The Brexiteers that have been running the country for the last two years are in meltdown as their delusions have faced reality. Those delusions did for May, but she was replaced only by the even bigger delusion of Johnson, backed by his delusory advisors, who it seems began to believe the Brexit bullshit they had peddled to win the referendum. But, the delusion met the reality, and the EU, it showed, did not need Britain, more than Britain needed the EU, especially after Trump lost the US election, and the US, under Biden, pivots towards the EU, leaving an isolated Britain floating aimlessly, somewhere in the Atlantic, cold and alone. Brexit, as it always had to, is collapsing around their ears. But, as that Brexit collapse becomes more palpable by the day, manifest in the departure of Cummings and Cain, and the internecine warfare in Downing Street, that has the appearance of the last days of Rome, where is Labour? The answer is that more so than even under Corbyn, it has gone politically AWOL. Starmer's Labour has abandoned the field of ideological and political battle at the very moment of the turning point in the war.
Starmer was the architect of Labour's Six Tests, designed to ensure that Labour could never sign up to any Brexit deal. It was the cowardly way of continuing to argue against Brexit without actually coming out with a principled position of opposition. Ultimately, it was the basis of Labour's undoing, because it provided the basis for continuing to argue that maybe there was some kind of Brexit, a Labour have cake and eat it Brexit, that could possibly be negotiated that would be acceptable. That was never a possibility, but pretending it was, left Labour with a vague half-way house, opportunist position that, on the one hand, liberal Remainers could interpret as supporting their position, whilst Lexiters like Corbyn - not to mention the reactionary nationalists like Flint, Mann et al - could argue left the door open to the Brexit they desired. It was a thoroughly opportunist tactic that ended in the calamity it deserved.
But, instead of learning the lesson of that, Starmer, having replaced Corbyn, rather than adopting a principled position, simply doubled down on the opportunism, he had been responsible for in the first place. As soon as he became Leader, he became a bigger Brexiter than Corbyn, even though any principled politician, with an ounce of foresight, must have been able to see that Brexit is either not possible at all, or that anyone who pushes it through, will destroy themselves, because of the immense damage it will do to the economy, in short order. A crash out Brexit will led to widespread dislocation within days, whilst the only negotiated Brexit, now possible, that avoids that damage, is one that amounts to no Brexit at all, i.e. BRINO.
Had Starmer adopted a principled position of opposition to Brexit, then Labour could have been making hay over the last year, as the Brexiters found themselves sinking ever deeper into the mire of their construction. But Starmer can't do that, because he has become an ardent Brexiter himself. He has urged Johnson on ever harder to "Get Brexit Done", just as he has urged him to impose ever harsher, ever more damaging lockdowns of the economy. Starmer's Labour Party, now cannot escape its own share of the blame for Brexit, and of the lockdowns.
In fact, the speed with which Starmer became an ardent Brexiteer, once having become Leader, brings into question the extent of his internationalism, and support for Remain to begin with. The fact is that Corbyn, in 2015, made Alan Johnson, the organiser of Labour's Referendum campaign. It was a stupid conciliationist decision, like many more made by Corbyn and his Stalinoid advisors during the period. Alan Johnson, promptly disappeared from sight, but few of his fellow liberal Remainers made a name for themselves during that campaign either, including Starmer. The reality, is that the liberal Remainers have always themselves been essentially nationalist social-democrats, who see the EU only as a means of promoting the interests of British capital, not of the working-class. Their focus, including as presented in Starmer's Six Tests, is always presented in terms of what can Britain, i.e. British capital, get out of it.
When the chicken coup against Corbyn failed, his opponents knew that had to find other ways of opposing him, and undermining his support in the party. The real basis of making opposition to Brexit, and the focus on the Six Tests, for the liberals, was as much to split the overwhelmingly Remain supporting rank and file, away from the Brexit supporting Corbynites. That was the real basis of Starmer's position, and of rallying the party rank and file around him in opposition to Corbyn, ready for when Labour inevitably lost he next election, so as to make himself Leader, as vanguard of the Labour Right. That is why he could so quickly discard that Remain position, and put himself at the head of a rapidly Right moving nationalistic, conservative social-democracy. It was a means of splitting Corbyn from the rank and file, a weapon to be used against him, just as was anti-Semitism.
Both used something real, and turned it into a weapon. Corbyn and his Stalinoid advisors assisted the Right in this strategy all along the way to the gallows. The Starmer-right strategy on Brexit could only work, because Corbyn himself facilitated it, by pursuing his ridiculous pro-Brexit stance, whilst doing so within the confines of the limitations that Starmer himself had placed upon him, meaning he was in the worst of both worlds. On the one hand he was leading an overwhelmingly Remain supporting Labour Party, that was backing a fake Brexit position that no one could believe, and simply tied the party up in knots. On the other, he was trying to pursue his own economic nationalist, pro-Brexit position, within those limits that looked increasingly ridiculous, and which day by day separated him from the party's members and voters. In Spring 2019, even 60% of Labour members voted for pro-Remain parties rather than Labour!
Had Corbyn been a principled international socialist, he would have recognised Brexit from the start as a reactionary, nationalist agenda, and fought hard against it. He would have mobilised international working-class opposition to it, thereby showing the real basis of socialist internationalism, and support for the EU, as the basis of building workers' unity across Europe. But, he isn't, and his Stalinoid advisors drove him in the opposite direction. Even political nouse would have said to Corbyn that given the 90% backing for Remain amongst the party members and voters, setting your face against them, and continuing to back Brexit was foolhardy.
The Starmer-rights simply picked up the low hanging fruit of Corbyn's incompetence, and reactionary politics. They were able to split the rank and file away, only because Corbyn allowed them to, by refusing to align himself with the rank and file, and its progressive anti-Brexit position. And, the same was true with anti-Semitism. Everyone knows that Labour, like every other party, and every other institution, has a problem with anti-Semitism, indeed with all sorts of bigotry. But, just as with Brexit, the Right seized upon it, to attack Corbyn, and to split the base away from him. They were able to do so, because again Corbyn enabled them.
On the one hand, Corbyn's own petty-bourgeois nationalism that led him to support all sorts of petty-bourgeois nationalist regimes and movements, on the back of their "anti-imperialism", was itself reactionary, as are all of those movements and regimes. Their reactionary ideologies often take the form of anti-Semitism, particularly in the Middle East. Corbyn's association with them played right into the hands of those who wanted to portray him as an anti-Semite, even though quite clearly he is not. Some of those around him, however, are at the very least left anti-Semites, meaning that they allow their opposition to Israel to flow over into demanding that Jews be held to a different standard to everyone else.
Again, it was difficult for Corbyn to escape that trap, because it was based upon the very nature of his own reactionary petty-bourgeois nationalist ideology itself. He was not going to self-criticise, and accept that the people he had associated with for half a century were all actually reactionary nationalists, whether it was Sinn Fein or Hezbollah, the ANC or Hamas. Yet, it was clear, and even the EHRC, Report says so, that the claims about anti-Semitism in the labour Party being rampant, were completely exaggerated. It amounted to a tiny proportion of total LP membership, almost certainly much smaller than would be found in the Tory Party, or other institutions. The right simply weaponised it against Corbyn, to split the rank and file from him, and he allowed them to do it.
All along, Corbyn appeased the Right, and when they began to use anti-Semitism to attack him, and others on the Left, he appeased them even more, and allowed people to be vilified and expelled. And, when, eventually they came for him, there was no one left to defend him.
So no one can blame the Starmer-rights for taking advantage of Corbyn's own reactionary politics and incompetence to undermine him. It is a powerful lesson for all those new young progressive elements that came into the Labour Party to learn for the future, about the nature of Stalinism, and reactionary economic nationalism that passes itself off as radical "anti-capitalism" and "anti-imperialism". It again proves the truth of what Trotsky said about this kind of bourgeois element within the labour movement.
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