Its like deja vu all over again! The liberal Left and soft Left, having chosen their next potential saviour, and reduced themselves, again, to essentially passive onlookers of the historical process (class struggle), cheerleaders of whoever (or whatever) might be the current lesser-evil, had great expectations in the King of the North, Prince Across the Water – choose your appropriate aristocratic metaphor – Andy Burnham. But, 7 years ago, they had similar hopes for Starmer, who stood on an almost identical platform to that, now, put forward by Burnham. At least, Starmer had stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet, when Burnham ran off to Manchester.
Of course, even before that, the same passive, hapless role of what passes for “the Left” - an increasingly less than meaningless term – had, at least, formed up to cheer on Corbyn, into the same role. Its epitome was the less than useless, Momentum. But, as far as “the Left” is concerned, we could go back further than that. In the 1960's, Tony Benn, as a government Minister, had no great Left-wing credentials. If Burnham wants a precedent to answer the questions of those like Owen Jones who have noted Burnham's journey back and forth from Blair-right, to soft-Left, he could point to Benn, who, in the 1970's and 80's, became a champion of that “Left”.
Benn, like Foot before him, became a figurehead for “the Left”, but he could be so, much as with Corbyn, only because of the deeply inadequate nature of “the Left” itself. “The Left”, has become simply code for those that favour greater roles for the capitalist state, both in the economy, and society in general, as well as those that favour, and attach themselves to whatever the latest “progressive”, social movement is thought to be. In other words, “the Left”, is a vague, middle-class, liberal mush, the result of a long-term search for the broadest “progressive” coalition of forces.
It is a manifestation not of Marxism, but of Hegelian Idealism. By defining “the Left”, in terms of state ownership and intervention, its no wonder that it opens up the line of argument of the bourgeois centre that the Left and Right, meet up at their extreme points. How much more state interventionist could you get than Nazi Germany, for example. If that is the definition of “Left”, then, Marx and Engels, but, also, the likes of Lenin and Trotsky, would not have considered themselves to be “Left”. It completely leaves out of consideration, any question of the class character of that state.
As Marx and Engels put it.
“The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution.”
(Anti-Duhring)
It is, on that basis, a “progressive” development of capitalism, in the Marxist, scientific sense of the term “progressive”, as against the middle-class, liberal, idealist and moralistic sense, of being the latest social movement crusade. It is progressive, only, as an inevitable development of capital, into larger, more concentrated blocs, as with the previous development of monopolies/oligopolies. In fact, large sections of “the Left”, driven by a sense of petty-bourgeois moralism, show their confusion, by seeing those monopolies/oligopolies, not as, also, being progressive, but, as being akin to the devil incarnate. Not surprisingly, they see the appropriate response to that being, not, as Marx, Engels, Kautsky, Lenin and Trotsky argued, the need for the workers to exercise their rightful control over them, but, instead, either to argue for the state to break them up/limit them, in favour of the smaller capitals, or else, for the capitalist state (the national capitalist) to assert its control over them! Socialists, argue that to expect this current state, the capitalist state, the national capitalist, to act in workers interests, is to mislead the workers, with bourgeois idealism. As, Marx put it,
“The German Workers' party — at least if it adopts the program — shows that its socialist ideas are not even skin-deep; in that, instead of treating existing society (and this holds good for any future one) as the basis of the existing state (or of the future state in the case of future society), it treats the state rather as an independent entity that possesses its own intellectual, ethical, and libertarian bases ...
the whole program, for all its democratic clang, is tainted through and through by the Lassallean sect's servile belief in the state, or, what is no better, by a democratic belief in miracles; or rather it is a compromise between these two kinds of belief in miracles, both equally remote from socialism.”
In the modern parlance, such demands might be described as “Left”, but they are certainly not socialist. But, that confusion that misrepresentation is what has characterised “the Left”, including those that call themselves “Marxists”, for around 80 years. So, in the 1970's, “the Left” made itself into cheerleaders for the likes of Benn, and his statist ideas. But if that “servile belief in the state”, and “democratic belief in miracles” is to be pursued, then, it is clear that this state, can only be the current capitalist, nation state, and the democratic miracle can only be performed by the existing, bourgeois-democratic national parliament. Its no wonder, therefore, that, in the 1970's, when the question of the EEC/EU again dominated the political debate, the opposition to the EEC/EU saw “the Left”, and the Far-Right, indeed, meet up to defend the fiction of this nation state. Ironically, I watched, yesterday, a 2025 TV programme on how, in 1940, Churchill made a “bid to abolish Britain”, and merge France and Britain.
This servile belief in the state, and democratic belief in miracles that characterises “the Left”, is simply an extension of its petty-bourgeois, nationalist mindset that has also dominated it in the post-war period, which has seen it prioritise struggles for national self-determination, which means the national self-determination of bourgeois states, over the self-determination of the working-class across those states, and for whom, those bourgeois states are their main enemy. So, the opposition to the EEC/EU, becomes a utopian, idealist, and so reactionary quest, to insist on national self-determination for the “British” capitalist state, so that a “British”, reformist, Labour government can implement “Left” policies.
As in the 1970's, foreigners, i.e. the EEC/EU are used as the scapegoat, the excuse for why the British capitalist state, even when it was far more powerful, and with far greater room for manoeuvre, despite several Labour governments over the last century, most of them markedly to the “Left” of the current Labour government, failed to bring about any radical, meaningful change in the interests of the working-class, at the expense of capital. Over and over, the logical, reactionary dynamic of that is witnessed. If its Europe that limits a Westminster government from acting in workers' interests, then, in Scotland and Wales, it must be an English parliament in Westminster that is stopping the possibility of the Scottish and Welsh nations from acting in the interests of Scottish and Welsh workers. But, similarly, the problem in the Regions, in Manchester, Birmingham and so on, must be the need to “take back control” into local hands. The very logic of nationalism, every time it necessarily fails to deliver, leads to the argument to take back control to a smaller, less rational unit, which, also, inevitably fails. Nationalism destroys the basis of the nation state.
What is more, who is to say that having freed itself from the supposed constraints of some larger, more rational political entity, the nation state would act in the interests of workers, or be more “progressive”? That is not why the likes of the National Front, Enoch Powell, or the likes of Farage, Truss, the BNP and so on argue for national self-determination for Britain. On the contrary, they see such national independence as the necessary condition to pursue the interests of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, whose political representatives they are. They want to opt out of all those rules and regulations that go along with the EU. They want to be able to give all of those small traders and employers every opportunity to go back to the days of cheating and swindling that characterised the early days of capitalism, to be able to utilise sweated labour, unlimited rights to hire and fire at will, to ignore any consumer or environmental standards, because its only in that way that their dwarf capitals can make a profit. And, the concomitant of that was seen under Thatcher in the 1980's and 90's, with the introduction of Enterprise Zones, and so on, and the pitting of one region, local authority area against another, competing tooth and nail for resources for its area, at the expense of others.
The other logical conclusion of that is not greater democracy, but the handing over of political control to local Bonapartes, to act to attract those resources to that area, at the expense of others. That is the role that the Metropolitan Mayors played. At least in the 1960's, when development was pushed ahead, in places like Tyneside by powerful local figures, such as T. Dan Smith, and all the corruption that went with it, it was at a time when British capital was far less decayed than it is today.
So, it is no wonder that, today, we have Burnham continuing to argue that, although Brexit has been extremely damaging – and not even the hard line Brexiters, now, try to deny that – he will not do the obvious thing, and reverse it. Instead, just as with Starmer, he wants to continue to peddle the same old snake oil that somehow, Brexit can be made to work, that Britain can have a “closer relationship” to Europe, and that “Britain's” problems can be resolved, outside the EU. That is the same cakeist agenda that was put forward by Corbyn in 2019, and led to the dissolution of the coalition of support that had made him Leader, and came close to winning the election in 2017. It led to the disaster of 2019.
Starmer, of course, became Leader only by playing on his role in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet, and by adopting, as part of the strategy put forward by Labour Together, his ten point pledge to pursue the Corbynite, social-democratic agenda. That is the same Labour Together that used Starmer as their cypher, and ditched that agenda as soon as he became Leader. It is the same Labour Together of which Josh Simons was a Director. That is the same Josh Simons who has just stood down in Makerfield for Burnham, and who Burnham has said, he would find a place for.
But, the reality is that Brexit cannot be made to work, and the longer it continues, the greater the damage it will do. Its like saying I realise drinking this poison is really bad for me, but I decided to open the bottle, and so have to keep drinking. The difference with Brexit is that its a bottle that never runs dry. As I wrote in 2019, and after, the idea that you can pursue any kind of even radical social-democratic agenda, without reversing Brexit, and re-joining the EU, is utopian and reactionary. Its a form of Stalinoid, theory of Socialism In One Country. For one thing, Britain is losing around £40 billion a year in tax revenues, as a result of the reduction in GDP growth that has resulted from Brexit. As I pointed out, in relation to the fantasy agenda of Blue Labour in 2024, if the key to your programme is growth, how on Earth are you going to get that growth without a) having the fiscal space to spend on infrastructure, and b) without renewing the free movement that comes from being a part of the EU?
As I've noted before, its not that joining, or now re-joining the EU is the answer to workers problems, but it is that re-joining is the basis of being able to create the conditions for doing so. Blair-rights such as Streeting, for all of their conservative, social-democratic agenda, at least have the advantage over the likes of Burnham that they recognise that the future for Britain, and in the immediate future at that, must reside in the EU. Without that perspective, the decay will continue, a Burnham government, even were he to be serious about carrying out some kind of progressive social-democratic agenda, would quickly have to face the reality that, outside the EU, the prospects for growth are dire, and without that growth, there is no prospect of carrying out even the agenda of Starmer, let alone anything more progressive. It is a recipe for further political chaos, opening the door even wider for the likes of Farage.
Burnham says he does not want to campaign for re-joining the EU, because to do so is divisive, but its equally divisive, and even more destructive not to do so. What is more, God forbid that even bourgeois-democracy should involve the electorate in a heated debate! Far better to keep the voters quiet for 5 years, and only ask them to passively place a cross every so often. So speaks the voice of the entitled, bureaucratic politician who just wants to be left alone to do their job. If that is the case, moreover, then there is a simple answer to that objection. As I noted prior to 2019, rather than a second referendum, Labour could simply put it in their next Manifesto that they intend to re-join the EU. In the meantime, a Burnham Labour government could be getting on with the job of negotiating with Brussels for such re-entry after the next British general Election. That is the best way they can “form closer ties to the EU”.
Burnham's supporters, of course, argue that Streeting, by raising the issue of re-joining the EU is seeking to sabotage Burnham's by-election chances. That assumes that arguing for re-joining the EU is damaging to Labour, and to Burnham. All the evidence shows that not to be true. The vast majority of the electorate, as a whole, know that Brexit has been a disaster, and the even vaster majority of Labour, Green and Liberal voters know that to be the case. In 2017 it was that coalition that gave Corbyn's Labour a 40% share of the vote, and saw the Labour vote, in every constituency, including those that voted “Leave”, rise dramatically, as against 2015. It took away the Tories parliamentary majority.
In 2024, when Starmer had committed to sticking with Brexit, he was able to get only 34% of the vote, and the lowest number of votes ever for any party winning a general election. In local and regional elections, Blue Labour has been haemorrhaging votes not to the reactionaries of Reform, but to the Greens, Liberals, Plaid and SNP. Continuing the Brexit lie that to win in the “Red Wall” seats requires pandering to the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie and its attendant layers of backward workers will be disastrous. In the main those Reform/Brexit voters were never part of the core Labour vote, and so they could never be “won back”. The describing of the reactionary poor as working-class, is a bourgeois sociological terminology that confuses income and social status with class, and relation to the means of production. The petty-bourgeois traders and self-employed are frequently poorer and more precarious than the majority of wage workers, but that does not make them working-class. It is the basis of their desperate individualism, and often hatred of the organised working-class and its progressivism. They are reactionaries.
Its true that one result of Thatcherism and de-indstrialisation since the 1980's, has been a 50% growth of that reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, and Burnham has pointed to some of the symptoms and consequences of that in the decayed urban centres, and the growth of asset inequality, based on the serial asset price bubbles in property, and financial assets. But, it is a crude opportunism and electoral politics that simply responds to that by chasing after the votes of that petty-bourgeoisie. If its true that, in Makerfield, the composition of the electorate is such that this reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, and its associated layers of urban poor is so large that it outweighs the votes of the working-class and progressive middle-class, then, rather than blaming Streeting, Burnham should blame himself and his advisors for choosing such a seat in which to make their stand. But, there is no evidence that is the case. Makerfield, has lower levels of deprivation than the surrounding towns, and higher levels of home ownership with a mostly skilled working-class population.
Its MP, between 1987-2010 was the Blair-right, Iain McCartney. Given Blair's enthusiastic support for the EU, during all that time, when, by contrast, the Tories were torn apart by their support for Brexit, goaded along by the likes of Farage, there was no indication that the voters in the constituency were put off voting for EU supporting Labour candidates, winning around 60% of the vote in each election. In 2010 and 2015, McCartneys successor in the seat Helen Fovargue, secured around 50% of the vote, whilst the reactionary nationalists of UKIP/BNP and Tories never got more than a combined 42%. In 2017, under Corbyn's Labour, as it won over large numbers of young voters, opposed to Brexit, Fovargue secured an increased 60% of the vote, whilst the Brexit Party stood aside for the Tories, who still could only secure 31% of the vote.
Only in 2019, when Corbyn retraced his steps towards backing Brexit did Labour's vote in the seat decline, from that 60% to just 45%. Another factor, here, was that the Corbyn wave, saw turnout in 2017 rise by 3.6%, whereas, Corbyn's return to Brexitism, in 2019, saw turnout drop by 4.1%, as Labour voters sat on their hands. In 2024, Simons won the same share of the vote as Fovargue in 2019, but the turnout was down a further, 6.2%, as Labour voters reacted to Starmer's support for Brexit, and his abandonment of even social-democratic positions. So, despite the same vote share, Simons got 2,000 fewer votes than Fovargue. The reason was not Labour voters going to the Brexit Party/Reform, but Labour voters staying home, or moving to other progressive parties such as the Greens or Liberals.
The Greens saw their vote rise by 50%, in Makerfield, in 2024 compared to 2019. The Liberals saw their vote rise by a third. Reform more than doubled the vote for the Brexit Party, but the reason for that, as elsewhere, was simply that Reform has replaced the Tories. In 2024, the Tory vote collapsed by 75%, in the constituency, compared to 2019. Taking that into consideration, the combined reactionary nationalist vote going to Reform/Brexit Party/Tories fell from 21,000 in 2019, to just 17,000 in 2024, which is hardly a ringing endorsement of the argument that the Labour voters of the constituency are abandoning Labour in favour of Reform.
It is far more likely that, this latest weak-kneed, cowardly approach from Burnham, typical of his vacillations over the years, will simply lead to even more Labour voters staying home, or continuing to move to the Greens.
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