So, BoJo has at last become Prime Minister, an occurrence I predicted some years ago, looking at the inexorable drift under David Cameron, towards Bonapartism. In similar Bonapartist fashion, Boris Johnson has implemented immediately a Night of The Long Knives, or as the press labelled it, Night of the Blonde Knives. Johnson's Cabinet is not just the most right wing in modern British history, but, again, in typically Bonapartist fashion, it is characterised by the inclusion of those, right or left, Leaver or Remainer that have offered up personal fealty to BJ, and the exclusion of those, left or right, Leaver of Remainer that have snubbed him. Donald Trump welcomed the appointment of his puppet to No.10, in typically moronic fashion, saying that everyone here called Johnson “Briton Trump”, though no one, here, has ever heard of such a term. Possibly it is the same people, over here, who Trump also claimed love him. Via Johnson and his Cabinet, Trump now has his hand firmly up the UK's arse. Of course, we still have to see whether Putin has his hand inside Trump.
The appointment of Johnson as Tory Leader, and thereby as Prime Minister, is the latest of a string of Bonapartist leaders to take power across the globe, all of whom share the same right-wing, nationalist agenda. Whether it is Trump, Johnson, Orban, Netanyahu, Erdogan, Putin, or Duterte they have all been nominally elected, but so too was Hitler and Mussolini.
In February 2012 I forecast that it was just a matter of time before David Cameron was replaced by the Bonapartist Johnson. The determining factors were and remain these. The 2008 financial crash signified that the economic model (call it neo-liberal, or as I prefer conservative social-democracy) that had dominated for the previous 20 years was no longer sustainable. That model was based on a number of conditions.
First, in the 1980's, Thatcher in the UK, and Reagan in the US, had used the state to crush workers resistance. The model developed by them was the first illustration of the end of the move by Britain towards European Social Democracy started under Heath and Wilson, and a drift towards alignment with the US. That resistance was already doomed given the long wave conjuncture. When the long post war boom ended in 1974, and a period of crisis set in, workers remained on the grounds of a purely economistic, industrial struggle over who got what shares of the wealth they created, rather than engaging in a political struggle to put forward an entirely different set of property relations, based upon workers ownership and control. By the early 1980's, the failure of workers to break out of the constraints of economism, and trades union struggle, meant that they were already defeated. The defeat of the British miners and of the US Air Traffic Controllers merely confirmed what was already the reality.
On the back of the defeat of the working-class, Thatcher and Reagan pushed through their conservative social-democratic agenda. New technologies that had been introduced throughout the late 1970's and early 1980's, to overcome the problem of labour shortages, and high wages, undermined the power of the organised working-class. It created a relative surplus population, and unemployment soared. In the early 1980's, inflation also soared, thereby decimating real wages. As wages fell, the squeeze on surplus value, and thereby on profits that characterised the crisis of overproduction of the 1970's, was reversed. Profits rose, whilst growth was relatively stagnant, as employment was subdued as a result of the use of technology to replace labour. The introduction of this technology, raised productivity, and thereby cheapened the cost of capital. The cost of machinery, materials in a whole range of industries from printing to car production was slashed, which thereby, alongside the rise in the rate of surplus value, caused the rate of profit to rise sharply. The same process, caused a massive moral depreciation of the fixed capital stock, which likewise created a huge release of capital that could be either converted into revenue, or else was available for additional capital accumulation. The consequence was a massive rise in the supply of money-capital relative to the demand for it, which caused interest rates to fall, which continued for the next 20 years. The fall in interest rates caused asset prices to rise sharply, as witnessed by the 1300% rise in the Dow Jones, compared to the only 250% rise in US GDP, between 1980-2000.
The conservative social-democratic model was built on this. Massively inflating asset prices gave an illusion of wealth. It meant that paper capital gains could be liquidated as revenue. Inflated asset prices could be used as collateral for an enormous increase in household debt, which was used to sustain domestic consumption at a time when household incomes were being squeezed. In fact, it was used to underpin borrowing in general. The 1987 Twin Deficits crisis in the US was a harbinger of what was to come, as it sparked the 1987 Financial Crash. But, the same could be seen in the UK. Although the Tories trumpet their fiscal rectitude, as against Labour profligacy, the opposite is the truth. In the 18 years of Tory rule under Thatcher and Major, between 1979-1997, the Tories managed to have a budget surplus in just two years, 1988 and 1989, as against four years of surpluses under Blair/Brown's 13 years of government. The average deficit to GDP under the Tories was 3.48%, rising to 7.7% in 1993. By contrast, the average under Blair/Brown between 1997-2008 was just 1.57%, even taking the period as a whole, including the peculiar conditions arising from the global financial crash, the average was only 2.85%.
But, 2008 showed that this model was no longer sustainable. The 2008 crash showed that as interest rates now inevitably rose, asset prices would crash. If asset prices crash, the balance sheets of banks and financial institutions are shown to be mere delusion. The whole model of pumping up paper capital gains, and then liquidating them to provide revenue, rather than growing real revenues, via capital accumulation, and the employment of additional labour, and rising rates of surplus value, could not persist.
When in response to the conditions that emerged after 2008, David Cameron, therefore, reached for the tools of Thatcher from the 1980's, this was itself bound to fail. The 2000's were not the 1980's, and so this was simply history repeating as farce. In the 1980's, workers were defeated because of a combination of having inadequate politics to address their situation, and because capital was introducing technology to replace labour. Existing wages were high and got forced down, pushing up profits. In the early 2000's, labour was already cheap, as a result of the previous 20 years. The technological innovations of the 1970's and 80's, were now being rolled out extensively, not intensively. The demand for labour was rising not falling, and so wages began to rise. Rising wages and more workers employed, caused demand for wage goods to rise, which caused even more workers to be employed. Across the globe employment began to rise sharply, and wages, particularly in those parts of the globe that were newly industrialising, rose faster than most. It meant that the demand for capital began to rise at the time when profits began to be squeezed, after 20 years of expansion. That means interest rates began to rise, and that sparked the 2008 crash.
If the conservative social-democratic model of the previous 20 years was no longer viable, there were only two options. Either, conservative social-democracy had to give way to progressive social-democracy, an increase in industrial democracy, increased planning and regulation, increased international coordination and integration, or else reaction would set in. That is what caused the collapse of the so called centre ground. It is not, as the liberals would have it that political parties became more polarised, giving the electorate no “sensible middle” to support, but that society itself, reflecting these new materials conditions, was more polarised, and the parties simply reflected that change in society. After all the most sensible of sensible, most middle of middle Liberals were there to offer voters that option, but in 2015, and in 2017 they were annihilated!
It was obvious, therefore, that Cameron's attempt to simply reprise Thatcher's conservative social-democratic offensive of the 1980's could not work. As soon, as he attempted to appease his populist right-wing, as it shredded in the direction of the Faragists, the gig was up. History is replete with such examples, as I set out in comparing the drift of the Tories towards Bonapartism with that described by Marx in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. It was obvious that at some point this trajectory led towards Johnson. The only difference has been a temporary diversion in the form of Theresa May's own attempt at Bonapartist “strong and stable leadership”.
As I have set out previously, the Tory Right actually comprise two distinct factions who will themselves come into inevitable contradiction as this process unfolds. On the one hand, there are the true believers such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, who are Misean Libertarians. They believe in a Minarchist state, rampant free markets, and a return to something like 18th or early 19th century Liberal bourgeois democracy. Their economic doctrine is already being tested by Johnson's extravagant spending plans, which will cause debt to GDP to be rising again, even from its current level of 80%. These are the reactionaries in the true sense of the word. They seek to bring about a political counter-revolution, overthrowing the social-democratic polity that has existed for more than a century. Their goal is, in fact, unachievable and Utopian. The outlines of it, can be seen in the attacks on the permanent state machinery.
On the other hand, there are those probably like Johnson, though, beyond a promotion of himself, its difficult to know exactly where he stands ideologically, who like Mosely, Mussolini and Hitler, are really conservatives rather than reactionaries, in the true sense. They recognise that the social-democratic state is here to stay, and they depend on it, but their goal is to preserve it and prevent any further advance of the working-class on the basis of it. That includes resort to populism so as to mobilise the mass against the more advanced sections of the working-class, it includes resort to all of the methods of totalitarianism, based upon a mass society, as discussed by Kornhauser, and other theorists of mass society.
Anyone wanting to analyse the current situation in this respect, and how it unfolds, should study the events in Austria in the 1930's. Mises, and his associates, were Libertarians, like Rees-Mogg et al. They were not fascists. Quite the contrary, read the works of Mises, or of Hayek, such as The Road to Serfdom, and their ideology is totally hostile to fascism, which they see as essentially a twin of communism. But, in practice, Mises faced with a rising labour movement in Austria gave his support to the Austrian clerical-fascist government. In response to the economic crisis, Mises economic prescription of austerity and free markets failed. In the process, he opened the door for the German Nazis to simply walk into Austria unopposed.
The Misean ideology supported by Rees-Mogg has no more chance of working in Britain today. Its failure will see simply a shift within the Tory Party towards the conservative, Bonapartist wing as it seeks to address the continued chaos, and economic dislocation that its Brexit strategy will bring. The Brexiters fought the referendum using the slogan designed by their chief strategist, now installed in Downing Street, Dominic Cummings, of “Take Back Control”, but, of course, the reality is that the British people have lost a huge amount of control. Even parliamentary sovereignty is under threat from a Bonapartist who has threatened to close it down, in the same way that Cromwell did, in order to prevent it frustrating his will. And, Britain as it drifts away from the EU, where it was able to exercise much greater control, in concert with its European allies, is now increasingly nothing more than a rubbing rag for the US, and its own Bonapartist, Trump.
Johnson's Night of the Blonde Knives had a number of purposes. First, he wants to paint a picture of grit and determination to push ahead with Brexit – Do or Die. That has several audiences. Firstly, it is aimed at the EU. Johnson's strategy from the beginning had been that a referendum victory, or better still a very close vote in favour of Remain, would have led the EU to come back to offer the UK additional concessions to stay in, such as Thatcher had achieved. He undoubtedly still thinks that might be possible. At the least, he thinks that the EU might be so afraid of No Deal, that it will offer him concessions for some kind of Brexit deal. But, the truth is they won't, because they can't without essentially undermining the EU itself. The EU also knows that any UK government that pushed through a crash out No Deal, would quickly be destroyed, and Britain would have to supplicate itself for emergency readmission. Moreover, the EU now sees clearly the role that Johnson sees Britain playing, as even more the US agent in Europe. As the interests of Europe and the US continue to diverge, there is no reason for Europe to facilitate Britain as a US Fifth Column.
But, Johnson's hard right Cabinet is intended for another purpose. It is intended to destroy Farage's Brexit company. Including people like Patel, who favour a return of hanging, is part of appealing to that Faragist lumpen swamp. Johnson knows he cannot get a hard Brexit through parliament without a clear majority, which will require a General Election, as I have been saying since Christmas. Johnson must call an election in the next few weeks, prior to October 31st. To get a clear majority, he requires that the Brexit company be destroyed, and its votes come back to the Tories. It also requires that the Remain vote be divided. Unless Labour shifts in a similarly decisive way towards revoking Article 50, or the Liberals, Greens, SNP and Plaid are able to form an anti-Brexit Front, which also sweeps up Labour votes, which would also probably require that a sizeable number of current Tory and Labour MP's jump ship to the Liberals, then Johnson could win an election promising a managed No Deal Brexit.
When he was given the details from civil servants of the extent of civil unrest that will follow such an event, Johnson reportedly blanched. The irony is that, in the face of the economic decimation that even a Managed No Deal Brexit would bring, the hardest hit will be many of those in deprived areas that voted for it. They will be easy prey for those whose response will be to double down on the nationalistic, anti-foreigner rhetoric. Those like Rees-Mogg seeking a return to free market liberalism will soon be pushed aside. The economic nationalists, right-wing populists and Bonapartists in search of support will resort increasingly to a strong state, and associated state intervention. Indeed, its that shared set of ideas that lies behind the Red-Brown coalition that brings together the fascists, the right-wing Tories, and the Galloways, Counterfires and Stalinists of the Morning Star. It will be accompanied by increasing authoritarianism to crush dissent.
It is time for all socialists, and even consistent democrats to choose which side they are on. The Liberals and conservative social-democrats cannot defeat Johnson and those to his Right. The future now depends on socialists in the Labour Party to ditch its own economic nationalists, and to come out boldly in favour of international socialism, and a clear commitment to stop Brexit and Revoke Article 50. We must begin by deselecting the right-wing nationalists like John Mann, Gareth Snell, Ruth Smeeth, Caroline Flint, and all the others amongst the 26 that signed the disgraceful letter, and who are threatening to line up with the Tories. But, nor can we allow the Blair-rights and soft lefts to remain in position, as candidates for any forthcoming election. We need socialist candidates, prepared to fight not just on the ground of stopping Brexit, but of offering a real socialist, or at least progressive social-democratic programme for workers not just in Britain, but across the EU.
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