Labour for a Socialist Europe

Labour must demand a Brexit pause while we tackle Covid-19

Covid-19 has exposed the dysfunction at the heart of the British state after a decade of austerity. That dysfunction has been combined with an extreme right-wing ideology, meaning that we have a government utterly incapable of carrying out its primary function – protecting its citizens. This combination has already led to a litany of failures: the foot-dragging initial response; the refusal to follow World Health Organisation guidelines; the failure to requisition adequate and timely supplies and equipment; the adherence to the immoral ‘herd immunity’ policy favoured by eugenicists and elitists; and the current fetish with non-existent antibody tests to identify an immunity that, without a vaccine, has not been evidenced to exist.

Many have been duped by the Tories’ sudden embrace of public expenditure, but the small print shows that it is all smoke and mirrors. Loans and deferred VAT payments mean SMEs and the self-employed gain little other than a bit of time to pay. Waiting on the phone for hour to then wait another five weeks for a Universal Credit payment is no substitute for the immediacy and simplicity of universal basic income or helicopter payments. Statutory sick pay is not a living wage. Utility and rent bills have not been frozen. Thousands are still going to work in non-essential jobs because they have no choice. Mutual aid volunteers are being asked to pay for groceries as people run out of money.

At the end of the day, as with Donald Trump, Tory policies will always be determined by the bottom line – by stock market rather than fatality numbers. We know which side the Conservatives are really on in those ‘economy vs. people’s lives’ debates. We know that by ‘economy’, they mean profit – not our livelihoods, jobs and household bills. The UK’s departure from the EU’s Early Warning and Response System and European Medicines Agency, and the Tories’ refusal to be part of a 28-country purchasing block for ventilators are not just shameful; they exhibit a pig-headed anti-Europeanism and dangerous British exceptionalism that puts ideology before saving lives.

In these circumstances, Labour must be bold. In recent years, Labour was at its best and most popular when Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell showed clear and firm leadership. Their anti-austerity policies and the 2017 manifesto are prime examples of that. But Labour has also been at its weakest and least popular when clear leadership has not been forthcoming. The 2019 manifesto was as radical as that of 2017, but was always going to get swamped and ridiculed in an election dominated by Brexit. And here, instead of boldness and clarity, Corbyn’s triangulation and failure to challenge the nationalist and populist nature of the Brexit project was a major contributory factor to our defeat.

Keir Starmer has already demonstrated a moving empathy and understanding of the effects of the Covid-19 crisis on the poor and working class. Now he must also be bold on Brexit. The economic and social fallout from coronavirus will be more than most people can cope with, without adding the unnecessary and human-made disaster that the Tories’ preferred hard Brexit constitutes. Brexit and fighting Covid are now inextricably linked.

The UK will, by default, be trading on World Trade Organisation rules come 2021 if Labour does not demand the virtual reopening of parliament immediately after Easter to agree an extension to the transition arrangements. If it doesn’t, then this Brexiteer government – that just a couple of months ago thought Brexit bongs more important than confronting the deadly threat that they knew we faced – will be more than happy to allow the July deadline to pass unnoticed, just as it has already ensured that the important Windrush Report was buried by Covid-19. Whatever their position on Brexit, every Labour member should now be demanding the government press pause on Brexit and concentrates on saving lives. You can sign Labour for a Socialist Europe’s petition to that effect here.

The majority’s reaction to the crisis has demonstrated the power of community, of working together, of solidarity, of support for our key workers and the NHS. Where the government has failed to act, cash-strapped Labour councils have stepped into the breach magnificently, working with all sections of their local communities to feed and support everyone. Pop-up mutual aid groups have linked up with established voluntary organisations, small businesses have used their imaginations to find ways to help, online entertainment and education has transformed many people’s lives and enabled them to live in isolation.

Thousands of migrants, refugees and EU citizens whose lives have been turned upside down by the Tory Brexiteers have instinctively and generously worked with their neighbours to build community support networks. These are the very same migrants who have been subjected to the Tories’ hostile environment, threatened with deportation, banned from receiving healthcare because of the ‘no recourse to public funds’ rules, and who have been the first UK health workers to lose their lives to coronavirus.

We must not let this profoundly ideological Tory government continue to put lives at risk, nor to use this crisis as their opportunity to further right-wing projects. Labour needs to be offering a future in line with the community strengths and power of collective action that a new generation is discovering. More immediately, we must demand a pause to Brexit so that all of our collective efforts can be concentrated on fighting the pandemic. And once this is over, let’s make sure that we don’t go back to normal.

This article was published in Labour List on 8 April 2020

https://labourlist.org/2020/04/labour-must-demand-a-brexit-pause-while-we-tackle-covid-19/

Dear Kate

I am not going to rehearse our disagreements over Brexit here. We both know where we stand. However, I would like to know how you plan to vote on today’s motion before the House on No Deal.

It is not my practice to reduce political questions to my personal circumstances. But on this occasion I think they may illustrate a situation that faces thousands of people in this country including in Vauxhall.

I have just taken delivery of a biological drug for the treatment of Crohn’s Disease. It is the latest in a family of very expensive, innovative drugs which have enabled me to get back involved in political activity after over a decade of being virtually housebound. It is manufactured in Belgium. It requires continuous refrigeration.

I am awaiting a delivery of medical appliances and related equipment without which I cannot function. They are made in Denmark and other European countries. I was worried enough to contact the company who provide them. They told me that they had purchased additional warehouse space (at what cost to the NHS/taxpayer?). That didn’t really reassure me.

I haven’t dared look at the country of origin of the multiple pills I take every morning.

My needs are minor compared to others. But it is alarming that I should even have to worry about whether I will be able to function if the UK leaves the EU without arrangements in place to guarantee the seamless provision and delivery of vital medical supplies.

I have read that you think stories such as this are unnecessarily alarmist. That the disruption of No Deal is a price worth paying.

I do hope that is not your view.

The idea that you could support the dismantling of 40 years of integrated manufacturing, commerce and trade without coherent plans and agreements being in place is incomprehensible to me. Especially when it is in the hands of the most right-wing and inept Tory government of the post-war years. Especially when we lose more than we gain. I believe in a socialist transformation of society. That could well cause disruption. We used to joke in my youth about the necessity of guaranteeing beer supplies come the revolution. But socialism’s aim is to benefit us all; not enrich the few. It’s to extend our rights and liberties; not remove our right to travel, study, work, live, and love across our neighbouring continent. Brexit is the antithesis of socialism and internationalism.

I know you argue that the result of the referendum has to be implemented; that it was a democratic exercise and decision. But nobody ever suggested during the referendum campaign that there would be No Deal, no civilised arrangements for leaving the EU. Nobody even whispered that the smooth delivery of medical supplies could be affected – that wasn’t on the side of that bus.

Democracy is not a static concept. If it was we would only ever have one election and that would be that. Maybe another one a generation or two later? That sounds a bit like Spain, where there was a general election in 1936 and then not another until 1977. The Chartists argued for annual elections. It’s hardly revolutionary, let alone anti-democratic, to argue that the people might want to have another think, have another say, now they have more information on what that first binary decision means in practice.

I look forward to hearing from you confirming that you will be voting to rule out No Deal today, and that you will be supporting Labour’s policy, including supporting steps for a public vote to stop no deal or a damaging Tory Brexit.

Yours

Joan