McCluskey Talks Bollocks On Brexit

Len McCluskey, on “Peston”, on Wednesday, talked total bollocks on Brexit, and Labour's strategy. There was one valid comment, in all of the confused jumble of delusions and fallacies he came out with, which was that the country is sharply divided over the question of Brexit. No shit Sherlock. The country certainly is divided. It is divided between reactionary nationalists backing Brexit, and progressive internationalists opposing Brexit. In such a sharp, political division, it becomes imperative for socialists and social-democrats to choose the side of the latter, and to pursue the struggle against the former with all their might. The trouble is that McCluskey has put himself on the wrong side of this life or death class struggle. 

McCluskey having come to the startling discovery that the country is bitterly divided over the question of Brexit, wants the solution to be that the bitter division simply goes away. Superficially, he wants it to go away by Labour promising to resolve the conflict via a compromise between these two mutually exclusive positions, but, in reality, that compromise involves the progressive internationalists lying down and playing dead, whilst Brexit is imposed upon them! McCluskey insists that any solution must be based upon Brexit being implemented. All of the stuff about bringing workers together by emphasising Labour's economic and social agenda is so much pie in the sky. The same kind of delusion was presented this morning on “All Out Politics”, by the CWU's Dave Ward. 

What we have here is repetition of the same kind of Economism that characterised the politics of the Militant Tendency, in respect to Northern Ireland and the border, in the 1970's and 1980's. The Militant responded to the growing divisions between Protestant and Catholic workers in Northern Ireland, by a similar tin eared demand that the workers should simply forget about the differences between them, which resulted from the denial of national and civic rights to Catholics, and should instead focus on a joint struggle for bread and butter issues, of raising wages and so on, that they should pursue by workers, from both communities, building their trades unions, and that they should respond to the growing violence, carried out by the paramilitaries, on both sides of the communal divide, by building joint workers defence squads, made up of workers from both communities. It was total nonsense then, and McCluskey and Ward's version of it is total nonsense today. 

It means seeking a resolution of a political problem by simply wishing it away, on the basis that you find it troublesome that the problem exists and is getting in the way of you talking about the economic issues you would much prefer to be discussing. It means wishing the world was the way you want it to be, rather than dealing with the world as it actually exists. For Northern Ireland Catholics, in the 1960's, 70's, 80's, and 90's, their main immediate concern was not economic, but political, and to the extent their problems were economic they were inextricably linked to, and determined by their political concerns. There was no point telling Catholic workers to forget about the issue of the border, and the fact that they were denied basic political and civil rights, and simply to focus on their economic concerns, because their economic concerns about high levels of Catholic unemployment, discrimination over housing, jobs and so on, were themselves largely determined by the fact that they were an oppressed minority in Northern Ireland. There was no more point telling Northern Ireland Catholics to forget about their political concerns, and to forge an alliance over economic issues with Protestant workers than there was in telling black South African workers to forget about apartheid, and form such an alliance with the white working-class in South Africa, whose privileged position was based upon the oppression of the black workers! 

A parallel can be drawn with Israel today. What point is there telling Palestinian workers to forget about the denial of rights to them by the Israeli state, and instead to focus simply on an economic, trades union struggle with Jewish Israeli workers? A unity of workers in each of these cases is necessary, but it cannot be achieved by simply wishing away the political reality that divides them. First and foremost that unity has to be built on the basis of a political programme that addresses the denial of basic political and civil rights, which creates the fundamental basis of the division of the working-class in the first place. There was no point telling women workers, or black workers in Britain to forget about the discrimination they faced in society, including in the labour movement, and in which white male workers were also complicit, because what was first required was action such as that of the women workers at Ford's for equal pay, and that also involved a struggle of women and black workers inside the labour movement itself for equal rights. 

Similarly, there is no point telling the majority of British workers who oppose Brexit, and who see it as the reactionary policy it is, to simply forget about it, and play dead. Its no wonder that a large majority in Northern Ireland voted for Remain in the EU Referendum, because it was a large part of the answer to the political problem that the people of the province faced. On the one hand, the EU, with its human rights requirements, placed Northern Ireland Catholics, in most ways, on an equal footing with Northern Ireland Protestants. On the basis of the EU, and the position of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Britain within it, it made possible the Good Friday Agreement, and the more or less wiping away of the border. As international firms invested in Ireland both sides of the border, the old Protestant Ascendancy lost much of its industrial power as these international businesses were only interested in getting the best workers from which they could get most profits, not what religion those workers were. And, as the EU, by similar means, meant that the old Catholic Confessional state in the Republic was dissolved, and a new modern secular state rose in its place, the old fears of the Northern Ireland Protestants about being dragged into a “Papist” state in the South were also removed. Of course, all those advantages brought by EU membership are now in danger of being reversed as a result of Brexit, which is more than an issue simply over whether a hard border is reimposed. 

Both McCluskey and Ward promoted the idea that Labour should ignore the wishes of the vast majority of Labour members and voters to oppose Brexit, and instead to push ahead with it, at the same time promoting the delusional idea that Labour could negotiate some kind of impossible “Jobs First Brexit”. But, no such solution is possible. The closest to it, would be that Britain remained inside both the Customs Union and Single Market, but that would mean continuing to pay to be in those institutions, and all of the other institutions attached to them, including acceptance of jurisdiction of the ECJ, and continued acceptance of free movement. But, its precisely those things that the small minority of Labour Leave voters want to see scrapped! You will not win over those voters, let alone those working-class, non-Labour voters that support the reactionary nationalist agenda, on the basis of such a solution. In the meantime, because such a half-way house is the worst of all worlds, because it means accepting all the rules and regulations, paying all of the subs, but without any political input into the formulation of the rules, it will be quite rightly rejected by anyone with a brain, especially by Labour's large majority of Remain supporters. 

McCluskey and Ward's position seems based on simply refusing to accept reality. They seem to have swallowed the line put out by the Stalinists of the Morning Star, and others, behind Corbyn that the 75% of Labour voters that oppose Brexit are somehow not working-class, not really true Labour voters at all. It implies a belief that out there somewhere are a reservoir of real, industrial working-class voters just itching for a Stalinist Labour Party to offer them the promised land of Socialism in One Country, along the lines of such previous utopia as existed in Russia, and Eastern Europe, Cuba, and Venezuela. Indeed, whilst the same elements have revelled in expelling Alistair Campbell, the Morning Star itself, proposed a boycott of voting Labour, because it considered it too soft on Brexit, only refraining from joining its fellow travellers like George Galloway, in promoting a vote for Farage's Red-Brown Brexit coalition for internal party management reasons. 

Both McCluskey and Ward promoted the idea that Labour should hold its nerve, and continue to argue for this reactionary Brexit agenda, whilst promoting its radical economic and social agenda. They fail to accept that that is exactly what Labour has been doing, and in the EU parliament elections, it got inevitably destroyed as a result. They sound like the Monty Python 's black knight, who having had his arms and legs chopped off in the fight, insists that “'tis but a scratch”. In Scotland, where Labour most notably pursued that course, in the Euro elections it was most visibly destroyed. Labour picked up just 9% of the vote, coming fifth, just one point ahead of the Greens! In Edinburgh it came sixth, with 7% of the vote, and in the Scottish Borders it came sixth, with less than 3% of the vote, less than one percentage point ahead of Change UK. The situation in Wales, was not much better. 

And, as Paul Mason has seen, those like him that have pointed out this reality have been targeted by a well oiled Stalinist apparatus that is trying to shut down debate and recognition of the facts, as reality shows that the Stalinist strategy pursued by Corbyn and his advisors has been catastrophic. It is the same kind of approach that Stalinists have always adopted whenever the reality of their failed ideas is demonstrated in practice. Now the Morning Star, which called for a boycott of Labour itself, wants Corbyn to launch into a mass purge, presumably they are not calling for the same kind of show trials, executions and assassinations the Stalinists pursued in the 1930's, to rid the party of anyone that criticises the strategy. Having destroyed their own sect over the years, they now seek to destroy the Labour Party too, and reduce it to the same kind of status as an irrelevant sect. 

Rather, what is required is a clear out of all the unelected Stalinist advisors standing behind Corbyn, and for a democratisation of the Labour party and trades unions. What is required is a clear change of position of the party and of the party leadership to oppose Brexit, by all means. Then it is possible to address the economic and social questions on an honest basis that recognises that the problems facing British workers are not caused by the EU, and will not be solved but only made more intractable by leaving it. 

Dave Ward, pointed to the fact of the fall in wage share of British workers over the last 40 years. But, its not just British workers that have seen such a fall in the wage share. That drop is common to workers across most of the globe. Even in those places where globalisation has brought most benefits, in China, Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and where workers living standards have risen most sharply, that rise in living standards has happened alongside a fall in the wage share, as the growth of these economies saw profits grow even faster than wages. Ward does not seem to recognise that the fall in the wage share is nothing to do with being inside the EU, and being outside the EU would not reverse it. Far from it. The fall in the wage share over that period was down to a simple fact. 

In the 1970's, the wage share had risen. It had been rising from the early 1960's. It was that rise in the wage share, as capital expanded, and employed greater quantities of labour, which caused a squeeze on profits, which resulted in the period of crisis that erupted in 1974. In response, capital, as it always has, in such conditions, began to innovate, and to introduce large amounts of labour-saving technologies. It created a relative surplus population, which prevented and then reversed the rise in the wage share that had been occurring from the early 1960's. It meant that, with the use of these new labour saving technologies, in the late 1980's, and after, the growth in capital and profits was always greater than the growth in the demand for labour, so that wages were under constant downward pressure during that period. Living standards continued to rise, because sharply rising productivity reduced the value of wage goods, but workers never got the full benefit of that rising productivity, as the main benefits of it were appropriated by capital in higher profits, which in turn were paid out in higher dividends/interest, as well as higher rents, and executive salaries. 

The key to higher wages and wage share, if that is as far as your ambitions for workers goes, lies, as Marx described in Wage Labour and Capital, in a more rapid growth of capital leading to a more rapid growth in demand for labour-power. But, Brexit will create the very opposite of that. For British workers in particular, it will lead to a much weaker economy, and a reduced demand for British labour-power as firms relocate to the EU, and unemployment rises. For workers in general, as with Trump's global trade war, the increase in trade frictions will slow economic growth, it will increase production costs, thereby slowing down capital accumulation and the demand for labour-power. It will undermine the very conditions required for improving the workers immediate condition. 

LP members and trades union activists need to defend those like Paul Mason that have pointed out the idiocy of the strategy being pursued by Corbyn under direction from the Stalinists in pursuit of their reactionary nationalist agenda. We should flood the party and unions with motions demanding a recall conference to decisively shift party policy to opposition to Brexit, and a call for revoking Article 50. We should push forward with a democratisation of the party, starting with booting out Corbyn's unelected Stalinist advisors that have led us into this catastrophic position.