Snap UK general election called amid continuing Brexit crisis
19 April 2017
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Theresa May announced her government’s intention to hold an early general election. If two-thirds of MPs vote today to accept abrogating the recent provision for fixed five-year terms in office, parliament will end all business on May 2 and a ballot will take place on June 8.
May’s surprise decision gives a measure of the escalating crisis of British imperialism in the aftermath of the narrow 51.9 percent vote to leave the European Union in last June’s referendum. Since that time, May, who supported the “Remain” camp, has led her party while at the beck and call of the pro-Brexit forces within it based on the constant assertion that “Brexit means Brexit.” But her hard-line pose has never successfully concealed, let alone mended, the deep divisions within the ruling class. Instead, she has been pushed into threatening a “hard Brexit,” including the UK’s exclusion from the Single European Market.
With 44 percent of UK exports bound for Europe and London’s position as a finance centre dependent on access to the continent, the other major parties have generally combined demands that a “hard Brexit” be avoided at all costs with a threat to block any negotiated deal that does not maintain access to the single market.
As a result, May is in a much-weakened position in her negotiations with the EU, reflective of the declining global weight of the UK itself.
In her brief statement announcing the snap election, May castigated the Labour Party for threatening “to vote against the deal we reach,” the Liberal Democrats for threatening to “grind the business of government to a standstill,” the Scottish National Party for its intention to vote against…