Behind Brexit, the threat from decaying, crisis-ridden, capitalism!

Print
Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials
6 February 2019

So, by the end of next week, May is supposed to bring back to Parliament what the Westminster Brexiteers call "an alternative arrangement" to replace the so-called "Irish backstop" in her divorce deal.
    So far, however, no-one has been able to say what this "alternative arrangement" would need to be, in order to placate the Tory Hard-Brexiteers - nor even if such an "alternative" really exists outside of their deluded dreams.
    In fact, the only certainty is that no aspect of this deal is up for renegotiation.  As if, after more than 20 months of horse-trading over this deal, the 27 EU countries were likely to allow the posturing of Tory factions to move the goal posts yet again!
    So what is the point of this "renegotiation" show business, when everyone knows for a fact that it's just not going to happen?  What is the point, except to provide May with a convenient way of whipping her own party dissidents into some sort of order?  Indeed, it’s all about trying, once more, to rally their support against the "common enemy", i.e. the EU, before the final "meaningful vote", which she can't afford to lose!

Delusions about a dangerous system

Meanwhile, of course, not everyone on planet Earth is holding his or her breath, waiting for the next hiccup in Britain’s Brexit saga.
    The crisis of the capitalist system is as severe as ever.  The world economy continues to limp from one problem to the next, as it's been doing for the past decade, causing untold hardship to large sections of the international working class.
    This is why, an arch-Brexit bigot like Rees-Mogg may well be right, when he claims that Nissan's decision to produce its new X-Trail SUV in Japan rather than in Britain, as it had previously promised, probably has nothing to do with Brexit.
    Ironically, though, it's worth noting in passing, how quickly the Westminster Brexiteers can forget the new exotic markets and trade deals they've been promising for so long in support of Brexit.  So, bizarrely, Rees-Mogg "failed to notice" that, just as Nissan was making its announcement on the X-Trail, a new trade deal was coming into force between the EU and Japan, from which Britain would be excluded, the minute it leaves the EU!
    But whether Nissan's decision has to do with Brexit or not, is not the main issue here.  The point is that in this capitalist system, the handful of directors who run big companies like Nissan, can decide to write off the jobs of thousands or tens of thousands of workers, at the stroke of a pen - just because they think this will help them to boost their shareholders' dividends!  And, as in the case of Nissan, they can even do this while receiving public subsidies designed to "encourage" them to invest in job creation!
    And, guess what?  Do any of the various warring factions in the Brexit saga have anything to say against such a system?  Of course not!  They might blame "rogue" capitalists, as Corbyn and the union leaders do, but only to hail those they call "good" capitalists.  As if there could be any "good" way of being exploited for us workers!

Jobs have no passport, but they do belong to one single class!

Of course, faced with threats against jobs by the likes of Nissan, and before that, Jaguar-Land-Rover and Toyota, there will always be those who blame this job-slashing on the fact that, due to being "foreign", these companies don’t put "British jobs for British workers first".
    But of course, given the millions of jobs which have been savaged in Britain by very British companies, owned by very British shareholders, over the past decades - this is a bit of a joke!  And what about the millions of public sector jobs which have been butchered by very British governments over the same period!
    And this sort of nationalistic approach is even more ridiculous today, when billions of pounds can be sent thousands of miles away in a matter of seconds and when most of the world economy is controlled by a small layer of capitalists, whose capital is held in such a volatile form.
    The issue then, for the working class - whether here in Britain, in Japan, or in any other country - is not so much to try to grab this kind of volatile capital.  It is to use our collective strength to take over direct control of the production facilities from which the capitalists draw their profits: our plants, mines and farms, wherever they may be on planet Earth and to do this collectively, as a class, by coordinating our action across borders and nationalities.  It is through this collective control that the international working class could start countering the recklessness of this capitalist order, before replacing it, once and for all, with another social order, free of private profiteering.