Small Change UK

So, the Tiggers, seeing the prospect of imminent European and Westminster elections on the horizon, have registered as a political party in order to stand candidates in those elections.  They are to call themselves Change UK.  It is an appropriate name, because they do indeed represent that small change, or loose change of UK politics.

The reality is that the Tiggers do not represent any change from the failed conservative social-democratic politics of Thatcher/Major/Blair/Brown/Cameron of the previous 40 years.  They could as well have called them the Continuation Blair-right Project.  In the 17th century, the Pilgrim Fathers who cast themselves adrift from Britain, and other European countries, were a bunch of puritanical religious bigots, who could not accept that, in the countries from which they came, a measure of religious freedom and tolerance of other religions, had been instituted.  As I have written elsewhere, these religious bigots erected a similar kind of regime of intolerance in their new homeland in America, though ask most people today, and they will tell you that the Puritans set sail for America to escape religious persecution.

Much the same is true of the Continuation Blair-rights.  They have created a whole narrative around the idea that they have had to set sail for the New World, because they have been persecuted in their native country.  In reality, it is the fact that these MP's have found that the monopoly on acceptable ideas, and control of power, they have enjoyed for the last forty years, has come to an end, which is the real cause of their departure, as they find themselves unable to accept the greater freedom of ideas, and loss of power that has come about in both parties.

For decades, inside the Labour Party, it was only the ideas of conservative social-democracy that were acceptable, with a few token leftists, such as Corbyn himself, allowed to remain in place, as a suggestion that the party was still a "broad church", whilst thousands of left-wing activists, and even whole branches and constituency parties were closed down, where they strayed outside the bounds of what conservative social-democracy deemed acceptable.  And, in the Tory party, whilst the majority of activists were died in the wool reactionaries, when it came to things like immigration and the EU, the inherently undemocratic nature of the Tory Party meant that they could be kept in their box, with the majority of Tory MP's themselves aligning themselves with the ideas of conservative social-democracy, content to making changes at the margin in cutting the welfare state, and so on, but on the whole simply tacking with the wind, so as to meet the needs of large-scale industrial capital.

As I have set out previously, it was the collapse of the material conditions that had existed for thirty years, and upon which conservative social-democracy had rested, which resulted in the financial crisis of 2008, and which has meant that the political centre has collapsed.  It was the politics and policies of that conservative social democracy that created the huge build up of asset price bubbles, and their concomitant, the build up of huge levels of private debt that led to the 2008 financial crisis, and which has resulted in the recreation of those conditions on an even more astronomical scale since 2008, meaning an even larger financial crash is inevitable, at the same time as implementing policies of austerity, so as to restrain economic growth, whilst promoting further speculation that has also led to the hollowing out of the political centre, and the polarisation of politics.  On the one hand, inside the Labour Party, (and something similar can be seen in the US, and across Europe), conservative social-democracy has given way to progressive social-democracy.  In the Tory Party, it is giving way to outright reaction and Bonapartist, counter-revolutionary tendencies that seek to take the economy back from the social-democratic state that arose in the late 19th century, to the kind of liberal-democratic state of the 18th and early 19th century, founded upon a regime of rampant free market competition, geared to the interests of millions of small capitalists. 

As I wrote recently, this means that Brexit amounts to a battle between two great class camps, one comprises the bulk of the advanced working-class, which forms the core of support for Labour, which is on the side of progress, and opposes Brexit, by a margin of around 4:1, the other comprises that phalanx of around 5 million small capitalists, their families and retainers that seeks to turn the clock back to that less mature form of capitalism, and the associated form of polity, and is prepared to adopt increasingly authoritarian, Bonapartist means of achieving that counter-revolution.

The Tiggers are indeed the small change that has fallen out of the pockets of the two great parties that represent the contending forces in this great class battle.  Indeed, as I have said before, compared to the figures that comprised the Gang of Four, in the 1980's that established the SDP, they are indeed just small change.  They are like the penny pieces of political currency, largely a nuisance, and likely to be phased out in the near future.

The fact, that they have been able to come together from both the Labour and Tory parties shows that they are like loose change, a collection of small coins of different denominations.  They are a purely opportunistic bunch whose only real basis for coming together is the fact that they were now out of place, unable to swim in the tide of the dominant ideas in their old parties, unable to reconcile themselves with either having to accept accountability to the members that get them elected, or to standing down as MP's so as to take up the role of being purely a member of their respective parties, unwilling to give up their lucrative jobs in parliament.  The main thing they have in common, besides being likely to have been deselected by their respective parties' members, is that this has manifested itself in relation to Brexit.

The battle between the two great class camps, sees 80% of Labour voters and members on the side of progress, and opposition to Brexit, whilst 80% of the small capitalists, and their representatives in the rank and file membership of the Tory Party, seek a No Deal Brexit, a return to 18th/early 19th century nationalism, based upon a strong state, gun-boat diplomacy, as in the days of Empire, and a bonfire of all rights for workers, consumers and the environment, so as to maximise the rate of surplus value, and the profits of these small capitalists.  The Tory Loose Changers, as conservative social democrats cannot accept that, because they recognise that it will actually be disastrous for the UK economy, and its dominant form of capital - large-scale industrial capital - and thereby for the class fraction they represent, the large-scale shareholders of those companies.  

But, the tragedy is that whilst 80% of the advanced working-class that supports Labour, and 80% of Labour members, oppose Brexit, and these reactionary consequences that naturally flow from it, the Labour Leadership, itself, continues to align with the reactionary nationalists in trying to pursue the policy of Brexit.  As I wrote the other day, the two great class camps have arrived on the battlefield, but on the workers side, despite its much larger numbers, and more disciplined army, it is hampered in its attack by the fact that its Generals have gone AWOL!  A similar situation existed in France, and led to the unenthusiastic support given to Macron, as a lesser evil to Le Pen.

The massed ranks of the advanced workers are ready for battle, but they see their Generals reluctant for battle, and even hobnobbing with the enemy generals.  In desperation, they look for some other flag-bearer who might at least be providing some kind of leadership,a round which to rally, so as at least to prevent their current strongholds and redoubts being overrun by the enemy.  In France they turned to Macron, as the leaders of the workers parties had failed to provide any progressive way forward.  In Britain, as we head into European Parliament elections, and then a General Election, with Labour's Generals, still with their backs to the enemy, rather like Stalin in 1941, still counting on his deal with Hitler to be sustained, there is a great danger that even the small change of the Tiggers, probably in some kind of "progressive alliance" with the Liberals, Greens, SNP, and Plaid will at least appear to be generals offering a lead by facing in the right direction, as Corbyn and Co. continue to echo in less convincing language the reactionary message of support for Brexit as that of the Tories and our class enemies.

That may well in the proportional representation system of the European Parliament elections result in anti-Brexit candidates sweeping the board, as a mobilised force of Remainers, now with the wind behind them flock to the polls in unprecedented numbers.  The media, ever keen to whip up the next hysteria, moral panic, and story to fill their pages, or attract viewers, are spreading the idea that the elections will result in a large rise in the number of populists being elected.  The opposite is true.  Support fort he EU has never been higher either in Europe or in the UK.  The Brexit vote has acted to mobilise the forces of progress that until then had been passive, just as in Europe that together with the success in recent years of right-wing populists has caused the forces of progress to mobilise, a process also seen in the US in response to Trump's election. 

Where, in Britain, more than a million marched, a week ago, to oppose Brexit, the forces of reaction could only manage a demonstration of a few thousand fascists and hard-right thugs from the BNP/EDL.UKIP and Leave Means Leave, to protest on March 29th. that Brexit was not going to happen, and that obviously Leave did not actually mean Leave.  Where more than 6 million have signed the petition calling for Brexit to be scrapped, just 300,000 have signed a petition calling for Britain to leave on No Deal.  The idea that three is going to be some kind of large-scale backlash from Leave supporters is farcical.  The most any of them can usually offer is that they will never vote again.  Given that many of them never bothered to vote in the past anyway that is not much of a statement, but if a few hundred thousand bigots and reactionaries decide they are not going to vote, I'll take that as a bonus!  It will mean fewer right-wing politicians elected in future.

A success for a progressive alliance of anti-Brexit forces in the European elections will undermine both the Tories and Labour, probably causing a few more MP's from both to join them if that occurs ahead of a General Election.  It means Labour will probably get wiped out in Scotland and Wales, and may lose seats in heavily Remain supporting areas in London and other large cities.  The majority of people now identify themselves as Remainers or Leavers, not Labour or Tory.  In Scotland and Wales, Remainers will have credible alternatives to Labour in the SNP and Plaid.  In large cities, the Liberals, in alliance with the Greens and Tiggers may be able to pose a credible challenge to Labour in some seats.  But, as the SDP showed, in the 1980's, even where that is not the case, with Labour under Corbyn appearing to only offer a form of Brexit that differs only in the language used, there will be no reason for Remainers to vote Labour, rather than casting a protest vote against both Brexit supporting parties.  The hope that existed in 2017, that a radical Corbyn Labour Party would come to offer a progressive, internationalist alternative to Brexit has gone, and all those that lent it their vote in 2017, on that basis, no longer have any reason to do so.

In the General Election, therefore, as opposed to the EP elections, the consequence is likely to be that the Brexit vote is hoovered up by the Tories, whilst the larger anti-Brexit vote, will be dissipated between Labour and the other opposition parties, allowing the Tories to win the election.  As with the SDP in the 980's, the Tiggers, having failed to provide any real change, will themselves disappear, like loose change down the back of the sofa.