So, barring it being blocked by the European Parliament, the disaster of Brexit is to be imposed on the British working-class. It is another black day in the history of defeats for the British working-class, alongside those of the 1926 and 1984-5 Miners Strikes. This defeat has the potential to be graver and more long-lasting. It is not just a defeat for the working-class, and its middle-class allies, but also for the dominant progressive section of capital, on which the future of the state itself depends. This is more like the victories of feudal reaction, in the long march of the advance of the bourgeoisie. It represents a further advance of the forces of reaction itself, which seeks to turn the clock backwards more than a century.
But, this is not a political counter-revolution. It is merely a battle within such a war. The reality is that the forces of reaction could never actually turn back the clock, in the way they seek, without completely destroying Britain, in the same way that Pol Pot destroyed Cambodia in carrying through his counter-revolution. The arrow of history, as much as the arrow of time, points in one direction, even if it does so via a series of eddies. The growth and dominance of large-scale capital did not arise by accident, or as a result of some external intervention, but as a consequence of the very processes of capitalism itself, whereby the smaller, less efficient producers go bust, and the larger, more efficient producers get bigger. Trying to reverse that process is what is artificial, and reactionary. It is also doomed to failure, as the underlying process will continue to operate. If a country insisted on continually breaking up its larger companies, to comply with this ideology, it would simply find itself uncompetitive with other countries that did not impose such harm upon themselves. The first country would go into steady decline, whilst the countries around it would prosper. And, the history of the world also shows what then happens. Those countries that prosper increasingly dominate and subordinate the weaker countries. That is the condition that Britain has put itself in as a result of the Brexit vote.
Capital was able to develop, because a series of historical developments, themselves resulting from the growth of commodity production by small, independent, artisan producers in the towns, led to a growth of those towns, and of markets within them. When markets reach a critical minimum size, it means that producers are able themselves to produce on a larger scale. It becomes possible for some producers, then to employ wage labourers, to take advantage of division of labour, and economies of scale, and to introduce machinery, which would not be viable unless production on a larger scale is undertaken. These capitalist producers then undercut the remaining independent artisan producers, who are thrown out of business. The capitalist producers, buy up their means of production, and employ the former independent producers as wage labourers. The former independent producers now form a growing urban proletariat. They must, now, themselves rely on the market to supply their consumption needs, which causes the market itself to expand, creating a virtuous circle.
This growth of capital in the towns begins in the 15th century. Over time, the spread of this capitalist production over a range of commodities, also undercuts the domestic industrial production of the peasants, who rely on it to provide them with money incomes to supplement their direct production of agricultural products. The peasants themselves, therefore, start to have to sell their labour-power to industrial capitalists, and their own agricultural production gradually ceases, their farms being taken over by richer peasants and landlords. By this process, capitalism, which originates in the towns, eventually spreads to the countryside. I've set this out in my blog posts How Capital produces Capitalists, Capitalism and Then Socialism. It is also described by Lenin, as set out in the posts on Lenin on Economic Romanticism.
In the same way that it is larger markets that make capital possible, once capital exists, it creates larger markets itself, and competition results in production taking place on an ever larger scale, which itself requires ever larger markets. It is this process that leads to the development of the nation state, in the 19th century, as the minimum size of economic unit required by capital. Those nations that are able to establish such a minimum size, are able to forge themselves into these nation states, whilst those that are not, pass out of history. The latter become what Engels describes as the Non-Historic Peoples, of which there are have been thousands. Britain, for example, was originally divided into numerous tribes, and then into several kingdoms, such as under the heptarchy. A long process of consolidation takes place, before the nation state of Britain, we know today, comes into existence. Even after the Norman Conquest, large parts of Britain spoke different languages - Anglo-Saxon, Gaelic, Norman French, for example. In France, there were 300 different nationalities, before the current French nation state came into existence. Germany had to be consolidated into a single German nation state by Prussia, and similar developments occurred in Italy, under Garibaldi, to forge a single nation state.
But, capitalist production, in the 19th century, advanced at such a pace that almost no sooner had the nation state been created than it was itself out of date. The same process that led to the creation of nation states, on the bones of hundreds of smaller nationalities and nations that were unable to make the cut, in terms of required size for survival, saw even some of the smaller nation states disadvantaged as against the larger ones. So, these smaller states must begin to form alliances, or seek the protection of some larger state. As the economies of Europe attempt to grow in the face of the competition of an already established UK economic superpower, so the larger economies in Europe – France and Germany – seek to expand their production, into a large European market, leading them, in turn, to try to forge these separate European national economies into a single European economy. It is first attempted by France, in the Napoleonic Wars, and then by Germany, in World War I and II. On each occasion, Britain attempted to protect its dominance against the creation of such a European superpower, by its own military intervention.
The underlying, economic reality, and so dynamic driving towards the creation of ever larger single markets, and economies, however, remained. What was not achieved by war, was achieved by peaceful cooperation and negotiation, as the economies of Europe formed the EEC, and, out of it, the EU. The reality, also was that British capital, or at least its dominant, large scale capital could not stand aside from such a development, and so Britain too had to become a part of this evolving European super state. Separate from it, the relatively small British economy cannot compete against an EU state that is six times bigger, or against a US economy, and Chinese economy that are similar in size to the EU. It is why, across the globe, smaller economies have followed the example of the EU, in forming together in large economic blocs, creating single markets that are inevitably driven towards the creation of single currency areas, and political unions. The latest example is the African Continental Free Trade Area.
So, when Marxists look at these developments, and at Brexit within it, they do so in the same way that an evolutionary biologist looks at the evolution and development of species. Sometimes that process goes down a dead-end, for some particular and unusual set of reasons, and the species that arises dies out. Such is the nature of Brexit.
And, the fact is that those that proposed Brexit, and who are now loudly proclaiming that they “Got It Done”, have had to realise that what they promised was not possible. The loud proclamations from Boris Johnson that he has, indeed, proved the possibility of “having cake and eating it”, are simply bluster to cover the fact that, a large part of the cake Britain had, has been thrown away, leaving a much smaller part of it to eat. Johnson has not “Got Brexit Done” in the way he promised, and the deal he has been forced to agree to amounts only to Brexit In Name Only (BRINO). The truth is always concrete, and the truth of this deal is that:
1) NI is in the EU indefinitely, with a border down the Irish Sea. Not what Brexiters wanted or promised.
2) Britain, as a whole, is tied to the Single Market and its regulations indefinitely. Not what the Brexiters wanted or promised. And,
a) Britain has to abide by those rules, but, now, with no say in determining them,
b) Britain has had to stay in some regulatory bodies, for which it will pay more than it did as a member, whilst for those its not in, it does not get equivalence, and now has to bear the cost of running those bodies on its own,
c) That only gets tariff free trade on the less than 20% of its economy involved in material production, but
i) still means trade frictions in regulatory border checks etc., and
ii) no provisions for the 80% of the economy involved in service industry.
d) Britons lose all the benefits of free movement etc.
3) Britain gets to do its own trade deals, but the ones it has done only replicate those it already had with the same countries as an EU member. Already, the EU has just negotiated a large trade deal with China that Britain, now does not benefit from. As a small economy, the UK cannot negotiate from the same position of strength that the EU does with those other countries, which is why Britain will get worse terms in any of these future trade deals.
4) Because of the UK's signing up to Single Market regulations, any trade deals will be highly constrained to comply with the Single Market rules on country of origin.
5) Britain collapsed even on fishing.
Johnson had to capitulate into this BRINO, because he understands the reality that Britain could never have actually undertaken a No Deal Brexit, and cut itself adrift from the EU. But, even so, this BRINO is a disaster, because it imposes unnecessary costs on UK production. Marxists are not concerned for the plight of UK capitalists, resulting from that, in the way that, for example, Labour MP, Peter Kyle, bemoaned the effect on British bankers. We are, however, obliged, by our scientific method, to point out the reactionary consequences of such developments in turning back the processes of capitalist development, processes that we also see as vital to the development of the productive forces which, in turn, lead to the development of Socialism. We are not nationalists, concerned for the negative effects of Brexit on Britain, but scientific socialists concerned about the negative effects it has on the development of productive forces, of the unity of workers across borders, and so of the potential for the more rapid development of socialism.
That is why socialists had to oppose Brexit, and why they must now seek to continue to forge the closest possible links between UK workers and workers in the EU, around a common programme. It is why it is necessary to minimise the consequences of Brexit in relation to the development of the productive forces, and unity of the European working-class. It is why we must continue to argue for a reversal of Brexit, at the earliest opportunity.
But, for all these reasons the actions of Keir Starmer and the large majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party, in voting for this disastrous and reactionary Brexit must go down as a day of eternal shame. The so called socialists and social democrats of the PLP were put to shame by the nationalists of the SNP and Plaid, as well as by the petty-bourgeois liberals of the Liberal Democrats and Greens. It was an act of historic betrayal by Starmer and the PLP, for which they should be branded with infamy, as with the mark of Cain.
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