The government is presenting the options before parliament as being Johnson's Deal or No Deal. That is the same threat that May tried to use previously. But, now as then, if that really is the choice, then MP's should choose No Deal as against Johnson's Deal. The truth is that Benn Act or not, Johnson could not have pushed through a No Deal. No Deal would be so catastrophic that, within a fortnight, his government would be brought down, the Tories destroyed, Britain would have to supplicate itself to the EU to ask for an emergency readmission, and Brexit would be destroyed for ever.
The truth is that the real choice is not between Johnson's Deal and No Deal, but between Johnson's Deal and No Brexit. MP's should vote down Johnson's Deal, and begin the process of ensuring the latter, by revoking Article 50. Labour's strategy has been a disaster. By putting forward a pro-Brexit position, it has lost a large part of the support it garnered in 2017. It has split the anti-Tory/anti-Brexit vote, which for all intents and purposes is the same thing, because Brexit is a right-wing Tory project, supported in the large majority by right-wing Tory voters, and those even further to their right. As Labour's support has dwindled, and that of the Liberals and other Remain supporting parties has risen, whilst the Tories consolidated the Leave vote behind them, it meant that the Tories opened up a clear lead in the polls, making it impossible for Labour to enthusiastically support a General Election, which they would undoubtedly lose.
Had Labour gone into the 2017 election on a strong anti-Brexit programme, they could conceivably have won that election. It would certainly have given them a firm base upon which to have built a mass social movement over the last three years against the Tories and against Brexit, which would also have prevented the resurrection of the Liberals, and the rise in support for the Greens, Plaid etc., who have filled the vacuum that Labour left. It would have allowed Labour to mobilise all of that anti-Tory/anti-Brexit vote behind it, to have secured an unassailable lead in the polls. It would have removed the ability of the Tories to claim that Labour, along with the Tories, stood on a programme in 2017 to take Britain out of the EU, a stick which the Brexiters have repeatedly and understandably used to beat Labour with over the last three years.
The real reason Labour did not take up Johnson's offer of a General Election was not that he might use it to push through a No Deal Brexit, something he would never have done for the reasons set out above, but because Labour realised that, in any such election, it would lose badly, with the possibility of the Liberals beating it into second place. But, in making this argument about No Deal, Labour ,along with the Liberals and other elements of the rabble alliance, also played into Johnson's hands. By falsely claiming that Johnson's priority was manoeuvring to push through No Deal, at all costs, they put opposition to Johnson on completely the wrong foot. Johnson's actual priority always was to secure a majority Tory government. The rabble alliance by putting all the emphasis on No Deal, thereby, made “A Deal”, by default, a lesser evil, thereby encouraging all those elements that had some hankering after the idea of voting for some deal, should it be offered, to vote for it. Now that Johnson has, contrary to everything the rabble alliance predicted, come forward with a deal, they have undermined themselves in opposing it.
They should, of course, continue to oppose it, and any Labour MP that even thinks of supporting it should be told, here and now, that they will be branded with infamy, have the whip withdrawn and be deselected. But, as things currently stand, its not at all clear that Johnson's Deal will be voted down. Tory MP's will vote for it, the majority of rebel Tories will vote for it, some hoping to get the whip back, others because, even after they had the whip withdrawn, have shown themselves to be spineless, when it comes to voting down Johnson's government. It looks like the DUP will vote against the deal, but the right-wing Labour MP's that left Labour, such as Frank Field will vote for the deal, and a number of other reactionary nationalist Labour MP's, who will not be standing at the next election have little to lose, other than their reputation, by voting for the deal. Watching Ronnie Campbell defending Boris Johnson on Newsnight, last night was sickening. It shows just what a cancer Stalinism, and the reactionary nationalist ideology it promotes, has been in the labour movement, by poisoning even those who, in other respects, have been solid fighters in the working-class cause. To see such people defend reactionaries like Johnson and the reactionary nationalism they represent, by promoting the same kind of reactionary nationalist ideas, turns the stomach.
MP's should respond to the threat that its Johnson's Deal or No Deal, should vote down Johnson's Deal and dare him to push through a catastrophic No Deal that would destroy him and his government and destroy Brexit forever. The catastrophe of a No Deal Brexit would mean pain for a couple of weeks, but better that than the slow poisoning of the system that Brexit in general, and Johnson's Deal, in particular, represents. Chaos for a couple of weeks, followed by an election, the scrapping of Brexit, and reentry into the EU would be a far better option that Johnson's Deal. For all those who want Brexit over and done with, that would be a much quicker way of achieving it, because the reality is that even if Johnson's Deal goes through that will not be the end of Brexit. It is only the start.
There will be ten years or more of negotiations with the EU over the relations between the UK and EU. In 1975, when the country voted 2:1 in favour of staying in the EEC/EU, the nationalist opponents of the EU did not stop opposing it, but continually demanded that the issue be reopened, and that Britain leave. Today, there is still a majority in favour of remaining in the EU, despite the 2016 referendum, which, on one day, gave a small majority 52:48 in favour of Leave. There is far less reason to believe that, given that result, given the fact that the majority, today, would reverse that decision, and that the forces in favour of internationalism and rejoining the EU grow stronger, by the day, simply on the basis of demographics, that supporters of Remain are going away. Anyone who is simply fed up of Brexit and wants it to go away, should accept that fact, and agree that the best way of making it go away is to vote to Revoke Article 50. Britain will rejoin the EU one way or another, if it leaves, anyway, within the next ten years, because the days of the individual nation state are over.
And, that is the real choice facing MP's. It is not Johnson's Deal or No Deal, but Johnson's Deal or No Brexit. We should demand that they choose No Brexit. Revoke Article 50, For a General Election Now.
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