Brexit Britain Has No Control Part 1 of 3

The Brexitories fought the EU referendum campaign under the naïve, and fallacious slogan of "Take Back Control".  Who it was aimed at, and what it really meant, was that the reactionary, petty-bourgeois base of the Tory party were to be given their head, and a carnival of reaction unleashed.

That reactionary petty bourgeoisie (the 5 million small business people, self-employed white van men etc.) are the main repository of all of the bigotry and other shit of ages passed down from the past.  So, a large part of what it meant was that it meant "control over borders", meaning an end to immigration.  That petty bourgeois mass, however, is not homogeneous.  For many of them, and for many of those associated with it, that meant an end to non-white immigration, and, if possible, repatriation of non-white people already living, here.  In other words, the kind of racism seen in the past from the supporters of the National Front, in the 1970's and 80's, and of the BNP, in the 90's and 2000's.  Hence, all of the reports of an increase in such racism immediately after the Brexit vote.

But, a large part of that petty-bourgeoisie, nowadays, itself comprises Asian small business people.  They have set up corner shops, taxi firms, restaurants, and so on, and that is reflected in the number of Asian Tory MP's, and Minsters.  There is also a more complicated relation between them, and the British-Indian bourgeoisie proper, and via them the Indian imperialism, as represented by its huge multinational corporations, such as Tata, which now own large chunks of the British economy.  Their attitude to such non-white immigration was more nuanced.  On the one hand, Brexit, meaning and end to immigration from the EU, with all of the protections for workers it involved, fitted the bill, because it opened up increased immigration from the Indian sub-continent, with the removal of all those same protections.  It meant cheap labour for all those small businesses, on tap.

And, what that taking back control also meant, therefore, for all sections of that petty bourgeoisie, was scrapping all of the EU's, minimal regulations and civilised controls and protections for workers, consumers, the environment and so on.  Large-scale capital has no difficulty with any of those minimal controls, and they often act, even, to its long-term benefit.  They certainly act to its benefit compared to the costs they impose on small business, which is why the petty bourgeoisie was keen to be able to scrap them.

The culmination of this process, played out inside the Tory Party, as the contradictions of Brexit unfolded, was the removal of Boris Johnson, and his replacement by Truss, made all the more symbolic, especially in respect of the connection between Brexit and Lexit (the supposed left-wing justification for Brexit, but which shared all of the same reactionary nationalist ideology), by the fact that Truss had been, in her youth, a member of the SWP, and, even until the referendum, a Remainer (an almost identical journey as that of Starmer, into the sewer of reactionary nationalism).

But, the fact was that Brexit represented the biggest sacrifice of control that Britain has ever undertaken as a country.  In the age of imperialism, of a global economy, and giant multinational companies, and a global ruling class that owns all its wealth in the form of fictitious capital that can be moved from one part of the globe to another instantaneously, at the press of a computer key, and which is beyond the bounds, and has no allegiance to any particular nation state, no nation, even the largest, can exercise control over its destiny.

But, Britain isn't even such a large state.  It is a state that has been in relative decline for over a century, and, now, is merely a second rate nation state.  Countries that are in the process of industrialising, and developing their economies, are termed "emerging economies", but, as some commentators have pointed out, as a consequence of Brexit, and the policies that the Brexitories have been implementing, Britain is now a "submerging economy".  It is on a trajectory going backwards, which is not at all surprising, because that is precisely what the petty bourgeoisie, and its ideology represents - a less developed form of capitalism, as against the mature forms of capitalism, based upon large-scale, socialised capital, social-democracy, and the drive towards ever larger, multinational states.

Forward To Part 2