Labour: stop Brexit, reverse cuts, scrap anti-strike laws, prepare for a snap election

Submitted by AWL on 14 August, 2019 - 11:40
right to strike

On the streets and in the workplaces is where we must defeat the plans of Boris Johnson and his “special adviser” Dominic Cummings to force through a “no deal” Brexit by overriding Parliament. And that’s the best way to prepare for a likely snap election.

Cummings's latest plan (3 August) is to respond to Parliament voting no confidence in Johnson – which it may well do on 4 September – by delaying the subsequent general election to after Brexit has become accomplished fact on 31 October.

This is a revised version of Johnson's earlier speculation about "proroguing" (suspending) Parliament to get himself a free hand on Brexit. Maybe third or fourth versions will be devised in coming weeks.

These are coup plans – plans by entrenched authority to override democratic safeguards. Parliament opposes "no deal" Brexit. Polls have repeatedly shown large majorities for Remain as against "no deal", which was not even an option in the June 2016 referendum.

Jeremy Corbyn has called on the head of the civil service to stop the coup. Rebel Tory Dominic Grieve talks of getting the courts to rule against it. But democracy is made, improved, defended, in the first place by the people, and by the labour movement as the leading activist force to rally the majority.

We call on Labour and the unions to mobilise for a huge turnout on the "People's Vote" demonstration on 12 October, as the alternative to "no deal". We advocate that Labour get on the streets with stalls and protests now. We demand that Labour say now that it will respond to a "Brexit coup" by piling onto the streets and supporting strikes to force Johnson to resign. And that it goes into election mode, with radical policies in line with Labour conference.

If and when the official Labour machine won't move, activist groups like Labour For a Socialist Europe must take the lead.

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