The Communist Party of Britain (CPB) published a statement on 15 February in which it said: “The labour movement is failing to voice the interests of workers and their families in the Brexit debate.”

Luckily for the British labour movement, the Communist Party of Britain is here. As proof of the law that a thing may become its opposite (or in line with the current fashionable trend for self-identification), the CPB, in spite of its name, finds new ways to promote anything but communism.

For the CPB: “In order to prosper, the workers and peoples of Britain need public investment, public ownership, economic planning, collective bargaining and a fair immigration policy.” In other words, they need Keynesianism.

According to Robert Griffiths, general secretary of the CPB: “Echoing the fears and aspirations of the CBI, the Institute of the Directors and the City of London casino is not the same as speaking up for working-class interests”.

The statement continued: “Securing access to the European single market need not mean capitulating to the treaties, directives and institutions of the EU, which serve the interests of the capitalist monopolies … numerous countries around the world trade with the EU without giving up their right to decide their own trade, financial, industrial or immigration policies.”

The CPB can hardly contain its excitement at the prospect of a Labour government and a bit of ‘left’ window dressing for British imperialism. Following at the tail of the Labour party like an excited puppy, eternally hopeful of the prospect of ‘influencing’ Labour’s leadership, it drops all talk of socialism and looks for justifications to support the new Labour party policy of wanting a Brexit that retains access to the European single market.

It does this in the full knowledge that access to the single market means exactly such a policy of “capitulating to the treaties, directives and institutions of the EU, which serve the interests of the capitalist monopolies”.

The CPB’s leaders believe they can back the Labour party to the hilt so long as they give a never-ending commentary on all the reactionary and anti-working class activities of the Labour party. Rather than expose these for what they are, these self-identifying ‘communists’ choose to raise all manner of pipe dreams for the Labour party to ignore, and so cover over the Labour party betrayals, one at a time.

The CPB has no influence over social democracy; rather social democracy has total sway over the CPB.