Yesterday, in parliament, the Attorney General, sundered the ranks of Labour MP's, and Boris Johnson, followed behind to bayonet the walking wounded that were left. Johnson was attacked by Labour MP's on the basis of what amounted to him being “a very naughty boy”. Johnson replied defiantly, and as expected, by demanding then that they punish him by passing a motion of no confidence, or agreeing to a General Election. He was confident in making such a challenge, because he knows that the opposition are way too weak to be able to follow through with such a challenge, because, in any election, the opposition forces are divided, and fighting like rats in a sack, which will enable Johnson to win a handsome majority. The reality is that the forces of conservative social-democracy (neo-liberalism), ranged against Johnson's reactionary vandal hoards, are politically and morally bankrupt. They have no viable political arguments, or solutions, which is why the political centre they represent has collapsed. In place of political argument, they are reduced to petit-bourgeois moralism. When Johnson accuses them of “Humbug”, he is absolutely right.
The conservative social-democrats have no effective political arguments to utilise. In reality they had none for the last thirty years, but were able to disguise it with the politics of tweedle-dee tweedle-dum, of politics reduced to the level of the celebrity contest, and vague, heavily spun inanities. But, now they are faced with real politics, and they have no response. The fact is, of course, that the first manifestation of that fact came, not in relation to the current Brexit debate, but in the complete shock to their system that arose with the election of Corbyn as Labour Leader. When Corbyn won that context they went into a state of shock, and, when they began to come out of it, they thought that they would be able to deal with the situation in the way they have done for the last thirty years. They thought that all they needed to do, was to huddle within the Westminster bubble, and put Corbyn under daily moral pressure, culminating in them passing a vote of no confidence in him, and that he would then crumble and walk away. He didn't, and that very fact alone destabilised them.
But, what happened in the run-up to that vote of no confidence was itself interesting. The Blair-right wing of this conservative social democracy can envisage no world outside that they have viewed as eternal over the last thirty years, and in which elections cannot be won other than from the centre. They always believed that they had history on their side, and that as soon as it was seen that Corbyn was electoral poison for Labour, its members would turn on him, and they would have a way back. At this point a number of even female Labour MP's could be heard saying that if Labour did badly they would not stick the knife in Corbyn's back, but would do it from the front. Indeed, when the local elections came in 2016, they thought they had their chance, and it was the late Jo Cox, who on the first announcements of the results had commented that she had just been on TV to put the knife into Corbyn's chest. In fact, of course, the election results were not particularly bad, the leadership challenge failed miserably, and in 2017, Corbyn showed that the claim that elections can only be won from the centre is a fabrication.
But, what is interesting, here, is that, at this point, the challenge to Corbyn was still sort of political. The political challenge failed completely, precisely because the conservative social-democratic forces had no real political answers or arguments, and their world view was collapsing around their ears. Everything they thought they knew to be true was turning out to be false, and that was clearly manifest when they failed miserably with their own chicken coup. Its then that the strategy changed. With no political arguments to utilise, they instead began to attack Corbyn on other grounds, and firstly, not to attack Corbyn himself, but those that had made him Leader. Everyone who uses social media knows that 90% of the traffic on it is the work of trolls who have no particular political convictions, but for whom it is merely a form of free entertainment. Hidden behind the cloak of anonymity they can spew out all kinds of aggressive nonsense, using multiple identitities, making one outlandish statement one minute using one persona, and a completely opposing outlandish statement the next using a different identity. Where these trolls have made threats that break the law, and they have been apprehended, in 90% of cases, they are found to be social inadequates whose bark way exceeds their capacity to bite.
But, the conservative social democrats were more than happy to utilise the large number of outlandish and aggressive comments by such trolls to paint the picture that there were large numbers of actual Corbyn supporters that were the ones making these comments. We then had the breaking of Angela Eagle's constituency office window, linked to these threatening social media comments, as though, naturally, we could assume that it was some rabid Corbynite that was responsible, despite absolutely no evidence to support it. We had the allegations of John Mann about a dead bird being sent to his home, a story he thought was so good he used it twice.
But, the real culmination of this tactic came with the attacks on Corbyn's supporters, and then on Corbyn himself, for supposed anti-Semitism. What all of these attacks amount to is the same strategy. First some sacred cow is identified, which might be opposition to violence, or anti-Semitism, etc., then the English language itself is weaponised, so that any statement that, in any way, can be stretched, so as to suggest that the person who makes it is really trying to slaughter that sacred cow, is then hurled against them, as an alternative to engaging in real political argument. That is why the conservative social democrats were so insistent on having their precise definition of anti-Semitism, with all of their examples included in Labour's disciplinary code, for example.
As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, Kirsty Wark, on Newsnight, complained about Boris Johnson using the phrase “Die in a ditch”, to describe his determination not to ask for an extension of Article 50. Wark ridiculously tried to describe this common phrase, as somehow being inappropriately violent. Common or garden political phrases about “the knives being out”, which refers back to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, have been condemned in similar terms, when Theresa May was under attack by her backbenchers. Last night on Newsnight, Emily Maitliss after spending some considerable time covering all of the outrage at the violent language and imagery in parliament, and the need to be careful about the use of language, in questioning Liberal Layla Moran, talked about the Liberals "pulling the trigger" on calling a vote of no confidence. I was not at all surprised that Douglas Murray had also noted this rather glaring piece of hypocrisy, and called Maitliss out for it. The truth is that there is nothing wrong with using a metaphor about "pulling the trigger", because every intelligent person knows that it does not in any way mean pulling ana ctual trigger, or firing some actual gun. But, that is true about all of the other metaphors that are used in political discourse, but which the conservative social democrats seek to utilise in feigning outrage.
No one with an ounce of intelligence or honesty, believed, for example, that when Geofrey Cox, used the well worn analogy to describe a question from the opposition as being a "When did you stop beating your wife", trick question, that he was in any sense diminishing the problem of domestic violence! The fact that outrage immediately spread across social media, is itself an indication that this confected outrage is merely a device used by people who have no real political arguments to use.
In the absence of real political arguments, the conservative social democrats have weaponised the English language as a means of trying to close down debate, and to attack their opponents, not for their ideas, but for their language, when, in fact, that language has been consistent with normal parlance for centuries. It is indeed, confected outrage for political effect, in a media age. It represents the political bankruptcy of a section of politicians that are reduced to petit-bourgeois moralism.
Johnson is, therefore, absolutely correct to say that this confected outrage and attempts to weaponise the English language amounts to “Humbug”.
MP's undoubtedly do face threat of violence, and some of those threats even are real, as the murder of Jo Cox demonstrated. But, MP's are not the only ones to face such threats. Every political activist faces such threats. If you are from an ethnic minority, if you are gay, disabled or in some other way stand out, you face the possibility of attack from bigots every day of the week, but without any of the advantages that an MP has. And, the reality is that, currently, we are in an undeclared civil war, and in civil wars people get killed. This is real politics, not the toy town, game playing that MP's engage in in parliament.
The truth is that it is the weakness of the labour movement, of progressive social democracy and socialism that has led to the forces of conservative social democracy taking the lead in opposing the forces of reaction represented by Johnson, Farage et al. The forces of progressive social democracy and socialism know how to deal with such threats. It is by our collective action to defeat it. When Moseley's fascists attempted to march down Cable Street, the forces of progressive social democracy and Socialism simply turned out thousands of people to stand to defeat them, whilst the forces of conservative social-democracy, represented, at the time, by Clement Attlee, called on them not to do so, and to stand aside to leave it to the police.
And, today, we see the same thing. When Johnson launched his coup, Corbyn and the forces of progressive social-democracy proved too weak, too confused to do what they should have done, to call for a General Strike to defeat it. It was left to the forces of conservative social democracy to respond, and they did so, not by mobilising the working-class, but by utilising their traditional tools, the institutions and organs of their capitalist state. They brought in the courts, and relied upon the unelected ruling class judges.
But, of course, workers cannot rely on the bosses' courts, or the bosses' police force for our defence. Just ask the miners who were confronted by those forces at Orgreave, and its aftermath! In the 1970's, I remember going out leafletting in local elections, at a time when the NF were increasing their presence. One female comrade was assaulted by NF thugs, while we were simply handing out LP election material. The police were called, and in the police car on the way to the police station, the police openly admitted their sympathy with the NF. On another occasion, I recall an antifascist leafletter being assaulted by an NF thug outside his home. The NF thugs neighbour called the police having witnessed the assault, but when the police arrived they instead arrested the comrade from the SWP who had been assaulted!
Our response to such conditions as we face now was established long ago. We cannot rely on the bosses' state for impartiality, or to act in our defence, and nor should we if we could. We fight for our liberation with our own hands not those of the bourgeoisie and its state. The whole basis of the socialism we seek to create is based upon our self-activity, self-organisation and self-government. We rely on our collective strength to defeat our class enemies. Of course, the forces of conservative social democracy can have no such outlook, because, in truth, they base themselves not on the working-class, but on our class enemies, on the owners of fictitious capital, and their interests. In our present conditions we march in the same direction, in opposing the forces of reaction, but, in doing so, we have no illusions in the fact that we aim at a different destination, and that history shows us that we cannot rely on them, because they will indeed knife us in the back, the front or anywhere else, if they feel that the interests of the class they serve are seriously threatened by us.
Our answer to violence and death threats is collective action; our answer is to build workers defence squads to protect our meetings and so on. In order to protect ourselves from a more organised violent threat either by reactionary paramilitaries or the forces of the capitalist state, we propose the creation of a democratically controlled workers militia. What we do not do is bleat pathetically, and issue petit-bourgeois moral sermons about the need to compromise or to moderate our language and response to the threats of our class enemies.
Of course, for the conservative social democrats any idea that the state is not neutral, or that we should rely on our own class organisation is anathema. Fair enough, let them protect themselves. Maybe, with their undying faith in the power of market forces, they would instead prefer to rely on the market for their protection, and use their money to buy in their body guards and security companies.
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