May's opportunistic snap election and the need to defend our class interests

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Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials
19 April 2017

Despite posing as the champion of Westminster's "sovereignty" ever since she came into office, Theresa May has always avoided being accountable towards Parliament.  But this isn't enough for power-hungry May.   And although, contrary to the Leave camp's lies, Westminster was never under the EU's thumb, today, by calling an election on June 8th, May is ensuring that it will be wholly under her own thumb, as a rubber-stamping pawn in her game!
    Not that she was facing any real opposition - as was shown, once again, by the massive vote she won on Wednesday.  But she hopes to kill two birds with one stone.  Predictably, she seized on Labour's record low rating in the polls - due to its on-going internal strife and to Corbyn's spineless support for Brexit.  But she's also now likely to push forward pliable Tory candidates for election, to get rid of the embarrassment caused by the overbidding of her own warring factions.
    Of course, whether May's calculations will work out, remains to be seen.  But these are her real aims in this snap election.
                                                                       
More lies on the way
                                                                      
That May relegates the role of MPs to the margins of politics won't make any difference to the working class, of course.   After all, what have they ever done for us?  Have they ever protected our living and working conditions against the bosses' greed?  Or stopped governments from cutting vital social budgets, while filling the pockets of the wealthy?  Never!
    However, the fact that May is concentrating all powers into her own hands is a warning.  In that, she has much in common with Trump in the US and Erdogan in Turkey.  Like them, what she does will be shrouded in secrecy and packaged with lies.
    In fact she has already begun:  in her Tuesday speech there was lie after lie, reminiscent of the Leave referendum campaign.
    For instance, when she claimed that "we have seen consumer confidence remain high, record numbers of jobs, and economic growth that has exceeded all expectations."  In fact, high street consumption is down - due to higher prices and low wages, of course.  The only "record numbers" concern zero-hour contracts (of which there are almost a million officially and 3m unofficially) and self-employment (mainly bogus self-employment), which is close to 5 million!  As to her "economic growth", it conceals another drop in industrial production and investment!
    Likewise, when she dares to claim that "we have also delivered on the mandate that we were handed by the referendum result."  But what mandate was that?  To drive the NHS to the brink of collapse?  To cut the schools' inadequate budget even more?  To push even more people into poverty with the latest welfare cuts, while handing out billions to shareholders by cutting corporation and inheritance tax?  As to Brexit itself, are we meant to forget that over 62% of the total electorate did not vote for it?

"National interest" versus class interest
                                                                       
Of course, May has gone out of her way to portray her snap election as a follow-up to the Brexit referendum.  According to her, "the country is coming together" behind Brexit and hers "is the right approach, and it is in the national interest."
    Accordingly, the same Daily Mail newspaper which carried the famous "Traitors" headline, against the judges who instructed May to consult Parliament before triggering the Brexit process, came out with another hysterical headline: "Crush the saboteurs" - no less!
    "I-know-what's-best-for-you" May, shares the same approach, although in more respectable terms.  In the name of her "national interest", we're supposed to line up and stand to attention behind her policies - whatever they might be - and those who dare to get in the way should be simply pushed aside, if not worse.
    Well, if "the country is coming together", as May says, whatever this means, its population is definitely NOT.  Under her watch, real wages are falling while poverty and inequalities are rising.  These are the real facts, not May's electoral hot air!
    We know all too well what May's "national interest" really means - it's the vested interests of the British capitalist class.  These are the only interests she's ever defended while in government and these are the interests she will still be defending under the populist cover of Brexit.
    We, the working class, have no interest in allowing politicians like May to turn the screw on us on behalf of the bosses, for the sake of making the rich even richer.  If we have an interest in being united - and we certainly do - it is as a class, against our capitalist exploiters and their political trustees: united, yes, but not against foreigners, the EU, or whatever other alleged "enemies" - united in the fight for our collective interests!