No to May's big business deal

End Tory misery - general election now!

Tories out, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

Elaine Brunskill, Socialist Party national committee

For working-class people the Tories have always been toxic, but now they are also in utter disarray. For the capitalist class this is a foreboding crisis, with no clear way out.

Theresa May is hanging on in office by a frayed thread. Clearly she faces an almighty battle to get her 'Brexit-in-the-interests-of-big-business' plans through parliament on 11 December. According to the BBC, 86 members of her own party have said they are unlikely to back her Brexit deal. Even her ally Donald Trump has stuck the boot into it.

However, the problem facing the Tories is that May's departure would not save them. The ultra Remainers and the ultra no-deal Brexiteers within the Tory Party have irreconcilable differences. And, in reality, even the Tory Brexiteers are split.

Then there is the thorny issue of the right-wing and sectarian DUP, whose MPs prop up May's government. Their recent abstention in parliament against a series of amendments to the government's Finance Bill sent May a clear political message of opposition to the 'Irish backstop' plan.

The vast majority of workers don't believe May when she asserts that her Brexit deal has been "delivered for the British people", and will set the UK "on course for a prosperous future."

Years of harsh austerity measures inflicted on the majority, while a tiny elite got wealthier, highlight how any deal negotiated by the Tories will be in the interests of the super-rich and big business.

A bold call by Corbyn and his supporters in the labour movement to mobilise for a general election now to kick out the Tories is essential. This, alongside a clear call for a socialist alternative to the EU, for socialist policies to end austerity and the ousting of Labour's Blairite MPs and councillors, would light up the sky for workers, the most vulnerable, and young people.

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The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

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