Tomorrow's European Parliament Elections are a proxy for a second EU referendum. Its necessary to maximise the vote for parties clearly backing Remain in that election. On the basis of the latest polling surveys, that means voting Liberal Democrat in England, Plaid in Wales, and SNP in Scotland. Because, this election is a proxy for another EU referendum, the first priority is this commitment to Remain, and not the general political stance of these parties. It is necessary to fight the battle immediately in front of us, not the battles ahead of us.
I can understand why socialists like Bob From Brockley, have felt it difficult to support the Liberals, given their participation in the last Liberal-Tory government. I can understand why the superficially more radical programme of the Greens makes it more palatable to vote for them, but that decision is wrong. Although these elections are touted as being based on a form of PR, a point the Greens and Change are emphasising, the reality is that this is a very weak and flawed type of PR. The truth is that split votes amongst Remain supporting parties, can mean that other parties can sneak into steal seats. It is necessary to mobilise all of the anti-Brexit vote behind one party in each area. In this election, its not a matter of voting for a least bad bourgeois party, if it were then we should all vote Labour, but of maximising the effect of the anti-Brexit vote.
Nor is it a matter of voting Labour on the basis that Marxists give critical support to the Workers Party. We do that, not out of any conviction that such a party is socialist, but only because it is the Workers Party, and we seek to gain the ear of the working-class. But we do not fetishise voting for such a party. Our aim, in "sticking with the workers", and their mass organisations is to gain their ear and confidence, but we do that for a purpose, which is to educate and organise the working-class, to demonstrate the weakness of the ideology of such bourgeois parties, to develop the workers' class consciousness, and enable them to move forward to developing themselves as a class for themselves, to organise their own self-government.
The task of educating and organising the working-class as far as this election is concerned can only be done, by illustrating and arguing against the nationalistic ideology of the Labour leadership itself. And, our task is not difficult in that respect, because the truth is that already, 90% of the party membership, and around 75% of LP voters already reject the nationalistic agenda of the leadership. By calling for a vote for Remain, we in fact, achieve our goal of “sticking with the workers”. As Trotsky once put it, in rejecting the Stalinists agenda as promoted by the Anglo-Russian Committee, which acted as a cover for the TUC leaders, our position is “with the workers always, with the workers leaders sometimes.”
The fact is that, the most advanced, most progressive workers are already attuned to this idea. Only 40% of Labour's voters from 2017, intend to vote Labour tomorrow. Of the other 60%, 21% intend to vote Liberal, 15% Green, 5% Change, and 3% SNP/Plaid. Only 12% intend to vote Brexit. In terms of total votes, the Liberals have overtaken Labour in England, and Plaid has now overtaken Labour in Wales. In Scotland, the SNP have been ahead of Labour for many years now.
Of course, we have a duty to explain to all these workers, why, in the longer term, these other parties offer no progressive alternative to Labour, and we can do that whilst standing alongside them in voting against Brexit tomorrow. It is difficult, however, to convey that message at the same time as asking them to vote for a Labour Party, whose leadership is riding roughshod over the wishes of the vast majority of its membership, and is acting as a proponent both of Brexit, and the ideology of economic nationalism that underpins it.
The first task is tomorrow to mobilise the biggest possible anti-Brexit vote. The immediate task after that is to address the democratic deficit in the Labour Party, and the wider labour movement, that has enabled the Corbyn leadership to push its reactionary Brexit agenda, in opposition to the wishes of the vast mass of party members. Its time for all of those members that flooded into the party as part of the Corbyn surge, to now understand that it is them, and the radical ideas they sought to promote that is important, not Corbyn himself, who now stands in the way of pursuing that radical agenda. It is necessary to democratise the Labour Party, and the trades unions, and to then clear out all of the dead wood, to turn them into real fighting organs of the working-class. Then we will deal with all of the minor bourgeois and petit-bourgeois parties, with whom we have to walk alongside temporarily tomorrow.
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