As the country assimilates the surprise result of the EU referendum, we celebrate the result – and have no regrets! But there is much work to be done.
While British, European and US imperialism are all weakened by Britain’s exit from the EU, capitalism remains in charge – if not in control – of our country and planet, and is inflicting the pain of its deep financial and economic crisis on the working people of Britain and the world.
Comrade Harpal discusses the political turmoil engulfing the European Union and the British imperialist parties – Tory and Labour alike – and spends some time analysing the true nature of the Labour party, explaining just why it is that Jeremy Corbyn, moderate though he may be as a social-democratic ‘socialist’, is meeting such resistance from those who control the imperialist Labour party and its policy.
The fact is that no social democrat, no leader of the Labour party, however ‘nice’ his or her intentions can make capitalism into a vehicle for serving the working class. However genuinely that leader may desire to ‘change Labour from the inside’; however keen he may be to use that changed Labour party to ‘change parliament from the inside’ and transform it into a means for bringing social justice to working people and peace to the world, he will not succeed.
He will not succeed, because, to paraphrase Lenin: “A democratic republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism, and, therefore, once capital has gained possession of this very best shell [though the Jeremy Corbyns, John McDonnells and all their hangers on in the revisionist and Trotskyite parties may wail and gnash their teeth; though they may cry continually about the possibility and need for ‘change’], it establishes its power so securely, so firmly, that no change of persons, institutions or parties in the bourgeois-democratic republic can shake it.” (The State and Revolution, 1917, Chapter 1)
Bourgeois democracy does not seek to represent the people, but to dominate and oppress them. It cannot be reformed; it must be overthrown.
We are a long way from the point when this will become an immanent possibility, but the only way we can approach this task is to build our forces, educate British workers and work calmly, patiently and assiduously for the downfall of the gangsters of finance capital.
