in encouraging the Blairites and others in the two coups, launched by the Blairites with the aid of the capitalist media and state. During the election she had access to postal voting forms, revealed their content and indicated that Corbyn would lose the election by a big majority. This was a clear breach of the bourgeois Election Law.
“Kuenssberg to be reported to POLICE for 'breaking election rules' by saying postal votes looked 'grim' for party on air The BBC's political editor has allegedly been reported to the police amid claims she breached election law in a live broadcast.
Laura Kuenssberg said last night, in a live two-way on the BBC's Politics Live, that she understood postal votes already counted were painting a 'grim' picture for Labour.
The statement drew outraged accusations that Ms Kuenssberg had broken the law, and now twitter users including left-wing publication Evolve Politics have claimed to have reported the journalist to the police.”[4].
Centrists confused positions on the Election
Many centrists took a confused position over the election, especially over Brexit and the wider issues of the election. The League for the Fifth International (L5I) for instance encouraged a vote for staying in the European Union in the 2016 Referendum, while the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Socialist Party (SP) advocated a Lexit vote. The RCIT took the principled position of neither Remain nor Brexit but revolutionary defeatism and abstained in the 2016 Referendum.
The LFI has now issued a statement full of gloom and despair about the result. Many centrist groups put forward a one sided view of the bourgeoisie with the catastrophic result of giving support to the one or the other pro-imperialist camp.
“LABOUR’S SHATTERING DEFEAT at the hands of Boris Johnson is a bitter day for millions of class conscious workers and most young people. Their hopes of reversing the ravages of austerity, of seriously addressing climate change, of breaking the shackles on the unions, have been cruelly dashed. Armed with a huge Commons majority, with a blank cheque of a manifesto, we must prepare for a Johnson cabinet of Thatcher disciples that will launch a vicious series of economically and socially reactionary policies.
Britain will leave Europe on January 31, 2020 with a government determined to make a bonfire of workers’ rights and environmental regulations and to open the country’s economy to Trump’s “massive” trade deal. The carnival of reaction that internationalist socialists warned of in 2016 will become even worse as our fellow workers from the continent are pressured to leave.
In short, a cold, dark decade is dawning – one whose challenges will include the chaos of Brexit, an approaching severe recession, the onset of climate change and the threat of war as Trump seeks to make America great again. All this points to the inevitability of hard class struggles ahead.”[5]
The LFI appears to be living in a glass bowl, not recognizing the revolutionary class battles taking place all over the world and shaping the current world situation irrespective of electoral results in Britain. The LFI appears now concerned to throw up its hands and say all is lost in the best reformist manner. It blames Corbyn's softness towards Brexiteers for the defeat. Confusion reigns. Instead of putting a revolutionary programme at the forefront, recognizing the global crisis of western imperialism and capitalism as such they bemoan the fact that there is no Labour Government. They criticize Corbyn for his limited reformist programme which contains fighting austerity through partial nationalization, demanding of council housing, repeal of the anti-union laws and measures to help the poor and disadvantaged and to end homelessness. However, authentic revolutionaries should know that Corbyn is a left reformist and that in consequence his programme is limited and needs to be challenged but not from a wrong pro-EU stence like the L5I does. His failure to defend his own supporters against witchhunts by the Blairites and Zionists shows how much a revolutionary leadership with a scientific and Marxist outlook is needed today.
In our statement ‘Are we reaching a new ‘68’ moment’ we said: “We are in the midst of a massive upsurge of the global class struggle. In the past weeks a number of countries have experienced heightened class struggles which often resulted in the emergence of pre-revolutionary or even revolutionary situation as we have already pointed out somewhere else, the current upswing of the global class struggle must not be viewed in isolation. It has to be seen – in fact it can only be understood – in combination with several other crucial developments which, in combination, herald a dramatic shift in the world situation. These additional developments are a) the decay of the capitalist world economy, b) the decline of U.S. hegemony globally and, in particular, in the Middle East i[16] and c) the political domestic crisis of counter-revolutionary leaders in the West (e.g. Trump, Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman, General Sisi). ii[17]
The combined process of these four fundamental developments will, most likely, result in a significant aggravation of the economic and political crisis of capitalism and a massive intensification of the struggles between the classes and the states. While the outcome of this process is unpredetermined, it is evident that there exists the possibility of the emergence of a pre-revolutionary world situation.”[6].
Follow France's Example and mobilize to drive Boris Johnson out of Office
The RCIT has analysed the political situation in Britain and elsewhere. The world is currently in a pre-revolutionary situation and we need a Revolutionary International to prepare the working class for the battles that lay ahead. The weakness of left reformism was evident with all its limitations. History has taught us important lessons and that it is only through a disciplined Marxist International that Socialism will be achieved. The crisis of humanity must be resolved through the construction of a Revolutionary leadership through a Revolutionary party.
The RCIT IN BRITAIN puts forward the following programme to unite the Working class and the oppressed:
* Fight for open borders, full equality for all migrants and equal wages! Full citizenship rights should be given to all people living in Britain as well as the unlimited right to speak in their mother tongue and to live their cultural and religious believes! Stop the “War on Terror” that is only an excuse to discriminate Muslim people!
* Expel and purge all Zionist and Blairite MP’s or former MP’s from the Labour Party. All Zionist Organizations like the “Friends of Israel” must be proscribed as Racist organizations which have no place in a democratic socialist Part!
* For a United Ireland as a 32 County Workers Republic as part of a United Socialist States of Europe!
* Defend the right for self-determination for Scotland!
* Reject any support to the camp of the Brexiteers or the Remainers! Neither an imperialist Britain nor an imperialist European Union is the solution, but rather the fight to smash both of them!
* For self-defense guards and action committees to protect workers, the oppressed and migrants from the police, racist or fascist attacks!
* For the formation of peoples assemblies and action committees, based on direct democracy, to mobilize for demonstrations and strikes up to a general strike in order to put pressure on Labour to reject any collaboration with capitalist parties and politicians! People assemblies, action committees of the workers and oppressed as well as mobilizations on the streets up to an indefinite general strike are the backbone of the fight against austerity and cuts, and in consequence also the initial ignition that opens the road towards the struggle for socialism! A workers republic as well as the United Socialist states of Europe can only be won via the armed uprising of the working class and oppressed!
* For a Workers Government pledged to overthrow Capitalism and establish Socialism!
Footnotes
(1) https://www.ft.com/content/bc09b70a-1d7e-11ea-97df-cc63de1d73f4
(2) https://www.ft.com/content/bc09b70a-1d7e-11ea-97df-cc63de1d73f4
(5) https://fifthinternational.org/content/uk-election-failure-strategy
(6) https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/are-we-nearing-a-new-68-moment/