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The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

Labour fighting back!

by New Worker correspondent

ELECTIONEERING went into top gear following the dissolution of Parliament this week with Labour making a come-back in the opinion polls that, nevertheless, still put the Tories some eight points ahead. Tory leader Boris Johnson says his Brexit withdrawal deal is the best we’re ever going to get and he claims that a proposed new trade pact with the United States will more than off-set any losses due to leaving the European Union.

Meanwhile the American president, Donald Trump, has again publicly endorsed Johnson, telling reporters in Washington that he hoped Johnson would come together on a united platform with Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. But informal talks between Tory grandees and Farage’s people have broken down and the Brexit Party is now set to run hundreds of independent candidates throughout England, Scotland and Wales.

American interference in British politics was denounced by Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who said: “Donald Trump is trying to interfere in Britain’s election to get his friend Boris Johnson elected.

“Given the chance, they’ll run down our rights at work, our entitlements to holidays, breaks and leave,

“Given the chance, they’ll slash food standards to US levels where ‘acceptable levels’ of rat hairs in paprika and maggots in orange juice are allowed and they’ll put chlorinated chicken on our supermarket shelves.

“And given the chance they’ll water down the rules on air pollution and our environment that keep us safe They want a race to the bottom in standards and protection,” Corbyn said.

The Tories want the campaign to revolve around Brexit which they claim can only be achieved under their watch while Labour is determined to shift the focus back on ending austerity and restoring the NHS and the welfare state. The Liberal Democrats and the Scottish and Welsh nationalists all hope to make significant gains in the December election while the Brexit Party’s decision to stand in some 600 constituencies could seriously undermine the Conservative vote.

This week Boris Johnson compared Corbyn to Stalin at the start of the Conservative bid to win an overall majority and end their dependence on northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionists in the next parliament.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Johnson ludicrously compared Jeremy Corbyn to the Soviet leader, claiming that Corbyn and his supporters’ hated wealth and the “profit motive” so much that they “point their fingers at individuals with a relish and a vindictiveness not seen since Stalin persecuted the kulaks”.

“The nonsense the super-rich will come out with to avoid paying a bit more tax...” was Corbyn’s response. Making it clear that he would refrain from using personal abuse during the campaign, he told the Guardian: “I’ve had lots of mud thrown at me for a long time, and it doesn’t stick. I don’t care. I know what I believe, I know what we’re doing, I know what our policies are.

“If they throw personal stuff at me, it says more about them than me. They go low, we go high”.

This election, Corbyn said, is all about “the future of this country, the environment and the cohesion of society. We can’t go on with austerity, poverty, inequality and injustice. We need a government that’s committed to reversing that. And we are the ones to do that”.