Labour Should Demand “Revoke Article 50 Now!”

Brexit has caused an economic, social, political and constitutional crisis. According to a Sky Data Poll, 90% of people believe that Brexit has created a national humiliation. The same poll found that 60% of people blame Britain for the crisis, with only 7% blaming the EU. That, remember is not from some Remain supporting media outlet but from Sky, part of the Empire, of Trump's friend, and Brexit backing billionaire, Rupert Murdoch. It's clear that Theresa May and her government have no clue how to respond, and are allowing the country to drift ever closer, and in danger of falling over the precipice. Someone has to put an end to this chaos and potential calamity, with only a week to go, before Britain crashes out of the EU. It is time for Labour to now step up to the plate, and demand “Revoke Article 50, now!” This weekend, the mounting crisis will bring more than a million people out on to the streets of London to demand an end to Brexit. Corbyn's Labour Party should be at the head of that demonstration. If it isn't, Tom Watson's Labour Party will be, preparing itself to sweep Corbyn's Labour into the annals of history, for having failed to step up to meet its historic tasks. 

May's behaviour in parliament of describing parliamentary debate as time wasting, navel gazing, and “indulgence”, is simply a reflection of the authoritarian nature of her government, that is moving ever more steadily towards Bonapartism. Her speech to the nation, from Downing Street, on TV, appealing over the heads of parliament, directly to “the people”, is the classic action of a Bonapartist, preparing a coup to bypass parliament, and to claim the sole right to represent the “nation” themselves. It is a natural corollary of nationalism. May's repeated phrases such as “I know that you”, or “I am on your side”, illustrate that. Of course, such claims are ridiculous, because May is not on the side of the 48% of people who voted in 2016 to Remain in the EU, and even less on the side of the 56% plus of people who today say they would back Remain rather than Leave, still less the 76% who say they back another referendum. May is claiming for herself, the sole power of knowing what is, or what should be, in people's minds, and surprise surprise, what she claims to find there, just happens to coincide with what is in her own mind! But, if she is so confident in that, why does she not test her claim to be on the side of “the people”, by calling a General Election, or holding a referendum on her Brexit proposals? Undoubtedly, if May actually did think that her Brexit proposals would pass a new plebiscite, she would be quick to hold one, because such votes are the stock in trade of all Bonapartists and dictators. 

I warned several years ago that Britain was drifting towards Bonapartism. David Cameron, was the last in the line of conservative social-democrats that had held office over the last thirty years. But, the economic conditions, which had sustained such conservative social-democracy had ceased to exist, when in 2008, the underlying contradictions erupted in the financial crisis. The fact that Cameron could, just about, with the help of the Liberals, desperate for office under any conditions, get into Downing Street, corresponded to the fact that, central banks and governments could, just about, deal with the 2008 financial crisis, by recreating the conditions that caused it, on an even more astronomical scale, by printing even more money to use to buy up financial and property assets whose prices were inevitably collapsing. But, that did not resolve that crisis, it only deferred it, and made its next inevitable eruption that much more violent, when it comes, as I forecast in my book, Marx and Engels' Theories of Crisis: Understanding The Coming Storm. 

Cameron's government represented the pinnacle of conservative social-democracy, in Britain, much as the same could be said about Obama in the US, or Hollande in France. By failing to tackle the underlying reality, it was continually presented with a contradiction as appearance and reality continually bumped up against each other. And, that contradiction was working in the subterranean depths of society to create corresponding, contradictory social forces that reflected, often in distorted form, these underlying and contradictory material forces and conditions. In the US, it led to Trump, as Clinton necessarily failed to win, being herself a representative of that old failed, conservative social-democracy; in France it led to the danger of Le Pen, being confronted, not by the two old parties representing a continuation of that conservative social-democracy, but by Macron, who presented himself as a Bonapartist figure, above society, above the two old parties, always a danger, as in the US, where Presidential systems create the potential for Bonapartism, given that executive power is vested in the hands of a single individual. In Britain, in 2015, Cameron could only get into office, having himself given recognition to these conflicting and contradictory forces, as manifest most sharply inside the Conservative Party, by trying to conciliate the reactionary wing of the Tories with his proposal for a referendum. 

As I wrote a few weeks ago, Brexit, as with the election of Trump, is a reflection of the fact that the world is at an inflexion point, manifest in a struggle between two great class camps, one reflecting progress, the march of history, internationalism, and progressive social democracy, and the other reflecting reaction, looking backwards, attempting not just to hold up the march of history, but to turn the clock backwards, to force capitalism into the channels from which it has long since broken free, of the constraints of the nation state, and the dominance of small private capitals, and rampant free market competition. 

The media pundits have bemoaned May's attempt to blame MP's and to attack them, seeing it as short sighted, as it is those MP's she needs to back her. But, they fail to see that May knows exactly what she is doing here. It is a return to the Bonapartist strategy she has sought to implement all along, from day one, when she fought the election campaign on the slogan of “Strong and Stable Leadership”, putting her in the same camp as all those other Bonapartists and dictators her government was associated with, such as Duterte, of whom Liam Fox talked about their “shared values”, or of Netanyahu in Israel, whose Bonapartist regime has rested upon institutional state racism, against Palestinians and Arabs, and which now, in danger of losing office, has gone into alliance with an openly fascist party. It does not take a skilled investigative journalist to see the links between all of these dictators and Bonapartists, between the Tories/Farage/Bojo and Trump, Trump and Putin and Netanyahu, or Erdogan, or their support for those who would follow in their footsteps, in Europe, such as Le Pen, Wilders et al. The relations are there in open sight for all to see. 

May knew exactly what she was doing in attacking parliament, and appealing over the heads of MP's to “the people”, she was doing exactly what every other Bonapartist or aspiring Bonapartist has done in the past. That is to bypass democracy, and its institutions and appeal to the angry mob. It is what Trump has done in the US, in his attacks on Muslims, for example. And, given the death threats that a number of MP's have received, from Brextremist thugs and fanatics, the desperation of May's strategy is also there for all to see, But, May's problem is that she is a Prime Minister not a President. She is not elected by “the people”, but by parliament, by MP's, and can be sacked by them, when parliament so chooses. Parliament should have done that long ago, but Labour's opposition to May and the Tories has been pitiful, and the so called Tory rebels turned out to be RINOS (Rebels in Name Only), who, given the choice, when Labour eventually put down a motion of no confidence, baulked and backed May. 

May's further problem is that Bonapartists are usually demagogues, populists able to rally the angry mob, and May is ill-suited to that role, as her 2017 election campaign demonstrated. Bojo could have undertaken that role, but in 2016, the personal conflict between him and Gove, led to them both failing, and May stealing the job. But, it does not mean that one or the other might not yet step into it, sweeping May to one side. If Brexit is allowed to continue, contingency planning is already in place to introduce martial law to deal with the resulting chaos, and inevitable upsurge of popular anger that will ensue. 

May's further problem is that the conditions required for such a Bonapartist coup simply do not exist. The two great class camps are, in reality ill-matched, like a fight between a trained and disciplined martial artist, and a pub brawler. On one side stands the organised working-class, disciplined with its traditional, organisations; against it stands a rag-tag of small capitalists, each with their own individualistic agenda, and selfish goals, backed up by a phalanx of elderly Tories, clinging to their illusions of past colonial grandeur, but ill-equipped for street fighting, as they trundle along with their zimmer frames. A look at the current situation shows the Tory media continuing to fete the likes of Farage, who only has to fart for it to be reported as some significant political event, or Suzanne Evans, who continues to be invited on to programmes like Newsnight or Politics Live, despite representing absolutely nothing and nobody, and never, even when she was a leading member of UKIP, like Farage, able to get elected to parliament. Yet, despite all of this free publicity and propaganda that the Tory media provides for the Brextremists, the reality is that Farage is a busted flush. His sorry gang of Brextremists, started off as a couple of dozen forlorn pilgrims on the road from Sunderland, and quickly dissipated even further. And, the mob that the Bonapartists hope might come to their aid, amounts to only a few hardened fanatics, reduced to individual acts of terrorism, such as the murder of Jo Cox, and death threats to MP's. Compared to the millions mobilised on the streets demanding an end to Brexit, they constitute less than nothing. 

In those conditions, Bonapartists rely on the military backing their coup, but there is no indication that would happen.  The fact is that the dominant section of the ruling class, and its representatives in the state, are themselves opposed to Brexit, including those elements of the state that comprise the bodies of armed men.  There are undoubtedly supporters of the Brextremists among the colonel class, from where Bonapartist coups most often derive, as they represent the equivalent of, and come from the same small capitalist layers of society that provides the support for Brexit, as well as from some of the lower orders which have a close relation with fascistic orders, such as the BNP, and EDL.  But, in Britain's disciplined, professional army, it's unlikely under current conditions that they are strong enough to act against the will of the top commanding officers.

Had the Tories faced clear and principled opposition from Labour over the last three years, then it's likely that they would not have won the 2017 election. If they had, they would not have had the free run with their Brexit proposals they have been given, and Brexit would have been stopped long ago, and the Tories would be out of office. Labour's leadership bears a considerable degree of blame for the current situation, for failing to provide that clear principled opposition. It's not too late for Labour to do that. A vote of no confidence in the government should be tabled immediately, to call out the Tory rebels, and so called TIGGERS. But, it has been left too late for even a successful vote of No Confidence to remove May, before March 29th, because it has to be followed by a second such vote two weeks after the first. 

If the Speaker's ruling is applied consistently, May should be barred form even putting her vote to parliament again, unless she can get enough votes to agree to a suspension of standing orders, so that the vote could be held again. As things stand, she is likely to lose again. And, as I write, it has been announced that the EU has turned down May's request for a short extension.  But, the opposition have allowed things to run down so far that they have closed off their own alternatives. The idea that there could be indicative votes on alternative forms of Brexit next week is fanciful, just days before Britain crashes out in chaos. Corbyn's visit to Brussels, tilting at windmills and touting his ridiculous “Jobs First Brexit”, is even more fanciful, and wishful thinking. The only realistic option, at this late stage, is for parliament to vote to revoke Article 50, and it should demand a vote to do that immediately, so that no further time is lost. If May will not implement that demand, then parliament, should simply vote to replace her with a Prime Minister who will, and who will do so, before March 29th. Having revoked Article 50, that Prime Minister should then call a General Election, to elect a new parliament, with a fresh mandate. If the Tories want to fight that election on the basis of reintroducing some form of Brexit that is up to them. Labour should fight the election on a clear programme of opposing Brexit, and building a Workers Europe.

Addenda.

As I finished writing this, it was announced that already half a million people have signed a petition on parliament's website calling for Article 50 to be revoked.  The traffic of people wanting to sign has been so great that the site crashed.