Prediction 5 – Blair-Rights Challenge Blue Labour Leadership
The last year confirmed this prediction, although it did not result in an outright leadership election. It did, however, take the form of a Deputy Leadership election, in which Starmer's chosen candidate, the reactionary nationalist, Phillipson, was easily defeated by Powell, who acted as the proxy candidate for the Prince across the water, Burnham, accumulating his support, secure in the bastion of Manchester.
The answer to the question of whether Starmer is simply the dupe and prisoner of the far right, Zionist Blue Labour party within a party, or its conscious leader, was clearly answered.
The last year was marked by the repeated discussion of how long Starmer could cling to office, given the continued slide of Blue Labour in the polls, its appalling performance in the local elections, loss of Caerphilly to Plaid, in elections to the Senedd, and a string of other disasters, and continued U-Turns. If Starmer hung on, it is only because of a lack of credible alternatives within Labour, given that Burnham remains outside parliament and with the Blue Labour cabal likely to block him standing in any safe seat.
The chosen candidate of the Blair-Rights is Streeting, who at one point appeared to be on the verge of an open challenge, as the Starmer faction launched another incompetent witch hunt against him via their chosen tactic of smears, and leaks to the press. But, even with a large part of Labour's membership gutted, its unlikely that the majority of the members would be enthusiastic about Streeting, who is on the right-flank even of the Blair-Rights, has openly talked about the privatisation of the NHS, and who has continued to attack workers and their trades unions. As Labour gets smashed in the forthcoming local and regional elections, Starmer is unlikely to be able to hold on further, and the Blair-Rights and soft left will be likely to demand that Burnham take up the baton.
The question for the Blair-Rights, within Labour, at that point, as with the Left around Your Party, will be whether, it is just too late. Labour has haemorrhaged members and voters to the Greens. With Starmer prostrating himself in front of Trump, as he finds himself isolated from Europe, his belated and utopian talk of, again, striking up some kind of “Labour Brexit” deal, will fall flat, at the same time as enabling the far-right media to attack him for “betraying Brexit”. If only he were. The latest data shows that the damage done by Brexit is 50% greater than first thought, and that is only going to get worse. Even the large majority of the electorate, now, understand that and support re-joining the EU.
That problem also affects Your Party. In 2019, Corbyn, prisoner to his Stalinoid backers, and still in thrall to the petty-bourgeois, nationalist ideas he has pursued during all his political life, returned to the anti-EU politics of the 1970's that were so disastrous for the Left, and represented a total diversion from class politics, and need to build a Europe wide working-class movement. But, many of the other Left sects that have swarmed towards Your Party, also collapsed into that same petty-bourgeois nationalist, anti-EU position in the 1970's, and have failed to break from it. The former Militant, Socialist Party, for example, 20 years ago, swung behind the reactionary nationalist electoral venture “No2EU”.
Had Your Party retained even a substantial proportion of the 800 thousand people that showed an interest in it last year, that would have posed an immediate dilemma, because, as with the surge in membership of Corbyn's Labour, after 2015, the vast majority of those people oppose Brexit. And quite right too, because, even a moderately progressive social=democracy in Britain is inconceivable without Britain being inside the EU. A progressive, social-democratic government would, even more, face the problem that the reactionary nationalist governments of the Tories and Blue Labour have faced, which is that without EU membership and trade, the UK economy is on a rapidly declining trajectory, making significant growth impossible, and so making the kind of state spending on infrastructure and so on, required to repair decades of austerity, also impossible.
The fraudulent election system, when combined with the fact that the reactionary petty-bourgeois mass constitutes around 30% of the electorate, means that the main bourgeois parties have become locked by game theory into a doom loop. That doom loop has already destroyed the Conservative Party, as its Tory wing has rebranded as Reform, whilst its conservative wing has split to the Liberals. Blue Labour idiotically tried to appease that reactionary petty-bourgeois mass, concentrated in the decayed urban areas – Red Wall – only to not only fail in that endeavour, but to also lose a substantial part of its core working-class voter base to the Liberals, Greens, and in Scotland and Wales, to the SNP and Plaid.
But, that doom loop dictated by an adherence to game theory, also, affected the Liberals, and to a lesser extent the Greens. The Liberals unique selling point, for decades has been their support for the EU. That is not surprising because, they are the epitome of that representation of the interests of the ruling-class owners of fictitious-capital. It is why, in the 1980's, when the Labour Left idiotically became diverted into an internal struggle over EEC membership, the outward form, also, became manifest in the split of the overtly pro-EU, Gang of Four, to form the SDP, and its rapid merger with the Liberals. It quickly sucked huge numbers of Labour voters towards it, as it offered a progressive vision of the future in Europe. It was repeated as farce, in 2019, with the creation of Change UK.
But, in the 1980's, the split of the core working-class/professional middle-class vote simply enabled Thatcher's Tories to win. Labour was forced to abandon the reactionary, nationalist, anti-EU stance, and, in so doing, undermined the Liberals, as that vote returned to Labour as the only realistic alternative. Blair formalised that ideological trend. By that time, however, nearly twenty years of Tory rule, the process of deindustrialisation and so on, had undermined the working-class, and simultaneously led to a 50% increase in the size and social weight of the petty-bourgeoisie. Blair believed he could ignore Labour's progressive working-class voter base, and appeal to those enamoured by the prospect of getting rich on the back of ever inflating asset prices – it is the same delusion that leads others to think that you can get rich by inflating the currency to pay for government spending. The global financial crash of 2008, brought that delusion to an end, just as the global spike in inflation after 2021, shattered the delusion of MMT.
Blue Labour overtly sought to advance the ideology of reactionary nationalism, and to appeal to that petty-bourgeois mass, in the same way that Trump did in the US. Indeed, in the US, this same doom loop, based on game theory, also led Democrats to tack in the same direction. In the US, however, the continued division into two parties limits the effect. Its main manifestation, there being the low level of political involvement, and voter turnout. Its not just Biden's Democrats that tacked in that direction. Sanders represents a similar ideological trend to that of Corbyn, and also purveys a similar brand of economic nationalism, though, in the case of the huge US economy, one that is less irrational. The hyper nationalism of Trump, and pursuit of tariffs has, at least, caused progressive Democrats to be forced into the opposing camp. But, as Trump follows the inevitable rationale of imperialism, and seeks to consolidate a huge, single American market/state, including the annexation of Mexico, Canada and Greenland, the role of socialists in North America should be not to deny or oppose the progressive development of such a single market/state, but to seek to bring it about voluntarily, by their own class unity and struggle, and in so doing, to fight for a Workers state, on that basis.
The Liberals continue to argue in favour of the EU, and opposition to Brexit, but afraid that game theory predicts that such an open campaign on that basis, might lose them votes, they have kept quiet. The Greens, as well as the SNP and Plaid have carried the banner of progressive social-democracy and opposition to Brexit, and have been able to do so, because, electorally, it was a no-brainer. It demarcated them from Labour, and has slowly paid dividends to them on that basis, despite the limitations of the electoral system. Now, as Caerphilly and elsewhere showed, that same fraudulent electoral system is starting to work in their favour, just as, it turned in favour of Reform, and against the Conservative Party.
The forces of Blairism/conservative social-democracy, will seek to demarcate themselves from the progressive social-democrats of the Greens, Plaid and SNP, because the logic of the latter's programme is, not only a return to the EU, but is also, to use that as the basis for economic growth, and real capital accumulation. These progressive social-democrats inevitably frame their vision in terms of support for small businesses, and so on, but the economic reality always drives them in the direction of the interests of large-scale, socialised capital. It is no coincidence that the Greens, under Polanski, have side-lined much of their Green agenda, in favour of promoting their progressive social-democratic agenda, because that is how they rapidly replace Labour, and win over a section of the Liberals.
The local election results of the last few years have shown the Greens, even more than the Liberals advancing at the expense of Labour. That trend will accelerate even faster come the Spring elections, and in the intervening months, the failure of Labour to ditch Starmer and Blue Labour, could mean it is too late to reverse that trend. Labour will almost certainly ditch Starmer, or he will fall or be pushed on to his sword, making way for Burnham.
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