Batley - Starmer Comes Over All King Jung Ill

Well it didn't take long.  Keir Starmer in a frantic search for reactionary nationalist votes has been busy wrapping himself in the Union Flag for months, glorying in the bloodstained butcher's apron.  Now after nearly losing the safe Labour seat in Batley & Spen, whilst thousands of votes of reactionary nationalists went to the combined forces of the Tories and George Galloway, Starmer has finally given us an idea of what Labour's policies are to be.  Its worse than not knowing,as he seems to have taken his lead for those policies from that same George Galloway, The Morning Star and the policies of autarky and economic nationalism of Kim Jung Il's North Korea.

Starmer tells us, now, via his right-wing, capitalist mouthpiece, Rachel Reeves, that Labour wants Boris Johnson not only to have Got Brexit Done faster, and harder, but he is making the logical next step from that in demanding that the government ensure that we are all imposed upon to "Buy British", that everything we need or use, should itself be made in Britain, and so on.  In other words, the same kind of policy of economic nationalism seen in North Korea that has wrecked its economy, along with all of the idiocy and inefficiency that always goes along with it.  

For someone who in his past had a fleeting acquaintance with Trotskyism, this all sounds very much of the type of building Socialism In One Country favoured by Stalin, and his disciples like George Galloway and the Morning Star, not to mention the Kim Dynasty in North Korea.  At least, it would seem that way, except for the fact that for Starmer and Reeves, the emphasis is very much not on any reference to Socialism, but on measures to favour British capital, and to defend its inefficiency against foreign competition, with all sorts of protectionist measures.  Its notable that Reeves chose to give the interview setting out these reactionary nationalist economic policies in the pages of the Torygraph.

In other words, whilst the policy is one consistent with the reactionary economic nationalist agenda that Starmer has been adopting, in search of reactionary Brexit voters, the very nature of that nationalistic approach, focused on the needs of British capital, makes it equally, or even more consistent with the same economic nationalism of the likes of Oswald Moseley's Memorandum, or the similar policies adopted by Mussolini in the 1920's, or the Nazis in the 1930's.  The fascist Mosely was also a Labour Minister, in 1929, and member of the Fabian Society, when, as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, he put forward his Memorandum, of economic nationalism, supported by the likes of other economic nationalists like Nye Bevan.  It provided the basis of the fascist policies that Mosely would pursue when he split from Labour to form his New Party, and then British Union of Fascists.

The same alignment of forces can be seen today.  Its no coincidence that this economic nationalism, like nationalism in general draws together reactionaries from both left and right into the same bed.  It happened in the 1930's, and in the 1970's, with for example the Stalinists and Bennites joining forces with Enoch Powell and the National Front to oppose the EEC.  Starmer is just the latest figure from the Left to have made that journey to the dark side, via the Red-Brown Front.  Its ironic that many on the petty-bourgeois left have defended Starmer as a supposed pole of attraction against that Red-Brown front, now Starmer, as Labour Leader, and challenger for Downing Street, has made himself its titular head!!!

And, what an idiotic time to announce such an idiotic nationalist policy.  It comes days after the French/Japanese multinational, Nissan, has just announced millions of pounds of investment in Sunderland, albeit with millions of Pounds of bribes for it coming from Johnson's government.  If every other country followed the economic nationalist line of Starmer/Reeves, then Nissan-Renault would cancel its planned investment, close down its UK plants, and shit the production back to France and Japan!  As a result of the damage done by the economic nationalist nightmare of Brexit, Britain is all the more dependent upon trade with other countries, and upon investment in Britain by multinational companies.  The logic of the economic nationalism of the Starmer/Reeves Red-Brown front, however, is that such international trade would be drastically reduced, as it was in the 1930's, via nationalistic policies of beggar thy neighbour, and look after your own.  It, is of course, the kind of small minded, parochialism that is endemic amongst the petty-bourgeoisie, and from whom the Red-Brown Front have always drawn their inspiration, and which now after Batley, Starmer has dived into head first. 

Its ironic that especially after Brexit, Britain is also reliant on investment of imperialist capital from Indian multinationals like Tata, Mittal and so on.  These giant Indian companies control large parts of the British economy such as Jaguar Land Rover, most of the steel industry, as well as parts of the former ICI.  Again, the logic of Starmer's new Red-Brown strategy would be that these Indian multinationals would shut down that production in Britain, causing tens of thousands of job losses, shifting the production back to India instead.  Of course, when lots of British racists voted for Brexit, the idea that Britain would be made more dependent upon India, as against their delusions that it would open the door to some kind of time-warp back to the days of Empire, was not what they had in mind, nor that the increased power of Indian multinational capital over Brexit Britain would come with demands for more immigration from the sub-continent, and so on.

But, they were not the only ones who voted for Brexit, and it shows how nationalism and fascism always comes with inevitable contradictions that sooner or later break out violently.  In Germany, in the 1930's, it was the Strasserites who were put down violently by Hitler in the Night of the Long Knives.  In Batley and Spen, the votes accrued by the reactionary Galloway have been claimed to be potential Labour votes, but that is nonsense.  Its the same kind of nonsense that has claimed that Jewish voters are preponderantly Labour voters.  At one time that was true, but things change.  When large numbers of poor victimised Jewish socialists escaped pogroms in Tsarist Russia, they became prominent members of the labour movement, wherever they settled, in the 19th, and early 20th century.  But, that is a very long time ago.

In his book "The Jewish Vote" Geoffrey Alderman writes, 

"After 1945 an upwardly mobile but still working‐class Jewish electorate became disenchanted with the Labour Party. Conservative politicians were quick to exploit this alienation. In the 1960s and 1970s Jewish voters became substantially middle class and also substantially Conservative in outlook."

By the 1980's, the majority of Jewish voters voted Tory. And, the majority grew larger and larger into the 1990's, long before Corbyn or even Miliband. The main motivation seems to be politico-economic, as they opposed the social-democratic agenda of Labour, even in its conservative manifestation under Blair. 

That, of course, was the real objection of all those right-wing Labourites to Corbyn, and for whom anti-Semitism was a convenient whip to beat him with to cover their real agenda, whatever longer term damaging consequences for fighting actual anti-Semitism that might have. 

In 2015, a survey of British Jews showed that 69% intended to vote Tory, with only 22% saying they would vote Labour. The 2001 UK Census showed that 30.5% of economically active Jews were self-employed, compared to a figure of 14.2% for the general population. Jews aged 16–24 were less likely to be economically active than their counterparts in the general population; 89.2% of these were students. In a 2010 study, average income per working adult was £15.44 an hour. Median income and wealth were significantly higher than other religious groups.

And, a similar thing can be seen with Asians.  Many Asians who came to Britain, for example, those from Uganda, were already middle-class families.  They may have lost everything materially, but they brought with them their levels of education and culture, including he culture of small business and enterprise.  Faced with competition from large-scale capital, especially at a time, when the Conservative Party itself was seen as the party of big business, its not surprising that such petty-bourgeois elements should be attracted to a Labour Party that appeared to be the friend of the little guy.  A racist Tory Party, demanding harsh immigration controls, was the last thing such recent immigrants wanted, as they still sought to reunite with the rest of their families.

But, again, all that is now a long time ago.  A look at many of these communities now sees them characterised by the same kind of growth of the petty-bourgeoisie, a petty-bourgeoisie that grew rapidly in the 1980's, as a result of Thatcher's policies of deindustrialisation, encouragement of debt, and the Tories turn against big capital and the EU.  Asian communities whether, Muslim or non-Muslim, are characterised by the central role of such a petty-bourgeoisie, often in a controlling position as far as religion, culture and community organisations.  Whether that petty-bourgeoise comprises the self-employed, the firms of taxi-drivers, the shopkeepers or whatever, these are the same elements that everywhere are the ones that form the reservoir of support for reactionary ideas.  Its the layer that those like Modi rely upon in India, as well as Khan in Pakistan, the Mullahs in Iran and Iraq, Erdogan in Turkey, Netanyahu in Israel, le Pen in France, Trump in the US, the AfD in Germany, Wilders in the Netherlands, and, of course, Boris Johnson in Britain.  Its that same mire that Starmer has dived into.

A look at Tory Associations across the country, shows that it is these petty-bourgeois elements that have become dominant over the last thirty years.  And, its why that includes that growing Asian petty-bourgeoisie, not to mention the British-Indian bourgeoisie, tied by a thousand golden strings to that big Indian multinational capital.  All of these bourgeois and petty-bourgeois elements have no more shared interest with working-class Asians than they do with any other part of the working-class, just as the rest of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie have no shared interest with the rest of the working-class, and so the lumping together of people on the basis of their skin colour, or ethnicity, or Britishness is just as much the sham as it has always been.  The idea that the Muslim petty-bourgeoisie and their families in Batley and Spen, were somehow, to be considered automatically Labour voters was a nonsense, as much as the idea that Jewish voters were considered automatically Labour voters had long since been a nonsense, disproved by the facts.

The truth is that the Tory vote itself is not homogeneous.  In part, it comprises a professional middle-class vote, people who see themselves as having progressed out of the working-class.  They may have been better educated, had better jobs, seen themselves in middle management positions, able to have provided themselves with a house in the 1960's and 70's, when they were still relatively rationally priced.  At a time, when the Tories too were still seen as the party of big business, in which such professional managers had pride of place, they would have had no problem translating their position into support for such a party, and those traditions die hard.  But, today's Tory Party is not that of the 1950's, 60's or 70's.  It has been captured by the petty-bourgeoisie, and its reactionary agenda.  That agenda is an affront to those old professional, middle class layers, and Brexit was the epitome of it.  Its why, the Tories lost Chesham and Amersham to the Liberals, why they lost Kensington and Canterbury to a resurgent, anti-Brexit Labour, under Corbyn in 2017, and why they lost swathes of seats to the Liberals and Greens in the European and local elections in Spring 2019. 

And, the same played out in Batley, and will play out across the country whether in so called Red or Blue Wall seats.  In Batley, some of those middle class Tory voters made no secret of the fact that they had little time for Boris's Brexit, especially following the antics of Hancock in the previous week, but were also fearful of Galloway.  They voted tactically for Labour to that end, and, with the Liberals having no chance of success in the seat, many of them voted tactically for Labour too.  In other words, the straightforward counting up of votes can't give a true picture of what happened in the election, and how it reflects shifting sands.  Progressive, young, Labour voters are increasingly demoralised by Starmer's rapid collapse into reactionary nationalism, and are staying away, or where this is an alternative, as in Chesham, they are voting for the Liberals or Greens, rather than Labour.  Liberals, who share many of the same traits as the middle-class Tories are also voting tactically, and, now, in a large number of seats, of which Batley was not one, that will benefit the Liberals not Labour, especially as Labour becomes increasingly indistinguishable from Johnson's English nationalist party.

In that way too, Starmer has put himself at the head of the British Red-brown Front, as he launches headlong into the nationalist quagmire, in search of cheap, short term votes.