Yet more ballots in which the working class has no stake

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Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials
May 1st 2019

At the time of writing, the Tories are bracing themselves for huge losses in this Thursday's local elections.  And of course the odds are, that one way or another, Tory voters will punish their party for presiding over the past three years of Brexit pantomime - and failing to deliver anything but chaos.
    Meanwhile, May is desperately trying to get Labour to support her Brexit Withdrawal Deal, in return for token concessions.  This way, she hopes to get the deal endorsed by the Commons early enough to avoid another, probably even more damaging disaster for her party, this time in the EU elections, due on 23rd May.
    Predictably, therefore, the flood of nonsense about Brexit that politicians have been pouring into our ears for years, has suddenly dried up.  Instead, they're only concerned with their electoral scores, their seats, their careers and, in the case of a long queue of Tory "hard-Brexiteers", their chances of climbing into May's shoes!

Back to square one

Of course, this is just returning to business as usual and, in fact, to the real factors which have been driving the Brexit process forward, all along.  One could say that, today, the Brexit chicken is coming home to roost!
    Let us recall where Brexit came from, in the first place.  Back in 2014, the fear of some right-wing Tories that they might lose their seats to UKIP's anti-EU demagogues set alight the party's long-standing factional rivalries, sparking what amounted to open warfare.  This prompted Cameron to call the 2016 Brexit referendum, to try to restore some sort of order within his party's ranks.
    But instead, some of the party’s well known big-mouths like Boris Johnson, Gove and a few others, seized the opportunity to position themselves in a race for the party leadership.  So they took the lead of the anti-Cameron, pro-Brexit camp, thereby pouring even more oil on the flames.
    Ever since then, it is this on-going battle which has dominated the Brexit process, over-extending it, and in the last 3 months, causing this farcical pantomime to be played out over May’s Withdrawal Deal.
    So yes, the fact that the Brexit chaos should now appear to be superseded by the politicians' frenzy to protect their votes and seats - i.e. their share of the political institutions' cake - is no coincidence.  Brexit was always a by-product of the politicking, rivalries and over-bidding between self-serving politicians.  Now that the lies used to package Brexit have lost their credibility, it appears for what it really is!

Uniting around our class interests

As long as the rule of Capital prevails, no election will bring about real change, neither for the working class nor for society.  But elections can sometimes provide the working class with an opportunity to voice its own class interests - that is, provided workers can vote for parties and candidates which choose to clearly express their interests.
    But which political party has ever expressed the interests of the working class regarding Brexit?  Not one, of course.  Neither the various factions of the Tory party, nor their growing number of clones, from UKIP and the Brexit Party, to Change UK.
    As to Labour, it claims to be a uniting force, "the only party which represents both people who supported Leave and Remain".  Except that this ambiguous position is purely dictated by electioneering.  The fact is that Labour goes along with Brexit, by claiming that a "good" Brexit would benefit workers.  But this is a lie - just as it is a lie to claim that, in and of itself, Britain's membership of the EU benefits workers.  Either way, capitalism remains.  And under capitalism, the only benefits that the working class can gain are those which the capitalists feel forced to concede, whether it is under direct pressure from the workers' collective fights, or for fear that fighting might break out.
    From the point of view of our class interests, the case against Brexit is clear.  It is against our interests because it weakens our class:  in addition to causing economic havoc, it can only divide our ranks (by imposing second-rate status on foreign workers) and isolate us from our class brothers and sisters abroad (by reinforcing Britain's borders)!
    The working class needs a party which unites its ranks - but only on the basis of its own interests.  And to this end, it needs a party which, unlike Labour, is prepared to tell the truth about the threat that Brexit represents for us, regardless of the consequences in terms of votes.  In fact, it needs a party which, unlike Labour, aims to challenge the rule of capital, not to help manage its profits by running its decaying political institutions: a workers' party which aims to free society of all its existing fetters - from private profit, to national borders!