Brexit Unravels

We are only a month into the Implementation Period for the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, the EU is still allowing the UK some leeway in that implementation, and yet, Brexit is already unravelling.  The most obvious example is events in Northern Ireland, but, even before that, it was unravelling around Britain's shores, as fishing communities found that their friend Boris had once again shafted them.  Fish rotting on the quayside, markets in Europe disappearing for their products was not what they thought Brexit was going to bring, not what the Faragists promised them.  Brexit inevitably unravels, because it is a reactionary policy, which from the start involved lying to some sections of society, whilst buying off others, at least temporarily.  The contradictions within it will blow it apart.

The clear example of that is Northern Ireland.  The Faragists, like then Northern Ireland Minister, Theresa Villiers, openly lied, during the EU Referendum, when they claimed that the question of the Northern Ireland border with the Republic was no problem.  That lie was quickly revealed when the actual negotiations over Brexit began.  It took centre stage.  It had to.  The basic contradiction of Brexit is this.  For the last century, the laws of capital accumulation have driven towards one simple development - the creation of ever larger single markets.  That was what happened with the creation of the nation state itself, in the 19th century, as a direct consequence of the development of capitalism.

"The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralised the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff.”

(The Communist Manifesto)

But, as capital grew rapidly, even by the end of the 19th century, the nation state was out of date, and had become an impediment even to the accumulation of capital, let alone the further development of the productive forces.

“Almost a hundred years ago when the national state still represented a relatively progressive factor, the Communist Manifesto proclaimed that the proletarians have no fatherland. Their only goal is the creation of the toilers’ fatherland embracing the whole world. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the bourgeois state with its armies and tariff walls became the worst brake on the development of productive forces, which demand a much more extensive arena. A socialist who comes out today for the defence of the “fatherland” is playing the same reactionary role as the peasants of the Vendee, who rushed to the defence of the feudal regime, that is, of their own chains.”

(Lenin - Imperialist War And The Proletarian World Revolution)  

The EU is the evidence of such inevitable political concentration that is the concomitant of economic concentration, and the need for capital to produce on an ever larger scale, for sale into ever larger single markets. But, its not alone. Wherever you look, in the Americas, in Asia, and even now in Africa the same creation of large multinational economic blocs have been created for this purpose, and in many cases, the inevitable political union and concentration follows. The era of the nation state is long gone, and attempts to preserve it are reactionary and doomed to failure.

But, that is exactly what Brexit tries to do. It is a reaction attempt to turn back the clock on more than a century of historical social development. Its the equivalent of trying to stop water running downhill. The fact is that the UK cannot do without the EU, and no amount of trade deals with other countries across the globe can change that. The vast majority of economic exchanges take place with others in your near vicinity. That is why most trade continues to take place within the nation state itself. But, then comes trade with your nearest neighbours, and this is how larger single markets develop, as increasingly those involved in such trade demand a level playing field, common rules, regulations and laws, and so on. Marx described that, even within Britain in the 19th century, in relation to the development of the Factory Acts.

“Some of the masters themselves murmured:

“On account of the contradictory decisions of the magistrates, a condition of things altogether abnormal and anarchical obtains. One law holds in Yorkshire, another in Lancashire, one law in one parish of Lancashire, another in its immediate neighbourhood. The manufacturer in large towns could evade the law, the manufacturer in country districts could not find the people necessary for the relay system, still less for the shifting of hands from one factory to another,” &c.

And the first birthright of capital is equal exploitation of labour-power by all capitalists.”

(CapitalVol I, Chapter 10)

The basic requirement of the capitalists, Marx notes, and the same refrain is made today, in relation to the EU, is the existence of a level playing field. But, after 1860, the development of capital on a huge scale means that this level playing field, based upon minimum conditions for workers, enforced by the capitalist state, itself favours the interests of this large-scale capital, as against the small capitalists.

“However, the principle had triumphed with its victory in those great branches of industry which form the most characteristic creation of the modern mode of production. Their wonderful development from 1853 to 1860, hand-in-hand with the physical and moral regeneration of the factory workers, struck the most purblind. The masters from whom the legal limitation and regulation had been wrung step by step after a civil war of half a century, themselves referred ostentatiously to the contrast with the branches of exploitation still “free.” The Pharisees of “Political Economy” now proclaimed the discernment of the necessity of a legally fixed working-day as a characteristic new discovery of their “science.””

(ibid)

And, that same reality exists today, which is why the drive for Brexit has been pushed by the petty-bourgeoisie, by the same small capitalists for whom these requirements for civilised conditions remain a hindrance to their attempts to make profits.  We see the same thing being manifest now, by the Communist Party of Britain resurrecting the reactionary demand for the creation of an anti-monopoly alliance, another demand of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie.  But, that too is as absurd as Brexit, and just another attempt to stop water running downhill.  As Lenin put it, arguing against that reactionary demand by Kautsky,

"“It is not the business of the proletariat,” writes Hilferding “to contrast the more progressive capitalist policy with that of the now bygone era of free trade and of hostility towards the state. The reply of the proletariat to the economic policy of finance capital, to imperialism, cannot be free trade, but socialism. The aim of proletarian policy cannot today be the ideal of restoring free competition—which has now become a reactionary ideal—but the complete elimination of competition by the abolition of capitalism.” 

Kautsky’s argument can have no other meaning; and this “meaning” is meaningless. Let us assume that free competition, without any sort of monopoly, would have developed capitalism and trade more rapidly. But the more rapidly trade and capitalism develop, the greater is the concentration of production and capital which gives rise to monopoly. And monopolies have already arisen—precisely out of free competition! Even if monopolies have now begun to retard progress, it is not an argument in favour of free competition, which has become impossible after it has given rise to monopoly.

Whichever way one turns Kautsky’s argument, one will find nothing in it except reaction and bourgeois reformism."

(Imperialism)

The contradiction has manifested throughout.  The Tories try to pretend that they have implemented Brexit, but, of course, in any real sense they have not.  They need access to that huge EU single market, the largest market in the world, a market with which the UK does 43% of its trade.  To continue trading on the same basis, Britain has to agree to abide by all of the requirements of that single market, in terms of standards and so on.  That is why the claims made by the Tories and Faragists, as well as by some in Labour that it was possible to have the same kind of access to the single market, but be outside it, were completely fallacious.

In fact, even having agreed to abide by EU Single Market standards, the UK does not have the same access as member states.  It has obtained a free trade deal, removing tariffs, only provided it continues to abide by EU rules, but it now has to endure a whole series of checks on its exports to the EU, which were previously not required, and all of that involves billions of pounds worth of additional paperwork, as well as long delays at borders, and so on.  It puts British firms at a huge disadvantage to their EU competitors.  Its why, fishing fleets have found their fish rotting on quaysides, why British businesses have found they do not have the required paperwork to send their goods into the EU market, and why many of them don't have the resources to be able to complete all of the necessary additional work.  That is why many of them, have for now stopped exporting to the EU, and many are moving their operations inside the EU, meaning thousands of EK jobs will be lost in the process.

The media, which egged on all of the Brexit mania, because it provided them with an ongoing news story that brought in readers and viewers, of course, haven't shown the pictures of fish being taken down to Downing Street, as all of the consequences of the Brexit they encouraged start to manifest.

But, its in Northern Ireland where its being seen most starkly.  In order to address the most obvious contradiction within Brexit, Johnson's Withdrawal Agreement had to sign up to the Northern Ireland Protocol that puts a border down the Irish Sea as the alternative to putting a border down the island of Ireland.  The Unionists obviously, like the British fishermen are outraged.  "Sell-out," they proclaim.  They have wanted from the start the British government to invoke Article 16 of the Protocal, effectively revoking it, as they see goods from the mainland to Northern Ireland drying up, choked with a growing mountain of paperwork and regulations.  In fact, as an indication of the importance of free single market access, trade between the whole of Ireland and the UK has fallen by 50% since the start of the year, and the introduction of the new arrangements.

But, it was not the UK that first raised the prospect of invoking Article 16.  It was the EU itself.  They didn't invoke it, and it seems to have been an unforeseen consequence of proposals for stopping EU produced COVID vaccines being sent to the UK, rather than meeting EU requirements first, rather than a deliberate provocation.  But, is shows the point.  The Withdrawal Agreement signed by the UK and EU is unstable, and the instability is manifest in Ireland.

The whole point of Brexit was for the British petty-bourgeoisie that the Tories represent to be able to excuse themselves from all of the civilising rules and regulations of the EU, which have been introduced to meet the needs of EU large-scale capital, and give them an advantage over their petty-bourgeois brethren.  Brexit only works if they can scrap all of those rules an regulations, so that the petty-bourgeoisie, the plethora of small business people, can exploit their workers mercilessly, as well as being able to ignore any concerns for the environment, or maintenance of consumer rights and so on.  But, Britain only gets its current Free Trade Agreement provided it does abide by those rules.  Sooner or later that is going to blow apart.  Its why the EU insists on all the paperwork to ensure Britain is playing by the rules, because they know Britain will try to flaunt them.

Again that is most clear in the case of Northern Ireland, where to avoid a border in Ireland, Northern Ireland remains inside the Single market, necessitating the border down the Irish Sea.  But, Northern Ireland remains an anomaly.  One example is the continuance of the Common Travel Area.  There is nothing stopping people from the EU coming first to Ireland, and then by using the Common Travel Area, coming into Britain.  At the moment few people seem to want to, as Britain is losing hundreds of thousands of its necessary EU workers, but the potential still exists.

But, the example of the COVID vaccines shows that this is an unstable situation that sooner or later is going to explode.  That is has arisen no sooner than the new arrangements came into force shows just how unstable it is.  The only rational solution, with Britain out of the EU, is for the creation of a United Ireland.  No wonder that is what a majority in the North now seem to be favouring, just as a clear majority in Scotland now favour independence from England in order to re-join the EU.  This is simply the laws of history and of capital manifesting themselves as the centripetal forces driving towards a larger EU overwhelm the attraction of the UK, and create instead a centrifugal force within the UK itself.