The need of socialism in this country is great
Yes keep it but we also need something in the town centre. I’d like to know the visitor figures for Tolson. It must be 30 years since I visited and I am sure I am not alone.
SOME Tories, with childish naivety, seem to believe that we have to wait five years before their new Government can be challenged.
I disagree. It was 8,000 people marching on the streets of Huddersfield together with an ongoing and persistent campaign that saved our hospital. If it were left up to politicians and Parliament, the site of the Huddersfield Royal Infirmary would now be full of expensive housing.
Had Jeremy Corbyn won the election, undoubtedly the establishment would not have sat on its hands but instantly organised a strike of capital along with the City of London, holding his Government to ransom through economic sabotage.
Further, soon after Jeremy was elected leader of the Labour Party, a serving army general declared that a coup was likely in opposition to his policies, if he became Prime Minister. The Tory Government was very quiet on the general’s comments.
The fact is that Johnson will face ferocious opposition to his reactionary policies from Trade Unionists, women, young people, community campaigners, and climate activists. The need for socialism is greater than ever,
A bitter five years awaits the Tories.
As Johnson’s 18th Century predecessor Robert Walpole wrote: “Today they are ringing the bells, but tomorrow they will be wringing their hands.”
Boris’s withdrawal deal is not Brexit
IT is true that the UK will abrogate the current EU treaties (TEU, TFEU, Euratom) when the UK and the EU sign off Boris Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement as a treaty on January 31.
Yet under the provisions of his withdrawal (only partially changed from Theresa May’s agreement) the UK will still be subject to almost the same control by the EU as now. The Withdrawal Agreement treaty is not Brexit.
And yet that fact is being energetically, but slyly, suppressed. Phrases such as “we’re exhausted”, “healing the divisions”, “sick of the squabbling” even “get Brexit done” are being widely used to brush the real position under the carpet. Why?
I think the answer is the establishment has had an awful shock at how close we came to a breakdown in our democracy and governance as Leave voters refused to buckle under the relentless and abusive Remain pressure.
So, another Leave victory but – as in 2016 – it is only one political battle, not the war, since the Remain beliefs of the establishment are unchanged.
What is going to happen next? The establishment only appears to have conceded.
So, if we supinely accept the Boris agreement as Brexit, the establishment will be emboldened to agree a “trade” deal at the end of 2020 which keeps the UK very closely aligned to the EU indeed.
To prevent that does unfortunately involve more toil for us. Yet truth is power – on February 1 the UK will still be under the EU’s thumb.
The establishment need to know that we know.