For Britain, For Democracy, For Independence
The general election is about three connected things. The unity of Britain – England, Scotland and Wales, the need to leave the European Union immediately, and the need to elect democratic MPs who will represent the democratic mandate of the people given at the referendum.
Aided and abetted by the large corporations and the EU, the Scottish National Party will seek to wreck and divide the nation as much as possible with the laughable idea that Scotland can be independent of the rest of Britain, but entirely dependent on the control of Brussels. There should be a strong backlash against them by voters in Scotland.
The Liberal Democrats, ferocious neoliberals, and puppets of the very worst elements of the EU bureaucracy, blatantly argue for remaining in the EU so that the EU’s austerity programme can continue to let rip.
Workers in Wales are too sensible to look to Plaid for any solution to anything.
Worse still many individual MPs who have so arrogantly and unashamedly used their position in Parliament to misrepresent their constituents and the referendum result, must now be rejected. Whatever party they are from, their days of manoeuvring in Parliament against the people are over. No matter what their superficial party label, and especially where they have ignored huge leave voting constituencies, these anti democrats must go.
All new parliamentary hopefuls must be carefully scrutinised for their democratic and anti EU credentials. Where no such credentials exist, they must be rejected. A good number of new Labour candidates fall sadly into this category.
We can only vote in this election for candidates committed to the unity of Britain, implementing the referendum result and liberating Parliament from the shackles of any foreign power whether it be the United States of America or the EU Empire.
It follows from this position that we want to elect MPs who will assist the process of rebuilding and transforming Britain, renationalising our assets and utilities, reinvesting in our public services, industry, science and technology and skills and reshaping our culture and taxation systems to end the elitist dominance of the few.
We need a parliament that will enhance first and foremost the lives of all those who live in work in Britain and which will ensure that the wealth we create here will be invested here.
This means an end to the freedom of movement of capital. It means a properly managed immigration system based on careful labour market planning and upskilling in every sector. It means the creation of a Ministry of Labour, an end to anti-union legislation, and the introduction of a new comprehensive set of workers’ and trade union rights.
But the harsh reality is that we are not going to be able to rebuild and transform our country and tip the balance of forces back in favour of the many rather than the few without leaving the European Union.
Only the Labour Party has a manifesto capable of taking Britain in a better economic and social direction. Yet the prospects of supporting this great vision have been very seriously damaged by the position that Labour has taken on the EU. Its position of seeking a mandate to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement and then putting the results to another referendum will simply not convince anyone. This is mainly because a Labour Government renegotiation would seek to keep Britain in the Customs Union and in closer alignment with the single market – tantamount to staying in the EU.
This is a remain position in all but another name. Pretending that the issue of the day is not Brexit, leave or remain, simply will not wash when it so obviously is. No matter how hard people try to get this election focussed on an alternative vision for Britain, it is clear that this cannot be done until we are out of the EU and the democratic question is settled.
Oliver Cromwell’s words from April 20th 1653 seem relevant now:
“..it is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue and defil’d by your practice of every vice. Ye are a factious crew and enemies of all good government. Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, who would, like Esau, sell your country for a mess of pottage and like Judas, betray your country for a few pieces of silver.
Is there a single virtue no remaining among you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes have ye not defil’d this place and turned it into a den of thieves by your immoral practices? Ye are grown odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress’d so in the name of God, ulock the doors and go.”
Universal Health Coverage - South Africa Pledges Social Solidarity
The South African government is fast-tracking its plan to introduce universal health care for all citizens by 2026. National Health Insurance (NHI) is a health financing system that will pool funds to provide quality personal health services, based on their health needs and free at the point of delivery.
At the tabling of the National Health Insurance Bill in July this year, the South African President and president of the African National Congress (ANC), Cyril Ramaphosa, said, “It is the principle of solidarity which informs our approach to NHI, ensuring that the substantial resources that are directed towards health care benefit all South Africans equally.”
In 1996 the ANC-led government inherited a racially divided health system, with the white minority largely covered by private health insurance paid for by employers, and the non-white, largely unemployed, majority receiving poor quality public health services in a racially segregated system.
Over the past 20 years this unfair health system has become more divisive, except now it is not a racially segregated system, but a socio-economic divide, with the employed “haves” and the unemployed “have-nots”.
Back to Class Struggle
The Tories are the most successful political Party in British history. Lampooning them and their leaders is a sign of weakness.
They have a completely different vision for the future of Britain than us.
They led the Vote Leave and the Remain campaigns in the Referendum.
They remain in power today because of the strictures of the Fixed Term Parliament Act which they passed in collation with the Liberal Democrats in 2011.
Their strength historically stems from their pragmatism in defending private property and the union of Britain against all odds. This has been complemented by their ability to go with the leading political flow of the people and their utter ruthlessness with their working class, Parliamentary and internal detractors.
They switched from supporting landowners and the leading figures in the ruling class to support the rising manufacturers.
They switched from the smaller manufacturers to the ones capable of creating Empire and conquer overseas territories.
Finally they switched from the defeated imperialists to the new globalisers, the financiers who they set free in the 1980s.
Hedging their bets, they retained a special relationship with the EU and while staying out of the European Single Currency did everything they could to ensure that the unelected Commissioners took over our Parliament and our national independence was lost.
They did this partly because of the power of the universal suffrage finally won after years of sacrifice and struggle in 1969.
They plundered public services, sold off national assets, privatised anything they could, sold swathes of the economy to the US and EU corporations and followed EU diktats.
But the collapsing, low growth EU and the domination of German manufacturers was too much for some of them.
They believed a sovereign Parliament with the freedom to make new independent arrangements with other countries throughout the world held better prospects for capital and general prosperity than the EU.
They are nationalists, but not socialists, they are free trade globalists, not internationalists.
Their intention to free themselves of EU domination coincides with the working class demand to do the same, but for different reasons. No one should blush about temporary convergences of class interests on matters of major significance.
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The Supreme Court and its EU Origins
September's decision of the Supreme Court (SCUK) to declare void the proroguing of parliament, was an unwelcome and undemocratic intrusion into British political life by 11 unelected judges sworn to uphold EU rules.
The Supreme Court https://www.supremecourt.uk/about/history.html
The Supreme Court was formed 10 years ago in 2009, as a result of the Blair government's Constitutional Reform Act (2005). This package of reforms was supposedly essential to a modern Britain, because of the need to separate the judiciary from the legislature, and because of devolution and the Human Rights Act (1997). At the time, opposition to the measure was somewhat diverted by saying there would be no real change in the role of the new court, which replaced the Law Lords.
Supreme Court https://www.supremecourt.uk/docs/ar_2009_10.pdf (See section one, 'Establishment of the court Background', and section two, 'Mission and Strategic Objectives')
However, the judiciary soon showed itself willing to challenge the government and Parliament if need be; this was the purpose of the SCUK. It is important to question the basis of these challenges.
Changes and Challenges https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/oct/26/uk-supreme-court-changing-law
The Supreme Court is now the highest court of appeal in the UK, but because of the principle of supremacy of EU law, it plays a subservient role. According to article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) all national courts must interpret the treaties in line with Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) case law and should validate EU regulations, directives etc.
CJEU https://www.supremecourt.uk/about/the-supreme-court-and-europe.html
and ECHR https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/08/13/5-kick-judges-out-of-politics/
Because most British legislation has its source in Brussels, the decisions of the Supreme Court are necessarily pro European Union. The SCUK oversees the lower courts, ensuring they abide by EU case law and legislation. In fact, this means that much public policy is made, not by elected political representatives, but by unelected judges; this process of EU judicial activism encourages court decisions that oppose public opinion. It should come as no surprise that the court takes no heed of the popular mandate of 2016, the decision to leave the EU.
Judicial activism https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/10/04/the-rise-and-rise-of-judicial-activism/
The supposed separation of powers of the legislature, executive and judiciary far from being constitutional protection against tyranny has become a tool to implement the will of the undemocratic and unrepresentative EU commission and increasingly of the CJEU.
If Thatcher was a monetarist iconoclast, Blair was a builder of institutions that met the transnational needs of financial capitalism. New Labour's constitutional changes brought into being EU based institutions, Trojan horses in the constitutional life of Britain which coincided with major aspects of EU policy in the economic, regional and judicial arenas. This was so with the independence of the Bank of England in 1997; the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assemblies in 1999; and with plans for the formation of a Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court Ruling - A Coup Against Democracy
A written constitution is needed to defend our rights. Never has there been more need for one than now.
The unwritten British constitution has sustained a strange balance of power. Parliament is understood as the House of Commons, the unelected House of Lords and the Monarchy. Parliament calls the Executive government of the day to account. It does this mainly through the House of Commons, but also the House of Lords; the Monarchy by and large stays out of this as a result of the 1688 settlement.
Putting unelected judges above the Executive and PM, however dreadful and weirdly elected they were, is an act of fascism. The EU will try to make any deal impossible. These EU dominated Law Lords of the Supreme Court (set up by Blair as a deliberate political act) are there as tools of re-pression against the people.
Article 9 of the 1689 Bill of Rights reads: “The freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament.” Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament was an attempt to prevent it from overturning the biggest democratic mandate of the people it has ever received.
Parliament’s crime is greater than Johnson’s; he was right to try and remove Parliament’s attempts to organise coups against the government and the people.
The courts have not previously intervened in the relationship between the Executive and Parliament. The courts do not hold Parliament to account, the people do.
The Supreme Court has now decided that the rule of law can determine Parliamentary decision making and rule on the political decision-making of a government. This replaces the principle of elected representation and represents a coup against democracy. It will widely be seen as the opposite, especially by the Left and the liberals.
The law is happy to permit mass unemployment, starvation, poverty, homelessness, capitalist exploitation and making war. The law is no god-like abstract over and above society with higher moral authority.
The British deep state will use any mechanism to stabilise the rule of the multi-national corporations who, above all, require membership of the EU. An example of the stability required is the huge profit that the hedge fund companies are making out of the collapse of Thomas Cook.
These hedge funds will get at least £250m out of the collapse, the same amount as the government refused to give to bail the company out. Stability means the extremism of making super profits.
The EU, the petty bourgeois nationalists like Sinn Féin, Plaid Cymru, SNP, the neoliberal Liberal Democrats, the TUC and the social democrats within the Labour Party are intensifying their pressure for Remain. A small minority of socialists and a large majority of the working class want us to leave the EU.
The most organised and well-funded proponents of Leave are The Brexit Party and the Tory Party. A pre-Brexit general election would be won by the Tories and Brexit Party. Labour would lose.
Labour may only have a chance of winning a post-Brexit general election when it can put forward more progressive policies to rebuild Britain; policies similar to those this Party was arguing for in the 1990’s.
Leaving the EU remains the central political priority. There is no alternative.