We are at “war”, yes, but only with Johnson and his capitalist masters

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Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials
3 October 2019

There is not the slightest doubt that Johnson's over-the-top Brexit language is carefully thought out, so as to serve his electoral interests - whatever the cost to the rest of us and no matter how much poison it spreads in the political atmosphere.
    There is, indeed, nothing innocuous in Johnson using the phrase "Surrender Act" to refer to the act  passed by MPs to pre-empt a no-deal Brexit.  Johnson thus implies that his political opponents are "traitors" (to what??), as right-wing papers have also repeatedly claimed - when they don't go as far as to accuse them of "foreign collusion", as did the Mail on Sunday!
    It is as if Johnson wanted to re-enact the Hundred Years war against France, seven centuries after it came to an end - but, this time, against the 27 countries of the European Union!

The cost of Johnson's nationalist poison

And yes, Johnson's rhetorical warmongering should remind us of Jo Cox, the Labour MP who was murdered just one week before the 2016 referendum.
    Jo Cox's murderer may have had a history of psychiatric problems and links to neo-Nazi groups.  But his urge to kill and his cry of "Britain First" when he did it, were inspired by the anti-immigrant, anti-European xenophobic campaign which has been waged ever since 2010 - and which was stepped up during the referendum campaign.  And not just by Farage and other far-right-wingers, but also (and mainly) by mainstream Tory politicians, like Cameron, Osborne, Gove and Johnson himself.
    Of course, like the Mafia's Godfathers, these politicians always leave their dirty work to others.  The fact is, however, that they do have Jo Cox's blood on their hands.
    For much the same reason, these "respectable" politicians had a direct responsibility in the wave of racist attacks which followed the 2016 referendum.  And they have an even more direct responsibility in the systematic harassment orchestrated by the Home Office ever since, under May's "hostile environment" against immigrant workers - which still remains in force today.
    Those who were targeted by these attacks were not just harassed on social media by individuals who get a kick out of using nasty words, like Johnson’s.  No, those who found themselves at the receiving-end of these Tory-inspired attacks, suffered real physical hurt or were even killed, like Jo Cox.
    How many lives did these vicious policies destroy among the Windrush generation?  How many immigrant workers have been refused treatment by the NHS, because they did not have the right paperwork?  How many among them died of curable diseases as a result?  How many others have been detained and deported?
    After years of blaming Britain's economic and social ills on the EU and on migrant workers - when the only culprit was the overwhelming greed of British capitalists - Johnson and his Tory partners in crime now all have blood on their hands!

Brexit is a weapon against us

For now, Johnson and his party are in election mode - meaning that their lie machine has been rebooted and is now working full blast.
    So, we hear Johnson's henchman, Javid, hail the Tory party as the "workers' party"?  What a joke!  In fact, when elected London Mayor, in 2008, Johnson complained that his £140,000/yr salary was “too small” for his lifestyle.  So, he kept his £250,000/yr job with the Daily Telegraph - which he described as "chicken feed" at the time!
    This should take some of the shine off Javid's pledge to increase the National Living Wage to £10.50/hr (or 66% of the median wage).  Anyway, this wouldn’t be before 2024!  In fact Hammond had already said he’d raise the NLW to £10/hr (or 60% of the median wage) by 2020, 4 years earlier!  Another of Johnson's electoral sleights of hand!  As to Javid's pledge to extend the NLW to 21-24 year-olds, maybe.  But how many peanuts will this £10.50/hr be worth after 5 years of post-Brexit inflation?
    As to Johnson's much-heralded pledge to use £13bn to built 40 new hospitals, it turns out that this will only involve £2.7bn to help rebuild six hospitals which are falling apart.  The rest is just smoke and mirrors which might (or might not) materialise by the late 2030s!!!
    So much for Johnson wanting to "get Brexit done" in order to deal with the "real issues"!  But, there are issues he will definitely deal with:  £8bn tax cuts he plans to award the richest tax payers together with yet another, still undisclosed cut in corporation tax.
    As for the real issues facing the working class - from the housing crisis, to low wages and casual employment - we will need to deal with them as a class:  by mobilising our collective strength, by challenging the bosses' monopoly over the economy and by beginning to exercise our own control over society - at every level.