Brexit is about attacking our rights. Why can't Corbyn see it?

The Tory leadership is beginning to to resemble the cartoon series Wacky Races with every one playing Dick Dastardly 



The villain of the series drives. Dick Dastardly is an archetypal mustache-twirling villain; Muttley is his wheezily snickering dog henchman. Dastardly's usual race strategy revolves around using the Mean Machine's great speed to get ahead of the other racers, and then setting a trap to stop them and maintain the lead; but most of his plans backfire, causing him to fall back into last place. Dastardly never sees victory.

With Mrs May clearly a Lame Duck and apparently her survival due to her partially promising that she would not lead, the Tories into the next General Election we are still left with which of the other Dick Dasterly's will succeed her after .

They all seem to resemble carton villains and Left For Forward has provided us with a summary of where they stand.

Boris Johnson (4/1)

• The former Foreign Secretary has u-turned on Brexit so much that he is no longer trusted – previously backing many of the soft Brexit policies he’s now apparently at war against.

• Called EU workplace protections“back-breaking”: “There is little doubt that it is that extra stuff, the stuff from Brussels, that is helping to fur the arteries to the point of sclerosis. The weight of employment regulation is now back-breaking: the collective redundancies directive, the atypical workers directive, the working time directive and a thousand more.” 

• He has an unpleasant record comparing the EU to the Nazis.

• Despite infamous promises of £350m a week extra for the NHS, he has backed ending the principle of a free health service: “If NHS services continue to be free in this way, they will continue to be abused…if people have to pay for them, they will value them more.”

• He is increasingly despised by Conservative MPs…

• He’s even more unpopular among the public than Theresa May – 57% of voters say he’d make a bad PM, compared to just 11% who think he’d make a good one, according to YouGov.

Dominic Raab (4/1)

• The former Brexit Secretary has long been an advocate of leaving the customs union and single market: “Of course we have to leave the customs union, of course we have to leave the single market” (The Express, January 12 2018)

• “Britain should secure a total opt-out from the Working Time Directive and scrap the UK regulations,” Raab has said.

• During the referendum campaign, Raab led scaremongering over the idea that Turkey might join the EU.

• In 2016, Raab said there can’t be “any tricksy fudging” about leaving the customs union…which is exactly what the government is doing, Best for Britain say.

• Also in 2016… Raab backed the idea of a further vote if the result was ‘within a couple of points’. 

Sajid Javid (6/1)

• Has consistently supported Theresa May’s ‘hostile environment’ policies.

• Consistently voted against a right to remain for EU nationals already in living in the UK. Javid is delighted that freedom of movement is ending “deal or no deal”. The Tory MP was previously an outspoken Eurosceptic, but ended up backing Remain because of his worries about the effects on business of Britain leaving.

• 33% of voters say he’d make a bad PM, to just 15% who say he’d make a good one, according to the latest YouGov polling. Of course, despite being Home Secretary he’s still a relative unknown –52% say they’re not sure or don’t know enough about him to say.

Michael Gove (8/1)

• Reportedly keen to ditch workers’ rights after Brexit, removing guarantees on holiday pay and maximum working hours.

• Voters may be reminded of the Environment Secretary – then a humble opposition MP – ‘flipping’ his home in the run-up to the expenses scandal. A sexual abuse investigation – in which he is alleged to have intervened – may also crop up.

• Like Johnson, he is prone to bizarre comparisons: Gove compared economic experts to the Nazi scientists who denounced Albert Einstein in the 1930s.

• Again – more unpopular among voters than May: 52% say he’d make a bad PM compared to 11% who think he’d make a good one

Jeremy Hunt (8/1)

• His NHS record during a long tenure as Health Secretary was an unmitigated disaster.

• During the 2016 Conservative leadership election, Hunt proposed another Brexit vote. Now he spends his time attacking those people who proposed the same idea that he did…

• He is more well-known than other candidates – meaning he’s also more unpopular. 46% of voters think he’d make a bad PM, to 10% who say he’d make a good one.

Amder Rudd  (16/1)

• Will the public be so quick to forgive the figure at the centre of the Windrush scandal?

• Used her first address as DWP chief to try and discredit the UN’s report on the poverty crisis in the UK

• More unpopular than the PM: 37% think she’d make a bad Prime Minister, to 14% who say she’d make a good one (YouGov)

Jacob Rees-Mogg (16/1)

• Said he would reduce employment rights after Brexit: “I don’t think those laws need to be made for us by foreigners. A Labour government may wish to campaign for more employment rights; a Conservative government may wish to reduce them. […] I don’t support all the employment rights that come from Europe.”  (Channel 4 News, 16 February 2016)

• Apparently happy to reduce agricultural standards after Brexit: “I’m not in the least bit worried about chlorinated chicken.” (Party Conference fringe event, October 1, 2017)

• Dismissed anger about the widespread use of offshore tax havens amongst high earners as “socialist hysteria” (Express, November 12, 2017)

One of the themes of nearly all of them is a keenness to ditch workers rights and its about time we realised that is what Brexit is all about, certainly as far as the Tories  are concerned

Forget Immigration it is about taking back control over things lile Workers and Human rights and reducing standards designed to protect our health.

It is about power being concentrated in the hand of the rich and powerful.

If "Lexiters " such as Corbyn can't see this then they are too stupid , to lead us.

It's reminiscent of Thatcher who when she first took power some of the Left believed that it would not take long and there would be a political revolution and the people will rise and vote for a Left wing government  even to the extent they thought it would be Neil Kinnock.

What happened was  Thatcher being Prime Minister for eleven years and who was succeed by another Tory John Major.

Even when the Tories were defeated by the Labour Landslide we then had years of Blairism which did nothing  to reverse the Thatcher attacks on workers rights, pandering to Tory "Middle England" and simply carring on as if nothing had really changed.

Indeed there are figures like Dennis Skinner , who seem to prefer to be sen as vocally  attacking the Tories (Despite constantly voting with them over Brexit) who would be lost if we had a Progressive Left Government.

Take the recent incident  where he has defended swearing at a member of the SNP in the Commons.

Glasgow South MP Stewart McDonald tweeted that the firebrand backbencher had "become a thug" after the incident.

He later escalated the matter by raising a point of order with Commons Speaker John Bercow.

Mr Skinner, who has represented Bolsover for 48 years, told reporters he wanted to put the SNP "in their place" for heckling Labour's leader.

"He attacks Jeremy Corbyn every time he stands up and I've told him before he is part of the opposition and he should concentrate on attacking the real enemy," the 86-year-old told the Press Association.

What does he believe in  by putting the SNP in their place" ?

Ignoring the fact that the leader of the official  opposition can't attack Mrs May's Hard Brexit , because like Mr Skinner  he agrees with it , because both  live under the delusion that a right wing Tory  government will soon be replaced by a Left one and a Utopiam paradise.

The point is that to create a Left Wing government Scotland and Wales need to leave the Union which is dominated by English Tories.

Indeed the so called Left of the Labour Party see Wales and Scotland providing Lobby fodder for the party in Westminster , even if it means they are defeated time and time again by England voting Tory.