Inevitably, therefore, with no parliamentary party backing Brexit, unlike with, say, the SNP, and its advocacy of Scottish independence, Brexit was always going to be frustrated and lead to contradictions, as parliament was led into legislating for something it overwhelmingly opposed, and which it recognised would be severely damaging to the interests of the ruling class. The contradiction led to the failure of May, and her replacement by Johnson. Again illustrating the point made earlier, in relation to the rise of the Nazis, in the 1930's, it was the unprincipled collapse of Corbyn's Labour Party – largely driven by his own economic nationalism, and that of his Stalinist advisors – into an acceptance of the Brexit vote, rather than a commitment to reject it, that saw the huge rise in support for Corbyn's Labour of 2017, reversed, and which allowed Johnson to score a dramatic victory, in 2019.
The Starmer-Right narrative that it was Corbyn's radical policies, let alone anti-Semitism, that was the cause is a nonsense easily dismissed by looking at the massive rise in electoral support, and party membership, between 2015, and 2017. It is as much a nonsense as the Stalinoid claim that Labour lost that support, due to not clearly backing Brexit. In 2017, its surge of support came from young people who overwhelmingly opposed Brexit. Around 80% of Labour's 2017 membership backed Remain, and around 70% of its voters. Even in the Leave voting areas, a majority of Labour voters, backed Remain. By contrast, as Corbyn returned to an emphasis on his economic nationalist position, and calls for a mystical "Labour Brexit", in Spring 2019, even 60% of Labour members, voted for alternative Remain supporting parties!
But, it was a pyrrhic victory. Johnson never believed the nonsense behind Brexit, but, having put himself at the head of the petty-bourgeoisie, on the basis of that narrative, he was captured by it. At every step, he was led to say one thing, and do another. At every step, whilst claiming to be getting Brexit done, he was actually capitulating, inevitably, to the demands of the EU, as seen with the Northern Ireland Protocol, for example, which was a worse deal than he had voted against, as negotiated by May! The whole fiasco was illustrated by it, as he was led to claim in public that the agreement said the opposite of what it actually said. This was just the start of the manifestation of the fact that, not only Brexit, but the agenda of the petty-bourgeois nationalists, as a whole, based on a return to the kind of idealised free market competition of the early 19th Century, supplemented by a colonialist and protectionist British state, was a fantasy that had died in the 19th century, and was simply a reactionary, delusion. The ruling class came for Johnson, who made the job easier for them, by introducing the ludicrous lockdowns and restrictions, and then being seen to flagrantly breach those same ludicrous restrictions!
But, the ruling class had not finished with the petty-bourgeois leaders of the Tory Party, which they first drove mad, before destroying them. Johnson was removed from office for having eaten cake, and drunk wine at an office party, and, was then, replaced by the even more eccentric Truss. If the ruling class had wanted a more perfect stooge to represent the idiocies of the reactionary petty-bourgeois agenda, they could not have had anything better than Truss. All of the delusions of Brexit, and of how it was going to enable a resurgence of Rule Britannia, trading pork fearlessly across the globe, supported by a domestic economy at home in which all protections for workers, consumers and the environment had been abolished, in a return to the good old days of the 19th century, as graphically depicted in the works of Dickens, was contained in the empty vessel that was Truss. Its almost immediate failure, and collapse of her government, as the ruling class, via its control of global financial markets, sent the £ tumbling, and UK Gilt Yields soaring, effectively spelled the end of that experiment. Yet, it seems that Fartage and Starmer are still equally committed to trying it again!
Fartage, of course, made no secret of the fact that, even under Johnson, Brexit really wasn't getting done. He did not, say, however, that it could not be done, only that it required a government that was really committed to it. Truss's government actually was, but failed even more spectacularly, a fact that Fartage, as with Truss's supporters, still in the Tory Party, skirt around. But, it was not just Fartage that adopted this stance. Starmer and Blue Labour, also collapsed into petty-bourgeois nationalism, and Brexitoryism. They pointed to the fact that Johnson was not really getting Brexit done, and like Fartage claimed that it was all a question of the inadequate nature of the government, in negotiating with Brussels, rather than recognising that the entire project was not just reactionary, but itself unachievable. In typical technocratic style they claimed they were just better reactionaries, better Brexiters.
Typical of the duplicitous and opportunist nature of Starmer and Blue Labour, they claim that the reason they cannot offer any worthwhile improvements in the economy, or for workers, when they are in government is down to the damage done by Truss's government at the end of 2022, when interest rates rose sharply, and so on. But, that is nonsense. Yes, the financial markets struck against Truss's government, at that time, effectively a soft coup, that removed her from office, but the reality is that UK interest rates were rising long before Truss's government, for reasons I have set out elsewhere, and earlier. Moreover, once Truss had gone, that spike in rates, and the fall in the £ was quickly reversed. No significant, lasting damage can really be attributed to it. The fact that UK interest rates are back to the levels, then, cannot be attributed to Truss, but is an indication of those longer term processes that are driving interest rates higher, globally, processes that Blue Labour seeks to close its eyes to.
The petty-bourgeoisie had its head and reached the zenith of its lunacy with Truss, and inevitably failed. It has no solution, and Brexit is dead. Its only a question of when and how Britain is reabsorbed into the EU, and how much of the damage done by it, can be minimised. Obviously, the quicker Britain re-joins the EU, the less damage Brexit will do. But, the problem for the ruling-class, which depends on large-scale industrial capital for its revenues, and controls that capital, via its ownership of fictitious-capital, and for the working-class, which is the collective owner of that large-scale industrial capital, is that the main parties have been captured by the petty-bourgeoisie, and are imprisoned by it, and its commitment to that failed Brexit. Even the Liberals, that previously made the EU their unique selling point, have inexplicably relegated it to the back of their Manifesto, and subject to a lengthy process. Only The Greens, Plaid and the SNP of the more significant parties continue to promote it, and they have little chance of forming a government.
The consequence of this is that the Conservative Party, has collapsed. Unable to actually implement Brexit, and the wild fantasies of petty-bourgeois nationalism, its Tory wing has repeatedly split away to those promising to themselves achieve the impossible. Its latest manifestation is Reform, which is on the cusp of overtaking the Conservatives in the polls, and in actual votes in the election, if not in seats due to the undemocratic nature of the electoral system. It indicates the extent to which Brexit has destroyed them, and, now, it looks like they will not even form the official opposition, being overtaken by the Liberals. But, hence Cameron's Conservative Counter-Coup. In fact, with three weeks to go, their vote may collapse even further, its reactionary support going to reform and its, remaining conservative support going to the Liberals. The Tories could come fourth.
The vote of the petty-bourgeoisie will, now be split three ways, between Reform, the Tories and Blue Labour. Blue Labour's majority will flow from this rotten electoral bloc, in which it has gone in search of that reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, and its periphery, in the decayed urban centres, whilst seeking to maintain the votes of its core working-class base, who are presented with a fait accompli of vote Labour or get the Tories (which may become vote Labour or get Reform, which makes no less sense, given Labour's huge lead), much as Macron sought to do against Le Pen and Biden against Trump. As seen in the case of these last two, it has limited shelf-life. Indeed, for Starmer its worse. Macron offers a poor alternative for French workers, but there is a clear difference between him and Le Pen. No such difference exists between the reactionary nationalist politics of Starmer, and those of Sunak, or Fartage epitomised by Brexit. Indeed, in the seven way debates, Fartage has had a more social-democratic position on things like Child Benefit, and the Minimum Wage than has Blue Labour. Why would voters choose one rather than the other, simply on the basis that one comes in a blue wrapping and the other in a red one. In fact, both, now, wrap themselves in the same blood-soaked, red, white and blue flag, both sing the National Anthem at their conferences and so on.
One reason, the reactionary petty-bourgeois vote deserted Sunak for Blue Labour is all of the sleaze, and smell of death around the Tories, much as happened in 1997. They too had no credible alternative, but, as Farage returns, and Reform moves ahead of the Tories, that is no longer true. The stronger Reform become, at the expense of the Tories, the more First Past The Post favours them, as against the Tories, and the more that makes them a credible option for that reactionary petty-bourgeois vote, not just from the Tories, but then, also, as that flaky component of Blue Labour's rotten electoral bloc. That flaky Blue Labour vote, becomes susceptible to crumbling on both flanks. On the Right, the more Reform become credible, even as a tactical vote in various constituencies, the more that petty-bourgeois vote splits away, whilst, on its Left, as the Conservative Party collapses, and its conservative component goes to the Liberals, so the Liberals, in a range of seats become a credible, alternative for progressive Labour voters. As Blue Labour's apparently unassailable position begins to crumble, the more its progressive, working-class vote, sees a credible option in the Greens, Liberals, and various Independents, especially on the basis of tactical voting. Blue Labour will still win, and ridiculously, may do so with a smaller vote and vote share than Corbyn's Labour obtained in 2017, but its problems only start at that point.
Starmer may think he can negotiate the kind of cakeist Brexit promised by Johnson, but he can't. It will fail, as Britain is presented with the choice of continuing to be a rule taker, as it is now, or taking even more rules, such as acceptance of free movement, and so on, to get any closer relation, in which case the obvious question is, why accept that rather than join the EU, and become also a rule maker?! Having built this rotten bloc on the basis of Brexit, Starmer cannot simply do what he's done before, and abandon his Brexit narrative, because to do so, would result in the reactionary petty-bourgeois element of that bloc flocking towards Fartage and Reform, which Blue Labour, as an electoralist party, would not countenance. So Blue Labour is trapped by its reactionary nationalist agenda, for the foreseeable future. Within that agenda the lunacies of Brexit, make it even harder to try to retain the support of its working-class base, or of the trades unions, as the economy suffers from it.
The obvious beneficiaries are the Liberals, especially as they have the potential to be the official opposition to the incoming Blue Labour government. As the Conservative party splits, with the Tories flocking to Reform, the obvious conclusion for the ruling class, is to engineer a merger of the remaining Conservatives with the Liberals, much as happened with the Peelites in the 19th century. The Conservatives with their much greater machinery, resources and connections to the ruling-class would, in effect, implement a reverse takeover in parliament, and across the country, outside parliament. It was no accident that Sunak was given the advice to leave the D-Day celebrations early, and that, in his place stood, the Conservative, pro-EU, social-democratic Cameron. Starmer's problem, then, becomes the fact that he may have got rid of a useless parliamentary Left Opposition, but will have a large chunk of discontented Blair-Right, conservative, pro-EU MP's, threatening to split and join that new, conservative, social-democratic, pro-EU party, as the adequate representative of ruling class interests.
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