The opportunist Left (which accounts for most of what passes for the Left), in Britain, expended vast amounts of time and emotional energy demanding the removal of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister. Most of its attacks on him were not even political, but were about chicken-shit issues surrounding his interior decoration of Downing Street, or him attending parties. As far as the latter was concerned, it also involved the opportunists being drawn into those levels of Dante's Inferno reserved for those who begin with liberal good intentions, but whose opportunist methods led them to become the most militant advocates of all sorts of illiberal laws on individual rights and freedoms, as part of the idiotic lockdowns.
Well, the opportunists got their man, and Johnson was forced out. What was the consequence? Did the opportunists really believe that all of their sound and fury, if it achieved its aim, was going to make any significant improvement for the lives of workers? Of course it would not, and could not. But, the nature of the politics of those opportunists is that such considerations never enter their heads, because they are concerned only with their own, immediate, petty political games and ambitions, played out within the corridors of Westminster, and reflected in the pages of the bourgeois media, supplemented, now, by the infinite array of social media.
The reality always was that if Boris was forced out, the replacement would be worse. All of the nonsense complaining that his replacement was going to be selected from within the Tory Party, simply reflected the fact that the opportunists had not thought things through, beforehand, and that they do not have much understanding of British politics, and the British Constitution itself. They didn't seem to mind, when only a couple of years ago, there was a possibility of replacing Johnson as Prime Minister, by cobbling together a majority of MP's in parliament who opposed his Brexit plans; they didn't object when Theresa May replaced Cameron, or when Gordon Brown replaced Blair, or Callaghan replaced Wilson. Typical of opportunists, their objections, in this regard, lead them to be selective about when they raise them, supporting at one moment what they oppose the next.
What is more, all those who object to the Prime Minister being elected by the members of the ruling party, imply that, at other times, the Prime Minister is elected by the whole electorate, which, of course, they are not. That would be a presidential not a parliamentary system, and the former are notoriously less democratic than the latter, as they concentrate power in the hands of a single individual, thereby, tending towards Bonapartism.
It is always the case that British Prime Ministers are elected by MP's, and not by the electorate. In 2010, that was made clear. The General Election provided no party with an overall majority, and so who became Prime Minister was not decided by that election. It could have been Brown or Cameron. It ended up being Cameron, purely because he was able to obtain the support of a majority of MP's, after the Liberals infamously entered coalition with the Tories, and despite the Liberals obtaining only around 70 seats, their own Leader Nick Clegg became Deputy Prime Minister. Similarly, Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940, only by obtaining the backing of Labour MP's, contrary to the results of the election.
It is always MP's that elect the Prime Minister, not voters, and, usually, that means that it is the MP's of the governing party who do so, because they have a majority of seats in parliament, and so the Leader of their party, usually determined beforehand, by the members of that party, becomes Prime Minister, a position which, itself, under the British Constitution, does not exist, its holder being designated simply primus inter pares (first amongst equals), in relation to other ministers. Those who have quibbled about all this, in fact, have conceded ground to all those who would like some kind of Presidential system, and who would like to take democracy out of the hands of party members, and have party leaders themselves elected via some form of primary elections, as in the US.
And, given that reality, it was inevitable that, having removed Johnson, his replacement was going to come from within the Tory Party, and given the reactionary nature of that party, his replacement was going to have to present themselves as being more reactionary than Johnson himself. The consequence was going to be something worse. Whoever, was going to succeed him had to present themselves as epitomising that reactionary, petty-bourgeois ideology that dominates the Tory Party. Step forward Liz Truss. Truss fits that bill perfectly, because she is a completely empty vessel. She is, in fact, just the female political twin of Starmer, both intellectual and political featherweights, devoid of any ideology, and so blown hither and thither on the winds of fortune, in search of their own personal advancement.
Johnson himself, as I wrote ten years ago, when he was positioning to replace Cameron, reflected this growing opportunist nature of British politics, as neither of the two main parties represented the interest of either main class in society, and, as conservative social-democracy broke down, in changed material conditions, it was a large, heterogeneous petty-bourgeois mass that was becoming determinant, with everything that always goes with such conditions. Growing reactionary populism meant that Johnson had to set himself up in opposition to Cameron, and Brexit was the obvious channel into which to focus that drive.
Johnson never believed in it, other than as such a means of achieving his personal ambition. To the extent he has any ideology, Johnson is a conservative social-democrat, like most Tory leaders before him, over the last century. And, that is not surprising, because all Tory Leaders know, when in office, that the future of the state depends upon large-scale industrial capital, which, in turn, depends upon a large, social-democratic state, and also upon increasingly large single markets, such as the EU.
Hence, whatever his rhetoric, Johnson was forced to concede to the EU all along the line, leaving Britain bound by EU single market, and customs union rules, and, in relation to the Northern Ireland Protocol, even being forced to accept a deal that is worse than that negotiated by Theresa May, and that Johnson had opposed! And, the other consequence of Johnson's electoral coalition was that he was bound into other traditional social-democratic measures, such as the so called “levelling up”, meaning that the social-democratic state would spend billions on infrastructure spending, spending that would be necessary, even if less affordable, given the economic damage that Brexit itself was doing to the economy.
All of that created the same fundamental contradictions within the Tory Party that have always existed, but which have become massively intensified over the last 30 years, for pretty much the same kinds of reasons that blew apart the Tory Party at the time of the Repeal of The Corn Laws. It is what led to opposition to Johnson from within the ranks of the ideologically committed, representatives of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, of the ERG, for example, who saw him being too concessionary to the EU, as well as promoting a big state agenda, as against their concerns for low taxes and a Misean, minarchist state.
It was obvious, then, that, in the election of Johnson's replacement, all those tendencies towards addressing the concerns of the reactionary petty-bourgeois mass that dominates the Tory Party would become heightened, and so it was, with the collection of deplorables who came forward. And, because the parliamentary parties no longer have any meaningful connection to the interests of either of the main classes in society, but have become purely vehicles for the furtherance of the political careers of individuals, those individuals themselves have become increasingly lightweight, and vacuous. We have gone from bad to Truss, from an arse to farce.
Truss has said that she campaigned as a conservative and will govern as a conservative, but that is not true. She campaigned as a petty-bourgeois reactionary, but will not be able to govern as one. It is the opposite of the conditions described by Engels in relation to the position of socialists in government before the material conditions permit it.
“The worst thing that can befall a leader of an extreme party is to be compelled to take over a government in an epoch when the movement is not yet ripe for the domination of the class which he represents and for the realisation of the measures which that domination would imply. What he can do depends not upon his will but upon the sharpness of the clash of interests between the various classes, and upon the degree of development of the material means of existence, the relations of production and means of communication upon which the clash of interests of the classes is based every time. What he ought to do, what his party demands of him, again depends not upon him, or upon the degree of development of the class struggle and its conditions. He is bound to his doctrines and the demands hitherto propounded which do not emanate from the interrelations of the social classes at a given moment, or from the more or less accidental level of relations of production and means of communication, but from his more or less penetrating insight into the general result of the social and political movement. Thus he necessarily finds himself in a dilemma. What he can do is in contrast to all his actions as hitherto practised, to all his principles and to the present interests of his party; what he ought to do cannot be achieved. In a word, he is compelled to represent not his party or his class, but the class for whom conditions are ripe for domination. In the interests of the movement itself, he is compelled to defend the interests of an alien class, and to feed his own class with phrases and promises, with the assertion that the interests of that alien class are their own interests. Whoever puts himself in this awkward position is irrevocably lost."
(The Peasant War In Germany)
A conservative would have based themselves on the interests of the ruling class, a class whose property takes the form of fictitious-capital (shares, bonds and their derivatives), and whose interests reside, therefore, in the ability of that property to provide them with interest/dividends, and capital gains, which ultimately depends upon expanding profits, which in turn depends upon an extension of single markets like the EU, and so on. Truss, like Johnson before, will need to try to govern as the reactionary when campaigned as being, and the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie that forms the core of the Tory Party members and voters, will demand it, but the reality of material conditions, and class relations will prevent it. The permanent state itself, which is the representative of the ruling class, and dominant property form, will prevent it. As with Trump, the consequence is that a struggle between two Bonpartisms arises.
The reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, as an heterogeneous class, in so far as it seeks to rule, can only do so, via some Bonapartist strong man, but they too, require the backing of the state. The state, however, is the state of the ruling class, and the ruling class has interests antagonistic to those of the petty-bourgeoisie. Normally, it would simply rely on a political party that represented those interests, such as was the case with both Tory and Labour parties, but currently, only the Liberals represent such a party, and they are hamstrung by the first past the post electoral system.
Truss, when she was a Liberal, did believe in those ideas, and even six years ago, when she backed Remain, believed in that. But, to carve out a niche, in a party moving, at a rapid pace, in the direction of petty-bourgeois reaction, she had to abandon all of that, to become the Brexiters Brexiter, to come out with all kinds of nonsensical rhetoric amounting to declaring economic war on Europe, similar to NATO's economic war declared on Russia and China.
Again, of course, illustrating the point above about the nature of these parties, Truss, here, again, appears as merely the female twin of Starmer. He too was the committed Remainer, when that was what was needed to promote his own personal ambition under Corbyn, but, as soon as he became Leader, having pushed Corbyn aside, he too, like Truss, became the Brexiters Brexiter, and proponent of all those nonsensical slogans about a Labour Brexit, not to mention his adoption of the most vile jingoistic and nationalistic flag-waving in search of the votes of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, and lumpen proletarians.
Truss's father, a leftish Liberal, who has apparently disowned her politically, is himself so discombobulated by her transition from being a Republican liberal, who went on anti-Tory, and anti-war marches, and who backed the EU wholeheartedly, to being slightly to the right of Attila the Hun, that he has said he hopes that it is all just a clever ruse on her part, and that she is really just a sleeper, who, now, having achieved her aim, will come out in her true, yellow, Liberal colours. Not a chance. That, of course, is the kind of liberal, idealist, Borgen, concept of politics, which itself sees it as simply a game played by politicians in the corridors of power completely separated from the real world, and class struggle.
In these conditions, where the ruling class, and dominant form of property has no political party representing its interests, it relies all the more on the state to undertake that function. Its in those conditions, where if need be, from within that state, usually from within the officer class, a Bonaparte arises, to fulfil that function.
Truss will find that the real world imposes itself on those that occupy these positions, and that it is those real conditions, not their own individual proclivities, that are determinant. Already, having promised to cut taxes, which, in current conditions of soaring inflation and debt, would mean soaring interest rates, and trade deficits, as happened when Reagan attempted such policies in the 1980's, leading to the US Twin deficits Crisis, Truss is already committing to massive state spending to offset the effects of the energy price crisis that has been caused by NATO's economic war against Russia, and the boycott of cheap Russian oil and gas supplies.
In fact, interest rates are already soaring, as a result of the debt created due to the idiotic lockdowns, and in response to the soaring inflation itself, again, due to the astronomical printing of money tokens of the last 30 years, and in particular that of the last two years, used to cover income replacement payments during lockdowns. And, even whilst central banks attempt to cause a recession, by raising their policy rates, and states do their bit, by draining disposable income into higher energy prices, and attempting to prevent workers from getting compensating wage rises, the central banks continue to allow liquidity to increase in the system, thereby, facilitating further inflation, and driving the world towards a global Weimar style stagflation.
Ultimately, workers can only find a lasting solution in the realm of politics, but none of the existing political parties are capable of providing such a solution. On the contrary, those parties are currently part of the problem, and an obstacle to workers finding their own solution. The Tories look set to advance even more authoritarian, anti-union measures designed to prevent workers resistance, whilst Labour never reversed the previous Tory anti-union laws, and Starmer's own reactionary, Blue Labour, simultaneously seeks to divert workers into the realm of reactionary nationalism and jingoism, reminiscent of the ideas of previous national socialists like Pilsudski, Mussolini, and Mosely, and to refuse to even provide the basic levels of solidarity with workers on picket lines.
On current form, Starmer, who sacks Labour MP's for appearing on picket lines, looks set, at best, not to seriously oppose any such measures to further hamstring workers resistance. Certainly he cannot be seen to be supporting such resistance, or calls for a General Strike to oppose those measures and so on. Yet, the alternatives to Labour, such as those emanating from “Enough Is Enough”, are themselves simply petty-bourgeois replicas of Labour Left populism, and basically seek to divert workers down a different dead-end of again creating some Labour Party Mark II. In the immediate conditions, the drive, instead, should be to mobilising workers in direct action to defend living standards, to fight for higher wages, a higher Minimum Weekly Wage, for a sliding scale of wages, pensions and benefits, and to tie it all together in coordinated action, including action to defeat any attempts to introduce further anti-union laws.
A lot of that will require creating a whole new leadership within the trades unions themselves, and a root and branch democratisation of union structures. Any coordinated action will inevitably require the use of existing Trades Councils/local TUC's, and of creating rank and file support committees, as were established in the 1984-5 Miners Strike, which themselves drew upon the experience of previous organisations like the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trades Unions, the Minority Movement, and so on. It would, also inevitably establish close links between these local and national trades union structures, and local Labour Party structures, and it is by these means, by-passing the official structures, that the immediate solutions will be created, and the means for transforming the trades unions and the Labour Party established.
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