I was in Wales at the weekend where I saw a Sunday morning political programme. All 8 of the parties putting up candidates for the EU elections were represented.
I was struck by how blatantly anti-Brexit Jackie Jones (the Labour Party representative) was.
She told the presenter voters who wanted to remain in the EU should vote Labour. She was challenged – the Labour Party manifesto was not explicitly pro-Remain – and she answered defiantly she had always been a Remainer and all four Labour candidates in Wales had come out in favour of a second referendum.
I noted Ms Jones prefers to use the term ‘Final Say’ instead of second referendum. The subtle difference is that a ‘final say’ is about accepting or rejecting the government’s deal with the EU. It excludes the possibility of having on the ballot paper an option to Leave the EU without accepting the government deal.
Back in England later the same day I heard the Labour Party Shadow Health Secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, say to Andrew Marr …
“This is a two horse race now between the Labour Party and the Brexit Party. The Liberals or the Change Party are not going to stop Nigel Farage’s party in the election… Only the Labour Party can stop Nigel Farage.”.
The message here was plain. The ugly phrase ‘dog-whistle politics’ comes to mind – if you do not have the courage to say what you mean, imply it and let those who share your views draw their own conclusions. Jonathan Ashworth was explicit enough for the deafest of dogs to get the message – name two explicitly Remain parties and tell people who are thinking of voting for them they should support the Labour Party. What conclusion should they draw? The Labour Party is anti-Brexit.
There is a clear message here to the working class – the Labour Party does not represent the millions of workers who voted to leave the pro-big business, pro-capitalist free market economic system represented by the EU.
The prospect of a Brexit Party landslide is worrying the existing parties. But the support for the Brexit Party does not represent support for the kind of right-wing policies Nigel Farage favours.
The British working class is educated enough to understand you can vote Brexit Party to send a message to the powers-that-be – we said Leave in June 2016, and we meant Leave. We know this is not a General Election and we are not voting for the party that will decide economic and social policy in the UK for the next five years. We are electing representatives to a body that has no effective power whatsoever. So we can use this vote to express our anger at Parliament’s refusal to implement the referendum result.
On May 23rd millions of socialist-minded working-class voters will be casting their vote for the Brexit Party. Farage may interpret a big vote as support for the Brexit Party. In fact it is the only electoral way to express anger at the decision of the main political groups to overturn the Leave decision.
If there was a Labour Party, or another socialist party, explicitly supporting Leave, I have no doubt they would get massive support. But Labour’s weasel-worded prevarication on the issue, trying to be all things to all people, fools nobody. It definitely does not fool the politically sophisticated working class voters.
Labour claims that their solution (staying in a permanent Customs Union) delivers Brexit. That is simply not true.