Scargill call to Leave Now!

Scargill calls to Leave!

By New Worker correspondent

 

London comrades joined supporters of the Socialist Labour Party (SLP) this week to hear Arthur Scargill call for a massive campaign to ensure that Britain leaves the European Union. The SLP leader, who led the miners in their fight to save the coal industry back in the 1980s, shared a platform that included Prof Takis Fotopoulos, two militant members of RMT and the leader of the SLP group on Hartlepool council, at a meeting in Hamilton House in central London on Tuesday.

            Eddie Dempsey from the RMT spoke about the neo-liberal agenda to privatise the railways throughout the European Union while Alex Gordon outlined the aims of LeFT, the Leave, Fight, Transform campaign –  a grassroots network of socialists and trade unionists launched by the CPB with the support of the Socialist Labour Party and members of the RMT earlier in the year.

            But most had come to hear Scargill who drew on his years of campaigning against the Common Market inside and outside the Labour Party to argue for the “no deal” Brexit millions of us thought we had voted for in the 2016 referendum.

The veteran campaigner called for a return to Labour’s traditional values of the public ownership of key industries and utilities that were dumped by the Blairites in the 1990s.

Communists share Scargill’s distrust of the Remainers in the Corbyn leadership. We would naturally disagree with his call on workers to only vote for Leave candidates at the next election – which opens the door to support for Tory Brexiteers and Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. But his final call for a mass movement to stop the Remainers and ensure that Britain leaves the European Union is one that everyone can close ranks around.

For a People’s Brexit

By Theo Russell

Rob Griffiths makes a point

Although the majority of voters opted to leave the European Union (EU) in last year’s referendum it’s by no means a done deal, with the Tories deeply divided over the issue and the majority of Labour’s MPs openly ‘Remainers’ regardless of what the Corbyn leadership may say.

This was the central theme of a meeting at London’s Conway Hall held by the Communist Party of Britain’s (CPB) London District last week. The speakers included CPB leader Rob Griffiths, Luton Labour MP Kelvin Hopkins and Lindsey German from the Stop the War campaign, as well as union officials from Unite and the RMT.

Kevin Hopkins, the co-chair of Labour Leave, pointed out that in the past the majority of the labour movement opposed the then Common Market. He said: “The EU is about transferring power from state governments to the European Commission, not to the European Parliament. Its aims are to liberalise, marketise and privatise.”

Hopkins quoted Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the EU, who was never actually elected to public office, saying in 1952: “Europe’s nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening.”

Rob Griffiths said: “Jeremy Corbyn has pointed out that many Labour policies are not compatible with continued membership of the EU. The only solution is to get out with no enormous divorce bill, no EU rules and no European Defence Policy.

“The Communist Party will be holding discussions with the Labour Party, trade unions and its allies to push for this. There are many working class activists, trade unionists, and communists who want to get out of the EU, a big business, fortress Europe imperialist capitalist club.”

For her part Lindsey German said that Brexit voters were victims of naked class prejudice, widely branded as ignorant, working class Sun readers, and that the campaign to reverse Brexit was aimed at weakening Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party.

She attacked right-wing Labour MPs and their friends in the press for labelling Brexit voters “anti-immigrant” and creating an uproar about EU citizens’ rights, whilst the rights of people from the Commonwealth had been under attack for decades.

The Stop the War convenor gave examples of the EU’s reactionary policies, including forcing Greece to slash pensions and privatise on a mass scale, and supporting the Spanish government against Catalonia, the opposite of its backing for the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

It was refreshing to hear a labour movement panel argue for Brexit at the Conway Hall even though none of the speakers spelt out what they meant by the “left alternative” or “Lexit” that they all talk about.  If we fail to do this then the discussion on the street will never go beyond the parameters set by Tory Brexiteers who want out in order to create a global tax haven based on a low-wage economy purely to boost the profits of the exploiters and oppressors whom they serve.

Brexit now – invoke Article 50

By New Worker correspondent

MORE than 100 people gathered on Monday 5th August, opposite the House of Commons to demand that the Government sign Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty at once, to initiate the process of Britain leaving the European Union (EU).

The referendum on 24th June gave a clear majority in favour of leaving the EU, but as time drifts on so the signing of Article 50 seems to be postponed more and more.

Many suspect the Government, which was taken by surprise by the referendum result, is deliberately dragging its heels and may end up permanently postponing the implementation of the people’s verdict.

The evening event was organised to coincide with a House of Commons debate on Brexit by the online magazine Spiked and those present represented a very wide political spectrum.

Speakers included Brian Denny from Trade Unionists Against the EU, Eddie Dempsey from the RMT transport union and Paul Embery from the Fire Brigades Union.

They all argued that the failure to sign Article 50 was an attack on democracy. Eddie Dempsey told the crowd that the delay showed the contempt that the ruling class in Britain have for the democratic rights of the working class.

He said that if former RMT leader Bob Crow was still alive he would definitely be backing this campaign and calling for Article 50 to be signed at once.

“People who voted to leave the EU are being described as fools and morons in the media but we know that the EU is not democratic and is no friend of the working class. We have only to look at what has happened to Greece to see that.”

Spiked says: “Those calling for a second referendum hold democracy – and the demos – in contempt. They think the Brexit-voting public was fickle, stupid, easily led – and must be asked to vote again.

“The British elite is trying to use this as an opportunity to thwart the Brexit vote. We cannot let this happen. 17.4 million people voted to leave the European Union. This is the biggest democratic mandate in British political history and it must be respected.”