No Second EU Referendum!

AUGUST HAS COME round again, the month in which the bourgeois media usually try to fill their columns with silly season gossip now that Parliament is in recess. But this year we have been spared the usual great white shark sightings and forest fires stories because of the furore in the Labour Party that has even knocked Donald Trump’s ravings into second place in most of the gutter press.

Court cases, clandestine plotting and the usual Red Scare smears, such as Labour’s Deputy Leader Tom Watson’s ludicrous claim that “Trotsky entryists” have infiltrated the Labour Party to manipulate “young members” and take it to the brink of disaster, have been rolled out in a last-ditch bid to boost Owen Smith’s flagging efforts in the leadership race that the old Blairites triggered in yet another desperate attempt to unseat Jeremy Corbyn.

Many wonder why they bothered in the first place. Some say the motive of the 170-odd right-wing MPs is simply to undermine Labour to pave the way for a Tory victory in a snap election next year. Others think that although Corbyn is clearly set for another overwhelming victory this may not have been so blindingly obvious at the time to the Blairites in Parliament who have little or no contact with rank-and-file opinion.

Whatever the motives, the driving force behind all these efforts to remove Corbyn is the hidden hand of the Europhile wing of the ruling class.

Back in February David Cameron said: “If the British people vote to leave, there is only one way to bring that about, namely to trigger Article 50 of the treaties and begin the process of exit, and the British people would rightly expect that to start straight away.” When they did Cameron promptly fell on his sword, putting Article 50 on hold.

Cameron was definitely in the pro-European Union (EU) camp. His successor, Theresa May, has been forced to give a leading Eurosceptic, David Davies, the job of leading Britain out of the EU. She told us that “Brexit is Brexit”. But she is clearly willing to play along with those determined to reverse the results of the EU referendum one way or another.

May now says that the Government will not trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty initiating Britain’s departure from the EU before the end of 2016. She is clearly buying time to create more favourable conditions for a second referendum to keep Britain within the EU. The Eurosceptic Tory block in parliament remains a problem for the Europhile wing of the ruling class but they now have no immediate need to bring down the Tories.

With Brexit put on hold the Europhiles, who see the ruling class’ interests best served by working hand-in-glove with Franco-German imperialism, are preparing the ground for another vote. Their only alternative was an unholy alliance between a split Tory camp, Labour and the Scottish Nationalists. This is a price they would gladly pay if it meant staying in the EU but they could do without Jeremy Corbyn, who is committed to defending the health service and to restoring union rights and part of the sold-off public sector.

The Eurosceptic Labour Leave campaign has launched a petition to keep Britain on track for Brexit. They say: “Both the Government and Labour leadership candidates are angling for a second referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU. This would be damaging to the strength of our democracy. We believe that the mandate to leave the EU must be respected. Labour Leave is urging the Government and the Opposition to stop speculating about a further referendum. First and foremost our political leaders must urgently focus on engaging the public. We must enter Article 50 negotiations with a clear understanding of what the public wants the UK to achieve during negotiations and after Brexit.”

Although petitions in themselves achieve little or nothing, the anti-EU campaign must be revived to stop all attempts to thwart the will of the people.