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1/ "For many commentators it seems that British capitalism has been buffeted by a series of unrelated and inexplicable tragedies – ranging from the Brexit vote, to the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, to the rise of support for independence in Scotland, to having an…
2/ …unreliable populist as Tory prime minister. In reality all these varied phenomena have something in common: the anger of millions of working-class people at their falling living standards and the search for a means to protest against it.
3/ This was the root cause of the size of the working-class vote for Brexit. However, in the absence of a mass left force putting the case for socialist opposition to the neoliberal diktats of the EU, room was left for right-wing populist forces to dominate.
4/ There was nothing automatic about this.
5/ Had Jeremy Corbyn – then newly elected as Labour leader – defied the Labour right and, as we argued for, called for a vote for Brexit on the basis of opposing the pro-big business rules of the EU bosses’ club, it would have created an entirely different situation.
6/ Such a stance, both at the time of the referendum and afterwards, would have been an important factor in Corbyn winning a general election.
7/ Now, with a thin Tory Brexit deal which will further exacerbate British capitalism’s crisis, it is difficult to imagine how different the situation could have been.
8/ A left government taking socialist measures and making an appeal to workers across the EU to support its opposition to the anti-working class, pro-privatisation rules of the EU would have been in an infinitely more powerful negotiating position than this weak, divided Tory…
9/ …government."
