ON the day following the general election dominated by the Brexit issue, there are those on the left  who will be seen as again saying to working class people: “You’re too stupid to know what you’re doing” — just as we were told following the EU referendum. It seems almost designed to alienate anti-EU working class people from left organisations

Look at it like this.

In the European Union elections in May the Brexit Party won the most votes in Britain and became the largest single national party in the European Parliament. Does this show that working-class people “supported” the Brexit Party? If they supported it then, why did they dump it yesterday in the general election, in favour of the Tories?

They voted for the Brexit Party in the EU elections because they saw it as the best vehicle to achieve what they wanted, what had already been voted for in the referendum.

To get Britain out of the EU, they voted for the most unequivocal “Leave” Party. If they weren’t persuaded to boycott the EU election, it was a rational thing to do. They used rather than supported the Brexit Party. Then six months later they dumped it in the general election. It was no longer as useful a tool as the Tories, which seemed to offer a more reliable, direct and speedy route out of the EU.

The voters did not and do not “support” either of these parties — they simply attempted to use each of them at different times to achieve an end which was being denied them undemocratically.

Many people clearly wanted to take “first things first” – they were and are determined to “get Brexit done” – and would use any party that promised this to achieve it. And there was Boris Johnson apparently staking his whole political career on one promise – “to get it done.” From the day the Labour conference forced the leadership to allow Labour to be identified as a Remain party, it had very little chance of winning the general election.

Anyone who did serious campaigning will know – as was quite widely acknowledged in the news coverage last night – that Labour policies against austerity and for public services, jobs and public ownership were very popular – and indeed millions of people enthusiastically voted for the radical and transformative “for the many” manifesto. But we failed to establish  these vital issues as priorities – and achievable ones – in enough people’s minds.

Not unnaturally people with a deep distrust of manifestos, platforms and of all politicians and parties — born out of bitter experience over many decades, and reflecting the experience of the working class since they fought and won the vote — were not convinced that the transformative promises of the Labour manifesto would be delivered.

The Corbyn phenomenon of an honest politician is very new, and not recognised by most voters. They assume all mainstream politicians are liars and tricksters.

The backstabbing and smears of the Labour right, the scare stories and sustained venom of the media against Corbyn, the ganging up of the religious leaders to put their holy boots in, the Tory lies about the impossibility of a socialist economy and cries of “where’s the money coming from?” and the threats by the exploitative filthy rich to leave the country in event of a Labour win (because they recognised where the money was to come from!) — all these added to people’s lack of confidence in Labour to deliver.

Better then, many thought, to focus on the one issue where there was some sort of guarantee — “Get Brexit done.”

To contemptuously brush all this aside and to condemn these people as stupid will only confirm how out of touch “the left” is with working-class people — as is the pro-EU policy of the Labour Party.

Of course no Tory PM is “our PM.” They never have been, and never will be — but this one has been chosen as a best-bet vehicle to get Britain out of the EU — because Labour refused to! The damage this choice will cause is huge, but it is easy to see where it came from.

Now we have to develop deep defence against the Tories, against what will be a ramping up of privatisation, more poverty, a growing wealth gap, further precarious work, more economic and political attacks on the working class — including of course further anti-union legislation and action.

We need to work against the exploitative neoliberal trade deals with the EU and US.

We need to build a broad alliance against the monopoly corporations  that pull the politicians’ strings, and against their international economic and political organisations.

We need to attack “divide and rule” on race, sex and all other issues, and as well as working-class unity here, we need international unity with workers worldwide fighting the same things.

We need to rebuild confidence that socialism can be achieved — and that it is working-class people themselves who can “get it done.”

We need to make these issues the real, practical issues of the day and for this we need a mass movement of resistance by the people in workplaces and unions, in communities and political and social organisations. Such unity will not be built through recriminations about the election, or by leftist demonstrations, but by day-to-day agitating, educating and  organising… as it has been right through history.