Labour Fudge Leaves A Bad Taste

Labour's Clause 5 Meeting of the NEC, to decide on Labour's Manifesto for the European elections resulted in the predicted fudge. It means that the Labour leadership continue to defy the will of more than 90% of party members in relation to Brexit, and to crazily set themselves at odds with more than 70% of Labour voters, as the European Parliament elections approach, and as tomorrow local council elections take place. Its almost as though Corbyn and the leadership want Labour to do badly, at a time when Farage's new Brexit Party is likely to steal lots of votes from the Tories, just so that he, and his Stalinist advisers can try to say that its necessary to adopt a more pro-Brexit stance to follow in the footsteps of Farage. That, of course, is what Corbyn's friends at the Morning Star, and that strand of thought represented by Galloway et al, are already proposing. But, the facts say the opposite. Labour will not gain the votes of Brexiteer bigots, by adopting an even more pro-Brexit stance, but it has already allowed the Liberals and Blair-rights a new lease of life, by its existing pro-Brexit stance, and it is certain to lose even more votes to them in the upcoming elections.

I have repeatedly pointed out that the lazy claim of the media pundits that because Labour held seats in the North and Midlands voted for Leave, this somehow means a majority of Labour voters did too, is wrong.  Labour voters voted for Remain by a 2:1 majority, and that majority only falls marginally in Northern and Midlands seats that voted Leave.  It was Tory voters, and non-voters, that provided the majority for Leave in those seats, not Labour voters.  I have previously given the BES data, which shows that to be true.  But, now, Labour MP's in the North have also shown that this claim that the North is Brexitland is false.  More recent polling shows that in previously Leave voting areas, there is now a majority for Remain, and the Labour voters in those areas have become even more ardent backers of Remain, as part of that process.  (See the article taken from the Northern Echo and Yorkshire Post at Shiraz Socialist)

No one can take Labour's deliberately obtuse position seriously. Everyone knows that the party itself is massively anti-Brexit, but that the party is being defied by a pro-Brexit leadership. So, who are voters to believe? In the past, Labour voters have given the leadership the benefit of the doubt, prepared to accept that they were trying to present a nuanced view in which the party was anti-Brexit, but had to at least show some commitment to “respecting” a referendum vote that it knows cannot be implemented without considerable harm being done. The Six Tests could be seen in that light as putting the Tories on the spot to produce a deal that meant that Britain would be no worse off outside the EU – a test that could never be met by either the Tories or Labour. That would lead inexorably to Labour being able not only to justifiably vote against the Tories proposed deals, but would mean that as Labour too could not negotiate such a deal, it would be able to go back to the voters saying that the promises that were made by the Brexiteers were, in fact, unachievable, and that it would be better to call the whole thing off. 

That was the kind of line that any Labour voters could try to tell themselves, as they gave Corbyn the benefit of the doubt. It was the supposed purpose of the deliberate obtuseness (constructive ambiguity) of Labour's Brexit position. But, in fact, that obtuseness, based on a fundamental abandonment of any kind of principle, and relapse into Blair-right triangulation, was always going to simply store up problems for the future. It meant that instead of opposing the Tories from a position of principle, Labour could only oppose them on the basis of semantics and sophistry, hence all of the dancing on the head of a pin over the definition of “A Customs Union” rather than “The Customs Union”, over “A close relationship to the single market”, rather than “membership of the Single Market”, and so on. The obtuseness, and the fundamentally unprincipled position of committing to “respecting” the referendum decision, rather than using the last three years, to set out precisely why Brexit is a reactionary agenda, has meant that Labour has repeatedly cut the legs from beneath itself, in trying to provide a principled opposition to the Tories and to Brexit. 

I have never thought that another referendum was a good idea. I didn't think the first one was a good idea. If Britain, like Scotland, Ireland, or Catalonia had a nationalist party that had campaigned tirelessly for Britain to leave the EU, which then, like the SNP, Sinn Fein, or the Catalan separatists won majorities in parliament for such a perspective, it would be different. But, no such thing has happened. The nationalist parties that did stand and campaign on that basis repeatedly failed to get anywhere. The BNP, at best won a few dozen councillors in low turnout local election polls, the same for UKIP. But, neither the BNP, the NF before them, nor UKIP have even been able to get any MP's elected to parliament, let alone come anywhere near close to getting a majority committed to such a perspective. In truth, Europe was always a very low order concern for voters, at around 7th, in their ranking of issues. The referendum was called purely to address internal management problems inside the Tory Party, with Cameron, of course, believing there was no chance he was going to lose it. 

A flawed, democratic process arising from the first referendum cannot be resolved by a further such flawed process in the form of a second referendum. No MP, no political party that believes that Brexit is wrong, could legitimately implement such a policy, simply because it had been voted for in a referendum, just as no principled MP, or party could introduce, say, capital punishment, simply because a majority of voters might vote for it. If the Tories, as it now appears is the case, are going to make themselves that nationalist party of Brexit, by sweeping away all of those Tory MP's that support the EU, all well and good. Let the Tories clean house, and select hard right, Brextremist parliamentary candidates, and stand in a General Election on the basis of pushing through such a plan. We will see how far such a core vote strategy gets them.  The truth is that May tried that in 2017, and lost.

The problem for Labour is that, were that to happen, although the matter for the party itself should then be straightforward, of opposing them, as a progressive social-democratic party, committed to scrapping Brexit, that is not what Corbyn stands for. Corbyn himself clearly wants Brexit, because it fits in with his Stalinoid national socialist agenda, of building Socialism In One Country, and a policy of economic nationalism. Its not any clever strategy that has led to the confusion and obfuscation of Labour's Brexit stance over the last three years, but this simple fact that the party is massively anti-Brexit, whilst Corbyn and his Stalinist cabal are pro-Brexit. Corbyn cannot openly come out to proclaim his pro-Brexit position, because if he did, his leadership would be finished, but nor can he bring himself to adopt an anti-Brexit stance, which he is ideologically incapable of committing to. Rather like Cameron's bureaucratic machinations for the purpose of internal party management that led to the referendum, it is these same bureaucratic machinations that leads Labour's leading bodies to continually adopt a confused position, and a series of fudges that convince no one, that has led to a steady drip of members out of the party, and of voters to the Liberals, Greens and other Remain supporting parties, who should by now have been crushed by the juggernaut of a half million strong, progressive, forward and outward looking Labour Party. In fact, its almost again as though Corbyn and his Stalinist cabal, having also put a stop to the introduction of the democratic reforms required for mandatory reselection, and the holding to account of MP's, and the party leaders, are happy to see the mass of new party members demoralised, and drift away, leaving them with their bureaucratic control of the party, as an empty shell, in place. 

The simple thing that Labour should have committed to, back in 2016, was opposing Brexit, whatever the referendum result. As I wrote at the time, it needed a Socialist Campaign for Europe that did not simply accept the EU as it stood, as a conservative social-democratic body, which was the basis of the campaign put forward by Cameron, the Liberals, and Alan Johnston, who Corbyn inexplicably put in charge of Labour's campaign. It needed to build on the development of radical forces in Europe such as Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, the Left Bloc in Portugal, and to offer up the possibility, and the need, for a united working-class struggle, across the EU, for progressive social-democratic, and socialist solutions to workers problems that can, in fact, only be resolved on such an international basis. 

What Labour really needed to do was to commit to opposing Brexit, and its clear that that is really what the vast majority of party members wanted in 2017 and 2018. Faced with Labour's Manifesto commitment to “respect” the referendum result, the idea of holding another referendum was a tactical means of squaring these two things. But, even committing to campaigning for such another referendum, and a commitment to campaign aggressively for Remain, was too much for Corbyn. In 2017, he managed to prevent the issue even being discussed, but when conference was flooded with motions on it for the 2018 Conference, the best he could do was to utilise his support from McCluskey, to push through another fudge that placed the demand for another referendum, with a commitment for Remain, down to the end of a long process of arguing for Labour's impossible Brexit, arguing for a General Election, and only then to support another referendum. Yet, even that was not enough for Corbyn, who having notably, and inevitably, failed to get support for Labour's impossible Brexit, and having failed to force a General Election, also then still failed to call for another referendum. 

Indeed, rather than call for that referendum, Corbyn has instead entered into class collaborationist talks with the Tories to try to stitch up a bureaucratic deal behind parliament and LP members backs, in a desperate attempt to get some kind of Brexit agreed. It was on that basis that Corbyn hoped to avoid having to fight the European Parliament elections, because it would mean he had to come down on one side of the fence or the other. In theory, the fudge that Labour has agreed means that the second referendum is still a possibility, but in practice, what that fudge means, at this stage of the proceedings, is that Labour has no intention of actually campaigning for it. That puts progressive social-democrats and socialists in a difficult position. We would like to support Labour in the upcoming elections, but the reactionary Brexit agenda that Corbyn has committed the party to makes that all but impossible. 

If local Labour activists take control of the election campaigns, and reject Labour's fudged Manifesto, and instead come forward with their own, progressive election campaign, based upon stopping Brexit, and working with other progressive social-democrats and socialists in Europe, then fine. It is possible to vote for those candidates. But, because, again, Corbyn has frustrated the democratic reforms in the party, so that the majority of Labour's candidates in those elections are the old Blair-right hacks, or worse, Stalinist apparatchiks parachuted into those positions, the chance of that happening are remote. Moreover, the real power over the Brexit decision will lie in Westminster, with the PLP, not with Brussels and Labour MEP's. Electing anti-Brexit candidates in the European elections will send a message to Corbyn, and to all of the other nationalists, backing Brexit, as did the victory of the Spanish socialists last weekend, but the real task is to change Labour's Brexit stance, in Westminster. 

Labour's fudge amounts to saying that they will commit to another referendum if the only thing on offer is a Tory Deal, or No Deal. The Tories themselves are abandoning all of the No Deal, crash out measures that May introduced as a very costly (tens of millions of Pounds) empty bluff to try to get MP's to back her hopeless Withdrawal Agreement. If May makes another sharp right turn, or is replaced by a Brextremist, the likelihood is they will proceed not on the basis of a crash out, but on the basis of a “Managed No Deal”, whereby they extend all of the temporary bilateral arrangements they have already put in place with the EU, to prevent the calamity that would arise from a crash out. But, also Corbyn's strategy appears to be to try to get a deal in his talks with May, so that he would then get enough Labour MP's to back the deal, to get it through parliament. In that case, he would argue that this essentially Tory Deal, was in some way a Labour Deal, so that there was no need for another referendum. 

But, of course, it will not be a Labour Deal. The reality now, as it has been all along is that a Labour Deal, based on its Six Tests is unachievable. The media report today that May is on the verge of agreeing to Corbyn's demands for a Customs Union. If she does, it will be the signal for civil war inside the Tory Party. But, a Customs Union, on its own, does not even address the issues of Brexit that Labour has itself raised. It does not deal with the question of the Irish border, for which membership of the single market is required. Moreover, Labour's demand for a Customs Union was that Britain should have a seat at the table, and yet also be able to negotiate its own trade deals. That is impossible. Will any such deal with the Tories on a Customs Union insist on Labour's requirements, and indeed the requirement that the Tories have also made that Britain should be free to negotiate its own trade deals? If so, will that not mean going back to the EU to reopen the Article 50 negotiations, so that this becomes the basis of the negotiations, and is written into Treaty, as part of the Withdrawal Agreement, rather than left in the Political Appendix? 

Otherwise, it is meaningless. If Labour does a deal with May, on the basis of agreement to seek such a Customs Union, it means that May's deal would go through parliament. May says she will then resign. But, then the Tories will elect Bojo, Raab, or Gove as their Leader, and they will simply rip up that agreement. The Political Appendix to the Withdrawal Agreement is jot a legal document. It is merely a statement of intent. But, firstly, the EU have said they will not reopen the Withdrawal Agreement, and they will not agree to a future arrangement in which Britain is in the Customs Union, with a seat at its table, and yet is able to negotiate its own trade deals. Bojo, or whoever the Brextremist next Prime Minister is, will not need to do much to get the basis of any such Tory/Labour deal ripped up, because it is not achievable. That will leave the Brextremists, then in control of the Tory Party, to simply push ahead with their hard Brexit strategy after all, and to then attempt to implement all of their libertarian, small state reactionary policies unabated. Corbyn's Labour will have simply facilitated them in that objective. 

What is true of the Customs Union is true also of the Single Market. Corbyn's main reason for not committing to membership of the Single Market, is the reactionary desire to end free movement, and to introduce tighter immigration controls, a policy that the reactionary nationalists of the Communist Party have also long since been committed to. The belief that Britain could have a “close alignment to”, the Single Market, so as to obtain access to it is a pipe dream. If Britain wants frictionless trade with the EU, which is required to deal with the Irish border, it has to be in the Single Market, and abide by its requirements, including free movement of people. That is actually something socialists should welcome. 

A basic tenet of Marxist principle is that we should stick with the workers, and their mass organisations, however, reactionary they may be at any one time. That is why, even in the days of Blair, and the Iraq War, it was necessary to stay inside the Labour Party, however much it stuck in the craw, in order to go through the process with the more advanced workers, and to thereby provide the way back to the route forward. That made possible the resurgence of the Left in 2015, the election of Corbyn as Leader, and the surge in party membership. Corbyn, and his reactionary pro-Brexit stance, together with the bureaucratic manoeuvring in the party, typical of Stalinoid politicians, is threatening to reverse all of that. Its necessary to argue against members leaving the party in disgust and demoralisation, because of Corbyn's betrayal of basic principles, because that would be ultimately counter-productive. In the short term, it would benefit our class enemies, most visibly represented by Farage and the Brexit Party. In the longer term, it would turn the Labour Party into an empty Stalinist husk, much as happened with once mass Communist Parties in Europe, with a Stalinist cabal in charge, exerting bureaucratic control, and trading off the historic traditions of the party they had seized control of. Ultimately, it would go the way of the once mass Communist Parties in France and Italy, and simply wither and die, leaving us with a renewed task of rebuilding the workers' party on a principled and democratic basis. 

The foundations of the struggle ahead are already clear. The nationalist agenda of Corbyn, and his Stalinist backers, is driving away the progressive internationalist members of the party, and of its voters. The existence of bourgeois parties that have been allowed to present themselves as the vanguard of those progressive internationalist forces, means that first Labour voters and then Labour members will be drawn away from Labour to the Liberals, Greens, Plaid, SNP, and possibly the Small Change UK group, if it survives the next few weeks. That has already been seen in the Newport West By-Election. In the local elections tomorrow, we are likely to see that trend continue. The Tories will lose huge numbers of seats, as their reactionary core, rises up against May. The Liberals have been provided an open road back to the mainstream by Corbyn's reactionary Brexit stance, and in their traditional areas, are likely to take significant numbers of seats from the Tories. But, they will also take large numbers of votes from Labour, whose voters back Remain by a majority of nearly 4:1. In Labour seats, expect to see a confused picture, as the Tory vote collapses to UKIP, or stays at home, whilst Labour votes surge towards the Liberals, and Greens. There are no local elections in Scotland and Wales, or in London, so that the draining of Labour's vote to clear anti-Brexit parties will not be fully felt this week. But, in the European elections, on May 22nd, Labour's essentially pro-Brexit stance will see it haemorrhage votes to the clear anti-Brexit parties. 

That is a tragedy, because not only do those anti-Brexit parties offer no real long term progressive alternative, even in the short term their owns sectarianism is standing in the way of them putting forward a united platform for the elections. That can only benefit the likes of Farage and his Brexit Party that is standing on a clear pro-Brexit position. Yet, Brexit is the most important issue of the day. It is vital that we do everything possible to stop Brexit. Socialists, and progressive social-democrats should vote for those candidates with the clearest anti-Brexit platform, who have the best chance of winning in their particular constituency. It is necessary to get out the clearest, most unified Stop Brexit vote possible, as the basis of moving forward, and defeating the forces of reaction.