Boris Johnson has handed Jacob-Rees-Mogg a poisoned chalice in making him Minister for identifying advantages from Brexit. He may as well have made him Minister for getting blood from stones, or for the supply of rocking horse shit. In giving Mogg this job, Johnson ensures that he will fail, and be exposed, as one of the main petty-bourgeois, liberal proponents of Brexit. It will undermine, at the same time, the rest of the petty-bourgeois, liberal Brexiters on the backbenches that have been after Johnson's blood in recent weeks.
As I have set out previously, Johnson is not really a Brexiter. He is a conservative social-democrat, who is an opportunist chancer. He saw the opportunity to seize the top job, and replace Cameron by taking on the mantle of chief Brexiter, a role that many of the Brexiters were never confident in to begin with, but who likewise were happy to take advantage of his greater celebrity to further their ambitions in the run up to the referendum.
The truth is that this was always going to unwind dramatically. Johnson would be forced to but by bit renege on his Brexit commitments, whilst shouting ever more loudly his pro-Brexit sentiments to cover his actual actions. Sooner or later, he would have to take on the reactionary, petty-bourgeois elements in his own party, or they would replace him. In the last few months, as Cummings, then Frost and other reactionary, petty-bourgeois elements resigned, or were removed, the momentum built to remove Johnson, as, simultaneously, he had to face up to the reality of Brexit, in the form of climb downs on the Northern Ireland protocol etc.
Quietly, a whole series of side deals between the UK and EU has also simply put back in place many of the arrangements that existed when Britain was in the EU. The difference is that much of the cost involved now falls on the UK rather than the EU, and at the same time, Britain has no say in the actual details of these arrangements, having to more or less acquiesce in the conditions imposed by the EU. All of these individual deals, protocols, and arrangements now form a series of catacombs sitting below the surface of Brexit, like a Swiss Cheese, meaning that, at some point, the whole edifice is likely to collapse in on itself.
Johnson's move in putting Mogg in this impossible job, is clever, because, on the one hand, superficially, it appears he has lent in to the narrative of the Brexiters, promoting the idea that there are actually some benefits to be had from Brexit, and giving one of their more prominent, and popular (amongst Tories) members the task. But, given that there are no such benefits to be had, it sets Mogg up to fail, and by extension the whole of that reactionary wing of the party. They cannot come out to complain that that is what Johnson is doing, because to do so would mean them admitting that they recognise that there are no benefits from Brexit - of course, there are some benefits of Brexit, but only for all of those petty-bourgeois elements, the white van men, and so on, not for the vast majority of people - and that they had been lying all along.
The same is true of Johnson's promotion of a Brexiter to the job of Chief Whip. As the ructions continue to mount, what better for Johnson than again to have a Brexiter in the position of trying to hold the ring, and under attack from all sides. Meanwhile a report out today illustrates the point that there are no benefits for the economy as a whole from Brexit. It has merely resulted in much higher costs, from additional bureaucracy and paperwork, as well as slowing down the movement of goods. The additional costs are said to amount to around £15 billion a year, and as the effects of lockdowns and lockouts are removed, its expected that increased trade across the channel will lead to 30 mile traffic jams from Dover. In fact, there are reports that such queues have already been happening, but that much of the media has been failing to report them.
In fact, what this means is that the real cost to the British economy is much greater than the £15 billion of additional red tape, and so on. Any slow down of this kind means a reduction in the rate of turnover of capital. Increasing the rate of turnover, by removing borders, as well as by standardisation, the use of containers, and so on, has been an important means for capital to raise the annual rate of profit. If, Brexit causes the rate of turnover of British capital to fall by 10%, then that is equivalent also to a 10% fall, in the annual average rate of profit. Total profits in Britain amount to around £500 billion a year. A 10% fall, therefore, a as result of a fall in the rate of turnover is equal to a reduction of UK profits of £50 billion a year.
This, of course, affects all o those large companies that make these profits from international trade, the majority of which is done with Europe, and will continue to be done with Europe in the future. It does not affect those small businesses, the window cleaner, gardener, back street garage and so on, whose activities are almost exclusively undertaken within Britain, and who, were the backbone of Brexit, as well as forming the core of Tory voters. But, of course, the British economy is not built upon these small, peripheral businesses, but upon the large companies, no matter how much liberals would like to convince us otherwise. That is why Johnson had to face up eventually to that reality, and begin to backtrack on Brexit, which led inevitably to his split with the hard line Brexiters on his backbenches.
That is the real context of all the leaks and attacks on Johnson, and all the nonsense over parties etc. The class war over Brexit continues, and continues to rip the Tories apart as it has done for the last 30 years, just as the same basic issue ripped them apart over the Corn Law in 1848. It is a class war being fought out between the interests of large-scale industrial capital, and of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie. The working-class should oppose the latter, whilst giving no concessions to the former. Our goal is not simply the defeat of reaction, by allying with conservative social-democracy, but to move beyond social-democracy to Socialism. A precondition of moving forward, however, is not to move back, which is why we must oppose the reactionaries, the petty-bourgeois Brexiters and nationalists in whatever guise. If social-democrats stand alongside us in that fight all well and good, but we should not liquidate our own politics in search of any such alliance.
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