Of Course They Are Racists!

Nigel Farage is a racist. His Reform company is comprised of racists and bigots. Its political programme, determined by Farage, as CEO of that company, is racist and founded on bigotry. Its programme, and its supporters appeal to racists and bigots. In pronouncement after pronouncement, Farage and the other company executives of his Reform company, simply translate into English the racist ravings of Trump. When Trump rants about Sadiq Khan, as London Mayor, and says, he is trying to impose Sharia Law, that is racist pure and simple.

Trump declares of immigrants in the US, “They're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs”, in another of his insane rants, its echoed in Britain, by the claim “They're eating the carp, they're eating the swans”, Its not even subtle. They have no originality.

Yet, Starmer can't bring himself to say what is obviously true, and neither can large sections of the Left.

Starmer can't label Trump's various moronic statements as racist and bigoted, for the simple reason that Starmer, is pursuing the same ultra-nationalist, xenophobic agenda, in support of his continued Brexitism, as he scrabbles after the votes of those remaining racists, jingoists and bigots that having voted for Brexit, still haven't either died or realised they were lied to by the likes of Trump, Farage, Boris Johnson et al. Excluded from the EU, and possibility of cost-free higher economic growth that membership would bring, Starmer has had to suck up to Trump, disappearing up his arse on several high profile occasions. So, of course, even when Trump, having used him and the King like dish rags, then tosses them aside, the next day, in another rant about London and Europe, they do not have the backbone to call him out. And, if you can't call Trump a racist and a bigot, it makes it hard to call Farage and those around him racists either, when they simply repeat in English the racist drivel poured out by their global mentor.

But, with Starmer its worse than that, because its not just Farage that is parroting the racist nonsense from Trump. Starmer is too, in line with his own adoption of reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalism since 2019. Along with it, of course, goes the same Bonapartism demonstrated by Trump, the way for which was paved by the increasing Bonapartism of the Biden regime, as it sought to quell dissent to its backing of genocide in Gaza. When an inoffensive Australian Broadcasting Company journalist questioned Trump before his visit to Britain, Trump threatened him, and sure enough, at the press conference in Britain, that same journalist was denied entry by the British government.

Starmer's Bonapartist regime has also blocked Owen Jones from its conference.

As well as a journalist from Novara Media.

The rant by John Mann, and by Luke Akehurst, as well as the trumped up claims of “anti-semitism” against the NM journalist, all have their own Trumpist characteristics. All have a similar root, the indefensible promotion of genocide in Gaza, and an attempt to escape being called to account for it. As Owen Jones noted in his questioning of the hapless Gareth Snell, the refusal to say what is obvious, and admit that what is happening in Gaza is genocide, and other war crimes, means that they are now, not even able to talk about war crimes being committed by Putin's vile regime in Ukraine, either!

Starmer said that Farage's policy of repatriation of migrants who already have settled status in Britain is racist. It is. As James O'Brien has set out, even the Sun, 11 years ago, described the policies being pursued by Farage, as “racism, pure and simple”.

But, Starmer will not, and cannot call Farage a racist, will not, and cannot say that the Reform company are appealing to racists and bigots, because, as I set out previously, Starmer and Blue Labour are doing exactly the same thing, just as they are, like Farage, sucking up to Trump, in a frantic attempt to save their own doomed Brexit agenda. No wonder, Burnham gained media space, when he not only attacked Starmer, but did so by openly proclaiming a desire to rejoin the EU, which is now, and always has been, for the last century, the only rational course for British capital to take.

In my previous post I pointed out that Starmer having said that Farage's policy of repatriation was racist, would, undoubtedly adopt the same position, if he thought it would win him votes. Within days, Blue Labour announced that they would extend the time that migrants had to be resident in Britain before being able to claim settled status, and, consequently, that before that time, they could be told to leave. They have, now, also, said that those granted asylum in Britain, would no longer have the right to bring their families with them, meaning that their families can be raped, tortured, murdered and used as hostages by the regimes from which they had themselves escaped. This is a vile, racist government whose policies are dictated by the ever more extreme policies of Reform, with which they are in competition for the racist vote. As Kevin Maguire noted, Starmer would not have dared to haveannounced his latest racist policies during his speech.

As James O'Brien has described, the Conservative Party has been destroyed for the simple reason that, having been captured by its reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist membership, it has put into practice all of those reactionary positions, goaded along by the likes of Farage, and, at each stage, those policies have been disastrous. They have been disastrous not just for British workers, but, also, for British capitalists, and for the ruling-class. It was, interesting, however, that Michael Gove, speaking to Owen Jones, admitted that the model of conservative social-democracy (which he calls neoliberalism) had failed. The Conservative Party has been rent asunder, as I predicted would happen, because its Tory wing (the reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist majority) have metamorphosed into Reform, with Musk/Yaxley-Lennon, now acting as a goad on them driving them even further Right. At the same time, the conservative social-democratic wing of the Conservatives, which held the ring from 1945-1990, have now been driven into the arms of the Liberals, given that Blue Labour is indistinguishable from Reform, other than in the former's lack of consistency and credibility.

But, that same process, described by O'Brien, is, now happening with Blue Labour, as, again, I predicted it would. As Starmer has careened frantically in the direction of Reform, and the adoption of these racist policies, so its core, working-class support has abandoned it, not just in terms of its members, but in terms of voters too. Had there been any credible organised socialist party as an alternative, that collapse of support would have been even more pronounced, as even the glimmer of hope that Corbyn and Sultana might get their act together, illustrated. In the absence of that, as John Curtice has set out, Blue Labour has simply lost votes to the Liberals, Greens, Plaid, SNP, and, now, that is turning into a flood that threatens to destroy Labour in the same way that the Conservatives have been destroyed.

It is necessary to speak the truth. Around 40% of the population are racists and bigots. Mostly, they are the components of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, whose numbers have grown by 50% since the 1980's, as Thatcher's Britain, deindustrialised, forcing millions out of the working-class into the ranks of the petty-bourgeoisie, living a precarious, immiserated subsistence, often dependent on rule-breaking and close proximity to the ultimate in self-reliance, the petty-criminal classes. The centres of that reaction are in the former urban areas that have now decayed. The petty-bourgeoisie, comprises around 30% of the population, but its numbers are supplemented by its immediate periphery of the long-term unemployed, former workers, and the small numbers of workers employed by the petty-bourgeoisie, who, deprived of any chance of union organisation, adopt a similar outlook to their employer. Short of returning to the kind of growth of large-scale industrial capital that existed prior to the 1980's, and so diminishing the size of that petty-bourgeoisie, and its periphery, there is no chance of building any kind of consensus with it. Attempts to do so, via some kind of popular front, will fail, and worse, will be disastrous and themselves lead to a slippery slope of accommodation, and lesser-evilism.

It is no good saying as Starmer does that if you are worried about immigration, or worried about the lack of housing public services and so on, that is not racist. True concern about poor wages, poor conditions, lack of public services and so on is not racist. But, if your first and often only, response to that concern is to blame foreigners – whether the EU, or immigrants – then, yes, that is racist, and if your whole world view is based around that perspective, then, you are a racist. Its not a secret that the reason we have poor public services is as a result of the years in which they were destroyed by Thatcher, in the 1980's, by her successors in the 90's, and by the imposition of austerity by Cameron and Osborne after 2010.

Its no secret that the reason we have a housing crisis is because Thatcher, in the 1980's, sold off council houses, and subsequent governments have continued that policy whilst building no new council houses to replace them. Its no secret that the reason we have ridiculously inflated house prices that few can now afford is a consequence of the blowing up of asset price bubbles of all kinds, since the 1980's, as Gary Stevenson, also described. This has been known and witnessed over the last 30 years, and even those that pay little attention to the news can hardly have escaped discussion of that reality. So, when, instead, someone's first response to any of those problems, is to blame immigrants, what else can be concluded other than that they are by inclination racist?

Until that truth is faced squarely, and we begin to deal with that racism on its own terms, rather than appeasing it, it will only metastasise.