Starmer's Blue Labour Government truly is a vile, obnoxious, racist grotesque. It has nothing to do with social-democracy, nor even with the kind of Labourite governments of the past. Indeed, it has nothing to do with the ideas, values and interests of the vast majority of Labour Party members, and voters of today, which indicates why it won so few votes at the election, why even that support has dissipated, and it is about to get wiped out in the Spring local elections, and why this formation itself cannot survive.
Social-democracy has, in the past, defended its use of immigration controls as being part of an overall attempt to plan and regulate the economy, in the same way that it seeks to plan and regulate investment, prices and so on. A workers' state would, of course, plan and regulate all of those things, including immigration, as part of attempting to plan and regulate the economy in general. It is one of those characteristics of social-democracy/imperialism that signifies its nature as a transitional form between capitalism and socialism that it is forced to borrow these future forms, but as Marx and Engels note, in Anti-Duhring, its use of these future forms continues to be for the benefit of capital and capitalists, not for society as a whole. It continues to use these methods of planning and regulation in order to maximise profits. This signifies the difference between social-democracy and socialism.
When social-democracy talks about immigration controls, just as when it talks about import controls, or wage and price controls, it is never about the use of such measures as part of an attempt to plan and regulate the economy on behalf of the entire society, but only to benefit the maximisation of profit, and the beneficiaries of those profits, including the ruling class owners of fictitious capital that derive their revenues of interest/dividends, rents and taxes as deductions from that profit. The use of price and wage controls, for example, are always premised on the idea of fighting inflation, but inflation is a result of the state depreciating the currency/standard of prices. Higher prices, including a higher price for labour-power, are a consequence of inflation, not the cause of it. So, when the state introduces such controls it is always, really, just a cover for them seeking to depress wages, so as to protect or boost profits.
The use of import controls, is similarly justified on the basis of protecting jobs in the domestic market, as Trump is doing, now, but the real basis of the insecurity of those jobs, under capitalism, is the operation of the capitalist system itself, and the inefficiency of the given domestic capitalist production compared to its foreign competitors. In other words, it is a result of the failure of the domestic capitalists to invest in technology sufficiently to compete. Particularly for developed economies, import controls such as tariffs are never used as a means of enabling such investment to take place, but inevitably are used to simply subsidise the inefficient production of the domestic capitalists, enabling them to stay in business, and draw their profits, without having to invest in additional capital to raise their productivity. The resulting higher prices, simply get passed on to domestic consumers, the majority of whom are workers.
Immigration controls are very similar to import controls. For the domestic capitalists, and their governments, they throw the blame for the failure of the domestic capitalist economy on to foreigners, and away from the real cause, capitalism, and the particular deficiencies of the domestic capitalists to invest. The real purpose of such immigration controls, as with import controls, is not to effectively plan and regulate the economy for the benefit of society, but to protect and maximise the ability to produce and extract profits for the domestic capitalists, at the expense of the rest of society, of which workers comprise around 70%.
Although protectionism was common, in the past, as capitalist economies were dominated by merchant and financial capital, aligned with landed property (Mercantilism), and operated on the basis of appropriation of surplus value via unequal exchange, most visibly in the colonial empires, the overturning of those relations, as industrial capital became dominant, and it swept away those old monopolies, colonial empires and protectionism, as imperialism was based upon the production of surplus value, ushered in a new era.
After WWII, it was not just that this imperialism established multinational companies on a widening geographical basis, to industrialise economies, and, thereby, to directly exploit labour-power, but it also established transnational para-state institutions, to try to establish a level playing field for capital, wherever it settled, a level playing field, and set of international rules, which, of course, by its nature, benefited the biggest, most efficient capitalist companies, and the states that stood behind them, i.e. primarily the US.
In the post-war period, many developed economies also lacked workers, as a new long wave expansion got underway. The US, had only come into being as an industrialised economy on the back of mass immigration of workers from Europe during the 19th century, and it continued to depend on immigration, increasingly from Mexico and Latin America, to fill millions of low paid, unskilled jobs. Germany filled similar jobs with “guest workers” from Türkiye, France from its former colonies, as did Britain. In the 1950's, Britain was desperate for workers from the Caribbean, for example. There was no question of immigration controls at these times, as capital needed labour, in order to enable the continued production of surplus value.
Indeed, immigration controls are something that has only significantly come into existence since the 1960's. Until that time there was pretty much an ability for a free movement of labour across the globe. In Britain, the first attempt at significant immigration controls was the Aliens Act of 1905, and its fairly open purpose was an attempt by Anti-Semitic Tories and fascists to prevent the immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe who were seeking to escape the pogroms being conducted by the Tsarist regime in Russia. The 1793 Aliens Act, which was a much smaller affair, was introduced to, similarly, prevent French refugees coming to Britain, following the revolution, and, again, its main intention, as part of the Anti-Jacobin Wars, was to prevent French revolutionaries entering Britain, under cover.
So, when the Labour Government introduced immigration laws in the 1960's, it did so, apologetically, whilst attempting to justify the measures, with meaningless talk about them being “non-racist” immigration controls. The Blair/Brown government, of course, needed large-scale immigration in the early 2000's, as the growing economy, in a new period of long-wave expansion, faced severe skilled labour shortages, which were filled from the EU. That government, at the same time, attempted to assuage a growing racist outcry, by focussing its attention, not on immigration, but on refugees, and asylum seekers. It did so, itself, in the most outrageous way that acted to conflate the two things, and so, also fuelled the racist narrative of the likes of the BNP, UKIP and their Tory fellow travellers. But, none of that is comparable to the openly racist, dog whistle politics of Starmer's Blue Labour government, which is entirely consistent with its own jingoistic, narrow nationalist agenda.
Unlike previous Labour governments, Starmer's government wears its racist credentials proudly on its chest. Its well publicised and staged mass arrests of immigrants in the last week, were a more vicious and brutal version of the kinds of racist actions undertaken by Theresa May's government, which were attacked by Labour at that time, and occur at the same time as the similarly vicious acts of the Trump regime, in launching raids on immigrant communities in the US. This latter coordination is also, no doubt, no coincidence, as Starmer seeks to curry favour with the fascistic regime of Trump, just as he has, over recent months, sought to curry favour with the fascistic government of Meloni in Italy.
Starmer and his racist, Blue Labour government claim that they seek to close down the criminal gangs involved in people smuggling, across the Channel. Of course, no socialist, social-democrat, or even Liberal can oppose smashing the criminal gangs. But, the actions this last week had nothing to do with that. They were raids on the poor victims of those gangs, not the gangs themselves. If Starmer wanted to undermine the gangs and their criminal activity, the best way to do that is not to criminalise immigration in the first place! If anyone who wanted to come to Britain, whether as a refugee, or as an economic migrant, was free to do so, and safe channels existed for that purpose, then, there would be no basis for the gangs to exist. Nor would it be necessary to have asylum seekers being kept for months or years, at taxpayers expense in hostels whilst they waited a decision on their application. They could, instead, be working, paying taxes and contributing to society with their labour, and paying rent or mortgage to provide their own shelter and so on.
In any case, the number of migrants coming as refugees or asylum seekers in small boats across the Channel is tiny compared to the number of legal migrants coming into the country to work on visas. When Farage, Johnson, Hoey, Mann and other proponents of Brexit conned large numbers to vote for it on the basis of “controlling the borders”, by which they meant stopping immigration, they, of course, did not mention that the result would be that immigration would, in fact, increase! The difference is, of course, that previously, before Brexit, that migration was mainly of EU citizens, coming to fill vital roles, whereas, now, they have been replaced by migrants from the Indian sub-continent and elsewhere. The former had far greater rights and protections than have the latter, which is, of course, one reason that the petty-bourgeois nationalists prefer it. In undermining those workers rights, they seek to undermine all workers rights, in the interests of the small employers. All EU workers not only have greater rights, as a result of EU laws, but they have the potential to act as a single, EU labour movement to demand even greater rights and protections.
When the racists of the BNP, UKIP, Reform, and now Blue Labour argue for immigration controls, they do so on the basis of arguments that are contradictory. They say that immigrants take “British” jobs, whilst simultaneously claiming that immigrants come to simply obtain benefits. They say that they cause shortages of houses, NHS beds, school places and so on, whilst saying that they simultaneously take “British” jobs in building, healthcare, teaching and so on. One of the most ridiculous claims is that “Britain is full up”, or that its a tiny cramped island. Ridiculous because residential property accounts for only 1% of land use in Britain. Compare that to the 2% used just for golf courses!
It is undoubtedly true that, under capitalism, the capitalists and their state, use immigration as a quick and easy way of recruiting additional labour, when labour shortages exist, rather than training additional skilled workers, or investing in technology to raise productivity. But, for the same reason, when the capitalists or their state seek to limit immigration it is never out of a concern to protect the employment or wages of domestic workers. Just as with import controls, the capitalists never use immigration controls alongside large-scale investment in training and technological development. On the contrary, it is only when, despite immigration, and other means of increasing the supply of labour, they still face labour shortages, and see wages rising, squeezing profits, that they begin to seriously engage in technological development, so as to replace labour with fixed capital. The purpose of that, again, is not for the benefit of society, but is to replace labour, increase unemployment, and so reduce wages and boost profits. Indeed, rather than such investment going along with rising employment and wages, or training of skilled workers, the opposite occurs.
The role of immigrant labour is no different than the role of domestic reserves of labour. For example, in the 1950's, a lot of the increase in labour supply came from married women being drawn into the workforce. Some chauvinists opposed that too on the basis that these married women only “worked for pin-money”, and so undermined male wages. Similarly, the children born as part of the baby-boom, began to enter the workforce from around 1960, increasing the supply of labour-power, and so acting to suppress wages. But, at a certain point of the long-wave cycle, as all of these additional workers, whether married women, former rural labourers, new young workers, or immigrants, also form additional demand for goods and services, and firms have to compete to satisfy that demand by additional capital accumulation, and employment, the effect is not to depress wages, but to raise them, as the labour supply does not rise to meet the demand for it. Only then, as capital faces a crisis of overproduction of capital, relative to labour supply, does it invest in a new technological revolution.
In the late 1970's, and early 1980's, the introduction of all of that new technology acted to replace skilled labour with unskilled labour, operating the new machines. That unskilled labour was inevitably paid lower wages. The increased productivity saw the workforce grow more than employment, so that unemployment rose, putting downward pressure on wages. It was during that period that the Thatcher government, in Britain, ended all of the various apprenticeship schemes for training skilled workers, and, likewise, in the US, Ronald Reagan faced down a strike by highly skilled Air Traffic Controllers, by sacking them all, rather than pay them a decent wage. The US has never been able to recruit sufficient skilled Air Traffic Controllers ever since.
Since Brexit, immigration into Britain has increased, not because of “illegal migration”, but because British firms have needed additional labour, and faced a big hole in obtaining it, as EU workers had left. Starmer's, reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist government has taken over the advocacy of Brexit, and so has to also accept the consequences of it in relation to the destruction caused to the economy, as it stagnates, as it faces the continued crumbling of the infrastructure of roads, buildings and so on, of which Grenfell as well as RAC concrete are symbols, as well as the crisis in finding sufficient workers to staff hospitals, care homes and so on. All of these jobs can only be filled by continued large-scale, legal migration, but to divert attention from that, Starmer's vile racist government focuses on a tiny number of poor refugees, crossing the Channel.
And, of course, a large part of those refugees are a result of the wars waged by NATO in the Middle East. The most grotesque manifestation of that is the NATO backed genocide conducted by the Zionist regime against Palestinians. Now, when Palestinians seek to escape that genocide by coming to Britain, which bears direct responsibility for it, Starmer particularly, Starmer vies with Farage and Badenoch as to who can be the most vile, in rejecting their attempts to come to Britain under the same terms as those offered to Ukrainians. Of course, the difference in attitude is clear, the Ukrainians have white skin, and blue eyes. Ukraine is part of the NATO imperialist alliance in its global war against China/Russia, whereas the Palestinians are the victims of that global inter-imperialist conflict.
Now, in a further illustration of the vile, reactionary racist nature of this government, Starmer has said that any migrants entering the country illegally, will be banned from becoming citizens, in the future. That is racism and vindictiveness taken directly from the manual of the likes of Donald Trump, to whom they are cosying up, as well as of his British sycophants, such as Farage. No decent social-democrat, Liberal, let alone socialist can vote for such openly racist, and reactionary politicians. So, it is no wonder that, as Starmer attempts to turn Blue Labour into an equivalent of UKIP, Labour voters are abandoning the party in droves. Unfortunately, the Left has failed to either stop the collapse of the Labour Party into this petty-bourgeois, nationalism, or to provide any kind of credible alternative to it, leaving progressive voters with the choice of being drawn to the superficially more attractive Liberals, Greens, and in Wales and Scotland, Plaid and SNP.
In reality, those parties are only superficially more progressive. What is more, they lack the link to the labour movement that the Labour Party has. The fight to rebuild, and provide a truly progressive alternative, must start, not with a concern for the ballot box, but with the need to rebuild the organisations of labour from the ground up. We must ask why it is that the trades unions, for example, have allowed their party to be hijacked by a tiny bunch of petty-bourgeois, nationalists, racists, and jingoists, financed by millionaires based in tax havens, not to mention the role of Zionists, and Zionist organisations such as BICOM.
Although we can understand and sympathise with Labour voters who abandon the party at the polls to vote Green, Liberal, or even for the heterogeneous list of Independents, no way forward can come from that route. It is necessary to wage a political struggle within the labour movement to defeat the Right, Centre and Soft Left, a struggle that can only be completed within the Labour Party itself, as the current political wing of the movement. We cannot say where the dynamic of that struggle may lead. It may lead to a recognition that the current Labour Party cannot be retrieved, and, certainly, without the trades unions committing to such a goal, it will be impossible. In that case, it would be necessary to build a new Workers Party, just as the trades unions did, when they split from the Liberals at the start of the last century. The political struggle waged by Marxists, now, within that context, will shape the nature of that future party, and our goal cannot be simply a Labour Party Mark II, nor even a more left-wing social-democratic party, but must be the formation of a mass, international socialist, i.e. communist party.
Alternatively, the struggle, now, may result in the defeat of the far-right, nationalists of Blue Labour. As I have set out, elsewhere, my analysis suggests to me that the Blair-Rights will, themselves, seek to ditch Starmer, when the Spring Elections show just how low Starmer has laid the party. They will seek to merge the party with the Liberals and social-democratic wing of the Conservatives a la Change UK, to form a new centre-right, opposition to Reform/Tories. The trades union bureaucrats will be likely to go along in the hope of salvaging the electoral fortunes of Labour, and to provide a lesser-evil to Reform/Tories. They will hang themselves, via such a Popular Front, as, when they can, the politicians will ditch the connection to the unions.
The task of Marxists is to warn of that danger, and to organise, now, to prevent it. Conservative social-democracy has had its bite at the cherry, and has completely failed. It has no more answers than does the right-wing populism, and petty-bourgeois nationalism of the likes of Farage and Starmer. Only a clear Marxist programme, founded on the promotion of the interests of workers, and of the working-class as a global class can offer a way forward.
37 comments:
I don't understand why Starmer's government isn't seeking to re-introduce Freedom of Movement for EU nationals, as a step towards rejoining the European Single Market (and perhaps the EU itself).
The Tories ended Freedom of Movement (thus necessitating an economy-damaging hard Brexit) largely to compete with the Faragists in two specific demographics: "white van men" who had done very well in the early Blair years (as Blair's emphasis on university education created a labour shortage in the "trades") only to have their gravy train derailed by Eastern European immigration, and rural areas which had seen mass influxes of Eastern European agricultural workers.
Labour shouldn't concern itself with either of those particular demographics, as it is unlikely any significant number of them voted anything other than Reform or Tory even in 2024. The area in which Labour is conceivably threatened by Reform is the Red Wall, and the grievances that make that area Farage-curious aren't about the EU, but more "greens and grooming gangs".
The areas of the Red Wall that actually fell to the Tories in 2019 were the more rural and car-dependent parts: places that in France would be supporters of the Gilets Jaunes (and indeed many of the Tories elected there in 2019 had strongly pro-motorist policies). There's also a parallel in Germany, where the neo-Nazi AfD has built support since 2023 by demonizing the Green Party above all else, attacking the German government's policy of replacing gas home heating with heat pumps.
And grooming gangs are still an issue that is very raw in the Red Wall, especially given that the most infamous gangs of this type operated in Red Wall towns like Rochdale and Rotherham. This is no doubt why Elon Musk used his X social media platform to raise the issue again, in the hope of boosting Reform in subsequent UK elections.
Although even grooming gangs aren't really a problem with recent immigration, as (IIRC) the perpetrators were mostly the British-born descendants of Pakistani immigrants from the 1960s. Encouraging this immigration in the first place was a complete mistake, as the textile mills they were brought in to work at closed very soon after they arrived. The mill owners likely didn't even realize that the mills were an artificial product of British colonialism in India, and were doomed to close once the Subcontinent became independent again.
Grooming gangs were in a lot of ways the ideal criminals to be used by far-right racists aiming to ethnically cleanse Britain, as their crimes were inherently extremely difficult to prosecute. They took place behind closed doors (so there were few witnesses other than the victims themselves) and the victims themselves had poor credibility when testifying in court: they were (by definition) children when the crimes took place, they were testifying many years after the crimes were committed, and they were usually suffering from mental illness and/or abusing drugs (either out of trauma, or because their abusers got them addicted in order to control them).
Hi George,
Nice to hear from you. Its been a while. Starmer's behaviour does seem, superficially, at least, to be very puzzling and irrational. But, the, despite the fact that it was clear that, in 2019, as the Spring elections showed, Corbyn's Labour lost loads of support/votes (60% of Labour members voted for pro-EU parties rather than Labour), a false narrative was created on both Right and Left that it had lost because of losing the votes of bigots and racists in the "Red Wall".
I set out at the time why that was nonsense, and Labour lost, in the Red Wall, not because it lost the votes of those bigots and racists, the large majority of whom never had voted Labour, but because its real core voters in those areas, as elsewhere either sat on their hands or voted for Liberals, Greens, Plaid, SNP, so splitting the anti-Tory vote, whilst the decision of Farage to stand down candidates in Tory held seats and marginals, helped to consolidate the reactionary vote. Its a mark of how badly Starmer did in 2024 that despite the opposite condition applying, i.e. Liberals and Greens kept schtum over Brexit (itself idiotic on their part), and Reform standing candidates in seats where they were going to take votes overwhelmingly from the Tories, Starmer still got way fewer votes than Corbyn's Labour, and no better vote share, despite a low poll, in 2019!
So, there is a widespread false narrative that Labour needs to stick with the Brexitism and jingoism so as not to lose the Red Wall seats. The domination of the PLP by Blue Labour, whose reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist ideology cannot be divorced also from the reactionary nationalist ideology of Zionism, which played a large role in destroying Corbyn's Labour, and backing Starmer, means that there is a rational basis for it continuing to advance that agenda, just as the Tories are led to do the same, despite the obvious catastrophe of Brexit.
But, it can't hold. For Blue Labour and Starmer, it could only continue so long as enough Labour voters did not actively jump ship for the Liberals and Greens. They got away with it, only just, in 2024, because the latter didn't press their pro-EU/progressive agenda, whilst voters, everywhere were focussed on ousting the Tories more than who beat them. Labour looked to be the only party capable of forming a government. But, again, even then, its performance was abysmal, way worse than Corbyn's Labour in 2019, which they had been claiming was a condemnation of those mildly progressive Labourite policies, forgetting that those same polices saw Labour increase its vote to over 40%, outperforming even Blair, in 2017.
They are stuck. Ideologically, they can't commit to those same kind of mildly progressive Labourite ideas of Corbyn/Wilson, Attlee, but also, they can't implement the conservative social-democratic (neoliberal) ideas of Blair/Brown, because they have failed, and its not pre-2008 anymore. Global employment and wages are rising, as today's, UK wage data shows. Global interest rates are rising, despite attempts by central banks to prevent it, and so the days of big asset price rises are gone, and crashes are more likely. So, they are drawn to reactionary nationalism and populism, but in conditions where that too is doomed, as Brexit showed, and the Trumpists are about to find out.
As I've said before, the Blair-rights will stage a coup after the Spring elections. Starmer is on his way out, and in one form or another a realignment is coming of Conservatives, Liberals, Greens, and Blair-Rights, much as happened in the 19th century after the repeal of the Corn Laws.
Incidentally, on the question of opposition to Green policies etc., even a Corynite Labou8rist agenda could easily provide the solution to that. Just provide 100% grants to move to heat exchangers and so on. It would be like the slum clearance programmes after 1945, or under Wilson. But, as I've said before, another easy option now, is to provide Councils with adequate targeted finance to repair roads. It makes people feel better, employs people whose revenues quickly go to pay taxes, which themselves largely pay for the cost of the repairs. Far better than projects like HS2, or a third runway which will take decades.
The issue with grooming gangs and so on can't be divorced from the policies over the last 40 years that increased the size of the petty-bourgeoisie/self-employed by 50%. Many of those businesses act as fronts for illegal activities, money laundering and so on. End this reactionary, petty-bourgeois mentality that surrounds "the small business myth", one version of which is in relation to the nonsense about protecting family farms, and get back to the reality that the way forward resides in large-scale businesses, with properly organised unions within them, and so on, and all of that swamp in which the illegal activity thrives will be drained.
In the 2019 local elections the Lib Dems did make big gains, but those were overwhelmingly at the expense of the Tories and while Labour did lose a small amount of ground they still out-polled the Lib Dems roughly 3 to 2. The only elections in which "60% of Labour members voted for pro-EU parties rather than Labour" were the European Parliament elections, which (given that Britain was about to leave the EU) were not treated like a normal election but instead purely as an opportunity to send a message on Brexit, with Leavers voting for the Brexit Party and Remainers for the Lib Dems. That vote was not in any way a guide to how voters would behave in a normal General Election.
I strongly disagree with you on the 2019 General Election: Labour's stance then was more pro-EU than in 2017 (it was explicitly promising a second referendum for one thing) and it did indeed lose in the Red Wall due to voters switching directly from Labour to the Tories. These switchers were likely nationalistic "Old Labour" types who weren't too distant from Corbyn on domestic issues but were utterly horrified by his third-worldism (which the Tory press had had an extra two years to expose since 2017). Such views (which IIRC once turned a room at a Corbyn-era Labour conference into a veritable sea of Palestinian flags) may have come naturally in his super-cosmopolitan London constituency, but were toxic in monocultural Red Wall places. Boris Johnson may also have been more palatable to traditional Old Labour voters because (other than his obvious bigotry) he didn't campaign on an especially right-wing basis: he promised to "level up" left-behind areas (breaking from "on yer bike" Thatcherism) and after Ukraine was invaded he was never an apologist for Russian imperialism, unlike Europe's true far-right politicians including Farage.
The Red Wall is mostly the former coal mining country of Britain, and was the home of Labour's core vote in the past but not in the present. Today's core Labour vote is more that of younger people living in big cities, especially those struggling with extortionate rents. But their very concentration in big cities means they aren't very useful in an FPTP election.
As for the 2024 election result, that was primarily a result of the Tory voter coalition shattering (much as the Lib Dem voter coalition had shattered in 2015): nativists furious at the Tories for failing to "stop the boats" went to Reform, wealthy social liberals (who voted Tory in 2019 out of fear of Corbyn) returned to their more natural Lib Dem home, while less-engaged Tory supporters dropped out of voting altogether.
I'm unconvinced that more subsidies (which we can't exactly afford easily now, given how the debt burden from Covid -- which likely played a big part in scuppering Boris Johnson's "levelling up" plans -- weighs far more heavily with the higher interest rates) would suffice to suppress anti-green opposition: many people simply prefer older fossil-fuelled technologies! Heat pumps can keep buildings at a constant temperature very efficiently but are much poorer at warming them up from cold, while many drivers are deterred from switching to electric vehicles by "range anxiety".
Agreed with you entirely that valorization of (inefficient) small businesses is counterproductive for the economy, and that such businesses often associated with tax-dodging as well as money laundering and other criminal activity (I believe "Tommy Robinson" used tanning salons for that purpose), but I'm unsure what part they played in the grooming gang story. Weren't grooming gangs associated heavily with minicabs, which would operate much the same way regardless of the size of the business which owned them?
I disagree with your analysis of 2019. In 2017, Corbyn's Labour won over millions of young, pro-EU voters from Liberals and Greens, because they saw it as the best way of stopping the Tories implementing Brexit. It won them in Red Wall seats as much as anywhere else. The data shows that around 70% of Labour's 2017 voters - around 60% of its 2015 voters - even in those regions that voted Leave, voted Remain. The Leave majority was mostly based on petty-bourgeois Tories, and those to their Right, including many of those that normally do not vote. Some "Old Labour" voters undoubtedly voted Leave, but they were a minority of Labour voters.
In Spring 2019, it was Corbyn's move back to those old anti-EU positions that saw Labour's vote crash, and it was never recovered. The promise of a second referendum was combined with his statements about what Labour's position in that would be, as against in 2016, when Labour was clearly against Brexit in the referendum.
If Brexit was scrapped, the UK would have £40 billion a year extra to fund grants to convert boilers, as well as to provide better insulation. There are all the other benefits that go with that. Range anxiety is what prevents me switching to an electric car, and the only thing. China has resolved that via subsidies, and has now a scale advantage from doing so. Minicabs are part of that small business, self-employed economy, as much as tanning studios, etc. Efficient local public transport rather undermined it in the past, despite the fact that the young male conductors always used to fancy they were God's gift when it came to chatting up female passengers. A workers cooperative running uber style transport would be able to regulate and prevent the role of gangs, but as I've said before, I look forward to the time soon when you will just use your smart phone to request a self-drive electric vehicle to pick you up, and drop you where you want to go.
I agree with everything you said about 2017: Labour then saw a big increase in its vote that came overwhelmingly from pro-EU voters.
But in 2019 the Tory vote in Red Wall constituencies increased at Labour's expense, which demonstrates that the switchers were overwhelmingly from that minority of 2017 Labour supporters that voted Leave. If Remainers had been deserting Labour there we would have seen the Tory vote in those places staying roughly as it was in 2017, while perhaps the Lib Dem and/or Green votes increased (if disillusioned Labour voters switched to those parties rather than simply abstaining). That isn't to say of course that Remainers didn't desert Labour for the Lib Dems or Greens in other places (likely more affluent places where Remain was stronger) but those weren't the places where the 2019 election was decided.
But that's a digression from the original point I was making, which is that I believe that Labour now has lots to gain and very little to lose from reinstating Freedom of Movement for EU nationals, and (unlike rejoining the EU) this is something that the UK could do unilaterally.
You have a logical fallacy, here. In Spring 2019, Tories got hammered at the expense of the Brexit Party. Labour got hammered at the expense of Liberals, Greens and Plaid, SNP. Th overtly pro-Brexit parties secured only a minority, and saw support fall, whereas anti-Brexit parties won a majority and saw support rise. In fact, given that support for Brexit was pretty much a fleeting phenomena - with only 37%, even then, of the electorate supporting it, in 2016, many of whom died off, even before COVID - its not surprising, because in every poll after the referendum a majority have opposed it, simply growing as each year has gone by.
So, its also wrong for you to assume that Labour lost in Red Wall seats as a result of Labour voters switching to the Tories. What there actually was was a fall in the turnout overall, nearly all accounted for by Labour voters staying home, other Labour voters deserting Labour, as they did in the Spring, for Liberals, Greens, SNP, Plaid, whilst Farage gave Tories a free run in Labour seats, to avoid the vote being split.
Conversely, in 2024 looking at the actual votes rather than the mirage of the seats won, and parliamentary majority, there is today a huge majority opposed to Brexit, and a clear majority in favour of rejoining. Starmer has adopted the most jingoistic, pro-Brexit stance of any Labour leader ever. Was it that, which enabled Blue Labour to win in some of those "Red Wall" seats? Absolutely not, as I wrote at the time. The claim that it as all a clever election strategy to focus resources on those winnable seats is bullshit. Even in those seats supposedly targeted, including Red Wall Seats, turnout fell, and Labour's vote also, in most cases fell, and in pretty much all of them, its vote share fell compared to even 2019.
In 2019, Labour lost because its vote fell as Labour voters stayed home, or voted Liberal etc, not because they directly switched to Tories or Brexit Party. It also lost because whilst the pro-Remain vote was, thereby, split, the Brexit vote was not, as the BP stood down candidates. In 2024, Labour also, in reality lost, despite winning a huge majority due to the fraudulent FPTP voting system, because its number of votes declined from 2019, its vote share barely moved, and fell massively compared to 2017 when it had picked up those anti-Brexit voters, and won seats everywhere including the Red Wall, solely because, unlike 2019, the pro-Brexit vote was split, as Reform hammered the Tories.
Anti-Tory voters were so desperate to get rid of them that they were prepared to vote Labour whilst holding their nose at its reactionary nationalist/Brexitist policies, and in conditions where the Liberals, Greens etc. were not even providing a progressive anti-Brexit alternative. Its no surprise that soon fell apart. But 2024 really proves in negative the fallacy that Labour lost in 2019 as a result of direct switches from Labour to Tories.
You've made a factual error regarding the Brexit Party in 2019: it was actually Tory-held seats where they gave the Tories a free run to avoid splitting the vote. (I've noticed though that you seem strangely obsessed with the nationwide vote totals, when the objective in an election is to win the most seats.)
And of course Starmer's nationalism wasn't why Labour won big in the Red Wall in 2024: it was of course mainly because the Tories wrote anti-immigration cheques (for example when their leaders gave speeches behind lecterns labelled "STOP THE BOATS") that they were unwilling or unable to cash. Far from reducing immigration, the Tories actually oversaw a substantial increase since Brexit, making anti-immigration voters so furious that they were willing to change their votes to Reform even when it was clear that this would split the right-wing vote and hand victory to Labour.
And the problem (as I mentioned before) with campaigning on an explicit "rejoin the EU" basis is that it is something that is not in the power of a UK government: it is in the EU's power, and it is likely that they will refuse to re-admit the UK for as long as it has powerful anti-EU political parties.
Going back to your original post, your point about the UK (and other European countries) having open borders during the 19th and early 20th centuries is irrelevant to today's situation. For one thing, migration was limited far more then than now simply by the cost (in time and money) of long-distance travel: how exactly would some 19th century Indian peasant get to England, even if they knew about England and had the legal right to travel there? And another, the global distribution of population is very different now from what it was then.
European colonialism in the 19th and early 20th centuries was based as much on demographic as technological superiority: while China and India have long been very populous, most of the rest of the world (including the Americas, Africa and the Middle East) was not, and a quarter of the world's population in 1900 was in Europe. Naturally, populous Europe was then a continent of mass emigration, except in Central Russia where first serfdom and then internal movement controls (only repealed in 1905) created an especially severe overpopulation crisis that was likely a factor in the Russian Revolution.
While now in the 21st century the tables have turned: the populations of Africa and the Middle East (and to some extent Latin America, hence Trumpism) have absolutely exploded, such that Europeans now have a real dread of being replaced by a tsunami of immigration from those lands. Especially as the main factor limiting migration in the absence of legal controls would likely be the cost of housing (in the UK inflated since 1947 by the Town and Country Planning acts and other restrictions on construction) and impoverished third-world immigrants are likely to accept living spaces that the native population would consider to be intolerably small.
Another thought, given that since the end of the Covid pandemic we have labour shortages rather than mass unemployment, the economic argument against immigration is more likely to be "migrants are a drain on society" rather than "migrants take our jobs". A graph based on data from Denmark is often used to back this up: it suggests that while immigrants from other European countries are roughly as productive as Danish natives, immigrants from the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Turkey are a pure drain on society regardless of age.
Many argue that this is down to MENA immigrants being culturally inferior (or even biologically inferior, due to the high prevalence of cousin marriage in MENA) to European natives, while another likely explanation is that Muslim women in hijab face extreme discrimination in continental European countries (less so in the English-speaking world) that almost entirely locks them out of the labour market.
But isn't there another reason why immigrants would be a drain on society which is entirely the fault of our own governments: when (usually) asylum seekers are actually banned from working? Repealing such laws (when we don't have enough unemployment to make "asylum seekers steal our jobs" a credible complaint) would sound like another easy win-win policy.
George, I'll have to respond in several separate comments.
You are right that I made a mistake about where the BP stood down in 2019, but a look at a seat I am familiar with – Stoke North – illustrates the point. In 2015, Labour won with 15k votes (40%), Tories 10.5k (27.4%), and UKIP third 9.5k (24.7%). In 2017, UKIP/BP did not stand. Labour won with increased vote over 2015 – 21.2k (50.9%) - and Tories saw their vote rise – 18.9k (45.3%) - as their vote was not split with UKIP/BP. Despite turnout being 3k higher, both LD's and Greens saw their vote fall in total by 1.3k. So, labour turned out more of its vote, and won votes from other progressive parties, i.e. Libs and Greens. Tories increased their vote almost entirely from UKIP/BP. In fact, Tories, despite higher poll, did not even get as many votes as they and UKIP had obtained in 2015.
Now, look at 2019. Turnout fell by 2k, but only back to a similar figure to 2015. Labour vote fell, but only back to 1k below what it had been in 2015and, in fact, only 2k below what the more popular and established Labour MP, Joan Walley had been getting in the 1990's and 2000's, when she was winning the seat comfortably. In many of those earlier elections the turnout was lower, and Joan's vote share was higher, because the Tory/UKIP vote didn't bother to turnout as they knew they had no chance. Its interesting to note, however, that even during that time, in the low polls for council elections, and EU elections, the UKIP and even BNP candidates got higher vote shares, because their voters turned out when they thought they had a chance.
In 2019, the Tories won the seat, but their vote rose by only 2k over 2017, and, although the BP stood, as against 2017, when they didn't, their vote was negligible – 2.4k, i.e. 7k down from 2015. The Tories won in 2019, not because of Labour voters switching to Tories, therefore, but because UKIP/BP voters voted for Tories who had stolen their clothes, much as Thatcher did with the NF in the 1980's. You could see that same pattern in pretty every much all of the so called Red Wall seats.
I'm not obsessed with the national vote totals, as the above shows. In terms of Brexit, I have looked at John Curtice and others breakdown of the votes by regions, for example. I have also looked at the constituency votes in a number of Red Wall seats in 2024, to disprove the claim that Blue Labour's strategy worked of focusing on getting out the vote in targeted in winnable seats. It didn't. In those seats, as elsewhere, where Labour won back seats, it did so because BP split the reactionary petty-bourgeois nationalist vote - the opposite of what happened in 2017, and 2019. Indeed, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened had UKIP stood candidates in 2017, and again split the Tory vote. My guess is that Corbyn would have had a parliamentary majority bigger than that of Starmer or even Blair.
And, yes, the point of the parliamentary system in Britain is to win seats not votes, but the unreality of that, and fragility of it becomes clear when as now, the governing party quickly becomes even more unpopular.
Your conclusion about 2024 are, also, wrong as the analysis of Stoke North shows. In 2024, Gullis vote was down on 2019, and 2017, noticeably, but virtually unchanged from 2015, taking the lower turnout into consideration. What is more the UKIP/Brexit vote was also down compared to 2015, though, unlike 2019, those UKIP/BP/BNP voters returned to them having lent the Tories their vote in 2017 and 2019. So, none of it to do with Labour voters having switched to Tories or BP, and then returned to Labour at all.
On campaigning on re-joining the EU. Its in the power of UK governments to seek admission. I disagree about the EU not agreeing. If a government was elected having campaigned on that as a major plank, it would destroy the anti-EU parties at a stroke, especially given the state of polls on the issue and the demographic drift in that direction. Once Britain re-joins, no party in Britain is going to grow again on trying a second bite of a poisoned cherry. Just look at the way Brexit has poisoned that course for the reactionary nationalist parties in the EU already, all of which have taken their own exit off the table.
19th century Indian peasants certainly knew about England and France, if only because England and France knew about them, and had colonised India. But, the reality is that Indian peasants knew about the wider world anyway, because population movements were much more extensive than you seem to realise. Hence the existence of empires going back thousands of years, including that of the Indian Mughuls. Even in 1800, Indian textiles had the largest share of the world market.
More importantly, the introduction of immigration controls has never been about controlling migration, certainly not as part of catering for the interests of domestic workers. As with import controls it is about diverting attention from the real source of workers problems on to some available scapegoat.
The "explosion" of populations in developing economies is irrelevant. That increase in population, as with the similar increase in population in Britain and Europe, during the Industrial Revolution, is a consequence of that same process of industrialisation, urbanisation, and rise in living standards. A rise in population during that process did not lead to increased emigration of British and European workers! Where increased emigration occurred, it was when the crises of the 19th century took place, none of which were due to rising population.
Its not higher population in the Middle East, Africa and so on that is causing large scale population movements. One of the largest movements, for example, is of Ukrainians, millions of whom have left Ukraine to settle in other parts of Europe, as a result of the war. The vast majority of migrants from the Middle East are a result of the wars undertaken by US imperialism aided by Britain, and the same is true about migration from Africa.
Population movement from Latin America are a result of similar violent unrest, much of it driven by the existence of drug cartels inextricably linked to the US.
I think most pf the credible analysis and studies done on the economic consequences of migration shows that it has a positive net effect. The majority of migrants are young, but not so young as to require support/education etc. Even if we take the argument that some migrants are less productive than others - a dubious argument to begin with, especially in developed economies where large amounts of the labour used is in any case, unskilled machine minding or service industry labour - it is still the case that this labour is productive in the Smithian/Marxist sense, i.e. that it exchanges with capital, and produces surplus value. It is both more productive than were it not employed at all, and also, in producing surplus value/capital, provides the basis for the expansion of the economy, via capital accumulation. It pays more in taxes than is taken out in benefits.
But, the easy response to those that make such racist arguments is that if that was there concern they should not have voted for Brexit, because prior to Brexit, most of the immigrants came from the EU! Of course, as I have said, if the government let in refugees, or just allowed them to work, that particular argument would also disappear, but, of course, the refugees/asylum seekers make up a tiny component of total immigration.
Another point. The figures are for net migration. Since Brexit, the ability of UK workers to leave the country has disappeared along with freedom of movement. So long to the days of Auf Widersehen Pet! In addition, thousands of British pensioners now find it difficult to retire to the Sun in Spain, Portugal or Italy. So, part of the reason for an increased net migration figure is a reduction in the outflow of Brits to the EU.
In 2017 UKIP didn't stand a a candidate in your own constituency of Stoke North, but they did in many other constituencies and their votes were uniformly derisory, as the Tories were by now committed to Brexit, and the Faragists didn't have a broken promise to "stop the boats" to hang round the Tories' neck as they did in 2024. (Indeed small boats in particular only became an issue after the UK formally left the EU, as you've pointed out!)
The UK certainly did not have mass immigration of Indian peasants in the 19th century, but several other British colonies (including Guyana, Malaysia and Fiji) did: what do you think explains this?
Good point on net migration: Britons' losing their right to retire in Mediterranean countries should be seen as a disaster by all Britons, whether they are pro-immigration (and thus animated by a belief that the UK's population is too old) or anti-immigration (and thus animated by a belief that the UK's population is too large).
I also wonder if Starmer's tough-on-immigration rhetoric may be because he sees an easy win, because he expects net immigration to plummet in 2025 regardless of what the UK government does? Net immigration was especially high in 2022 (which had a big role in making the issue salient again in spite of Brexit) which was likely not just because of Ukrainian refugees but also because foreign students who would normally have arrived in 2020 or 2021 to begin their courses were delayed to 2022 by the Covid pandemic. But it could thus be expected that as net immigration will be extremely low in 2025 (and perhaps 2026) as these students complete their courses and return home.
The danger though is that this gamble could somehow backfire on Starmer (and on Britain) just as David Cameron's EU referendum gamble (which he hoped would shoot UKIP's fox) backfired really badly.
They did have the failure to keep net migration to the 10k's around the Tories necks though! Moreover, my point about the votes during those elections 2015, 2017, 2019, 2024 still stands. The data shows that it was not Labour voters switching to UKIP/BP or to Tories that was involved, but a) a movement of Labour, Liberal, Green (and in Scotland and Wales SNP and Plaid) between themselves, and b) a movement of Tory and UKIP/BP voters/non voters amongst themselves. Its why Blue Labour pandering to those reactionary petty-bourgeois voters is pointless, and indeed self-defeating, as they turn away more potential progressive voters than they could possibly win over reactionary votes.
Indian migration to other colonies was driven by the needs of the colonial empire itself, both as it established monoproduction, for example rubber plantations in Malaysia, and because it used an educated Indian middle class to prove a civil service bureaucracy, for example in Uganda. There was certainly large scale migration of Irish people into Britain in the 19th century, for example all the navvies required to dig canals, build railways and so on.
I doubt net migration will fall much, because that is just what the economy requires. Remember that figure is made up of migrants who came here only because they already had visas and jobs to come to. If the economy really tanks - and increased military spending could cause that as it drains surplus value - then it might fall as that demand for labour falls, but I doubt that will happen. I think Starmer is trapped by his own rhetoric, and by the role of Blue Labour, with its connections to the Trumpists and to Zionism. It will collapse, as I've said before, starting in the Spring, after the elections, and a new centre-right formation will arise based on the Blair-Rights, Conservatives (as distinct from Tories), Liberals and Greens, i.e. a functional Change UK. Then, as the idiocy of Brexit, and bankruptcy of the idea of a reset are exposed, it will be positioned to really argue for re-joining the EU on a fast track, including pushing through Eurozone membership etc, which will also make it pretty impossible for another Brexit to occur.
Just going back to your point about UKIP/BP not having the small boats to hang on Tories in 2017, as I showed above in relation to Stoke North, they didn't have that in 2015 either, and in 2015, the Tories were offering a Brexit Referendum. Yet, in 2015, UKIP got more or less as many votes as the Tories in Stoke North.
What do you think Labour needs to do to see off the Reform threat in the Red Wall?
Attacking Reform as puppets of Putin and Trump seems an obvious idea, but the Red Wall (along with other "left-behind" regions in Europe) currently seems like a dangerous opportunity more generally for far-right forces.
Note the strength of AfD (which are now far more extreme than Reform UK: being essentially neo-Nazis) in the former East Germany! Although also note that their support isn't driven by poverty per se, as in West Germany their support is mainly in wealthy (and very right-wing) Bavaria, not poor places like the Saarland or Schleswig-Holstein.
There's a problem in that the best way to grow the economy is to concentrate the population in the capital and a few other big cities, but deliberately depopulating rural areas in this fashion would likely be highly unpopular and boost the far right.
Hi George,
The first thing to say is that I don't see it as my role to advise Labour on how to win elections. The second thing is that what a social-democratic party (even if we characterise Blue Labour as social-democratic, which I don't) needs to do to win an election is different to what socialists seek to do with their programme, which is to win the working-class to it, over the longer-term.
If I was advising the Labour Party (which I think, as far as its membership is concerned is still social-democratic) I would tell them to get rid of Starmer as soon as possible, and also to get rid of all of those Blue Labour reactionary nationalists such as Glasman. The reality of post-war social-democracy until the 1980's, was that it was the ideology of all the main bourgeois parties, as symbolised by Buttskellism.
As I have set out before, the conditions of today are similar to those of that post-war period, up to the 1980's. Social-democratic parties will need to recreate that electoral alliance, and material conditions are forcing them towards it. So, as I've said, I expect the Tories to split, with the Conservatives (Cameron, Heseltine etc) mostly seeking to join or merge with the Liberals, and the Tories (Bandenoch et al) to merge with Reform. Exactly the nature of that is, to use Lenin's term, algebraic, because only time will tell the exact details. I also expect Labour to either split, or else, if Starmer is removed, and the Blair-Rights take back control, they will also seek some kind of alliance with, or merger with the Liberals/Conservatives.
But, that does not resolve the problem, because they cannot simply pursue the conservative social-democratic (neoliberal) agenda of the last 30 years, which has passed its sell by date, and is not applicable to current conditions. I have no doubt they will try, because these are not innovative thinkers, they work on the basis of tailism and inertia, which means, today, in relation to Brexit, for example, they are way, way behind the working-class.
That also, presents a problem, for them, because, even if they wanted to pursue a progressive social-democratic agenda, like that of Attlee, Wilson, or even of the type of corporatist ideas presented by Crosland, they are tied to the idea that they have to continue to support Brexit. That was a similar problem to the 1970's carrying in to the 80's, of a social-democratic Left that was tied to ideas of economic nationalism, whilst those in favour of the EEC, were arguing also for a conservative, social-democratic agenda, i.e. SDP.
What is required for social-democracy in current conditions, is a return to those post-war ideas, based on the needs of large-scale industrial capital, of increased planning and regulation, greater industrial democracy, and welfarism. But, in current conditions, indeed those applying for the last 70 years, that is only rational on an EU wide scale. Even if they didn't make a turn to the kind of post-war social democracy, they could alleviate their problems by ending Brexit, and so gaining £40 billion a year so as to avoid welfare cuts, cuts to infrastructure spending and so on.
But, in the end, to save capitalism, social-democracy will have to return to those post-war ideas. Already, in Europe, material conditions are driving towards it. Okay, its taking the form of calls for defence spending, but the result is already that German bunds are crashing and interest rates are rising. I doubt workers across the continent are going to sit idly by, in conditions where they are becoming stronger due to labour shortages that are intensifying, and allow the social wage to be cut, so that politicians can use the money for bombs!
Cont'd
To defeat Reform in the Red Wall, Labour will need to offer the kind of post-war, progressive social-democratic agenda of Attlee and Wilson, as Corbyn was doing, and which, in 2017, proved hugely popular. Remember, some Labour voters (and quite a few members) always have been reactionary bigots, but it was never enough to prevent them voting Labour, because the issues of jobs, pay, NHS and so on have always hugely ranked higher than things like immigration.
Its interesting that many of those that voted for Brexit are now pissed off at seeing the result of their decision, as Britain is excluded naturally from the EU talks on setting up a European Defence Force, and establishing a position on Ukraine, as James O'Brien has highlighted. Labour will get hammered in the local elections, but with the current parliamentary majority, and more than 4 years to run, that is enough time to organise a realignment as set out above. There tends to be a crude view on the Left that capital can't adopt or support the kind of progressive social-democratic agenda of an Attlee, and so on. Its nonsense. In most of Europe, capitalism developed on the basis of something like that agenda. Bismark in Germany, Louis Bonaparte in France, developed industrial capitalism via large-scale state intervention, and welfarism. Germany adopted a sort of Crosland welfarism, as well as corporatism as seen in its co-determination laws. In the 1960's, the US, under Johnson, also massively expanded its welfare state (Great Society).
Not only is it the case that, a Trotsky says, capital will turn to such parties in order to save its skin, but as Marx, Engels and Lenin set out, these forms are the necessary consequence of the development of large-scale, industrial capital. The last 40 years have been an aberration. Marxists can analyse and understand this, and understand that the aberration based on inflating asset prices, has come to an end, and as those interest rates rise, asset prices will crash undermining the ideas of conservative social-democracy, but also causing money to abandon the search for capital gains from speculative assets, and be driven into real capital investment, which will heighten labour shortages, and strengthen workers even more. But, that does not help convey those ideas to the electorate, in he short term. Marxists can work with the more advanced layers of the working-class, still in the LP, trades unions and periphery, to explain that over the longer-term, and its implications. For me focus on the workplace, and connecting those struggles into the rank and file of the LP as a political struggle.
A progressive social-democratic alliance, may not immediately defeat Reform/Tories electorally, but setting out those kinds of ideas that galvanised the post-war period, advocated consistently over the next two years, as the disaster of Brexit and Trump becomes manifest, will do so. It should start by making an end to Brexit its rallying cry, and set out why that is vital in the short-term to provide the basis of a longer-term solution. It will be far more successful than the calls of Starmer, Reeves, Khan et al, for billions in welfare cuts, as the country's infrastructure also collapses, whilst they refuse to tax the rich, and spend billions on bombs for Ukraine.
The title of your post vilifying Starmer's "vile, racist government", but on what basis did you come to the conclusion that Starmer's government is racist?
It certainly isn't discriminating against UK citizens on the basis of their ethnicity (or worse, actually stripping them of citizenship on such a basis, as the Nazis did with their infamous Nuremberg Laws), and it isn't even moving to repeal laws such as the Equality Act 2010 that it make it illegal for private actors (such as employers or landlords) to discriminate on such a basis.
Instead your issue seems to be with immigration controls, and given your use of the phrase "meaningless talk about them being 'non-racist' immigration controls" it seems like you see open borders as a moral imperative. In other words, that you see the very existence of nation-states as exclusive clubs to be fundamentally illegitimate (even though we haven't yet come up with a better system for the provision of public goods): would this be a fair description of your position?
You mention the post-WWII era as a positive example but without mentioned that Old Labour was itself very nationalistic: rejection of this is likely the main respect in which Labour under Jeremy Corbyn differed substantially from pre-1979 Labour, and it was largely nationalism (and not just with respect to Brexit) that crushed Corbyn in December 2019: he likely lost heavily because he was seen as more concerned with the global poor than with the British working class.
Mass migration is highly unpopular: not so much because migrants are seen as competitors for jobs, but more because fast demographic changes within an area undermine local social networks (which the working-class often depend upon) as well as political connections (which the middle-class often depend upon). Newcomers may also be seen as a political threat if their beliefs are at odds with those of the existing population. And it isn't just inward migration that is unpopular either: rural areas are increasingly turning to far-right politics due to despair at the "brain drain" as their best and brightest young people migrate to urban opportunities. The former DDR is a good example of this, with the neo-Nazi AfD becoming the strongest single party there in spite of Germany being far more willing to invest in "levelling up" the East than any Westminster government was to invest in "levelling up" the North.
Another example of internal migration and later backlash relates to England's North/South divide: it was at its most intense during the 1930s as Victorian-era industries were crumbling (the Jarrow Crusade resulted from a collapse in demand for ships, due to cheaper Japanese competition as well as deglobalization driven by the Great Depression) while South East England boomed on the back of new industries such as aeronautics and electronics (ie the industries that won us the Battle of Britain). This no doubt caused a mass southward migration of northern workers: at the time this was accommodated by high rates of private housing construction (with "Metro-Land" being a famous example), but by the post-war era it had driven a backlash.
Postwar governments sought to keep northerners in the north, partly by subsidizing northern industries (or protecting them from global market forces via nationalization) while restricting development in London and the South East: Attlee's government instituted the the Metropolitan Green Belt, as well as the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act which gave local governments veto power over new development. These policies likely damaged the British economy overall (as place-based subsidies often mainly benefit the local petty bourgeoisie rather than the working class), but they likely had the benefit of politically enabling mass council house building.
It is relatively easy for a government to win consent for new housing construction if it is for the benefit of the area's existing families: examples more successful than Britain's would the privately-led suburbanization of post-WWII America, or Sweden's state-led "Million Programme". But when new housing development is believed to be for the benefit of "outsiders" (such as foreign immigrants, or provincials moving to the capital) it will meet with furious opposition, from anyone (such as homeowners or social housing tenants) who does not have to pay the price for such opposition in the form of higher rents.
It is notable that while New York City has a lot of such NIMBYism, one minority community that is aggressively YIMBY are the ultra-Orthodox Jews: this is because it is a high birth-rate community that see new housing as a place for their own children to live rather than a place for outsiders to move into.
George,
Immigration controls employed by a capitalist state are racist, because, like import controls, they are used to throw responsibility for the problems created by capitalism, and the specific problems of the given country on to “foreigners”. Does the fact that a given government, or set of politicians support such measures mean that they are themselves “racists”? No. Support for the Bennite Alternative Economic Strategy, which was based around import controls to protect British capital, supposedly during a period of investment, encouraged by an interventionist state, inducing corporations to engage in corporatist schemes to involve the trades unions in planning the more effective exploitation of their workers (not, of course, promoted in those terms) by raising productivity, largely came from sections of the Left, who were in no sense consciously, or subjectively racist. Nevertheless, the objective reality of those policies was that they were both nationalistic and racist. The implication of them was that the problems faced by British workers were somehow the fault of foreigners, and not of capitalism, and, specifically, British capital, with whom British workers were invited to ally with. In fact, the AES was really just an updated version of the Moseley Memorandum of the early 1930's, put forward by Oswald Mosely, when he was a Labour Minister, and supported by the likes of Nye Bevan. It formed the basis of the economic policy of the BUF, after Moseley left the Labour Party.
Similarly, Lenin noted that many of the Narodniks were, individually, committed revolutionaries, and yet, the objective reality of the policies they advocated was that they were reactionary. Indeed, as Lenin pointed out, objectively, the programme of the Russian liberals, who sought a more rapid and rational development of capitalism in Russia, was actually more progressive than that of the Narodniks. That the objective reality of a policy or set of policies is reactionary or racist, does not mean that those that advocate them are themselves consciously racist or reactionary. It is the difference between someone who may be “drunk”, and someone who is “a drunk”.
But, Blue Labour is not just “drunk”, but “a drunk”. The racist and reactionary nationalist policies it advocates are not some individual aberration, but part of a systematic agenda that is consciously reactionary and racist. They know that, because when then same policies were being pursued by the Tories only a matter of a few years ago, the same Labour politicians described them as such! Nor is it just that they have sought to demonise and other the tiny number of refugees and asylum seekers crossing the Channel, to distract from the fact that the vast majority of migrants are legal migrants coming to work on visas, to alleviate the chronic labour shortages that Brexit has exacerbated, but the same racism is seen in their attitude to Palestinians, and the genocide in Palestine that they have supported.
You are wrong to say that I have not referred to the nationalistic nature of post-war Labour. I have written about it extensively. But, as I have also written about in that context, remember that, a large chunk of the Labour Party, certainly of its Left, as well as the Communist Party, SWP, and of the trades unions, allied with Enoch Powell and the National Front, Monday Club and so on, to call for Britain to leave the Common Market, in 1975. They lost badly, a 2:1 vote to stay in. And, although the Labour Party remained committed from then to opposing the EEC, in every election after that, Labour lost, and eventually had to abandon its reactionary economic nationalist position, in 1987, and recognise that the majority of workers disagreed with it. Indeed, workers have continued to disagree with that opposition to the EU ever since, as every poll has shown.
What is more, you are wrong to say that opposition to mass migration is significant. I do not doubt that a large number of voters, including many workers are opposed to it, but, again, every poll, including surveys before, during and after general elections, showed that it came very low down the list of concerns of voters in general, let alone of workers. It normally ranked around 7th, way behind things such as wages, NHS and so on. Moreover, all polls, as well as sociological studies conducted over decades, in numerous countries, shows that opposition to migrants is most prevalent in those areas where there is little actual migration. In towns and cities where migrants have settled, local communities increasingly see migrants as their neighbours and fellow workers etc. Probably the clearest example of that is London, which has more migrants than anywhere else, and where it was a stronghold for the kind of policies of Corbyn, you say undermined him.
By contrast, the parties that based themselves overtly on racism and nationalism never got any traction. Moseley's fascists after the war never amounted to anything, despite the mass migration from the Caribbean, and other parts of the Empire, during the 1950's and 60's. The NF like the BNP after them, got a few Councillors elected, in very low polls. They never came anywhere near getting MP's elected, not even one. Nor did UKIP. Corbyn's problem was not that he was seen as being too internationalist, but that a large swathe of progressive Labour votes saw him as too nationalistic as he reverted to his 1970's, anti-EU positions, whilst a very effective campaign of demonising him as Ant-Semitic was waged by Blue Labour in alliance with the Blair-Rights, and Tory media, which he failed to confront, and instead, appeased it, by turning on his own base.
I'm about to go out for a walk, so I'll replay further, later.
Rural areas have always been a locus for reactionary ideas, including, for example, during the French bourgeois revolution. They retain ties to the old feudal regime. But, it also illustrates the contradictions that exist within the heterogenous mass of the petty-bourgeois/peasant base of populism that ultimately blows it apart. In those areas there was support for Brexit, as with fishing communities – which has rapidly seen the reality of the consequences of it. Fishing industry can't sell its output, cut off from the large EU market; farmers can't get the seasonal labour that came from the EU, but also can't pay sufficient wages to attract local labour to do those jobs. They can't pay those wages because if they did, the price of their output would either rise to a level where they couldn't sell it, or else keeping the price low would mean their profits disappeared. Only large scale mechanisation, which also requires much larger farms, and so quite at odds with all of the crap about retaining small family farms, could change that.
But, also, its not just low wages and poor conditions in those jobs, its lack of housing and services – the lack of services being nothing to do with migrants in those areas, which have seen schools, hospitals and so on closed over decades as a result of depopulation. Indeed, in the 1970's, and 80's in many of those urban towns that are now called the Red Wall, falling school rolls were used by Tory and Labour councils alike to justify closing village and other smaller schools, and focusing on larger schools, requiring kids to have to travel several miles each day, much as with cottage hospitals. As a kid, living in a village, I never had more than 200 yards to walk to get to school. All that changed in the 1970's, and even more in the 80's. Nothing to do with migrants putting demand on those services, and entirely down to governments cutting the services to save money, to benefit capital.
The idea that communities are okay with new residential development if it benefits the local population is also a myth. The virulent opposition to any development in rural areas that would have provided, services, homes and jobs for their own kids is evidence of it, and then they complain that those kids move out! It was not just the South-East that developed on the basis of the new industries in the 1930's, and again this is a myth similar to that of the Metropolitan elite, today. Hobsbawm's account of the times is quite interesting. Its certainly true that areas like Tyneside built around a few core industries, such as coal, steel and heavy engineering/shipbuilding suffered. The main areas that prospered were not just the South-East, but also the Midlands, which became the centre of the car industry.
Incidentally, I do not see any “us” as far as The Battle of Britain is concerned. I do not think there was any significant migration from the North to the South and Midlands into those industries. They were high tech industries for the time, with high levels of productivity, and recruited labour from local communities, at high wages, which also formed the basis of new housing developments. Indeed, it was for that reason that the Jarrow March was organised to pass through those areas, to remind workers in those areas that there were still parts of the country that were suffering chronic unemployment.
Nationalisation had nothing to do with keeping Northern workers in the North and so on. These were core, strategic industries that had suffered chronic underinvestment for decades. Britain could have imported coal, but was massively in debt, and would have had to export something else to pay for the imports. Nationalisation/rationalisation of the coal industry actually threw tens of thousands of miners on the dole! Far more were made redundant and pits closed under Attlee than under Thatcher, for example. The same was true of Wilson's government, including with Benn as Energy Minister. The point was to provide the coal required for the steel, and primarily gas/coke and electricity industries for the power required by British capital. Remember, gas came from coal at that time, along with the production of coke. Only in the 60's, as North Sea Gas came on stream did that end.
I'm not defending Brexit in any way: I voted Remain in 2016, made my first comment on this blog post in support of re-instating Freedom of Movement for EU nationals, and now – given the US under Trump has turned his back on Europe and (along with JD Vance) is likely a kompromized Russian asset – I'd argue not just that the UK should seek to rejoin the EU (even if that means joining the Euro, which is far less of an issue given that German mercantilism is a far weaker force than it was 10-15 years ago) but that we really need to integrate the EU's militaries so that the increased defence spending can be spent efficiently.
For example, given that the only real purpose for any European tank is to fight Russia (France never used tanks in any of its recent expeditionary wars in North Africa), I don't see any reason why (for example) Ukraine shouldn't get all the Challenger, Leclerc, Ariete and other boutique tanks only operated by a single European nation, thus giving Europe an opportunity to standardize on a single tank type (most likely the Franco-German Main Ground Combat System). There are likely many other such economies of scale available if Europeans were to standardize their other types of military equipment.
Obviously, I an no more in favour of a single European standing army than I am of NATO. I am in favour of European workers defending themselves primarily against their own ruling class and state, which is their immediate and main enemy. But, yes, even from a rational capitalist perspective, it would make sense for Britain to be part of the EU, and for the EU to organise its own defence, and arms industries. As I wrote recently, 62% of all EU military spending goes to US arms producers, who get those economies of scale, and also gives US imperialism control and leverage over the EU.
But, also to illustrate the point above, on a day when even Blair-Right Labour MP's, and representatives baulk at Blue Labour's measures to demonise, not only immigrants, but also the other target of the likes of the Daily Mail, Express and so on, from whom Starmer now takes his lead, the sick and disabled, even more does it become where workers immediate enemy in Britain resides.
They claim that by attacking the sick and disabled they seek to "save" £5 billion. But, re-joining the EU would would provide them with £40 billion a year! So, to continue the agenda of Trump, Johnson and the Daily Mail, by pursuing the failed and disastrous policy of Brexit, which only a minority of the population have ever supported - even at the time of the referendum - Starmer and Reeves intend to attack the sick and disabled, as well as their vile racist attacks on migrants.
They claim that they wanted to attack the "criminal gangs", but their planned and televised attacks on migrants proved the opposite. It was a stunt to gain publicity and put them in the good books of the Mail, Trump and their entourage in Reform, like Farage. They claim they want to help the sick and disabled into work, because their is nobility in work. No, there is nobility in labour, but, not in work. Under capitalism, the performance of labour is not noble but alienated. It is not something done freely and joyously, under your own control, but something done to live, as a wage-slave, exploited and oppressed, by capital. That is what Blue Labour is seeking to force even the sick and disabled into, because its own Brexit agenda is leading to labour shortages, conflicting with its own propaganda position of reducing migration.
But, the reality is also that employers will not volunteer to take on sick and disabled workers, anyway. Just ask all those workers who, over the last 25 years have been summarily sacked following a "Work Capability Assessment", as happened to my wife 20 years ago, even though the injuries she sustained were themselves a consequence of her job that she was told, she could no longer do! Employers will not want to use capital unproductively to employ someone who is not capable of doing the job efficiently, and where they are required to do that, the result will be that other workers will end up taking on the tasks that their incapacitated fellow workers cannot do, and will not get any additional pay for having done so! It will inevitably create frictions and divisions within the workforce, most notably where the disabled workers suffer from some mental disability. Of course, all fully in line with the small minded, petty bourgeois nature of Blue Labour.
And I am obviously not in favour of Europeans being dependent on US weapons, as Trump's government clearly can't be trusted not to remotely disable those weapons right when they were needed! More generally, it seems like Trump's obvious sympathies for Russian imperialism (and his own imperialistic statements wrt Canada and Greenland) have spawned a more general "boycott American" movement in Canada and Europe, which is a good sign.
While the UK should certainly move to rejoin the EU, it would take many years if not decades, and would certainly there not be a solution to a short-term crisis in the national finances.
I can't believe Starmer and co are stupid enough to think that any shift to the right would bring the Daily Mail on side (after all, at least as I see it it has shifted further to the right since last year's General Election, such I wouldn't be surprised to see it supporting Reform in the next General Election): maybe the issue is just a sky-high debt burden resulting from the Covid pandemic, as well as from Liz Truss's failed economic gamble? (Which makes me pleased to live under a parliamentary system, where it's far easier to get rid of a really bad leader than in the US presidential system.)
Incidentally, how much is the increased sickness and disability burden (that is driving Starmer's government to seek further benefit cuts) itself also a consequence of the Covid pandemic: either directly in the form of Long Covid, or indirectly in the form of mental illness and obesity caused by lockdowns?
You mentioned above how support for anti-immigration populists is strongest in areas with few actual immigrants: aren't there several reasons for that?
1) Some areas (like Essex and Kent) are full of "white flight" racists who moved to those areas (often from the East End of London) precisely in order to get away from non-white immigrants,
2) People are more susceptible to racist "Great Replacement" propaganda if they live in depopulating areas (see also the popularity of AfD in the former East Germany),
3) Rural areas are more vulnerable to cuts in public spending because it is inherently more expensive to provide services there (as they also are in Scotland, which is the rationale used to justify the Barnett Formula),
4) The immigrants themselves are different in economically moribund areas: fewer productive immigrants due to lack of job opportunities, but more asylum-seekers sent where there is available housing.
As for valorization of "small family farms", as I see it it's basically a scam. It's not traditional here (it only really started when Starmer's government decided to crack down on the use of farmland as an inheritance tax dodge), but it's far more traditional of course in the United States, going back to its ideological promotion by Thomas Jefferson.
I'm inclined to agree with Sarah Taber's analysis that the whole family farm ideology was more about racial imperialism than about efficient food production: the idea was to give poor white Americans just enough of a carrot to kill Native Americans for their land, while locking them into an unsustainable system that would ensure that the land would ultimately end up in the hands of big plantation owners (like Jefferson himself of course).
George,
There are some interesting areas for discussion, here, but I'm a bit busy at the moment. I will try to reply later today.
George,
First part of my response.
I don't think its a matter of Trump having sympathies for Russian imperialism. I think it is simply a question of a different strategy. US imperialism's main targets/competitors are the EU and China, hence its not only been Trump that imposed tariffs on both, nor that has attempted to throw the cost of its imperialist adventures in the Middle East on to the EU. Trump's regime sees a possibility of splitting Russia from China, and keeping it split from the EU. The Democrats have always been the war party, whereas Trump's petty-bourgeois base is isolationist, and has been promised no more costly foreign wars. If he can do a deal with Putin to that effect, and also get access not only to Ukrainian, but also Russian natural resources, that will be his preferred route. After all, the majority of the natural resources/minerals in Ukraine are in the Eastern/Russian controlled region.
I don't see consumer boycott movements as at all positive. Just as with western sanctions against Russia, China, Iran and so on, they act to divide western labour movements from those in the targeted countries. They tie workers in the sanctioning/boycotting states to their own ruling class and its nationalistic/imperialist interests. In reality, of course, from a ration point of view, Greenland and Canada are part of North America, and so should be part of a North American single state, along with Mexico. That doesn't mean supporting US imperialism forcing them into it, but Marxists in Canada, Greenland, Mexico should argue that such a development would be progressive, to remove those outmoded national barriers, and allow the workers in the whole of North America to unite to fight the main enemy which is their own capitalist ruling class.
I've said before that I disagree about the timescale for re-joining the EU. I believe it could be done on a timescale that would allow Britain to be back in just after the next UK General Election. But, my point was that Blue Labour is attacking the poorest, most disadvantaged in Britain, as an easy target, whilst defending its jingoistic pro-Brexit stance. It seeks to “save” £5 billion, whilst throwing away £40 billion a year due to Brexit! Its not a matter of thinking they can bring the Mail on side. Its a matter of appealing to the petty-bourgeois readership of the Mail and Express. Though, to be honest, I think that the nature of their attacks on workers, pensioners and the disabled, now, are so blatant and irrational, even from an electoralist standpoint that it suggests there is more behind it. Starmer is hostage to Blue Labour, and its Zionist and multi-millionaire backers. Its an example of the consequences of “lesser-evilism”. The Blair-Rights allied with Blue Labour to get rid of Corbyn, and to prevent a repeat in the election of a Leftish contender. The actions of Starmer and Blue Labour seem designed to destroy the Labour Party itself as currently constituted. Its policies have reduced it to a rump with less support amongst voters than it had when it was first created, but their response is to do even more of those policies.
Its why I guess Starmer will be gone by the end of the year, and the Blair-Rights will look to ally with the Liberals, who in turn will have allied with the Conservatives. The link to the unions will be broken.
Second response.
Incidentally, just to go back to Greenland. Its population is 56,000. They don't like Denmark that has historically oppressed them, and want independence, which would be totally ridiculous and utopian. If the US offered every Greenlander $10 million that would be a cost of only $560 billion to the US, and would seem like a great deal for both. Certainly, if I were a Greenlander and Trump offered my $10 million I would snap his hand off, and start packing for the sunny climes of California!
The lockdowns (not Covid itself) certainly created a huge debt burden, as well as inflation, which is why they were stupid. But Blue Labour wanted even more of them!!! The effects of Truss's government were simply a blip, and pretty insignificant. Interest rates were rising, anyway, for the reasons I've set out over several years, and not just here, but across the globe. They will continue to rise.
I think John McDonnell's account of how its austerity, and other policies over the last 25 years - and before - that are the real basis of a continued rise in longer-term ill-health and incapacity for work, not least the fact that women are now expected to work until 67 rather than just 60, for example. Nearly 30 years ago, as a County Councillor, I made a speech about how it was the changed nature of work that was also a contributor to the fact that the biggest rise in sickness was in mental health. When people worked in the pit, or in a potbank, they became ill with lung diseases caused by dust, in steel industry from being burned by hot metal and so on. Now, 80% are employed in service industry where it is the brain that is the main organ of labour, and it is the brain/mind that suffers injury, including from the fact that no one is able to turn off, being required to be tethered by their phone, laptop etc.
Its clear that Blue Labour are simply lying to justify their position. Listneing to Kendall, today, she said she did not start from a spreadsheet, but from a desire to enable people to work. Bullshit. They began by wanting to simply freeze ill-health and disability benefits, but had to abandon that because of a rebellion. So, then they committed to do the same thing by making it harder to qualify for those benefits. PIP is paid to people in work – indeed 66% of those in receipt of these benefits are in work – and they are intended to facilitate that. So, how does making it harder to obtain those benefits make it easier for those in receipt of them to get back into work? It clearly doesn't, even if employers would be falling over themselves to employ people whose disability meant their productivity was reduced and their costs were raised at the expense of profits!
Third response. On the question of why opposition to immigrants is highest in areas where there are few migrants, the sociology suggests its down to the fact that in many of those areas there are more petty-bourgeois, and also its the ability to whip up fear of the unknown, an unknown which disappears in areas where immigrants already exist. Refugees/asylum seekers represent a tiny fraction of migrants, but are generally better educated/middle class, which is one reason they leave their homes, and are able to do so. Often in the “moribund” areas, i.e. urban towns, the migrants, particularly Asian migrants, are economically stimulative, because they are small business people. They set up corner shops and so on, so the lack of jobs is not so much an issue. Others are professionals such as doctors, accountants and so on.
On family farms, I disagree. Its part of the whole petty-bourgeois mindset of Blue Labour, and large sections of “the Left” as well, that demonises large capital, monopolies and so on. It goes back to the ideas of Sismondi, and carried through in the ideas of many petty-bourgeois Leftist trends, such as the Narodniks in Russia, as well as of today's “anti-capitalists” and “anti-imperialists”. In fact, in the US, although there are, of course, many small farms, just as there are many Mom and Pop stores etc., it is, and has always been, the place where economies of scale were paramount, and where the concentration of production on a large scale, so as to utilise lots of fixed capital could be applied. In Britain that stopped as far as farming is concerned not long after capitalist farming brought about the land enclosures. It simply does not have the huge prairies of the US and Canada and so on, to justify such large scale farms, and use of huge amounts of fixed capital. Its again, why it requires the EU, where those vast land tracts do exist, and which can provide the efficiently produced food, in exchange for other commodities.
During Trump's first term I also had the belief that Trump basically want to reverse Nixon's foreign policy strategy, allying with Russia against China much as Nixon allied with China against Russia.
However, Trump's recent behaviour (such as his condemnation of Biden's CHIPS act which sought to encourage semiconductor manufacture in the US and thus decrease dependence on East Asian -- especially Taiwanese -- supplies) suggests it's something more sinister than that.
Instead it looks like Trump is combining the isolationism of a Charles Lindbergh with a desire to carve up the world in a reactionary manner (kind of like a global equivalent of Metternich's "Concert of Europe") with Putin's Russian Empire dominating Europe, Xi's Chinese Empire dominating Asia (and with Africa likely split between the two) while Trump builds his own Empire to rule the Americas.
And the point about family farms (indeed about family businesses more generally) is that they are brittle for more reasons than just small size: what if the owner dies childless, or has no children who desire to take over the business and have the aptitude to run it successfully?
No, I don't think Trump, and certainly US imperialism, sees it that way. The EU is the main economic challenger to US imperialism, because of the size of its market, and developed economy. But, it is hemmed in, provided it can be kept separate from Eurasia. Russia poses no economic threat, and no real military threat, other than the threat of Armageddon in the case of WWIII. It certainly cannot dominate Europe, or even the whole of Ukraine.
China poses the emerging threat to US imperialism, in the same way that Japan did in the early 20th century. The size of its market and population, its speed of development, its creation of an emerging Eurasian economy, utilising Russian resources, and its ability to expand its trade with not only Latin America, but also Africa and the Middle East is why US imperialism seeks to choke it as soon as possible.
Separating Russia from China is central to that task, and the only difference between Biden and Trump in that regard is one of immediate tactics to achieve it.
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