A Vote For Blue Labour Is A Vote For Reform & Reaction

In the elections, tomorrow, across Britain, a vote for Blue Labour candidates is a vote for petty-bourgeois reactionary politics, but, given that support for Blue Labour has itself collapsed, a vote for Blue Labour candidates is essentially a wasted vote, which will benefit the reactionaries of Farage's Reform company. If we used the same argument that Blue Labour and others have used, in the past, to justify voters supporting them, despite their appalling politics, simply to keep out even worse candidates, then, it would mean actively calling on voters to support Green or Liberal candidates, as well as, in Scotland and Wales, voting for SNP and Plaid candidate, depending on which had the best chance of winning in the given seat.

Socialists should not do so. We should argue for the need for support for socialist politics, socialist candidates, and socialist parties. There is no principled basis for socialists to argue, actively, for a purely passive political gesture of voting for parties or candidates standing on a bourgeois programme, and over whom we have no control, and whose actions, once they are elected, we would only have linked ourselves to. Of course, that is quite different to understanding the revulsion that workers will have towards a petty-bourgeois, reactionary nationalist, Blue Labour party, and wanting to punish it by voting for what appear to be more progressive alternatives, such as Greens, Liberals, Plaid or SNP. Indeed, as Blue Labour has abandoned the working-class and social-democracy, in favour of chasing the support of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, it is not just that these other parties appear, a more progressive alternative. In purely electoral terms, they are more progressive, they are the ones that, today, are the standard bearers of the kind of “Buttskellite” social-democratic consensus, of the post-war period that Labour represented in the past.

A vote for Blue Labour, because of its petty-bourgeois, reactionary politics, is, a vote for that reactionary agenda, just as much as a vote for Reform, or its rump within the Tory Party. But, a vote for Blue Labour in conditions where its support, resulting from reactionary, anti-working-class politics, has collapsed, is, also, given the nature of Britain's corrupt, first-past the post system, designed to benefit just two main parties, effectively a vote for Reform. It splits the anti-Reform vote. That is no reason for socialists to argue for a vote for a “lesser-evil” party/candidate, but it is why we can understand why the working-class, and progressive middle-class will do so.

Blue Labour's establishment clearly understand that that is precisely what they face in the elections tomorrow. Rather than drawing the conclusion that they need to abandon their petty-bourgeois, reactionary politics, and return to, at least, the social-democratic politics they previously championed, or forming the kind of anti-Reform/Tory Popular Front, they argued for when it was a question of others supporting them, they have doubled down on their own reactionary politics and behaviour, essentially forming an alliance with Reform/Tories, to attack the Greens, as the most visible representative of that progressive alternative.

Blue Labour has no self-respect, and so can gain no respect from voters. It has no shame, as it showed in its covert operation “Labour Together”, financed by millionaires, simply to get rid of Corbyn and the social-democratic wing of the party, just as they got rid of the socialist wing of the party in previous decades. Its use of the equation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, to whip up scare stories, and launch a witch hunt inside the party has done serious damage to the actual fight against anti-Semitism, because, it necessarily also, associates the reactionary, nationalism of Zionism with being Jewish. The consequence of that has been shown, when the Zionist state, has engaged in a genocide against the Palestinians, not just in Gaza, but, also, on the West Bank. Blue Labour was forced to become a party of genocide deniers, to continue their support for the Zionist state in Israel, and so to maintain its, “anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism” trope.

So, the total lack of any self-respect by Blue Labour, its willingness to pick up any ready to hand weapon to attack its political opponents, has meant that, as reality bites, and it faces electoral destruction, it has simply picked up that same “anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism” weapon it used to attack the life-long anti-racist Corbyn – and many other life-long anti-racists on a similar basis – now to attack the only Jewish Leader of a political party in Britain, Zack Polanski!!! Not only have they attacked Polanski in the most ludicrous manner, for having retweeted a criticism of the actions of Metropolitan Police in their actions in arresting a mentally-ill man, who had stabbed 3 people – the first of which was a Muslim – 2 of whom were Jews, they have actually accused him of being anti-Semitic! The appalling Trevor Phillips, who was previously suspended from the Labour Party on the basis of claims of Islamophobia, and whose best man at his wedding was Peter Mandelson, the disgraced friend of the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, sank to even lower levels in his interview with Polanski, on his Sunday show on Sky News.

Numerous people have detailed the appalling nature of Phillips' interview with Polanski, but the same kind of attacks have been made on him by Blue Labour, as well as by the Tory media, and other Zionist apologists. One thing that stands out is the way that central to these attacks on Polanski, is that they do not even seem to see the way they take it as read that criticism of the Zionist state amounts to “anti-Semitism”. That was clear in Lewis Goodall's LBC interview with Blue Labour Minister, Heidi Alexander as well as his interview with Tory MP, Helen Whately. In the latter case, Whately, would not even use the same yardstick in relation to calling for a ban on Tommy Robinson's demonstrations as she used in relation to the anti-genocide marches! She seemed incapable of even comprehending the question put to her, basically replying, “Tommy Robinson is not calling for an end to Israel”, and even claiming not to be aware of the speeches made from the stage at the “Unite The Kingdom” rally, which incited violence against British Muslims!

The fact that the cabal that were at the heart of Blue Labour, such as Steve Reed, routinely write in the journals of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, such as The Daily Mail, is symptomatic of the appalling politics of Blue Labour. It was in this noxious, racist rag, which, in the 1930's, supported Hitler, that Reed chose to write his latest hatchet job on Polanski. But, the Mail and Reed are not alone. The vile Zionist apologist, Melanie Phillips has been a blatant genocide denier, even in the face of all the evidence provided by the UN, and by Jewish genocide scholars, as Owen Jones has described. She contributes regularly to The Times, but The Times, in joining in the attacks on Polanski, published a vile “anti-Semitic” cartoon, depicting a clearly hooked nose, Jewish Polanski, kicking the back the two policemen, who were busy, in actuality, tasering and kicking the mentally ill man, they were arresting!

Yet, there has been no condemnation of that clearly “anti-Semitic” Times cartoon, by the likes of Phillips, or by Blue Labour representatives. That failure to criticise a clearly “anti-Semitic” cartoon, in a newspaper, stands in contrast to their attacks on Corbyn for having retweeted a cartoon, he saw on a small phone screen, but which, of course, in later attacks on him, was always flashed up on large TV studio screens! The fact that the Metropolitan Police have got involved in this attack on Polanski, as well as on the anti-genocide marches, shows that its not just Blue Labour that is worried, but that worry is spread across the political establishment as a whole. They are worried that the narrative they have had for the last few years that the challenge to Blue Labour comes from the Right, from Reform, is collapsing. The real challenge is coming from the Left, albeit a very confused and inadequate Left.

In the Denton & Gorton by-election, all of this same witch-hunting and scare mongering of the Greens did not stop Labour losing a seat it has held for decades, and it going to the Greens. The same looks set to happen tomorrow, in English elections, and the establishment is in full panic mode, even at the prospect that mildly progressive, social-democratic parties are on the rise. Why? Social-democracy, after all, is the ideology that arises as the reflection of the social relations created by the rise and dominance of large-scale, socialised industrial capital (imperialism) since the end of the 19th century. It is what formed the basis of the social-democratic consensus of the twentieth century. The reason they are so worried is that, from the 1980's on, the concomitant of that, the separation of the ruling-class into being just a class of parasitic money-lenders, owners of fictitious-capital, has had perverse, and decadent consequences.

There is an inherent contradiction between the interests of interest-bearing capital (fictitious capital) and industrial capital, as Marx set out 150 years ago, and described in Capital III. The former seek to maximise the amount of interest they obtain, and that means less is, then, available as profit of enterprise (essentially retained profits), available for investment (real capital accumulation). In the post-war period, in which there was sustained accumulation of capital, there was also, growing profits, and growing amounts paid as interest/dividends. The ruling-class saw these revenues based on interest/dividends as central. In the period between 1965-1982, however, as I have set out, elsewhere, as capital faced a rising wage share, and falling profit share, resulting in a crisis of overproduction of capital relative to labour, in the 1970's, it could only sustain the expansion by increased borrowing – a falling profit share, in conditions where competition demands continued real investment, inevitably means more borrowing to compensate – and so higher interest rates.

Higher interest rates mean lower asset prices, but, in the same period asset prices, as with commodity prices and nominal profits, were increasingly raised, as a result of central banks inflating the currency supply, ultimately resulting in the high levels of inflation, across the globe of the 1970's and early 1980's. Industrial capital resolved the overproduction of capital relative to labour, in part, by moving industrial production to newly industrialising countries, particularly in Asia. The other solution, as in the past, was a new technological revolution, based on the microchip, which revolutionised production and productivity. The rate of profit rose sharply, and interest rates dropped sharply, causing asset prices to rocket. The ruling-class, increasingly saw these rocketing asset prices as the real basis of their wealth and power, particularly in the old imperialist countries.

But, social-democracy, as the ideology that reflects the interests of large-scale, industrial capital is inimical to that. It requires, that profits be used to finance real capital accumulation, not to be used to simply pay ever higher dividends to shareholders, or to be used to buy up shares so as to inflate share prices and so on. Still less does real industrial capital desire the costs of land or property to be inflated, which means that capital that could have been used productively is consumed unproductively by landowners, and the costs of labour-power are inflated by rising costs of shelter. So, the consequence of the ruling-class of money-lenders now becoming dependent on speculative capital gains, in conditions where the long-wave cycle is causing capital accumulation to rise, and so where the rate of interest is on an upward path, means they must become opponents of social-democracy, not because social-democracy is a threat to capitalism, but because it is a threat to the asset prices, which are the basis of the wealth of the ruling-class, but which are, in themselves, destructive to capitalism!!

The fact that first there was de-industrialisation in western economies from the 1980's onwards, which led to a 50% rise in the size of the petty-bourgeoisie, which is the basis of the electoral support for reactionary ideas such as Brexit, and consequently for Reform, and subsequently, a slower rate of economic growth, as governments sought to hold back wage growth, and rising interest rates, which would cause further asset price crashes, is just a symptom of that. At a time when interest rates were at the lowest levels in 5000 years, in the early 2000's, and yet governments claimed they could not borrow to finance a much needed refurbishment of infrastructure, is illustrative of it. Indeed, in 2008, when despite all of their efforts, wages began to rise, and interest rates rose, the consequence was, indeed, the global financial crash of those asset prices.

It should have been a boon to real capital, as Marx described. A fall in land prices means capital can be used productively rather than to pay inflated prices for land, before it can be used. A fall in share and bond prices does not affect the use-value of all those elements of capital bought with the money borrowed by the issue of those shares and bonds. Lower land and property prices means lower prices for shelter and other wage goods, and so a lower value of labour-power, higher rate of surplus value, and profit, and more profits to invest in real capital accumulation. Lower share and bond prices, means a lower cost of pension provision, likewise. Instead, governments acted not in the interests of real industrial capital, but in the interests of fictitious-capital, of a decadent, parasitic, money-lending ruling class. They inflated asset prices via QE, and they slowed economic expansion by imposing fiscal austerity.

I have also set out, elsewhere, that the interests of the ruling class of money-lenders are served by the removal of the nation state, and its outdated borders. That reduces costs and frictions, thereby increasing profits without requiring additional capital accumulation. It is why the ruling-class oppose Brexit. But, that puts them on the same side as social-democracy, on the same side as the Greens, Liberals, Plaid, SNP and so on, not of the likes of Reform, the Tories or Blue Labour. There is a clear problem for the ruling-class, in that, because they have negligible votes, whilst the petty-bourgeoisie represents around 30% of the population, or about 15 million votes. In the main, that petty-bourgeoisie votes for Reform/Tories, not the johnny-come-lately of Blue Labour. As Blue Labour collapses, the choice becomes one between Reform and Greens/SNP/Plaid. The Liberals have undermined themselves, by failing to campaign vigorously to oppose Brexit, and by being more concerned with losing votes to the Greens.

The establishment is, thereby, seeking to undermine the Greens, because they know that neither the SNP nor Plaid can form a Westminster government. Hence the return to the “anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism” argument to attack Polsanski. A look at the argument used by Blue Labour and the Tory media in that instance is informative. In the past, it has rightly been argued that those who claimed that Jews in Britain who did not actively denounce the genocidal actions of the Zionist regime in Israel, were in some way complicit in its actions, were making an anti-Semitic argument. We do not demand, for example, that all Russian people, living in Britain, actively go out and protest the actions of Putin.

But, in trying to claim that the anti-genocide marches are in some way “hate” marches, Blue Labour, and other Zionist apologists have done the same thing. Every assessment of these demonstrations has shown them to be overwhelmingly peaceful, and anything but “hate” marches. Yet, Blue Labour, and other Zionist apologists have argued that, because a few individuals, or groups, on these marches have been guilty of making anti-Semitic remarks, the whole of the demonstration is to be held accountable for those few individuals! Unless, you go out and actively denounce them, its claimed, you are complicit!! Socialists, of course, would confront anyone on such a march who was making anti-Semitic remarks, but to demand that everyone on the march does so is clearly as ridiculous as claiming that all Jews living in Britain must denounce the actions of Israel, or be complicit in its actions!

The amount of shit being thrown at Polanski and the Greens may have an effect on turning away some of its voters, just as it did against Corbyn in 2019, but the “anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism” argument is losing its efficacy each time it is wheeled out, as seen in Denton and Gorton. Even if it works this time, it will not save Blue Labour. Blue Labour is set to be wiped out in Wales and Scotland, and if it succeeds in reducing the vote for the Greens in England, it will not be to its benefit, but mostly the benefit of Reform.