TWO events this week have clarified the political challenges facing Britain’s labour movement. Yesterday, the Commons defeated a motion to disallow a No Deal Brexit. Today, Boris Johnson emerged as an apparently unbeatable frontrunner in the Conservative leadership ballot.

There are always dangers in predicting the future. But there are even bigger dangers in failing to prepare for the obvious. Johnson has so far made only two commitments. One is to cut tax on the rich. The other is to deliver Brexit either through a modified version of May’s European Union deal or simply by leaving with no deal. 

This is the challenge. In some form or other, Britain is highly likely to be outside the EU before the end of the year under a government that will continue with the worst of the EU’s existing neoliberal rules and then negotiate trade treaties with the United States that will make them worse and open Britain to still further privatisation.