Keir Starmer, despite 70% of Labour voters, and 80% of Labour members wanting to scrap Brexit and re-join the EU, not only refuses to commit to it, but even refuses to propose re-joining the Single Market. He continues to propose the ridiculous cakeist concept of a Labour Brexit, in which he will negotiate a better deal for Britain with the EU than it had as a member, or that other EU member states have. Sheer fantasy, and jingoist, British exceptionalism. The Liberals, who should be harvesting Labour votes, if not also Labour members, by the bucketful, in those conditions, have also adopted a tailist, cowardly approach, in which they continue to murmur about rejoining the EU at some future point, but claiming that its unrealistic right now. Quite the opposite, its unrealistic not to put rejoin on the agenda, to be pursued immediately by the next government.
Unrealistic for all the reasons previously set out, in relation to the fantasy of Britain somehow negotiating a closer deal with the EU. What does a closer deal mean? Britain is already bound to have to abide by EU Single market rules and regulations, if it wants to export goods and services into the EU, its closest, and by far largest market for those goods and services. As I wrote recently, Starmer's comment about not wanting to diverge from those rules and regulations is meaningless, because, as the Brexitories of Johnson's government and Truss's government soon found out, Britain can't diverge from them, whether it wants to or not, and still trade with the EU.
Britain can have a closer arrangement, in so far as re-joining some of the EU's institutions such as with the Horizon programme, but, again, all that means is a recognition of reality that Britain is massively damaged, by not being inside those programmes and institutions. It has already abandoned some of its own national programmes, set up as alternatives, and, as with its global health insurance card, set up as an alternative to the EHIC, they are useless, because no one, in other countries, recognises it, or accepts it. These all amount to costly, useless, bureaucratic national duplications of programmes and institutions that Britain, inside the EU, had automatic access to. So, if Britain is basically bound by the rules and regulation of the Single Market, and is having to seek membership of these other EU institutions and programmes, it is not demanding rejoining the EU itself that is unrealistic!
The only thing that Starmer can point to is the requirement to commit to free movement of labour, as a condition of membership of the Single Market, but for workers, for the vast majority of Labour, and most Liberal and Green voters, free movement is something we desperately want back, not something to be feared. Starmer and the Liberals hack at the racism of the Tories immigration policies and attitudes, but, at base, the reason that Starmer, and, it appears, the Liberal leadership baulk at proposing rejoin is that they are pandering to those same racist sentiments amongst a section of reactionary voters.
In the 1990's, as the Tories were torn apart by the divisions between their reactionary, petty-bourgeois, nationalist/Eurosceptic wing, and their conservative social-democratic wing, what strengthened the position of the former, besides the fact of the growing social weight of the petty-bourgeoisie, was that it was also able to take political shape in the form of UKIP. UKIP was never going to win any significant number of parliamentary seats, let alone form a government, its electoral successes, as with the BNP, during that period, were confined to the fact that a fanatical core of voters, had an exaggerated effect on the results, in small polls, such as those for local councils, and for the European Parliament. But, what it did do was to act as a whip on the Tory Party. It knew that an increasing number of its core vote could find an alternative, enough to prevent the Tories being able to form secure majorities. Something similar happened in the US, and elsewhere.
What Starmer, and, it appears, the Liberal leadership are relying on is that there is no equivalent to their internationalist Left, providing an equivalent whip. In the 2019, local and Euro elections, it was clear that the Liberals, Greens and others performed that function, in relation to a Labour Party that was drifting towards its own Brexit position, under Corbyn's leadership. Even 60% of Labour members, voted for these other anti-Brexit parties, in those elections, let alone Labour voters. It set in the rot that led to Labour's defeat at the 2019 General Election. But, the position of Starmer, and of the Liberal leadership, seems to be that those voters, desperate to ditch the Tories, will hold their nose and vote Labour or Liberal, for that purpose, despite the fact that they are basically adapting to and appeasing that increasingly small minority of racists and bigots that continue to support Brexit, despite the obvious disaster it has turned out to be. The field would appear to be open to some progressive, pro-EU party that would put the question of immediately rejoining the EU on the agenda.
Resolutions are put on the agenda for Labour's conference tentatively calling for a commitment to rejoining the Single Market, and so on, but Starmer's increasingly police state apparatus in the party, with the use of former MI6 spies, and so on, to sniff out and eradicate even the potential for having to deal with awkward questions, let alone a conference debate, is likely to prevent it getting to the conference floor. Liberal activists also raised the question on the conference floor, but with no great effect. So far, the Greens have also failed to make hay amidst all of this cowardice, and tailism by Labour and the Liberals, to stand up and be counted, and commit to rejoining the EU at the earliest opportunity. So, far, the real action has come from small groups of progressive, internationalist individuals, such as those that organised the Rejoin March, last Saturday, that drew in thousands of supporters, despite the fact that the British mainstream media have done everything possible to avoid even reporting on its existence. Some will also gather at Labour Conference, in Liverpool, organised by Labour Social.
The problem with much of the discussion about Brexit, and re-joining is that it continues to be framed within the nationalistic agenda. It starts from the question about whether Brexit has been good or bad for “Britain”. But the concept Britain, just as with the concept “Ukraine”, is entirely abstract, and misses the fact that nations are comprised of classes with different class interests. Nationalism, and the idea that there is some overriding “national interest”, is the ideology of the bourgeoisie, because, of course, what this “national interest”, really means, in practice, is the interests of the nation state as the state of the ruling class! Suppose that Brexit was in the interests of “Britain”, i.e. of the British ruling class – it isn't, but just suppose – would that mean that international socialists would, then, not have to oppose it? Of course not.
Brexit, of course, was thought to be in the interests of a considerable portion of the British population, the 15 million or so voters of the petty-bourgeoisie, the self-employed, small shopkeepers and so on, for whom any chance to avoid the greater competition of large-scale capital, the requirement to abide by civilised standards for workers, consumers and the environment are simply obstacles in the way of them making their profits. Many of them, still, no doubt, think the same way still, which explains the reservoir of support for those ideas, still, in the Tory Party. But, the fact is that even if Brexit were not the disaster, economically and in other ways, for Britain, and particularly for its workers that it is, international socialists would still oppose it. To take an extreme, example, suppose “Britain” could regain its former imperial glory, and re-establish dominion over large parts of the globe, obtaining protected markets for its goods and services, and cheap sources of food and materials. Such a Britain might, then, even pass on some of this largesse to its workers. Would socialists, then, be in favour of such colonialism, or fail to oppose it? Of course not.
As socialists, our main concern is not whether Brexit is good or bad for “Britain”, or even for “British” workers, but whether it is an impediment to, or facilitator of, socialism itself. The Stalinists and social-democrats continue to view it in national terms, because their vision of Socialism itself is national, i.e. national socialism, often to be handed to workers from on high by the state, despite the fact its a capitalist state. Brexit has been a disaster for the “British” economy, and for “British” workers, but that is not why socialists oppose it, and seek to reverse it at the earliest opportunity. The reason is that it acts to divide workers in Britain from their comrades across the EU; it acts to constrain their ability to fight as a class for their interests, as a whole, and without that ability, they will, ultimately fail.
The question of whether British workers might obtain more or less scraps from the table of British capitalists, as a result of Brexit or some other such decision is irrelevant, just as with the question of whether they might be better or worse off as a result of the victory or defeat of their own ruling class and state in a war with some other state. In the end, all of these amount to fobbing off workers with sops, whilst the fundamental basis of their problems – capitalism – remains, and is, indeed, strengthened, against them, because they have failed to demarcate and pursue their own class interests as against those of their own ruling class. At times, workers are able, like, now, with the existence of labour shortages, to raise their wages, but, that only leads to the ruling class introducing labour-saving machines, causing unemployment to rise, so that they can reduce wages once more, and so boost their profits. The victory of one capitalist state, in a war, might enable it to appease its own workers at the expense of the workers of the defeating capitalist state, but the nature of capitalism, means that, the ensuing peace will be only a temporary interlude until the next war.
Rejoin The EU Now, Build A Workers' Europe.
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