Anyone Who Thinks Brexit Would Be The End of The Matter Is Badly Mistaken

Tory politicians continually claim that people are fed up with Brexit, and just want it all to end, and equate this with meaning that they just want to Brexit. It doesn't mean that at all. Those that want Brexit certainly want that, but the majority who now oppose Brexit, equally want it to end by Brexit simply being cancelled, either by another referendum, to validate that decision, or, increasingly, simply by Article 50 being revoked, as the Liberal Democrats have now committed to. Given that around 70% of the Brexit vote came from elderly, well to do, Tory voters, its not surprising that the majority of people Tory MP's speak to interpret being fed up with Brexit as meaning simply leaving, of course. Its what provides the basis for their support for Boris Johnson's parliamentary coup, in shutting down parliament so as to try to silence it in scrutinising and challenging his rush towards a No Deal Brexit. But, the truth is that anyone who thinks that, if Brexit happens, it will be the end of the matter, is badly mistaken. 

After all, it was not the end of the matter when Ted Heath's government took Britain into the EEC in 1973. Opposition from nationalists continued in the period after, leading to the 1975 Common Market referendum. In that referendum, the majority for staying in was 2:1, but it did not stop nationalists continuing to argue that Britain should leave. Indeed, the reactionary economic nationalist wing of the Labour Party around Benn, Foot, Shore, Castle et al, continued to advocate leaving the Common Market long after, and Labour Party policy itself continued to be to leave the EEC, right up until 1987. Even after Labour policy was changed to support being in the EU, as it then was, the economic nationalists, like Benn, in the Labour Party, continued to argue for leaving the EU, and for a Little Englander, nationalist approach instead. And, of course, the far right nationalists of the National Front, British National Party, and later UKIP, along with the far right inside the Tory Party, never stopped campaigning for Britain to leave the EEC/EU during all that time, despite the overwhelming majority for staying in the EEC/EU given by voters in 1975. So any idea, that the majority of the electorate that now wants to overturn the narrow victory for Leave in 2016, are going to simply play dead, if Boris Johnson takes Britain out of the EU, is simply delusional. 

For one thing, after 1975, Britain's entry into the EEC, and then EU, was fundamental to the improvement in the British economy that occurred in the 1980's. The removal of trade barriers and frictions massively reduced costs of production and circulation, which raised the rate of profit, creating a release of capital, and rise in the rate of profit, which was then available for accumulation and economic growth. The removal of frictions meant that the rate of turnover of capital was significantly increased, both because borders and trade barriers were removed, allowing goods to move more quickly, but also because that development facilitated the development of Just In Time production and stock control systems, alongside the introduction of flexible specialisation in production, and other forms of post-Fordist, production systems, that raised productivity levels, by as much as 100%, with a consequent rise in profitability, and potential capital accumulation. 

Alongside the economic gains that EU membership brought with it, there also went the economic and social gains for workers, as a result of the development of a Social Europe, and the proposals from Jacques Delors for restrictions via the Working Time Directive, and so on. But, of course one worker's gain is another small capitalist's loss. So, it is no surprise that Thatcher, the main architect of the Single Market, and a strong protagonist for it, and for Europe, as a means of raising profits, became less enamoured with it, when that same Single Market's requirements for common standards not just for goods and services, was deemed to apply also to the rights of labour. Its at that point that Thatcher's “No, no, no”, means that the British Tories' right-wing, needing to protect the interests of its small capitalist, petit-bourgeois base becomes increasingly Eurosceptic. If that minority that felt its interests threatened simply by workers getting increased portions from an expanding pie, could mobilise a growing opposition to Europe, at a time when Europe was providing economic benefits to Britain, imagine how much more opposition there will be, to what will be seen as an enforced Brexit, which results in a worsening economic condition, and even more demands by that minority of small capitalists, for workers to be squeezed even further. 

If Johnson takes Britain out of the EU, either via No Deal, or following a Tory General Election win, on the basis of some kind of Managed No Deal, and Canada Plus style Free Trade Agreement, that is only the start of things. The Raving Right might fantasise about Britain doing a trade deal and aligning with Trump's US, with Netanyahu's Israel (or whichever Zionist Bonapartist takes over from him), with feudal Saudi Arabia, and other such regimes, but the simple economic and geostrategic reality is that Britain cannot cut itself away from the EU. Britain will have to negotiate new terms of doing business with the EU, immediately following Brexit. Whether that is some Canada style FTA, or whether it is some other form of trading arrangement, or whether it is arrangements in relation to security and other cooperation. Those negotiations will be prolonged, lasting probably between 7-10 years. 

The Brexiters have always claimed that negotiating Britain's withdrawal from the EU, and negotiating a subsequent trade deal would be the easiest thing in the word. As with everything else, they lied. A withdrawal agreement, more than three years after the referendum still has not been negotiated, and talks on a trade deal, therefore, have not even begun. The Brexiters have claimed that, because Britain is already part of a single market and customs union with the EU, it will be much easier than where such deals are struck between third parties. The opposite is the truth. Normally, when two parties come together to negotiate a trade deal, it is mutually beneficial to them. Both can make some concessions to the other, because both will gain from the increase in trade that results, and the lower costs, and increased growth that brings with it. That is particularly true where the two parties are of equal size and bargaining power. 

But, in the case of the UK leaving the EU, this is a case where, rather than both parties mutually benefiting from the process, both will suffer. Any trade deal will be for the purpose, not of improving the condition of both parties, but of trying to minimise the damage. Moreover, this will not be a negotiation between two equal parties. The EU economy is seven times the size of the UK economy. When it comes to minimising damage, the EU will be in a much better negotiating position to ensure that the bulk of the economic damage falls on the UK, and not on the EU. That is particularly the case given that the EU knows that, for all its bluster, the UK is not going to make up for any loss in its trade with the EU by increasing its trade with the US, China, India or elsewhere. On the contrary, the EU knows that, because the UK is a minnow, compared to the US or China, and increasingly compared to India, it will not be in a strong position to negotiate beneficial deals with those countries either. There is no reason for the EU to give the UK a good deal, when it knows it can't get a better deal elsewhere, and where, simply on the basis of geography, the bulk of UK trade will continue to be with the EU, more or less irrespective of what onerous terms the EU imposes on it. 

And, because the world economy is dividing into economic blocs, and so the nation state as an economic unit is increasingly irrelevant, the oft repeated fact that the UK is the fifth largest national economy, is pretty meaningless. Britain will find itself negotiating trade deals not with other nation states, but with these large economic blocs, themselves formed as replicas of the EU, such as Mercosur in Latin America, or ASEAN, or the new African Economic Community, comprising 1.3 billion people. ( See also)  Of the world's 10 fastest growing economies, six are in Africa, and part of this bloc, and they have been the fastest growing economies for more than a decade. Britain is cutting itself off from this development, by trying to walk backwards through history. It will fail. 

And, that failure will become ever more apparent, as economic conditions, in Britain, deteriorate alongside it negotiating, over coming years, its trading relation to the EU. It is inevitable that, as those negotiations proceed, all those currently angered by the headlong rush towards Brexit, will make their opposition to it felt, and will do so in an increasingly vociferous manner. The small majority for Leave obtained in 2016, was quickly reversed, according to opinion polls. In the immediate aftermath of the referendum, there were a significant number of Remain voters, however, who resigned themselves to the fact of Brexit happening. But, in the following period, that has changed. The Remain and Leave identities have hardened, and become far more important than the identification with political parties although more than 70% of Labour voters back Remain and 70% of Tory voters back Leave. Initially, the hardening of the Remain vote, which was more pronounced than the hardening of the Leave vote, was manifest in the demand for another referendum, but it has increasingly become identified with the demand simply to revoke Article 50, a fact that the decision of the Liberals to adopt that position reflects. On Sky News' Politics Live, this morning, it was reported that a YouGov poll shows that 30% of Tory Remain voters, and 60% of Labour voters, support the Liberal position of calling straight out for Article 50 to be revoked. 

If the Tories implement a No Deal crash out of the EU, which Johnson is trying to avoid, by getting Corbyn to have to ask for the extension of Article 50, prior to a General Election being called, the consequences would be immediately disastrous, resulting in immediate calls for re-entry into the EU, and the question being dead forever. If, after a GE, Johnson pushes through a Managed No Deal, and Canada Style FTA, negotiations on that will be prolonged. During all that time, the current majority opposing Brexit will only get larger and more powerful. The only reason that Johnson could win a General Election currently, is that a core vote strategy that secures for the Tories 30-35% of the vote would be enough, if the anti-Tory vote is equally divided between a resurgent Liberals, promoting a clear anti-Brexit stance, and a confused and dithering Labour Party appearing to have no credible position, but appearing to still favour some form of Brexit. 

Marxists oppose referenda, because they are not truly democratic, despite the superficial appearance. They are the favoured tool of despots and Bonapartists. The answer to the first referendum producing the Brexit result could never be to demand another referendum. Often, if such votes are imposed upon us, depending on the circumstances, we have to participate, as was the case in 2016, but we should always point out the undemocratic nature of such plebiscites, and never call for them ourselves. We should commit to revoking Article 50, and Labour should commit to taking Britain back into the EU, if the Tories take us out. 

The fact is that there is now a majority against Brexit. It is not a sufficient majority that could be guaranteed to result in a Remain vote in a referendum organised by a Johnson government, with all of the levers at its disposal to influence the result. The 12-15 million voters, made up of the owners of small businesses and their families, which are the core of the Tory membership and its voters, are also the core of the 17 million votes that went to Leave. But, the fact is that, whilst this minority that forms this core maybe relatively stable, as it seeks to defend its interests, it is nevertheless a minority. Amongst the majority of society, who are wage labourers, whether they be white collar or blue collar workers, the majority support Remain. Most would like to back Labour, if it too reflected their interests, by having a clear Remain position, such as that now adopted by the Liberals, of calling for Article 50 to be revoked. But, here and now, the defining issue is Brexit, and most of them will vote for the party that provides the clearest anti-Brexit position.  At the moment, that is not Labour.  Of the 2016, electorate, only 80% now exists, as part of the current electorate. Two million voters from 2016, have died, and the majority of them were Leave voters. Two million new voters have joined the electorate, and 80% of them back Remain. With every year that passes the elderly Tory voters that backed Leave are dying out, whilst more young voters who overwhelmingly back Remain are joining the electorate. The majority for Remain can only continue to grow. 

With the majority for Remain growing each year, with the damaging effects of Brexit being increasingly manifest, as the negotiations with the EU drag on, it is inevitable that the demand to simply cancel Brexit, if it is during the transition period, or to reverse if it is after it, will only grow louder. Within the next 2-3 years, the majority for being in the EU will be undeniable. It will be impossible for any party to be able to win a General Election without responding to it. Labour should recognise that reality now, and quickly adopt its own position of revoking Article 50. Our differentiation from the Liberals should not be on a continued offering of a reactionary Brexit alternative, but should be on our commitment to work with other socialists across the EU, to transform it into a Workers Europe, on the way to the creation of a Socialist United States of Europe.