Are The Tories and Blue Labour Neoliberals? - Part 8 of 10

The Labour Right, are thoroughly dishonest, and disreputable, but they are clearly not stupid, and certainly not stupid enough to actually believe any of the bullshit they have been pedalling as excuses for their current attachment to Brexit.

And, that applies to the idea that they are afraid of losing votes and seats in the so called “Red Wall”. A clear majority of Labour voters, in those seats, even in 2019, did not back Brexit, and that majority is even larger today. In fact, part of the reason that Blue Labour polled fewer votes than Corbyn's Labour did in 2019, and failed to increase its vote share, even as the Tories collapsed, on an epic scale, is that Blue Labour's, pro-Brexit stance, as well as its reactionary pro-imperialist stance in relation to the genocide in Gaza, and its lacklustre offering in terms of socio-economic policies, saw lots more of those progressive, particularly younger, Labour voters, desert to the Greens and Liberals that have continued to increase their support, despite the problems they face given the current electoral system. Blue Labour has failed to win the reactionary, nationalist vote of the petty-bourgeoisie, and its lumpen allies, in the Red Wall, but, like the Tories, has been haemorrhaging its progressive voters to the Liberals and Greens.

The Greens and Liberals, now, stand in second place to Labour in an unprecedented number of seats, (and the same is true in relation to Tory seats), and as Blue Labour's already abysmal level of electoral support has dropped even further, now even surpassed by the Tories, it is not opposition to Brexit that risks them losing seats, but their continued, irrational support for it.

And, that support, on the face of it, does seem irrational, not just in these electoral terms. Even Blue Labour's uninspiring programme is unachievable, given the fiscal box it has placed itself in, by the supposedly wizard like genius of Rachel Reeves, who we have been repeatedly told was being prepared for this role of Chancellor ever since she was 14. Already, its collapsing support in the electorate is being shredded even further by its attacks on Winter Fuel Payments to pensioners. But, these amounts, along with the measures on non-doms, taxing private school fees, and so on are chicken feed compared to the 4% of GDP that is being lost each year as a result of Brexit! That is more than enough to wipe out the £22 billion fiscal deficit. It is equal to around £40 billion to the exchequer, in  additional  revenues.  So, why doesn't Blue Labour simply point to the disaster of Brexit, and need to re-join as soon as possible, and benefit from the huge unpopularity of Brexit, amongst the electorate?

One reason could be that Britain always had one foot in and one foot out of the EU, as it continued to have memories of its former imperial glory, but, also, because, since WWII, it has nearly as much seen itself as the 51st state of the USA, and its agent within the EU. But, the ruling class certainly don't see things in that way, and Britain can only act as the US's agent in the EU, if its actually in the EU, and not sitting impotently, isolated on its Atlantic shore, drifting aimlessly further out into the mid-Atlantic. The other reason is that, it may see another political campaign based on rejoining the EU, as giving grist to the mill of international socialists, and progressive social-democrats to engage in political activity that will undermine the Labour Right, simply by opening up debate. Blue Labour's modus operandi is bureaucratic manoeuvre, and back room dealing, not open political struggle, at which it is very, very bad.

But, there is another reason. Its unlikely that the Blair-Rights such as Streeting have actually changed their views, about the need to rejoin the EU. That's not the case with the likes of Glasman, and certainly not of those reactionaries, such as Baroness Fox, Frank Furedi, and Brendan O'Neill with whom he is associated via Spiked. Incidentally, this domination of Blue Labour, by this reactionary tendency, itself reinforces that it is not neo-Liberal, given the general characterisation of Spiked as Libertarian/anarcho-capitalist, and their affinity with the likes not only of Farage, but with his co-thinkers and allies within the camp of the Trumpists in the US.

But, Blairism, as with Clintonism in the US, represented the high-point of that conservative-social-democracy (neoliberalism). Its failure opened the door to the Tea Party, and then Trump in the US, and to Farage and Brexit in Britain, and similar trends across Europe.  It enjoyed a, perhaps, one-off, historical set of conditions, after WWII, and specifically from the 1970's, that ended with the global financial crisis of 2008. In the 1970's faced with a crisis of overproduction of capital/fall in relative profits, capital responded by engaging in a new technological revolution, like that of the 1920's/30's, aimed at replacing labour, and raising productivity. It peaked in 1985, and the result was that labour was undermined, the rate of profit rose sharply, masses of capital was released, and as the mass of available money-capital, thereby grew as against the demand for it to finance capital accumulation, interest rates dropped, and asset prices rose.

Back To Part 7

Forward To Part 9