THE Communist Party’s decision to call for a boycott of the EU “Parliament” election on May 23 has excited some controversy.

It was not considered lightly. Many of the party’s friends and allies on the left will respect it, some will disagree while others are not yet convinced.

On three occasions in the past, the CP has contested these elections, twice as part of broader No2EU coalitions with trade union, left-wing and immigrant workers’ organisations.

So it is not a question of opposing participation in EU elections in principle, even though the Brussels-Strasbourg Parliament has been designed to be one of the feeblest directly elected bodies on the planet.

After all, Britain’s Communists have long participated in elections to the Westminster Parliament, despite our fundamental opposition to the British state and its flawed institutions.

Moreover, the CP has contested seats in the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh National Assembly in the past, despite their lack of powers.

Today, therefore, it is not the powerlessness of the European Parliament, nor even its lack of any real organic link with an electorate of more than half million for every MEP, that lies behind the CP’s decision.

Rather, we are urging a boycott because the poll in Britain on May 23 is illegitimate. It is an insult to all those who participated in the June 2016 referendum in good faith, whether they voted to leave the EU or remain.

Britain’s electors were told that their decision would be sovereign. The major parties at the subsequent general election in May 2017 promised to respect the people’s verdict by implementing it.

MPs proceeded to pass the EU Withdrawal Act which set March 29 2019 as “Brexit Day” for Britain to leave the EU.

Yet those same MPs conspired to cancel that commitment and have since set and cancel two others for April 12 and May 22.

On April 11, EU heads of government granted Britain an extension of EU membership until October 31 on condition that the EU elections go ahead here on May 23 unless the Westminster Parliament passed a fresh Brexit Bill before then.

Thus the Commons charade continued as MPs pretended to seek a majority for a Brexit deal, but failed in their honest efforts.

In truth, it’s never been a matter of MPs failing to find an agreed form of Brexit. They haven’t been looking for one. Rather, they have been trying to find an agreed way of either diluting Theresa May’s “semi-Brexit” package or overturning Brexit altogether.

Most Labour MPs have had no genuine objection to the Prime Minister’s Withdrawal Agreement, but they would have preferred to dilute it still further into a “quarter-Brexit” by locking Britain into a permanent customs union bossed by the EU Commission.

Senior Tory and Labour MPs have gone to Brussels recently to see whether the agreement’s accompanying Political Declaration can be reworded accordingly.

But many Labour and Tory MPs would ideally like to dump Brexit completely — although some fear the electoral consequences of so blatantly ditching popular sovereignty and their own pseudo-solemn promises.

They see a second referendum as the best way of trying to sabotage any and every kind of Brexit.

This has involved prominent MPs standing on their heads. For example, three months after the June 2016 referendum, Lib Dem leader Vince Cable had declared: “The public have voted, and I do think it’s seriously disrespectful and politically utterly counterproductive to say: ‘Sorry guys, you got it wrong, let’s try again’.”

Now parties on both sides of the Leave/Remain divide are, in effect, using the EU elections as a second referendum.

Only a “people’s boycott” next Thursday will uphold the principle that the people have already decided to leave the EU and their decision must be implemented.

What is the alternative?

Voting for the Brexit Party (BP) will assist the political comeback of its reactionary anti-immigrant and Trump-loving neoliberal leader Nigel Farage. Even worse, a vote for Ukip is a vote to endorse its lurch to open collaboration with fascists and racists.

Given the wide range of mostly anti-Brexit alternatives, tactical voting is unlikely to prevent gains by these two parties.

A progressive “people’s boycott,” on the other hand, is the only course of action that could appeal to working-class Brexit supporters who might otherwise turn out to vote for the Brexit Party or Ukip.

Make no mistake, the responsibility for breathing life into what were the corpses of Ukip and its ex-leader only 12 months ago lies with all those who have been trying to delay, dilute or delete Brexit.

A vote for the Lib Dems, the Greens, the SNP or Plaid Cymru on May 23 will also be a vote for their leaders’ contempt for democracy, for popular sovereignty and for the choice of 17.4 million people (which includes many of their own supporters who opted for Leave in 2016).

A vote for the Tories could help prolong the existence of their two-faced, divided and rotting regime and its right-wing policies.

Which leaves what would normally be the preferred option in most constituencies in other elections, namely, a vote for Labour.

However, most Labour candidates have made clear their support for remaining in the EU. Many have announced that they want a second referendum in which they would campaign for such an outcome.

In Wales, for instance, all four prospective Labour MEPs have issued a joint statement to this effect, demonstrating their contempt for both the majority of Welsh referendum voters and for official Labour Party policy.

Like many other Labour candidates, they use their disruptive pro-EU position to undermine Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership — itself the result of yet another democratic election for which they have no respect.

Recent advances by the pro-EU, pro-second referendum, anti-Corbyn, anti-socialist, “Stop Brexit” faction in Labour’s shadow cabinet and parliamentary party are increasingly branding Labour as an “anti-Brexit” party in this election.

They have succeeded in scuppering the talks with the Tory government by demanding that a permanent customs union with the EU and a second referendum form part of any new Brexit package.

These are the politics that, when elected, most Labour MEPs would spout from their newly found platform. They are also driving many Labour supporters into the Brexit Party camp.

Labour’s pro-EU fanatics understand all too well that Britain’s continuing alignment with EU single market and customs union rules would throw powerful obstacles in the path of a left-led Labour government and its policies for state aid to industry, infrastructure investment, public ownership, public-sector procurement, regional development, labour market reform, trade regulation and much else besides.

So, too, do a growing number of socialists in the labour movement.
That is why a “people’s boycott” is necessary and why winning a “People’s Brexit” must remain a key objective for the left in the months ahead.

Robert Griffiths is general secretary of the Communist Party of Britain.