Xi signs strategic EU-China deals amid growing EU-US tensions

Alex Lantier 

On Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping ended a six-day tour of Europe in which the major euro zone powers made business deals with China and signaled support for its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for infrastructure across Eurasia. As Washington threatens both China and its nominal European Union (EU) allies with trade war sanctions, deep divergences are emerging between Washington and the EU over relations with China.

As part of its “pivot to Asia” to diplomatically isolate and militarily threaten China, Washington has opposed the BRI, which US Vice President Mike Pence mocked last year as a “constricting belt and one-way road” allowing China to trap the world in debt. In 2015, the EU powers defied US calls to boycott the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the BRI’s funding arm. Now, they are again ignoring Washington.

On March 5, the Financial Times reported that Italy would sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) backing the BRI, making it the first major EU power to do so. The FT said this “would undercut US pressure on China over trade and would undermine Brussels’ efforts to overcome divisions within the EU over the best approach to deal with Chinese investments.” The White House told the FT endorsing the BRI would “end up harming Italy’s global reputation.”

The US National Security Council Tweeted that by endorsing BRI, Italy would legitimize China’s “predatory approach to investment and will bring no benefits to the Italian people.”

Nonetheless, Xi was greeted in Rome with full honors, including a cavalry guard for his car, state dinners, and a concert by tenor Andrea Bocelli. Rome then signed the MOU endorsing the BRI, together with deals worth €2.5 billion for building oil pipelines and steel plants, and promoting Italian agricultural exports. Italy will also be allowed to finance its massive €2.3 trillion sovereign debt by issuing so-called “panda bonds” directly to Chinese citizens.

At last Friday’s EU summit, French President Emmanuel Macron criticized Rome’s unilateral deal with Beijing, insisting that on China, “The period of European naivety is over.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, however, that she was satisfied with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s assurances that Rome’s BRI deals complied with EU law: “As far as he explained it, I have nothing to criticize for now, but have already discussed that it is even better if we act together.”

Italian Undersecretary of State Michele Geraci dismissed Macron’s comments, telling the South China Morning Post: “All the other (European) countries will follow Italy and sign an MOU, and I can give you two names but I won’t—they are in the pipeline. In reality, all European countries want to be part of the belt and road.” He dismissed criticism of Rome’s initiatives in Europe: “If Italy wants to be the terminal of China’s Silk Road, of course this affects Hamburg, Rotterdam, Marseille. … It’s a competition, so I understand their jealousy.”

Geraci admitted that “the US was not very happy” about Italy’s decision. But he rejected US warnings that Italy will fall into a Chinese “debt trap,” pointing to the $1.13 trillion of US debt held by China: “The US should worry about having debt in Chinese hands. They are in a situation where they need to be concerned, that’s why maybe they worry.”

After Xi promoted agricultural exports to China while in Sicily and toured Monaco, which will set up 5G Internet service using products from Chinese firm Huawei—defying US calls for a boycott of Huawei’s products as threatening NATO security—Xi went on to Paris. There, Macron dropped his criticisms of Xi and of Italy for breaking supposed European unity on China and, extending Xi full state honors, signed his own raft of deals with Xi.

In Paris, Chinese state-owned enterprises signed multi-billion-euro contracts for container shipping, wind energy, and construction projects with French firms. Macron and Xi signed a €30 billion deal between Franco-German firm Airbus and China Aviation Supplies Holding for 10 A350 and 290 medium-range A320neo jetliners.

Airbus appears to have done this deal at Boeing’s expense, after the recent grounding of its 737 max jets after two major accidents cost hundreds of lives. France’s Le Point wrote: “There was regular discussion of ordering a total of 180 jetliners since President Macron’s last visit, a bit more than a year ago, in Beijing. Now there are 120 more A320neo’s. Should we take this as a consequnece of the B737MAX and the rejection of Boeing’s medium-range jetliner after two accidents with Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines? That would be a very rapid reaction.”

Finally, Macron invited Merkel and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to Paris for talks with Xi. Macron and Xi issued a joint statement calling for a “swift conclusion of an ambitious global investment agreement between the EU and China,” and Merkel said she saw “nothing to criticize” in Italy’s deal with Xi.

“The Belt and Road, or Silk Road, is an important project, and we Europeans want to play an important role here,” Merkel added, while demanding “reciprocity” and concessions to European firms in China.

This points to deep contradictions in world capitalism and a breakdown of longstanding alliances that point to a rising danger of war.

On the one hand, the European imperialist powers remain with Washington in the NATO alliance, as US imperialism imposes trade war tariffs and carries out a global military build-up targeting both Russia and China. After years of proxy war with Russia in Syria and of naval stand-offs in the South China Sea, Washington even repudiated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) treaty, allowing it to station nuclear missiles in Europe and the Pacific, targeting Russia and China.

On the other, as China’s economy grows, and as the European powers’ relations with Washington grow increasingly tense, they are orienting to closer economic relations with Beijing. The Guardian called Xi’s Paris meeting “a show of unity in the face of Trump’s tariffs aimed across both the Atlantic and the Pacific.”

In this situation, every capitalist power or bloc of powers is steeling itself for conflict against all potential adversaries. Last year, French President Macron publicly announced that Europe had to be prepared to militarily confront Russia, China or the United States.

This year, even as the European powers ignored US denunciations of the BRI, they are at the same time adopting resolutions branding China as a potential enemy. At a recent summit on China, the EU decided to stop calling it a “strategic partner” and identified it instead as a “systemic rival promoting alterntive models of governance” and “an economic competitor in the pursuit of technological leadership.”

UK Conservatives’ rampant Islamophobia and racism covered up by party tops, downplayed by media

Margot Miller 

Ever since Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Labour Party leader in 2015, a hysterical witch-hunt against him and the wider left has been led by the Blairites, the media and the ruling Conservative Party equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

No allegation has been too fantastical and contrived to avoid being heavily cited amid banner headlines, with the necessary comments solicited from pro-Zionist MPs and groups.

These smears and lies, designed to rewrite political history to associate the left with anti-Semitism, have been conducted by newspapers all but blind to the naked Islamophobia and racism within the Conservative Party.

This month an anonymous Twitter account, @matesjacob, sent damning material to the Guardian which it was obliged to report. On March 5, the Guardian reported that 14 Conservative members had been suspended for allegedly making Islamophobic comments on social media that could have been easily unearthed by any major newspaper. In total, the party suspended more than 40 members over allegations of anti-Muslim behaviour.

On March 18, the BuzzFeed news site reported that another 25 self-proclaimed Tories had posted similar offensive material on Facebook. Buzzfeed noted that the Tories “refused to say how many of the 25 had been suspended.”

Within days, on March 24, the Guardian reported that 15 of the suspended Tory members, who served as elected councillors, had been quietly reinstated. The Guardian noted that its research “suggested that in the majority of cases where a councillor was reprimanded for retweeting or sharing offensive content, they were later readmitted to the party.”

Conservative councillor Martyn York, in Wellingborough, a moderator for the Facebook page “Boris Johnson: Supporters’ Group,” was recently suspended for Islamophobic comments, including some inciting violence, that were allowed on the site with 4,800 members.

Dorinda Bailey, a former Conservative council candidate and member of the group, replied to a user saying of mosques, “Bomb the f****** lot”: “I agree, but any chance you could edit your comment please. No swearing policy.”

Group members referred to Muslims as “ragheads” and described immigrants as “cockroaches.” One told a black soldier to “p*** off back to Africa” and for black former Labour MP Fiona Onasanya to be “put on a banana boat back home.”

Two Conservative councillors from East Staffordshire resigned following criticism for liking and sharing a post which showed the queen beheading London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

On the same day as it reported the reinstatement of the councillors, the Guardian published evidence of five more Islamophobic social media postings by Tory party members.

One said, “Muslims are cavemen” who should be “rounded up,” alongside offensive remarks about Muslim women on a Facebook page, the “Jacob Rees-Mogg Supporters Group.”

A filthy social media posting, uncovered by matesjacob, and written just days before the fascist gunman Brenton Tarrant murdered 50 people in a massacre at two mosques in New Zealand, declared, “I was going through a few magazines the other day down the local mosque. I was really enjoying myself. Then the rifle jammed.” The Guardian reported that the author of these lines "photographed himself with Boris Johnson in 2015." Johnson is a leader of the Tory’s hard-Brexit wing, former foreign secretary and expected future leadership contender.

Other comments included, “turf all Muslims out of public office.” Another wanted to “get rid of all mosques,” agreeing that “no Pakistani should become prime minister.” Another read, “A practicing Muslim should not be allowed to work in any of the emergency professions.” “No Muslim will get my vote,” read one post and another, “stand against the Islamification of our country.” A vote cast for Home Secretary Sajid Javid would be a vote for “Islam to lead this country,” wrote another.

Most sinister of all, one post in the group showed a map where all mosques are situated in the UK, eliciting several racist responses including, “[W]e’re just letting the takeover happen.”

Brenton’s Tarrant’s massacre in Christchurch was followed by a number of attacks on mosques in the UK. In 2017, the fascist Darren Osborne drove a van into Muslim worshippers outside London’s Finsbury Park Mosque that left one dead and 10 injured.

Racist views pervade the highest echelons of the party. Conservative MP for Harrow East, Bob Blackman, posted an article on Facebook last year with the inflammatory header “Muslim Somali sex gang say raping white British children ‘part of their culture.’” He invited Indian anti-Muslim Hindu politician Tapan Ghosh to Parliament last year. While in Britain, Ghosh met with Tommy Robinson, the far-right ex-leader of the English Defence League (EDL).

The leader of Swale Borough Council, Andrew Bowles, found himself suspended after sharing a post defending Robinson as a patriot. He was fully reinstated after just 13 days. Solihull Borough Councillor Jeff Potts was also readmitted after his suspension last September for tweeting that all Muslims should face deportation, otherwise they would “kill innocent people for generations to come.”

Another reinstated councillor is Mike Payne from Calderdale, who posted, “France slashed benefits to Muslim parasites.”

A Conservative candidate for Hounslow council, Peter Lamb, was forced to resign, though his initial suspension was lifted, after tweeting in 2015, “Islam is like alcoholism. The first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem.”

The Muslim Council of Britain has been calling since 2016 for the Conservatives to hold an inquiry into Islamophobia in the party, the scale of which they describe as “astonishing.” The Council told VICE that “racists clearly feel emboldened by Boris Johnson’s Islamophobic comments.”

Last Summer, Johnson was denounced for “dog-whistle” Islamophobia by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a former Conservative chair and the UK’s first Muslim cabinet minister, after he compared Muslim women in burqas to “letterboxes” and “bank robbers.”

Warsi has accused her party of “institutional” anti-Muslim behaviour and “turning a blind eye” to prejudice. She has demanded an inquiry into Islamophobia in the party for three years.

While trying to downplay evidence of widespread racism within the party, ConservativeHome editor Paul Goodman was forced to acknowledge that it “has a Tommy Robinson tendency.” However, the site, owned by former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party Lord Ashcroft, is itself littered with Islamophobic comments.

The VICE website reported that one posting on the site likened the burqa to “SS uniforms” and raised the need “to eradicate the cancer of Islam” and “Middle Eastern cultures.” Another wrote, “People like the EDL want to protect English communities from the very apparent depredations of Muslim grooming gangs and other predatory behaviour.” Another asked, “Do we English wish to be integrated with the foreign populations colonising, displacing and replacing Us?”

The Conservative Party has a long history of whipping up racism in a divide-and-conquer strategy to legitimise its policies of austerity, militarism and war.

Since 2002, 63 people belonging to the “Windrush generation” of West Indian migrants residing legally in the UK have been snatched from their homes and deported illegally.

For a month in mid-2013, the Home Office sent vans into six London boroughs with high immigrant populations plastered with the slogans: “In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest.” May launched this policy as home secretary in the Cameron-led Tory government.

In January 1978, Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made the infamous statement that “people are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture.” In 2014, then Conservative Defence Secretary Michael Fallon repeated Thatcher’s words, declaring that towns in Britain are being “swamped” by immigrants. They were “under siege [with] large numbers of migrant workers and people claiming benefits.”

The postings uncovered from only a small number of the many pro-Conservative social media pages must be taken together with the innumerable comments posted in pro-Tory newspapers as proof that Britain’s ruling party is a hotbed of fascist reaction. While fascism does not yet have a mass social base, a rabid, fascistic layer is being deliberately nurtured and encouraged by the Conservatives, as with other bourgeois parties internationally, as they move to more authoritarian forms of rule and make ready the forces who will be used to combat a resurgent movement of the working class.

After fascist attack, New Zealand government enacts gun control measures

John Braddock & Tom Peters

Just six days after the March 15 Christchurch mosque shootings in which a fascist killed 50 people, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern last week announced a ban on military style, semi-automatic guns and assault rifles.

Ardern declared: “On 15 March our history changed forever. Now, our laws will too. We are announcing action today on behalf of all New Zealanders to strengthen our gun laws and make our country a safer place.” Changes to the law in the aftermath of the 1990 Aramoana massacre, when a local resident shot and killed 13 people, did not go far enough, Ardern said.

The Labour Party-led government’s legislation, which has full cross-party support, will be introduced under urgency procedures when parliament sits next week. Under an Order in Council, the ban on trading and use of such weapons came into force immediately.

The population remains shocked by the horrific events that unfolded in Christchurch. On March 22, people observed an official call for two minutes’ silence. Some 20,000 gathered in Christchurch and 15,000 in Dunedin to attend vigils in memory of the victims. The widespread anger over the shooting, and sympathy for its victims, is being channeled toward gun control for definite political purposes.

International media coverage seized on the initiative, as well as moves to restrict freedom of expression on social media platforms, to praise Ardern’s “inspirational leadership.” A glowing March 21 editorial in the New York Times,entitled “America Deserves a Leader as Good as Jacinda Ardern,” proclaimed that “the world should learn from the way Jacinda Ardern… has responded to the horror.”

Democratic Party members who are falsely presented as “lefts” also applauded her. Presidential aspirant Bernie Sanders posted on Twitter: “This is what real action to stop gun violence looks like. We must follow New Zealand’s lead, take on the NRA [National Rifle Association] and ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons in the United States.”

This campaign seeks to cover up the responsibility of the political establishment and the state in New Zealand, as well as in US, Europe and Australia, for fanning the growth of the far-right by stirring up anti-immigrant xenophobia and racism.

To present “gun control” as a solution to the type of far-right extremist violence unleashed in Christchurch is a fraud on many levels. As Brenton Tarrant’s manifesto makes clear, he planned his attack over a two-year period in a highly-disciplined and determined manner and was not wedded to using guns. Little has been said about the fact that two explosive devices were discovered on a car following Tarrant’s arrest.

Moreover, Tarrant had a long history of connections with known far-right groups and made his plans known online before the massacre, raising disturbing questions about why police and intelligence agencies did not prevent the attack.

Alongside the gun control measures, New Zealand’s chief censor banned Tarrant’s manifesto. This is an anti-democratic move aimed at preventing ordinary people from seeing the striking similarity of Tarrant’s racist and anti-Muslim rhetoric and that of the establishment political parties, most obviously NZ First, which is a coalition partner in the Labour-led government, alongside the Greens.

The focus on guns goes hand-in-hand with censorship. It aims to obscure the fact that successive Labour and National-led governments have overseen a social crisis since the 1980s and a quarter century of criminal US-led wars that has helped create the conditions for the re-emergence of fascism as an international phenomenon.

As Tarrant’s manifesto boasts, there is widespread sympathy for fascism in governments, the military, police and intelligence agencies. Yet the mass shooting is being exploited to bolster the powers and resources of the state apparatus.

The ruling elite views gun control as one way to expand police powers and prepare to suppress the growing struggles against deteriorating living standards and the drive to war. The law change coincides with a push to arm police with guns. New Zealand is one of a handful of countries where front-line officers do not routinely carry firearms, but in recent years this has begun to change. Killings by armed police have become more common.

Officially, Tarrant is the sole suspect in the Christchurch attack. Yet despite him being in custody, the country remains on a “high” threat alert, meaning a “terrorist attack is assessed as very likely.” It is the first time New Zealand has had a high threat level, and it has been used to deploy police on the streets with semi-automatic weapons.

Under the new restrictions, weapons similar to those used in the terrorist attack will be outlawed. Related parts capable of converting guns into semi-automatics (MSSAs) also will be banned, along with high-capacity magazines. A buyback scheme will allow gun owners to return weapons. After a “reasonable time” those who continue to possess the guns could be prosecuted. Current gun law penalties are up to $4,000 and/or three years in prison, but the new law would increase these.

On Monday, Police Minister Stuart Nash told TVNZ the immediate bans would be followed with laws to tighten vetting procedures, licensing and storage of weapons. Yet questions remain unanswered about why the police granted the Christchurch shooter a gun license, despite his many public statements on social media in support of fascists, and threats to kill “Marxists and globalists.”

Ardern claimed Tarrant had exploited “loopholes” in the law. Police, however, said he obtained his license after being vetted. In late 2017, police interviewed him and also spoke to two referees who reportedly vouched for his character. Police have not revealed what they discussed with Tarrant, nor the identity of his referees. A former police firearms control officer, Joe Green, told the media that the referees were a father and son whom the far-right extremist had met in an online forum.

All the parliamentary parties—government and opposition—have vowed to prevent a repeat of the atrocity, but for decades they have created the reactionary political climate that enable the rise of fascist groups. All of them have supported the bogus “war on terror,” including the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, which have fuelled anti-Muslim xenophobia. The entire political establishment has backed immigration restrictions, suggesting that immigrants and refugees are to blame for the social crisis created by the austerity measures of successive governments.

Workers should oppose the strengthening of the state apparatus, which will inevitably be used against the struggles of the working class, as will the gangs of fascist thugs. The only way to end the threat of fascism is to abolish its root cause—the bankrupt and decaying capitalist system.

Outrage grows over leaked government database targeting journalists, activists at US-Mexico border

Kevin Martinez 

According to leaked documents provided to local San Diego news station NBC 7, a government database has been targeting journalists and activists at the southern US border. As news has spread of the operation many other groups and organizations have also spoken of increased surveillance and harassment by the Border Patrol, ICE, and other government agencies for covering immigration in Mexico.

The database was part of Operation Secure Line, the Trump administration’s military operation to block immigrants who were travelling in last year’s Central American caravan. Images of the 59 persons targeted were included along with personal information and descriptive tags like “journalist” and “organizer” along with a large green “X” over some of the faces.

These markers would indicate that an alert had been placed on the person’s passport and if they were stopped would be forced into secondary inspection. Many activists and journalists would be detained for hours or had their passports held in limbo without being offered a credible explanation by the border authorities.

While many have long suspected that the government was tracking their whereabouts at the southern border, the documents obtained by NBC 7 prove the Trump administration is expanding its war on immigrants to attack the democratic rights of the entire population.

ACLU staff attorney Esha Bhandari told the Guardian, “I have not seen this kind of systematic targeting of journalists and advocates in this way,” adding, “I think it is very troubling, very disturbing.”

Bhandari said, “It means that the debate about immigrants’ rights, about the treatment of immigrants, about the treatment of asylum seekers, is going to be suppressed or censored because the people who are speaking out with a voice that’s critical of the government are going to be singled out for harsher treatment or punished.”

New York City activist Ravi Ragbir, director of the New Sanctuary Coalition, lived in the US for 23 years before he was arrested after a routine meeting with ICE. He was set to be deported to his native Trinidad before he was eventually released by a judge after public protests.

Ragbir told the media how his arrest was in retaliation for his campaign to free Gambian immigrant Baba Sillah, who also arrested after a routine check-in with ICE. “It’s just very uncertain and very traumatizing to know the government is watching you,” Ravi told the Guardian. “But I can’t allow that to debilitate me … If they’re going to move me, I might as well fight as hard as I can.”

Other groups pro-immigrant groups have also faced increasing surveillance by the state. Last October, three activist groups in Washington sued the government for retaliating against their members.

In November, the Vermont-based group Migrant Justice filed a lawsuit alleging the government had been spying on its members for years, including using an informant. One of the organizers, Will Lambek, told the Guardian how CBP detained and arrested at least 20 of its members between 2016 and 2018.

This month Nation magazine obtained a spreadsheet used by ICE to monitor protests planned in New York City, including the New Sanctuary Coalition. The revelation prompted the House Committee on Homeland Security to write a letter to the acting director of ICE to obtain more information about the spreadsheet.

The same committee, led by Democrat Bennie G. Thompson, sent a letter to CBP commissioner Kevin McAleenan expressing “great concern” about the agency’s spying. It stated, the CBP’s “targeting (of) journalists, lawyers, and advocates… raises question about possible misuse of CBP’s border search authority and requires oversight to ensure the protection of Americans’ legal and constitutional rights.”

The panel’s Subcommittee on Border Security set a March 14 deadline for the CBP to provide a full list of individuals under surveillance, as well as “dossiers” on targeted individuals, a list of how many times they had been stopped by CBP, and other information. As of this writing, the CBP has failed to provide any of these documents.

In an effort at damage control, the CBP did release a statement saying the program was a necessary response to the so-called “assaults” on the border patrol in November of last year, when federal agents along with the US military fired tear gas at immigrants approaching the San Ysidro crossing on the Mexican border.

The CBP stated, “efforts to gather this type of information are a standard law enforcement practice,” and said the agency, “does not target journalists for inspection based on their occupation or their reporting.”

An internal review had been started by the CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility and the Office of Inspector General in the Department of Homeland Security to ostensibly check for any wrongdoing. However this had only been started after NBC 7 had contacted the government agencies on February 27.

Alex Mensing, an activist with Pueblo Sin Fronteras whose name appeared in the database, told NBC 7, “What is especially concerning is the number of human rights defenders and journalists who are being interrogated and added to this list, which is only designed to intimidate them and discourage them from speaking out.”

He added, “It’s upsetting to know the U.S. government is using its resources to monitor human rights defenders and journalists who are doing their work.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom and local Democratic congressmen also criticized the program while the government of Mexico denied any involvement in the program. The foreign secretary said, “The Mexican government does not conduct illegal surveillance on anyone, for any type or category of activity.”

Xi Jinping tours Europe amid growing divisions between America and EU

Alex Lantier

On Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up a six-day tour of Europe that took him to Rome, Sicily, Monaco and Paris. This trip and the signing of multiple business and strategic agreements between China and the European powers have exposed the deep conflicts that exist between the United States and its nominal European allies.

Before Xi’s trip, the press had leaked news that Italy planned to endorse China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for transport, energy and industrial infrastructure across Eurasia.

This provoked bitter opposition from Washington. After launching a “pivot to Asia” to militarily isolate China in 2011, the US has now repudiated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty to allow it to deploy large numbers of nuclear missiles targeting China and Russia. On Twitter, the US National Security Council warned Italy it was legitimizing China’s “predatory approach to investment and will bring no benefits to the Italian people.”

The European Union (EU) powers thrust aside US objections, however. After the EU powers all signed on in 2015 to the BRI’s funding arm, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, this weekend Rome signed a Memorandum of Understanding endorsing the BRI.

Paris bitterly complained that Rome had sidelined its EU partners in its talks with China. However, when Xi arrived, it proceeded to sign its own multi-billion-euro deals with him. The biggest, a €30 billion deal for Franco-German firm Airbus to sell jetliners to China, included a large new order as China abandons the Boeing 737 MAX for Airbus A320s after two horrific crashes. French President Emmanuel Macron then met Xi together with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said she saw “nothing to criticize” in Italy’s deal with Xi endorsing the BRI.

These meetings unfolded amid explosive tensions with the United States over policy towards China and Russia. This month, after Merkel rejected US calls to boycott Chinese tech firm Huawei’s products, US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell threatened to suspend US intelligence cooperation with Germany. At the same time, Washington is threatening Berlin with sanctions if it does not abandon its Nordstream 2 pipeline bringing Russian gas to Germany.

Despite their remarkable clashes with Washington, the policy of the European imperialist powers is not fundamentally different, or less predatory and reactionary. They plan to plunge hundreds of billions of euros into their military machines, financed by austerity targeting the working class, to give them the military might to better confront Washington.

London’s Financial Times laid out the militarist implications of attempts to pursue an independent European policy in its editorial yesterday. “The EU fears being squeezed between the US and China as the Trump administration takes an ever-harder line towards Beijing. European leaders do not want to be forced into a choice between the two,” it wrote, adding that EU member states either “take China’s direct investment or put a premium on exporting to China.”

In Europe, the FT continued, “Some argue for building an autonomous foreign and defence capacity. But for years to come, Europe will be unable to stand alone.” It euphemistically called on the major EU powers to “think more strategically” and “take the lead.” In plain English, this means Europe should hurry to rearm.

The European heads of state themselves do not know whether the weapons they are building would serve to join a US onslaught against China, a Chinese war against America, or some other conflict. However, two years since US President Donald Trump speculated about an end of the NATO alliance and threatened trade war against German car exports, longstanding international arrangements underpinning the affairs of world capitalism are rapidly disintegrating.

The contradictions of capitalism that the great Marxists of the 20th century identified as leading to the outbreak of world war and the October 1917 Revolution in Russia—between world economy and the nation-state system, and social production and private appropriation of profit—are reasserting themselves.

The BRI is a multi-trillion-dollar plan, laid out in 2013, placing China at the hub of a vast web of rail and road networks, ports, energy pipelines and industrial facilities ranging from China across the Eurasian landmass to Europe, going as far as East Africa and Indonesia. Hundreds of billions have already been spent on initiatives like the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, regular Chinese freight train service to Iran and Germany via Russia, and Indian Ocean ports. Chinese state-owned enterprises are coordinating enormous international operations as much of Eurasia industrializes.

This brings Beijing into headlong conflict with Washington. It also creates the conditions for a potential conflict with the European powers if they align themselves with the BRI. On Xi’s Europe tour, the Washington Post quoted analyst Jacob Shapiro, who warned that pan-Eurasian plans lay “the groundwork for precisely the type of power the US has been obsessed with thwarting for over two centuries. As overly ambitious as China’s larger strategic goal may be, it is precisely that strategic aim that so irks the United States. While it doesn’t particularly care if China builds a port in Italy or high-speed rail in Poland, it does care about the potential emergence of a dominant power in Eurasia.”

Washington’s main strategy, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 threw open Central Asia to imperialist intervention, was to dominate this region as the key to controlling the Eurasian land mass. It launched a series of wars in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and beyond. Despite growing commercial rivalries with the United States, the European imperialist powers largely joined these wars. They cost millions of lives, shattered entire societies and discredited the ruling classes of the imperialist countries among workers internationally.

But the debacle of these neo-colonial interventions has only led Washington to up the ante, preparing new, even bloodier wars and provocations targeting Russia and China directly.

The European imperialist powers’ attempts to formulate an independent imperialist policy do not offer a peaceful alternative to Washington’s wars. Their rearmament, financed by austerity, goes hand in hand with a relentless march to the far right and towards police state rule. While right-wing extremist professors legitimize Hitler’s crimes to justify German remilitarization, French President Emmanuel Macron has hailed fascist dictator Philippe Pétain and given authorization to shoot down “yellow vest” protesters opposed to social inequality and war.

Ultimately, the deepening global antagonisms rending the global geopolitical order carry with them the immense danger of a new world war, this time fought with nuclear weapons. The working class is the only social force capable of opposing the imperialist war drive.

The most urgent political task is the building of an international anti-war movement in the working class amid an upsurge of the class struggle. The eruption of mass protests for the downfall of Algeria’s military regime, the “yellow vest” movement and strikes against EU wage freezes across Europe, reports of growing social protest in China, and strikes by US teachers and Mexican autoworkers against both the unions and the companies point to an enormous radicalization of workers. The critical issue is to orient them to the great tasks posed by the objective situation.

The only way to rationally organize the international productive forces created by modern society and prevent a new relapse into horrific wars is the expropriation of the capitalist classes by the working class, fighting on a program of world socialist revolution.

Sri Lankans driven to suicide by exorbitant debt repayments

Saman Gunadasa

According to a March 17 report in Sri Lanka’s Observer newspaper, at least 170 debt-ridden rural residents, mainly women, committed suicide last year. Most of those who took their lives were from the island’s war-devastated North and East.

The suicides are another indication of the deep-going social and economic problems facing the rural poor who are being hit by rising living costs and government cuts to subsidies and social welfare programs.

Citing information from the Progressive Peasants’ Congress, the newspaper reported that the latest suicide victim was from Elahara village in the Polonnaruwa district. The 38-year-old father took out an initial loan of 80,000 rupees ($US450) but was unable to service it, then borrowed another 30,000 rupees to pay back part of the original loan.

Desperate to settle the debt he moved to Colombo, over 170 kilometres away, in an attempt to secure masonry work. He was unsuccessful and returned to the village where he took his life. His suicide is one of many such tragedies reported in the media over recent years.

The loan taken out by the poverty-stricken Elahara villager is typical of those being provided by so-called micro-finance lenders.

According to the government’s National Economic Council, there are around 10,000 such lenders in the country, the majority of them not subject to any regulations. The development finance department of the finance ministry estimates that about 2.9 million people—84 percent of them women—obtained loans from these companies in 2017.

Official bank interest rates on loans in Sri Lanka are generally between 15 and 20 percent. While the Central Bank has imposed a maximum rate of 35 percent for microfinance loans, some lenders charge unbearable rates ranging as high as 220 percent.

Most of those who committed suicide in response to exorbitant loan repayments last year were from the Vavuniya and Jaffna districts in the island’s north and Batticalao in the east.

Colombo’s devastating three-decade war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam killed nearly 200,000 people and destroyed the homes and livelihoods of tens of thousands more in these areas. Currently there are about 90,000 war widows in the North and East provinces attempting to maintain their families without any real income.

Since the war ended in 2009, successive Sri Lankan governments have refused to provide economic and social support for these war survivors, opening the way for predatory lenders to profit from the suffering.

A protest in Kilinochchi last June against the micro-finance system

A report to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) by Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky in January noted that various institutions “generate huge profits by putting enormous pressure on poor borrowers, and on women in particular.”

While some loans were for small businesses, others were to cover everyday living expenses or to reduce or pay off previous loans, Bohoslavsky reported. He noted that “collectors visit the houses of these women, sometimes on a daily basis, and that the women are [often] exposed to psychological and physical violence by collectors.” Debt collectors sometimes pressurised women for “sexual favours,” he said, and that some female borrowers had even offered to sell their kidneys to repay loans.

K. Selvadi, 45 and a mother of four children, is from Kayts in Jaffna. She told World Socialist Web Site reporters that she and two other women jointly applied for a 75,000-rupee loan for a fishing net. Their husbands had to sign as guarantors and the repayments are 2,000 rupees per month.

Selvadi said that she faced an uphill battle to pay the interest and settle the loan because the income from fishing was insufficient.

“I am looking for odd jobs in vegetable gardens. This is very difficult work because it is in the hot sun and they only pay 700 rupees for a whole day. One of my daughters works in a crab meat company for just 15,000 rupees per month,” she explained.

M. Sivaranjani, 36, from Velanai, obtained three loans totalling 300,000 rupees in order to develop the family’s fishing business. She pays about 10,000 rupees per month on loan repayments.

“If we don’t pay these installments the debt collectors come to our home. We have to borrow from friends or relatives in order keep up the payments. Our lives have been transformed into a debt-ridden existence,” she said.

Kirubalini, 44, from Velanai, spends her entire earnings on interest repayments. “The government has said that it will write off microfinance loans but it’s done nothing. It also promised to provide low interest loans but these will still be loans. I can’t sleep properly because of these debts,” she said.

While rural farmers are borrowing from the banks in order to pay for farm inputs, they are also taking out additional loans from microfinance companies for basic living expenses. They frequently confront crop failure due to drought or floods. Currently, 14 districts in Sri Lanka are experiencing severe drought.

Radhika Gunarathna, director of the Nelumyaya Foundation, a non-governmental organisation, told the media that she recently learnt that a 45-year-old mother of two was on the brink of a family suicide because their bakery had gone bankrupt. They had borrowed 800,000 rupees to sustain the small business. Her husband suggested that they close all the doors and windows of their home and that all four members of the family gas themselves to death.

Farming communities are burdened by the rising cost of seed, pesticides and fertilisers whose prices are controlled by profiting-gouging multinational corporations. Protests by farmers demanding guaranteed prices for their produce and improved subsidies, including for fertiliser, are increasing across the island.

Plantation workers are also heavily burdened by exorbitant loans because they do not receive a living wage. In recent months estate workers have held militant protests and a six-day national strike to demand a doubling of their 500-rupee daily basic wage. This struggle was betrayed by the plantation unions who settled on a paltry pay rise tied to increased productivity rates.

Sri Lankan Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera last month visited northern Jaffna in a desperate attempt to deflect mounting anger over microfinance loans. He declared that the government would write-off nearly 1,400 million rupees in capital and interest costs to more than 45,000 female borrowers.

Blaming “loan sharks” for the high interest rates, Samaraweera, admitted that the government’s debt write-off “is a short-term solution to a much larger problem” but declared “it is not feasible to have multiple debt write offs of this nature.” He proclaimed the government would introduce new laws and regulations to control the so-called microfinance industry.

Samaraweera’s claims are bogus. His recent International Monetary Fund-endorsed budget, which will force the working masses into further debt, provided generous concessions to big business and finance capital.

Suicides caused by rural debt, including microfinance borrowings, are a rampant problem in so-called developing countries. In India, for example, 5,650 debt-ridden farmers and 6,710 agricultural workers committed suicide in 2014. The following year 8,007 farmers and 4,595 agricultural workers took their own lives. The Indian government responded to these catastrophic and increasing figures by stopping its recording of the number of suicides.

US threatens Turkey over Russian S-400 air defence purchase

Jordan Shilton

Turkish-US relations have deteriorated in recent weeks, with Washington threatening reprisals if Ankara goes ahead with the purchase of the Russian-made S-400 air defence system.

Relations between the two countries have been in a downward spiral for some time—especially since Washington made the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara considers a “terrorist organization” and threat to the Turkish state, its main proxy army in its regime-change war in Syria, then supported a failed July 2016 coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Differences have since expanded to include an array of Mideast and even global issues. Washington is particularly alarmed by Ankara’s attempts to offset pressure from its traditional western allies by forging closer ties with Russia and Iran.

Washington is adamant Turkey not finalize the purchase of the S-400, a long-range air and missile defence system, for $2.5 billion, claiming that its deployment would disrupt US-Turkish and Turkish-NATO military-security cooperation.

In testimony before a congressional committee Tuesday, the acting US defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, signalled that if Ankara proceeds with the S-400 purchase, Washington will block further shipments of F-35 fighter jets to Ankara and cut Turkish companies out of the F-35 project.

Asked if the Pentagon wants Turkey as an F-35 partner, Shanahan said, “We absolutely do,” then added, “We need Turkey to buy the Patriot.” This was a reference to Washington’s offer to sell US-made Patriot missile batteries to Ankara for $3.5 billion in lieu of the S-400.

If Turkey deploys the S-400 it will run afoul of US sanctions against Russia. The 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act empowers the president to impose sweeping sanctions on any individual, organization or state that enters into a “significant transaction” with the defence or intelligence sectors of the Russian Federation. Washington could also seek to intensify pressure on Ankara by refusing to grant Turkey an extension of the “waiver” exempting it from the unilateral and patently illegal US embargo on Iranian energy exports. Turkey is heavily reliant on Iranian natural gas.

Senior Trump administration officials have raised the prospect of Turkey being excluded from NATO activities, citing interoperability concerns with the Russian-made missile system.

Erdogan has, nonetheless, repeatedly vowed that Turkey will buy and deploy the S-400. In his latest comments on the subject, made in an interview last Sunday with television broadcaster TGRT Haber, Erdogan declared that no matter what the United States says, Turkey will not reverse its position on the deal.

Erdogan’s rebuke to Washington came just two days after he issued a critical statement protesting the Trump administration’s decision to recognise Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights. A Foreign Ministry statement subsequently declared, “This unfortunate decision... demonstrates that the US administration continues its approach to be part of the problem, rather than part of the solution in the Middle East.”

The dispute over the S-400 is a flashpoint for deeper conflicts bound up with Turkey’s geopolitical and military-strategic orientation. A member of NATO since 1952 and a key Western ally during the Cold War, Turkey has been severely destabilised by American imperialism’s more than quarter-century of uninterrupted war. Bordering Syria and Iraq to the south and with significant economic and political interests in the nearby regions of the Balkans and North Africa, Ankara was directly impacted by the first Gulf War, the Western-backed carve-up of Yugoslavia and NATO’s bombardment of Serbia, the 2003 Iraq invasion, the 2011 air onslaught on Libya to topple Gaddafi, and the ongoing bloodbath in Syria.

The Turkish ruling elite, including under Erdogan and his AKP during their first decade in power, supported the succession of US wars and tried to advance its own interests through them. But the many shifts in US policy frequently cut across their interests and ambitions.

With Syria matters came to a head. Initially Erdogan enthusiastically supported the US fomented regime-change war in Syria and Ankara was a major co-sponsor of the Islamist militias that spearheaded the drive to overthrow Bashar al-Assad and his Baathist regime. But Turkey was incensed when, once those militias had been pushed back, the US forged an alliance with the YPG, a Syrian offshoot of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), against which Ankara has waged a brutal counter-insurgency war for over three decades. It was within this context that Turkey orchestrated a rapprochement with Russia and intensified cooperation with Iran.

For Turkey, rolling back the proto-state that the YPG has established in northern Syria remains the overriding goal of its Syria policy. Toward this end it has repeatedly sent forces into Syria, while maintaining a shaky alliance of convenience with Moscow and Tehran and cooperating with them in the so-called Astana Syrian “peace process.”

The Pentagon meanwhile continues to rely on the YPG to provide a base for its predatory operations in Syria, including by denying the Assad regime access to the country’s most important oil fields.

The American national security establishment has increasingly come to view Turkey as an obstacle to its goal of securing unbridled hegemony over the energy-rich and strategically critical Middle East. In a recent analysis published by the Arab Gulf States Institute, a Washington-based think tank, the authors argued that the Middle East is increasingly divided into three blocs: the Sunni Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia, an Iran-led alliance that includes Hezbollah, and a Turkish-led bloc. “Turkey’s role at the epicenter of a new Middle East alliance was consolidated by the 2017 boycott of Qatar by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt. Qatar has relied on Turkey, which maintains a military base in that country, for support against the boycott,” they add.

Within this context, Turkey’s decision on the S-400 missile defence system is seen as having far-reaching consequences. In an editorial published earlier this month, the Financial Times, one of the principal mouthpieces of the US and European financial elites, argued, “Turkey can still reset its relations with the West.” After noting that Erdogan “took power in Turkey in 2003, offering stable civilian leadership, a new drive for EU membership and a business-friendly approach,” the Financial Times went on to complain: “In recent years, Mr. Erdogan has moved towards authoritarianism, alienating western allies and adopting questionable stewardship of the economy. Choosing to purchase Russian military hardware has raised further concerns.”

Erdogan has used the dispute with Washington over the S-400 to capitalise on popular hostility to US imperialism ahead of Turkey’s March 31 nationwide municipal elections. However, he has given little indication he plans to alter his stance towards Washington after the elections. On April 8, the Turkish president is due to travel to Moscow for one-on-one talks with Vladimir Putin.

At the same time, and clearly with a view to exploiting the growing rift between Europe and America, Erdogan has announced that Turkey will renew its bid to join the European Union next month.

Commentary in pro-government Turkish media indicate the anger within elite circles over Washington’s failure to accommodate what they perceive as their vital interests, and their fears that the country that has been Ankara’s principal military-security partner for decades can no longer be trusted. A common refrain is that if Turkey abandons the purchase of the S-400 and accepts Washington’s offer of the Patriot missiles, it could soon face additional US conditions, including making accommodations on Israel or Syria.

Turkish ruling circles also responded angrily to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s attendance at an energy summit involving Israel, Greece and Cyprus in Jerusalem March 20. Long-standing territorial disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean bound up with the Cyprus conflict, which pits a Turkish-recognised regime in the north of the island against the internationally-recognised Greek Cypriot government in Nicosia, have been compounded with the discovery of large natural gas resources under the sea floor.

That being said, Washington will undoubtedly bring tremendous pressure to bear on Ankara, including on the economic front. Just before Erdogan visits Moscow, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu will travel to a NATO foreign ministers meeting, where he is due to meet with Pompeo.

Any attempt by Turkey to move closer to Russia or China, which has invested heavily in Turkey over recent years and sought to win Ankara over to its Belt and Road Initiative, would be fraught with conflicts. Ankara’s disputes with the Western powers notwithstanding, the Turkish bourgeoisie still relies overwhelmingly on capital from Europe to invest in domestic projects, and the European Union remains far and away Turkey’s most important export destination.

As shown by last Friday’s 5 percent depreciation of the Turkish lira after Erdogan denounced Trump’s Golan decision and the crashing of the Turkish currency last August after the Trump administration doubled its tariffs on Turkey’s steel and aluminium exports, Turkey’s ruling elite is extremely vulnerable to pressure from the major imperialist powers.

Tensions rise between US, Russia and China over Venezuelan coup

Bill Van Auken

US President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House Wednesday that “Russia has to get out” of Venezuela. Asked how Washington would enforce this demand, he responded, “We’ll see. All options are open.”

Trump delivered his ultimatum during a White House photo op with Fabiana Rosales, the wife of right-wing opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who, with US backing, proclaimed himself “interim president” of Venezuela in January, calling upon the military to overthrow the existing government of President Nicolas Maduro.

Rosales, referred to by Trump administration officials as Venezuela’s “first lady,” is conducting an international tour aimed at drumming up support for the US-orchestrated regime change operation, which has flagged noticeably since the fiasco suffered last month with the failure of a cynical attempt to force trucks carrying supposed humanitarian aid across the Colombian-Venezuelan border.

Both Guaidó and his US patrons had predicted that the provocation would trigger a rising by the Venezuelan armed forces against Maduro. With a handful of right-wing opposition supporters and gang members turning out for the “humanitarian” hoax, security forces easily contained the attack.

The latest US provocation has centered upon the arrival in Venezuela over the weekend of two Russian aircraft carrying approximately 100 military personnel. An Antonov An-124 cargo jet and an Ilyushin II-62 passenger plane landed on Saturday at the Maiquetía airport outside of Caracas.

The arrival of the relative handful of Russian military personnel triggered a flurry of denunciations from top Trump administration officials, who have been orchestrating the bid to bring down the Venezuelan government.

White House national security adviser John Bolton declared that the US “will not tolerate hostile foreign military powers meddling” within the Western Hemisphere.

Earlier this month, Bolton invoked the Monroe Doctrine as the foundation of US policy in Venezuela. This 19th century declaration of US foreign policy initially was directed at opposing any attempts by the empires of Europe to recolonize newly independent republics in Latin America. In the 20th century, it was invoked by successive US governments as a license for US imperialism to use military force to impose its will throughout the hemisphere, resulting in some 50 direct armed interventions and the imposition of fascist-military dictatorships over much of South and Central America.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, meanwhile, told his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, in a March 25 telephone conversation, that Washington would “not stand idly by as Russia exacerbates tensions in Venezuela,” according to a spokesman for the State Department.

The State Department called the arrival of the Russian troops a “reckless escalation” of tensions in Venezuela, adding that “The continued insertion of Russian military personnel to support the illegitimate regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela risks prolonging the suffering of the Venezuelan people…”

What hypocrisy! Washington has imposed an ever-escalating wave of sanctions that have gravely exacerbated the intense crisis of the country’s economy, with Venezuelan working people paying the price. A Trump administration official briefing reporters last Friday boasted: “The effect of the sanctions is continuing and cumulative. It’s sort of like in Star Wars when Darth Vader constricts somebody’s throat, that’s what we are doing to the regime economically,”

The Russian Foreign Ministry quoted Lavrov as having responded to Pompeo by charging that “Washington’s attempts to organize a coup in Venezuela and threats against its legitimate government are in violation of the UN Charter and undisguised interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the arrival of the Russian troops was in fulfillment of an “agreement on military technical cooperation” signed between Moscow and Caracas in 2001.

“As in colonial times 200 years ago, the US continues to regard Latin America as a zone for its exclusive interests, its own ‘backyard’ and they directly demand that it should obey the US without a word, and that other countries should steer clear of the region,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday. “[D]oes the US think that people are waiting for it to bring democracy to them on the wings of its bombers? This question can be answered by Iraqis, Libyans and Serbs.”

Meanwhile, a US official speaking to Reuters expressed concern that the Russian military personnel who arrived on Saturday included a team of specialists in cybersecurity.

This concern coincides with a new series of electricity blackouts that began on Monday, affecting much of Caracas and at least 16 states. The Maduro government has blamed the outages on sabotage, including cyber-attacks on the power system’s computerized infrastructure.

Meanwhile the Venezuelan situation has also ratcheted up tensions between Washington and Beijing, with the US forcing the cancelation of a 60th anniversary meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which was set to begin on March 26 in Chengdu.

The Trump administration had demanded that the IDB accept a representative named by its puppet Guaidó as Venezuela’s representative at the meeting. China refused to issue a visa to Washington’s man, Ricardo Hausmann, a Harvard economist and former minister in the government of Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez, which oversaw the massacre of some 3,000 workers and youth in the suppression of the popular 1989 revolt known as the caracazo. Hausmann has publicly called for the US to invade Venezuela along with a “coalition of the willing.”

A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry defended Beijing’s action on Tuesday, declaring that “Guaidó himself is not a president elected through legal procedures and thus lacks legitimacy,” adding that “changing Venezuela’s representative at the IDB won’t help solve the Venezuelan issue.”

In response to a question about US denunciations of the Russian military presence in Venezuela, the Chinese spokesman stated: “First of all, countries in the Western Hemisphere, including Latin American countries, are all independent and sovereign states. They have the right to determine their own foreign policy and their way to engage in mutually beneficial cooperation with countries of their own choosing.”

He added, in a pointed criticism of US imperialist policy, “Latin American affairs are not a certain country’s exclusive business, nor is Latin America a certain country’s backyard.”

The heated exchanges between Washington, on the one hand, and Moscow and Beijing, on the other, expose the geo-strategic interests that underlie US imperialism’s regime change operation in Venezuela. Both Russia and China have established extensive economic and political ties with Venezuela, which boasts the largest proven oil reserves on the planet.

China has invested upwards of $50 billion in Venezuela over the past decade in loan agreements repaid with oil exports. Russia’s total investments in the country are estimated at close to $25 billion, including in the exploitation of a significant share of the country’s oil fields.

Washington views the Venezuelan crisis through the prism of the “great power” conflicts with “revisionist” states that it laid out in the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy and the Pentagon’s strategy document elaborated at the end of 2017.

US imperialism is determined to wrest control of Venezuela’s vast oil resources for the US-based energy monopolies and deny them to its global rivals, particularly China and Russia. To that end, it is prepared to starve the Venezuelan people and turn Latin America into a battlefield in a third world war.

Parliament rejects all alternatives as May’s offer to resign fails to stem Brexit crisis

Robert Stevens

Wednesday began with Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May informing her MPs that she will resign as party leader and prime minister if parliament passes the withdrawal deal she has agreed with the European Union (EU). It ended with a series of indicative votes on possible alternatives post-Brexit, none of which secured a majority.

May made her statement to the Tories’ backbench 1922 Committee, as MPs were set to vote on eight different Brexit policies, with the aim of ascertaining whether there was any consensus that could secure a majority.

While May did not give a precise timetable for her departure, Sky Newsreported from a Downing Street source that if her EU deal was passed this week—triggering an EU exit date of May 22 instead of April 12—she would stand down at that point to set into motion a Tory leadership contest. During this election period, May would remain as prime minister, but would be gone for the beginning of the next stage of negotiations with the EU when the two parties thrash out a trade deal.

May’s pledge to resign is her last card in the attempt to convince the Tories’ hard-Brexit wing and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), upon whose 10 MPs she relies, to back the agreement. But by last night, only around 25 Brexiteers had come out openly in support of her deal.

They were led by the head of the party’s European Research Group (ERG), Jacob Rees-Mogg, who penned an article in the Daily Mail stating that May’s deal was not a good one and he would have voted against it if “No Deal remained the default legal option.” However, “the Government and the Prime Minister have now ruled this out.” The current agreement not passing could result in a “long delay,” and given “the opposition to Brexit, it could be revoked or put to a skewed second referendum.”

Following Rees-Mogg, leading Brexiteer and former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said he would also come on board. However, a substantial number of some 30 ERG Tories, including the ERG deputy chairman, Steve Baker, are still not prepared to back the deal and May has failed to win the backing of the DUP. Late last night, the party’s parliamentary leader, Nigel Dodds, rejected abstaining on May’s deal, stating that the “DUP do not abstain on the [preservation of the UK] union.”

To make things worse still for May, parliament’s speaker, the Remain-supporting Tory John Bercow, reiterated that he would not allow May’s vote to be put a third time, after being decisively rejected in votes previously, unless it was materially different, and he would not allow the government to attempt to get around his ruling by using parliamentary manoeuvres.

Sensing blood in the water, European Council President Donald Tusk sought to bolster the pro-Remain faction of the British ruling elite, telling the European Parliament that he opposed those who said that the UK’s participation in forthcoming elections to the European Parliament, were the UK to seek a longer extension to Article 50 (governing the UK’s EU departure), would be “harmful or inconvenient.”

“Let me be clear, such thinking is unacceptable. … You cannot betray the six million people who signed the petition to revoke Article 50, the one million people who marched for a people’s vote, or the increasing majority of people who want to remain in the European Union.”

The EU’s Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, added that “Everything is possible,” and that the UK “can stay” in the EU if it wants to.

In the event, however, May’s travails did not translate into a majority for any alternative, and the hopes of the EU for a decisive shift failed to materialise.

Bercow selected eight indicative amendments to be voted on from 16 tabled, most supportive of some form of “soft Brexit,” except one from Tory John Baron supporting a no-deal Brexit on April 12 and one from Scottish National Party MP Joanna Cherry to revoke Article 50 if the alternative is a no-deal Brexit. The most important for the Remain faction was that of Blairite Labour MP Margaret Beckett for a “confirmatory” second referendum on any Brexit deal agreed by parliament.

No deal was resoundingly rejected. But all the amendments calling for permutations of a soft Brexit, with four backed by Labour, including its own proposal, were also defeated—with the highest vote going to the simple and limited call by Tory Ken Clarke for the UK to sign up to the Customs Union with the EU.

The call for a confirmatory people’s vote received the highest vote of all the defeated motions. It was backed by Labour but still lost by 295 to 268. The scale of the defeat would have been larger—possibly by another 20 plus votes—had May’s cabinet not been whipped to abstain on all the indicative votes.

The sense of despair in ruling circles was summed up by the Independent ’s headline, “MPs take back control of Brexit—only to find they have absolutely no idea what to do with it.”

In the vote’s aftermath, all sides continue frantic efforts to change the parliamentary arithmetic.

Media pundits continue to speculate on whether May could put her deal again and if she might still overcome Bercow’s ruling and win over the DUP and more Tory Eurosceptics. Others note that the tide is shifting towards Remain, even if as yet not decisively, and express hopes that May will have no alternative than to seek a further extension from the EU, which pro-Remain forces can use to their advantage. Some suggest May could agree to the offer by some Remainers that they will back her deal in return for the government accepting a “confirmatory” referendum—pitching her deal against remaining in the EU.

The only thing that is certain is that the Brexit crisis will continue to worsen, under conditions in which all ruling class factions involved are hostile to the essential interests of the working class.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn heads a party whose sole concern is to safeguard the global interests of British imperialism, either by securing a soft Brexit or, if possible, restoring membership of the EU trade bloc. He can barely make mention of a general election and the bringing down of the Tories because this is opposed by the Blairites in his own party. He poses no genuine socialist alternative to the pro-capitalist trade-war-based alternatives of “Leave” and “Remain”—both of which are predicated on a continued offensive against jobs, wages and essential social services.

It is thanks to Labour that an unprecedented crisis of rule for British imperialism continues to spiral out of control without workers being able to intervene politically in their own interests.

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) urges workers and young people to reject support for any faction of Britain’s ruling class and for its European counterparts such as Tusk, who are now masquerading as their friends. They must ally themselves with the European working class in a common struggle against the employers and their governments to replace a capitalist Europe of austerity, militarism and war with a United Socialist States of Europe based on production for social need and not private profit.