The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 23rd August 2019
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
The Prime Minister is meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron of France this week. His spin doctors say Boris Johnson is going to tell them that a negotiated withdrawal from the European Union is attainable if they would only drop their demand for an Irish “back-stop”. He will doubtless threaten them with a “no-deal” Brexit which could precipitate a snap election and a Tory defeat at the hands of a Corbyn-led coalition.
None of this is likely to impress the leaders of Franco-German imperialism. At the moment everything is going their way.
Johnson thought he could outflank Labour and the maverick Tories in the Brexit Party by threatening to by-pass Parliament altogether over Europe. Instead he has boxed himself into a constitutional crisis which could rapidly force him out of office.
Liberal-Democrat and Blairite efforts to side-step Jeremy Corbyn in Parliament have failed and the Remainers are coalescing around the inevitability of a Corbyn-led government. The Corbyn leadership has embraced the call for a second referendum and all but said they will campaign to Remain when and if this so-called “People’s Vote” takes place. The trigger will be the vote of no-confidence that Labour is expected to move when Parliament re-opens in September.
Let’s see what happens. In the meantime we have to put the communist answer to the crisis back on the workers’ agenda. It starts with: No to the European Union; No to austerity; No to neo-liberalism and Yes to socialism!