UK General Election 8. June 2017: Vote for Labour – but organize the resistance!
Critical electoral support for Jeremy Corbyn on an anti-war and anti-austerity program! For a constituent assembly, peoples assemblies and action committees to fight for a real workers government!
Statement of the RCIT Britain, 25.04.2017, https://rcitbritain.wordpress.com
The ruling class in political crisis and turmoil
The conservative, Prime Minister Theresa May has decided to call a General Election in Britain on the 8th June 2017. May has said that the country is behind her in her campaign for a hard Brexit, this means to abolish the single market and to get rid of free movement of migrants in Britain. She is opposed in parliament by the Labour Party , the Liberal Democrats , the SNP and a minority of remain supporters in the Tory party. The parliament is sabotaging her political plans and therefor she wants to change it, in the hope that she could go forward with her agenda.
As the RCIT said in Liberation 14 May faces an enormous crisis of British imperialism.
“The decision to leave the European Union has caused an immense crisis amongst the ruling class in Britain. Theresa May, who succeeded David Cameron as Prime Minister, is trying to negotiate Brexit amongst a deeply divided and split Tory party. She is desperate to hold her party together while she negotiates terms to leave Europe by activating Article 50.
A section of the ruling class wants to desperately stay in the EU to have access to the single market. Another section wants to get rid of the restrictions of Strasbourg and other European nations. The situation has been complicated by the legal challenge to Brexit which insists that any decision to leave the European Union must be discussed by Parliament”. [1].
This weak and divided Tory Government hopes by calling an election before the expiry of her full term in 2020 to strengthen her position with the European Negotiators to leave the European Union.
A divided Labour Party
The Labour Party also remains a deeply split party between the left reformist Corbyn and the pro-war and pro-austerity Blairite section of the party who is opposed to both Corbyn and Brexit. The Blairites want a relationship with the EU and the single market. Tony Blair - who is a war criminal - although nominally a member of the Labour Party is pushing his democratic alliance to support the Liberal Democrats, which is the most, committed party to remain in the European Union.
The Blairites are hoping that Corbyn is defeated and that the party will return to its Blairite fold. The bourgeois press and others are touting Yvette Cooper, a former Minister in Blair’s government, as a possible replacement in the event of a Labour Party defeat.
“The Labour Party with the left reformist Jeremy Corbyn as leader is deeply split. Although Corbyn is nominally leader, the control of the party remains in the hands of the Blairites who as well as controlling the Parliamentary Labour party are in charge of the bureaucratic structures as well. Tony Blair, ex-Labour leader and indicted war criminal, has returned to lead the attack on Corbyn and his supporters in Momentum. The Blairites through the PLP have attempted two coups against Corbyn but have been roundly defeated. The issue of Brexit has given them the opportunity to remove Corbyn and his supporters. Corbyn has capitulated to the Blairites at every turn even inviting some of them into his shadow cabinet. Blair is now involved in setting up a new centre coalition of pro-Europeans including Tories and Liberal democrats. His aim of course is to try and reverse Brexit”. [2]
The weakness of Corbyn and Momentum was revealed when McNichol the General Secretary of the National Executive committee and a Blair functionary announced that candidates would be imposed on the Labour party membership and sitting Blairite MP’s without any discussion from the membership will be imposed on them. There will be no ‘trigger ballots’ or reselection of sitting Labour MP’s. But we call for a critical vote for the Labour Party and we call upon the rank and file to push the leadership to more radical actions. We answer the following to our “orthodox” (in fact sectarian) critics who will tell us but that is an adaption towards reformism: “We are not adapting our program just one inch towards reformism, but we will try to put Labour in power, so that the more radical rank and file workers can make their own experiences with Corbyn in power and we will try to organize the rank and file and to make Corbyn go further than he wants!”
In fact Corbyn and Momentum expect the vast majority of Labour party members to campaign for openly pro-war and pro-austerity candidates. To date Corbyn has said nothing about the undemocratic procedure now being followed.
The RCIT in Britain has consistently followed a revolutionary socialist perspective. We would patiently explain to the masses and the oppressed the necessity to organise a General strike to bring down the May Government in the event of a Labour Party defeat at the polls. If Corbyn was elected and that is very doubtful, May has an 18-21 points lead in the opinion polls, we would patiently explain to workers and the oppressed our anti-war and anti-austerity message and the urgency for a General strike as a first step towards the establishment of a real workers government, which will be based on workers and popular assemblies, the mobilization on the streets and which will not be simply a bourgeois government, sitting in Westminster and simply lead by the Labour Party.
From Brexit to a united socialist Europe!
In the RCIT open letter after the Brexit result we pointed out the wrong positions of the main centrists groups in Britain who supported either the Leave campaign or the remain campaign.
“The results of the BREXIT referendum in Britain have ignited a political crisis not only in the UK itself but throughout the entire European continent. On the one hand, the referendum has obviously strengthened reactionary nationalism, as is reflected in the increasing numbers of hate-crimes against migrants in Britain as well as in the surge of the far right in other Western European countries. On the other hand, the vote to remove Britain from the EU has also created confusion, uncertainty and nervousness among the forces of monopoly capital both in Britain and in Europe in general. Shamefully, in the months leading up to last week’s historic referendum, large sectors of the left in Britain had called either for the country to LEAVE or REMAIN in the EU. In both cases, the proponents of these diametrically opposed positions were guilty of adapting to one of two imperialist camps. Those who supported LEAVE unabashedly adapted to the reactionary “UK First” imperialist camp dominated by the most extreme right-wing forces like UKIP; those in the left who called for a REMAIN vote no less shamelessly adapted to the pro-EU imperialist camp of the big bourgeoisie and the leadership of the Labour Party. Again, we contend that both strategies were and remain nothing more than variants of social-imperialism”. [3]
Centrists either of the ultra-left variety or the opportunist’s variety have never being able to understand the role of the Marxist united front as practiced by Vladimir Lenin or Leon Trotsky. The RCIT in a major study of the Marxists classics explained our attitude to the United Front and our tactics towards Reformist parties like the British Labour party.
The RCIT calls for the formation of people’s assemblies and action committees to organise the struggle throughout the country. Their main goal should be to organize mass demonstrations and an indefinite general strike in order to bring down the (May) government (if elected on June 8th). The road ahead is to confront and defeat the government on the streets and in the workplaces, not by means of political manoeuvring behind the scene. Socialists should demand that the leaderships of the Labour Party and the TUC organize such mass actions to bring down the government! Instead, the RCIT Britain raises the slogan of a Constituent Assembly. Such an assembly would have the task of discussing the political and social system in which the people of Britain wish to live. There must be no pre-conditions on what type of constitution and what laws are possible. In particular, there should be no a priori commitment to protect of the property of the rich, the capitalists, and the financial institutions. Such a Constituent Assembly should be based on direct democracy grounded in workplace and residential constituencies; delegates should be elected proportionate to the numbers in each constituency; any delegate should be subject to instant recall if deemed appropriate by the electorate he or she represents; and each delegate must earn no more than the wage of an average skilled worker. After elaborating a new constitution, such a Constituent Assembly would dissolve itself.”[5].
In this period of international global crisis the RCIT in Britain puts forward the following transitional demands as a proposal for to workers and the oppressed who want to join the fight.
* Critically support the Election of a Jeremy Corbyn Labour Government on an anti-austerity and anti-war program. Expel and purge all Blairite MP’s and cleanse the party of all pro-war and pro-austerity elements.
* In the event of an election of a May Tory government: for an indefinite General Strike and the formation of a revolutionary Constituent Assembly with peoples assemblies in all areas of the country!
* For self-defense guards of the workers and migrants to defend our communities against fascist attacks and police provocations!
* Battle for open borders for all refugees’ full equality for all migrants’ equal wages full citizenship and rights to speak their native language.
* Self Determination for the people of Scotland!
* For a Unified Ireland as a 32 County Workers Republic as part of a united Socialist states of Europe!
* For a workers government pledged to bring down Capitalism and destruct British imperialism!
We call on all workers and the oppressed to join the RCIT and help to build a new World Party of the socialist revolution, which will be the Fifth International.
(1) https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/brexit-and-uk-crisis/
(2) https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/brexit-and-uk-crisis/
(3) https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/book-united-front/chapter-6/
(4) https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/bring-down-cameron/