OUR democratic rights have been hard fought for. From those killed 200 years ago at the Peterloo Massacre after demanding universal suffrage to the inspiring activists who secured women the vote a century ago and the Chartists to whom our labour movement owes so much, our democratic rights have been wrested from the ruling elite by mass movements.

But the struggle for democracy has never been fought in a vacuum. It has always been linked to the wider battle for social justice. And that’s true today too.

Those protesting at Peterloo were also opposing the biting poverty they faced as the infamous Corn Laws that had left them with poverty wages and without enough bread to live on.

Suffragettes, led by Sylvia Pankhurst, also fought for women’s economic equality and against bloody imperialist wars.

And the Chartists also demanded better wages and a shorter working week.

Today our battle against Boris Johnson’s smash-and-grab raid on our democracy is also about building a more just society. It is about opposing the powerful forces of privilege who are manipulating our democracy to usher in the kind of free-market extremism that even Thatcher couldn’t deliver.

Let’s be absolutely clear about what’s going on. The Tories’ anti-democratic manoeuvres are being done to cut a deal with Donald Trump that will flog off our NHS, further drive down wages and deregulate our economy.

We can’t let Johnson use anti-democratic manoeuvres to impose an even more neoliberal economic model on the backs of the majority in order to further enrich the elites.

That’s what US economic shock therapy has done around the globe — and we can’t allow it here under the cover of a no-deal Brexit.

So this is a battle of Boris Johnson and Trump vs the people. And I know which side I’m on.

Our movement’s fight for democracy has never been confined to legislation or parliamentary procedures. It has always included popular street protests of all those who want not just a more democratic society but a fairer and more equal society.

As Tony Benn said: “The Tories have never been embarrassed about mobilising their extra-parliamentary forces when they want to embarrass a Labour government, and parliamentary democracy must mean a partnership between the power of elected members and the people in the movement as a whole.”

Jeremy Corbyn has encouraged people to join the public protests opposing Johnson’s attempt to curtail democratic debate and I hope you can get to one of these demos over the coming days, including Tuesday night’s rally outside Parliament.

Whether people backed Remain or Leave in 2016, they did not vote for no deal. Such an outcome has no mandate and if Johnson wants one, then he should put it to the people and call a general election.

Johnson wants to prevent MPs — elected by their communities — from being able to stop his disastrous “Trump deal Brexit” plans precisely because he knows those plans face huge opposition. And rightly so.

We need more democracy, not less — and a fundamental and irreversible shift in wealth, power and control in favour of the 99 per cent.

What we are in now is not just a vital struggle for democracy.

It’s also a struggle against a free-market deal with Trump that would see our NHS being sold off.

A struggle to defend workers’ rights against those who want to drive down standards even further so workers here end up in the weak, even more exploitable position of workers in the US.

A struggle to protect our environment against a US president who’s allied to the president in Brazil who is allowing the Amazon to burn.

A struggle of the 99 per cent vs the elites.

It’s a struggle to kick the Tories out, to elect a socialist as prime minister and build a country transformed in the interests of the many, not the few.

Richard Burgon is Labour MP for Leeds East and shadow secretary of state for justice.