Brexit

Over 80 people turned out for a “Love Socialism Hate Brexit” meeting in Nottingham on 8 May, despite the Euro-election campaign being already underway. Many were students from the Nottingham Trent University, where the meeting was held. Every speaker from the platform, and almost every speaker from the floor, stressed their support for the post-2015 anti-austerity direction of the Labour Party, but deep concerned about fragmentation of Labour votes and Labour’s failure over Brexit to campaign against rampant nationalism. Further “Love Socialism, Hate Brexit” meetings are planned in Streatham...

You texted me saying “I am seriously considering voting Lib Dem in the European Elections. Can’t believe I’m writing this. Am I mad?”. My first response was “Yes”. However I recognise that there are many people like you — lifelong Labour voters and people who supported Corbyn in the leadership elections — who are angry about Labour’s failure to support a remain position and a referendum on Brexit and find it unacceptable that Labour can enter European elections with no clear position on this key issue. Many, like you, are wondering whether they can support Labour “this time”. Why not vote for...

The local elections on 2 May gave an alarm bell to Labour. The Tories lost 1,330 seats. They had expected to lose a lot. Those seats were last contested in 2015, on the same day that the Tories won the general election. They had not expected to lose so many. Since the reference point was 2015, Labour had expected to gain. In fact Labour lost 84 council seats. The Lib Dems had expected to gain. 2015 was a low point for them, when they were discredited by their 2010-15 coalition with the Tories. They gained more than they expected (704 seats). The Greens were up 194 seats. Almost as big a gainer...

A bizarre episode occurred on 1 May in Cork, Ireland. Taoiseach [prime minister] Leo Varadkar was due to speak at a meeting organised by the ruling Fine Gael party as part of its campaign for directly elected mayors. The meeting had to be adjourned for a period when members of the Connolly Youth Movement (CYM) – the youth wing of the Communist Party of Ireland - disputed proceedings. Initially, the CYM’s intervention seemed fair enough. A woman stood up and called for a minute’s silence for two homeless men who had recently died on Cork streets. That was agreed by the chair. Then other CYM...

Responding to Tory Brexit minister James Cleverly on the BBC, on 3 May, Labour's Shadow International Trade Secretary Barry Gardiner said: “You as a Brexit Minister should understand that we are in there [in the Labour-Tory talks on Brexit] trying to bail you guys out". Whether or not this is how the entire Labour leadership and negotiating team views the talks, it must certainly reflect a strong strand of opinion – and in any case it reflects the unfortunate political dynamic. Whatever the risks for the Tories, the risks for Labour if it agrees a deal are greater. It would amount precisely to...

On 18 April, the European Parliament posted polling projections for the 2019 European elections. The projections show the European People’s Party (the big alliance of "centre-right" parties, though not including the British Tories) on track to remain the largest party in the Parliament – but by a slimmer majority. The figures had the EPP falling from 217 to 180 seats. The mainstream-social-democratic bloc “Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats” (aka S&D, the European Parliamentary group of the pan-European reformist left Party of European Socialists, of which Labour is a member) was...

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) met for its conference on 29 April-3 May. It took place as the union finalised reorganisation plans ("Redesign"), to tackle declining membership, in the context of industrial change in both the telecoms/financial services and post/courier sectors. An emergency motion from the National Executive on Brexit passed at the union′s general conference (attended by delegates from both sides of the union) was widely reported in the press. The conference voted decisively for ″Labour′s Manifesto commitment″ to deliver ″a Brexit deal that prioritises jobs and living...

One of the mysteries (albeit a minor one) of contemporary British politics, is how the Morning Star manages to maintain its image as a pretty much uncritical Corbyn fanzine whilst opposing Corbyn’s one and only clear policy on Europe – to avoid a no-deal Brexit at all costs. Perhaps the paper (and its political masters at the Communist Party of Britain) gets away with it because its advocacy of no-deal on WTO terms is tucked away in editorials, often posed as a just a suggestion and then spelt out in statements from the CPB published in the Morning Star but not officially the paper’s “line”...

The “build unions, not borders”, “socialist Europe”, “free movement” anti-Brexit left is organising to make an impact in the Labour campaign for the Euro-election on 23 May. A model is the Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory (SCLV) initiated in 1978-9 by Socialist Organiser , a forerunner of Solidarity . It produced literature arguing for a Labour vote against Thatcher’s Tories, and also criticising the 1974-9 Labour government and proposing socialist alternatives. Some constituency Labour Parties voted to back the SCLV and to use SCLV leaflets. In other constituencies individual activists...

On 17 April, George Galloway declared his support for Nigel Farage and his newly formed Brexit Party. Farage is a former Tory, then Ukip leader. He is vehemently anti-migrant. He has called for the NHS to be replaced by “social insurance”, for laws against discrimination at work to be repealed, and for millions of public sector jobs to be cut. Claire Fox, Alka Sehgal Cuthburt, and James Heartfield have been announced as Farage party candidates. They are figures round the online magazine Spiked!, the “legacy” operation of the “Revolutionary Communist Party” of 1978-97. Frank Furedi, the best...