The Will Of The British People

Those who have sought to avoid arguing on the basis of political principle that Labour should oppose Brexit have cravenly defended their position by saying that it was necessary to respect the will of the British people as expressed in the EU Referendum.  That was never an argument that a consistent democrat let alone a socialist could support.  The Report of the Electoral Commission that shows that Vote Leave cheated in that referendum, now removes even the one shaky leg that argument had.  Its now clear that not only did the referendum not give any clear view of the will of the British people as to what Brexit means, but even the question of whether the decision for Brexit was a genuine expression of the will of the British people or not, has now been thrown into doubt.

More than a year ago I pointed out that just as Russia had been seen interfering in the US elections, so too Russia had links with right-wing Tories, as well as the well known links between Farage and Russia, that seem to tally also with Farages ties to Trump, and the links between the Trumpists and Russia.  The same right-wing nationalist links have been seen with Russian involvement in supporting Le Pen in France, and other right-wing nationalists across the EU.  The links of these right-wing nationalists spread across to Erdogan in Turkey, Netanyahu in Israel, Wilders in the Netherlands and so on.

When insiders from Cambridge Analytica, itself with links to Steve Bannon and other Trump supporters, and then from BeLeave came forward with documentary evidence of the way Vote Leave had channelled money via subsidiaries to BeLeave, in order to get around the spending limits, it made it near impossible for the Electoral Commission not to find that electoral fraud had taken place, to fine Vote Leave, and to pass their findings on to the police for further investigation.  These shenanigans are following a similar pattern to the investigations being undertaken by the FBI and Special Investigators in the US.

The Brexit Vote is now clearly unsound.  From the start, Cameron's government prevented 16-18 year olds, the group most likely to be affected adversely by Brexit, and most hostile, therefore to it, from getting the vote.  They also denied a vote to all those ex pat Brits living in the EU, who have lived there for more than 15 years.  The Leave campaign was based entirely upon lies, such as the suggestion that £365 million a week would go to the NHS rather than the EU, and the suggestion that millions of Turks were about to flood into the UK, unless Britain left the EU.

The idea that socialists should stop opposing a reactionary policy just because a plurality of voters - only 37% of the electorate supported Brexit - and the large majority of them being not Labour voters, but Tories and worse, was always a stupid and unprincipled argument.  The idea that just because a vote has taken place, and resulted in a particular decision, those who lost that vote have to reconcile themselves to that result rather than trying to overturn it, is itself anathema to the principle of democracy itself, and more consistent with the use of plebiscites by assorted dictators over the ages.

But, now we know that in addition to the rigged poll that excluded large numbers of potential Remain voters, besides all of the years of anti-EU propaganda spewed out by the Tory press, and all of the free publicity given to mavericks like Farage, before, during and after the referendum, in addition to the systematic lying on the part of the Leave campaign, we now know that the very narrow result in favour of Leave was itself the product of electoral fraud.

The referendum itself was organised purely for the internal party management of the Tory Party itself.  Well that has failed spectacularly, as the cross class nature of the Tory means that it is fundamentally split over the question of Europe, now as ever, and that split is viscerally splitting it apart.  That split would have torn them apart already had Labour's official position not assisted them by adopting a position barely distinguishable from that of the Tory leadership over the last two years.  As Danny Dyer put it, that twat Cameron caused all this mess, and then put his feet up in the South of France.  Tory Brextremists like Nigel Lawson draw their money from sitting in the House of Lords, whilst bragging about the fact that they actually live in their Chateaux in France, leaving the rest of  us to pay the cost of the misery they are inflicting on us by Brexit.  Even Tory Anna Soubry admitted that some of the Brextremists privately have said they know that Brexit willc ause the loss of tens of thousands of jobs, but they are happy to impose that, because with their inherited wealth, such a financial catastrophe will not really touch them.  Indeed, for these rich Tories, an economic crisis in Britain after Brexit will mean they can push down wages, and employ more cheap domestic servants.

The last bad argument that Labour had for not opposing Brexit has been removed.  Labour should get a backbone, show some commitment to socialist principle, and come out openly to oppose Brexit, and demand a General Election, to remove this corrupt Tory government.