Brexit Is Central - Part 6 of 6

Those that argued for Brexit, and more importantly those that voted for Brexit did so on the basis of hostility to immigrants. Its easy to see why, if you are a self-employed plumber, or run a small plumbing business, enjoying high prices for plumbing work, you will be hostile to an influx of plumbers. But, governments always find that economic reality imposes itself upon them. The Tories repeatedly claimed they would reduce immigration to the tens of thousands, and repeatedly failed to do so, because labour shortages demanded that immigration fill those gaps.

Rather than net migration falling, after Brexit, it has risen, and the 800,000 workers that entered the country in the last year did so on visas issued by the government, because those workers were needed. But, whilst Brexit, and the ending of free movement has not reduced the economy's need for immigrants, it has prevented British workers gaining employment elsewhere in the EU. It has also made it much more difficult for pensioners to retire to Spain, Portugal, Italy, France and so on, itself raising the net migration figure for Britain, as people remain imprisoned, here, and, in respect of pensioners, become an increasing burden on the health and social care system, as well as occupying houses that could have been used by younger workers with families.

Yet, the extent of reactionary and magical thinking on behalf of Starmer and Blue Labour is seen, not only in his reliance on growth arriving out of thin air, but in the fact that this growth is to come whilst committing to never re-joining the EU, and to also reducing net migration. In other words, the same racist scapegoating of foreigners for the problems of British capitalism as utilised by Fartage, the BNP, Tories and so on. Of course, for a party riddled with systemic racism and Islamophobia, its no wonder that Blue Labour adopts these positions with no second thoughts.

So, there is no policy issue at stake in the election that is separable from Brexit and the need to re-join the EU. Starmer continues to promote the delusion of a Labour Brexit, i.e. cakeism. He talks about renegotiation, but no such renegotiation is possible. The talk of side deals and agreements is possible, but it will involve further concessions by Britain, and all will be to its relative disadvantage precisely because of the greater power of the EU. The phyto-sanitary and veterinary agreement is possible, but it really means Britain, again, accepting EU regulations and the jurisdiction of the ECJ. In fact, in one area after another, where Britain proposed establishing its own regulations and regulatory bodies, it has had to more or less abandon them, because not only did the EU require conformance with its standards and regulation, but other countries, around the globe, did not recognise the new British standards. That is necessarily the case, because these countries are more concerned with their trade with the EU than with Britain.

There is, also, now, ridiculous talk that Starmer, when in office, will seek to re-join the single market. But, that, now, is not possible without re-joining the EU. The case of Switzerland is cited, but the EU has said it regrets that arrangement with Switzerland, and would not do it again. Moreover, the UK is not Switzerland. Although its market and economy is small compared to the EU, it is large compared to Switzerland. The EU has now said that no country can become a member of the single market without being a member of the EU, or EFTA. But, EFTA has also said it would not let Britain in, because of this problem that its economy is too big compared to the other countries in EFTA. So, the reality is that, if Britain wants closer ties to the EU, it will mean yet further concessions, further subordination to the EU, or re-joining the EU.

Any realistic policy seeking to increase UK growth, meanwhile, depends on that closer relation to the EU, and without growth, all the other policies, minimal as they are, cannot be achieved.

The final option, of course, is for any incoming government to balance the books by renewed austerity. But, this is not the early 2000's, nor even the period after 2010. Across the globe, as relative labour shortages have arisen, even without workers needing to take industrial action, competition for labour, between firms, has raised wages, putting workers in a stronger position, and that has encouraged and facilitated workers in rebuilding unions, and, where necessary, engaging in industrial action. That, of course, does not mean that some workers have far from benefited from that general trend. Even in Marx's day, it was the case that, even as wages rose in general, there were still paupers whose relative position, thereby, declined, and the absolute numbers of paupers themselves might rise. In those old decayed urban areas, the unskilled workers, the unemployed and sick, continue to suffer in misery, and their relative position falls, as the majority of other workers see a rise in their real wages. Its one reason the former are prone to fall under the spell of right-wing populists.

Often, it has been in the state sector where unionisation has remained strong, that workers lagged behind, as governments sought to implement their policies by placing the burden on those workers. That is why it has been in those sectors, or sectors nominally in the non-state sector, but dependent on state finance, such as the railways, that workers have had to take industrial action. The tailist and timid nature of the union bureaucracy has facilitated that as they have restricted industrial action to one or two day protest strikes, rather than all-out action. Inevitably, some state-sector workers have simply moved to take up better paid jobs in the non-state sector. The shortage of lorry drivers, for example, saw entire fleets of council bin lorry drivers recruited by haulage firms.

But, state-sector workers are unlikely to put up with these attacks, falling behind the private sector, and the inadequate response of union leaders for long. At some point, they are likely to pressure union leaders, were a Blue Labour government, even one in which so little expectation exists, were to try to impose further austerity. Indeed, its precisely this link of the unions to the Labour Party and the options it opens up, which is why Marxists must operate though it, to engage in that political struggle, irrespective of the ephemera of elections and electoralism.

The contradictions developed over the last 40 years have reached the point of crisis, Brexit has sharpened those contradictions and enhanced that crisis for Britain. That crisis is not a crisis of overproduction of capital, as in the 1970's, but a financial and political crisis for the model of conservative social-democracy dominant for the last 30 years, based on asset price inflation. That “centre-ground” can no longer hold, as seen not just in Britain, but in the US, in France, Germany and elsewhere. The radical right-populist solutions, like Brexit, of the petty-bourgeois nationalists, have also demonstrated their utopian and reactionary nature, and also failed. It is down to workers, with the help of Marxists, to chart the future, and the road to international socialism.

Back To Part 5

Brexit Is Central - Part 5 of 6

There are other ways of encouraging growth. As noted earlier, Ireland attracted multinational companies by offering low rates of Corporation Tax. However, that goes against the proposals of Blue Labour, Liberals and Greens to raise Corporation Tax. Moreover, any such attempt would be seen by the EU as a hostile act, likely to provoke a response that would not be favourable, and would be particularly problematic for a Blue Labour government trying to sell the snake oil of a “Labour Brexit” in which it would gain the benefits of EU membership without any of the costs or obligations.

Another measure that could be adopted would be to give a substantial, one-off, grant to local authorities to repair roads. This is literally, a shovel ready project that would pump a significant impulse into local economies, employing labour and creating demand for materials. It would generate a positive, feel-good response from voters. In addition, because such projects are capable of being completed in weeks rather than years, there is a strong multiplier effect, and the cost of the projects is quickly recovered, as well as giving a boost to national productivity.

However, the problem, here, as with many other such projects is that it arises at a time of existing relative labour shortages that have, themselves, largely, been created by Brexit, and exacerbated by lockdowns, and consequent effects on healthcare etc. Would local authorities be able to recruit the additional workers to carry out the work; would suppliers and contractors be able to recruit the labour they required? If so, at what cost in higher wages? Local authorities already lost workers, who have gone to higher paid jobs in the private sector. The economy is still suffering from the fact that for forty years, there was a relative shift away from wage labour in large-scale industry, to self-employment, and employment in small businesses, where productivity is very low, and that shake-out of that small private capital has not yet reversed, to provide the required labour supplies.

The response of Starmer in the health service is instructive. He has point blank said he will not meet doctor's demands even to restore real wages to their 2008 level. So doctors are moving to the private sector, which Blue Labour doesn't mind as it plans to privatise the NHS, in favour of all the private healthcare companies many of its MP's and Shadow Ministers are associated with. But, many are also moving overseas. As a result of Brexit and the ending of free movement, which Starmer also will not reverse, its impossible to recruit the necessary workforce. Starmer makes pie in the sky promises to reduce waiting lists, provide more GP appointments and so on, but how without the doctors to provide it?

Moreover, the main reason that governments have not engaged in such obvious projects – the Tories could easily have funded and improved their approval by ensuring that all the potholes were filled over the last several years – not just in Britain, but all developed economies, but rather implemented austerity, was to constrain economic growth, so as to constrain employment and wages, to boost profits, and to constrain the demand for capital, so as to hold down interest rates, in order to avoid another crash in asset prices.

As with all developed economies, Britain's slow growth in the last fifteen years has been part of a deliberate strategy aimed at holding back the demand for labour and capital so as to hold back wages, boost profits, and reduce interest rates to defend inflated asset prices. But, even with that deliberate policy by governments and central banks, the model of conservative social-democracy of the last forty years ensures that slow growth. There is no reason for the company executives who act in the interests of shareholders, rather than the company, to use profits to accumulate real, industrial capital, when using those profits to buy back shares, or buy the existing shares of other companies results in a greater return from capital gains. When the state underwrites that via QE, that is even more the case.

It is then only the smaller private capitals that have an incentive to fill gaps in the market, and to accumulate capital, as well as the capital in those newly industrialising economies. Hence the growth of the petty-bourgeoisie, on the one hand, and of China etc., on the other, over that period. So long as governments and central banks seek to keep interest rates at artificially low levels, so as to try to prevent another huge crash in asset prices, that will continue, thereby, further sharpening the underlying contradiction, and making such a crash even more inevitable, and on an even larger scale.

But, again, as 2008 demonstrated, when such a crash inevitably materialises – in 2018, as global growth and interest rates rose, asset prices fell by 20%, and last year, as, again global interest rates rose, asset prices fell around 20-30%, in nominal terms, and 40% in real terms, before recovering on the hope of slower growth and central bank rate cuts – it will require co-ordinated action on a multinational basis. Large economies, like the US – itself part of the larger bloc with Canada and Mexico – China, and the EU will be able to address that, but the relatively small UK economy will be left on the sidelines, and suffer as a result.

The problem for the UK economy is similar to that of emerging economies of being able to access adequate capital, leading to its description as a submerging economy. Its not that industrial capital operating in Britain does not produce enough profit to fund such real capital accumulation, but that the profit is diverted, by shareholders, and the executives acting on their behalf, into unproductive activity to buy back shares, hand money to shareholders in inflated dividends and so on. Former Bank of England Chief Economist, Andy Haldane, noted that in the 1970's, dividends accounted for 10% of profits, and now account for 70%. Similarly, the rise in asset prices means that an increasing proportion of surplus value is tied up unproductively.

Land accounted for only 10%, after WWII, of the price of a house, but now accounts for 70%. That, also, impacts rents, meaning a large part of surplus value goes to fund higher wages to cover those housing costs of workers, as well as into tax to fund Housing Benefits, all of which drains profit that would, otherwise, have funded real capital accumulation, and, so, growth. Blue Labour's plans to artificially boost housing demand by underwriting mortgage deposits, along with its proposals on planning reform, which if they have any effect would further boost demand for building land, only exacerbates that problem.

Moreover, even if the housing problem could be resolved by simply building more houses – it can't because the problem is the price of those houses, which is a function of inflated land and asset prices, not supply per se – the consequence of Brexit is that there are insufficient skilled workers to build them. Nor is that addressed, certainly in the short-term, by training British workers. In the early 2000's, as the effects of the onset of the new long wave upswing took hold, Britain also found itself short of skilled labour. Plumbers, electricians, joiners, bricklayers and plasterers could not be found for love nor money. So wages for such workers rose sharply, and as is normal in such trades, there was an even greater rise in the number that became self-employed, or started their own small business, taking advantage of the soaring prices that could be charged for such work.

Significant numbers of workers from other jobs, including teachers, trained to become plumbers etc., but, the consequence of that was, then, to mean that there was an outflow of labour from these other areas, creating new shortages. That was at a time when there was a greater supply of labour than there is now, because, at that time, there were still reserves built up from the previous period of stagnation and unemployment in the 1980's, and 90's. Even so, the solution to the problem came in the form of the immigration of the “Polish plumbers”. Britain saw immigration from the EU of 2 million workers, most of them young and already skilled. But, contrary to the claims of Fartage and other nationalists, the consequence was that the economy was able to grow as the frictions were removed, and unemployment also fell as the economy grew. Indeed, that growth is precisely what created the conditions for higher interest rates that sparked the crash of asset prices in 2007/8.

Back To Part 4

Forward To Part 6

What Just Happened?

What actually just happened in the UK General Election, as against the headlines and sensationalism of the media story, and the narrative presented by the Starmer-Rights and Starmtroopers, as well as by the Tories?

Well, its true that Blue Labour has won an historic victory in terms of the number of seats won, and size of its majority, just as its true that the Tories suffered an historic defeat in terms of seats lost. However, as I set out before the election, in terms of votes and vote share, that is certainly not the case, and the basis of the result has little to do with a surge of support for Blue Labour, and everything to do with the corrupt nature of bourgeois-democracy, and the particularly corrupt nature of the British voting system that amounts to systematic and legalised ballot-rigging.

Before the election, I set out that Starmer's Blue Labour was set to underperform that of Corbyn's Labour. At that time, the latest poll data was from an MRP that gave Blue Labour 39% of the vote, as against the 40%, obtained by Corbyn in 2017. As I pointed out, only the actual vote would show what votes Blue Labour obtained, and now we have that data, it is even worse. Labour has won less than 10 million votes (9.7 million), compared to 10.3 million votes for Corbyn's Labour in 2019. Remember that 2019 was supposed to be the worst ever result for Labour in an election, a point that the Starmer-Rights, and the media have repeated ad nauseam, in presenting the narrative that elections can only be won from the centre, and that Corbyn's Labour was unelectable.

Compared to Corbyn's Labour in 2017, the contrast is even greater. Then, Corbyn's Labour won 12.9 million votes, a full 3 million votes more than Starmer's Blue Labour has won in this election (that is 33.3% more votes!). In that election, not only did Corbyn's Labour win a third more votes than Starmer's Blue Labour has won in this election, but that also, can't be explained by simply a much larger turnout of voters, because in 2017, Corbyn's Labour secured 40% of the vote, whereas Starmer's Blue Labour has secured only 33.8% of the vote in this election! So Starmer and Blue Labour have not only performed far, far worse than Corbyn's Labour in 2017, both in votes and vote share, but markedly worse than in 2019, too, in terms of votes, and almost the same in terms of vote share (in 2019 Corbyn's Labour got 32% of the vote share). Yet, as the Starmtroopers, and their supporters in the Tory media have kept telling us, 2019 was supposed to be the worst ever result for Labour going all the way back to 1935!

In the election analysis, during the night, Starmer-Right MP's, and spokespeople, such as Harriet Harman could only respond to this, by saying that this was justified, because Blue Labour had not stacked up votes in seats where they already had a majority, but had targeted seats they needed to win, given the nature of the electoral system. In effect, that is the same argument used by Donald Trump, in the US. It validates a corrupt electoral system. More importantly, the argument presented is in any case wrong. The facts of the election show that Blue Labour have not won seats, because they have cleverly targeted seats, and increased their votes, and vote share in them. If anything, their votes and vote share, in each constituency, on average, has declined, not increased.

Blue Labour has won a large number of seats, despite getting a significantly smaller number of votes than it did, even in 2019, simply because the Tory vote was split, with a large amount of it going to Reform. In other words, no love, or even liking of Blue Labour, whose number of votes in each seat failed to increase, and in some case, fell, but an even greater hatred of the Tories. In Leave voting areas, that hatred of the Tories, manifested in increased support for Reform, and in Remain supporting areas, it manifested in increased support for Liberals and Greens, hence the Liberal surge in the Blue Wall, and Greens winning seats from Tories in rural areas, as well as from Labour in Bristol.

Where Blue Labour's vote fell compared to 2019, the Liberal vote remained more or less the same, whilst its vote share rose from 11.6% to 12.2%. The Greens more than doubled their vote from 800,000 to 1.9 million, and their vote share rose from 2.6% to 6.8%. It is worth noting that, although the Greens obtained as many seats as Reform (though Reform won twice as many votes), the practice of the media, which has gone on since long before the Brexit vote, of giving outsized publicity to Fartage and Reform, whilst giving little air time to the Greens, has continued.

In summary, although Blue Labour has won an historic parliamentary victory and majority, in terms of seats, it is entirely due to the corrupt and undemocratic nature of British bourgeois-democracy, and electoral system. Despite the fact that, in 2019, the entire media conducted a vicious campaign against Corbyn, and Labour, assisted by the Right and Centre within Labour, Corbyn's Labour, in 2019, won more votes, and almost the same share of the vote, as Starmer's Blue Labour in 2024! Far from Starmer's Blue Labour having masterfully focused its attention on target seats, to increase its votes its vote and vote share in all constituencies has either been unchanged, or else has even fallen! It has won in those seats, only because the Tory vote was split, with Reform taking a large chunk of it.

If there is any evidence of voters having any enthusiasm for parties other than the Tories, it is not in favour of Labour, but of Reform, Liberals and Greens, as well as for individuals, such as Jeremy Corbyn, in Islington, and Faisa Shaheen, standing as Independents, largely on the basis of opposition to the reactionary politics of Blue Labour, for example, in its support for genocide in Gaza. Corbyn retained his seat securing nearly 50% of the vote, whilst Faisa Shaheen, who had been similarly blocked by the Starmtroopers, having almost beaten Iain Duncan-Smith in 2019, came within a couple of dozen votes of the Blue Labour candidate, parachuted in by Starmer. The result of this action by Blue Labour, was to split the vote, and let Duncan-Smith retain the seat, which Shaheen was set to have won with a clear majority.

The lack of enthusiasm for Blue Labour is seen in the turnout, as well as in the decline in its total vote. Some Tories, like Nadine Dorries, have tried to claim that the same was true of Tory voters. That is clearly not true. In Leave voting areas, its not that Tory voters sat on their hands. They went out and voted for Reform. Similarly, in Remain supporting areas, Tory voters went out and supported the Liberals and Greens. In, 2019, turnout was 67%, in this election, it is only 60%, reflecting the meagre offering, in fact, of all parties. In Corbyn's seat of Islington North, by comparison, turnout was 68%. Similarly, in Starmer's seat, turnout was only 54%, and Starmer himself saw his share of the vote fall by 17.4%, nearly all of which went to Andrew Feinstein.

The media have spoken about this win by Blue Labour as bucking the trend seen in France, in its Assembly elections, and across the EU, in the recent European parliament elections, of a move to the Right. They have described Blue Labour as “centre-Left”. But, that is completely false. The Labour Party from its inception has always been a bourgeois party, not a socialist party, but, at least it was a social-democratic party. That fact, usually meant that it could be described as centre-Left, although, under Blair and Brown, it was more accurately described as centre-Right, certainly compared to the governments of Attlee and Wilson, let alone the Labour Party of George Lansbury, all of which were more akin to the position of Corbyn.

But, Starmer's Blue Labour is qualitatively different to the centre-Right Labour Party of Blair and Brown. It is clearly a right-wing nationalist and populist party that has gone in search of that vote amongst the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie and lumpen proletariat that backed Brexit, and mourns the loss of the days of the British Empire. In order to hold itself together, given all of the contradictions that entails, it has had to become increasingly authoritarian, with Starmer serving the role as Bonaparte, and is supported with all of the attendant machinery of the party, now backed by former members of the Secret Service. This has all the hallmarks of the kind of transition seen in the past of former socialists such as Pilsudski, Mussolini, and Oswald Mosley, or indeed of national socialist parties such as Paole Zion.

Starmer's Blue Labour is not centre-left, but a reactionary, nationalist and populist party whose trajectory is set further in that direction, as the contradictions within it explode, as the lies it has told for the last four years are exposed, it quickly fails to live up even to the timid and vague promises it has made, and is led into confrontation with the working-class. That starting position, and direction of travel is manifest in Starmer's forthright commitment never to rejoin the EU in his lifetime, or even the single market (though in reality the latter is no longer possible without the former).

A look across the aisles shows that the Conservative ranks are going to be made up of a larger proportion of actual Conservatives, rather than Tories, as the Leave supporting Tories have lost votes to Reform, that has replaced them, or else took enough votes from them to let Labour in, even on a reduced vote share. In those areas, as I have described before, Tory members are likely to merge with Reform. In the middle-class, Remain supporting Conservative seats, they lost votes to the Liberals, but, it was the Remain supporting Conservative MP's that were able to do best in those conditions. As I wrote a while ago, the global ruling class is currently denied a party in Britain that can properly represent its interests, and have the potential of becoming the government. That's why it has had to utilise its permanent state machinery instead.

The Liberals most adequately represent the interests of that global ruling class, now. With 71 seats, as against the 120 odd seats of the Conservatives (some of whom will defect to Reform, as the party splits) the obvious response is for the ruling class to engineer a merger between the Conservatives and Liberals, much as happened in the 19th century, after the Repeal of The Corn Laws, in relation to the Peelites, or as happened, in the 1980's, when Labour was split by the SDP, which, then subsequently merged with the Liberals to form, today's Liberal Democrats. However, that would still only give them around 200 seats, way short of a majority, but providing a more solid base for challenging the reactionary, nationalist and populist trajectory of Starmer's Blue Labour. Moreover, the manoeuvres that occurred under Corbyn's Labour, with Change UK, indicate the likely line of travel, too.

Fartage is right, when he declares that he is coming for Blue Labour. As the nationalist Right splits from the Tories to merge with Reform, his competition for that ground will no longer be the Conservatives, but Starmer and Blue Labour. A merger between the Conservatives and Liberals (presaged in 2010 by the coalition of Cameron and Clegg), as Blue Labour comes increasingly under pressure, as its lies and contradictions explode, in contact with reality, will drive a significant number of Blair-Right MP's into a realignment with the Conservative-Liberals, to form a new, centre-Right party of capital that will be able to form a majority. As they lunacy of Brexit manifests itself even more obviously at that point, the central pillar around which that new party will be formed will be a progressive Europeanism.

Starmer Set To Underperform Corbyn

Keir Starmer's Blue Labour is set, according to the latest MRP done by Yougov and Sky News, to underperform Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party in 2017.  In 2017, Corbyn's Labour, despite all the internal sniping by the Right, and attempts to unseat him, not only secured the biggest increase in Labour's vote and vote share since 1945, but also deprived Theresa May of her parliamentary majority, as well as turning the Labour Party into the largest party in Europe, with over 600,000 members.  Corbyn's Labour secured nearly 13 million votes, representing 40% of the votes cast.

By contrast, Starmer's Blue Labour has seen its membership collapse, as it has also prevented any internal dissent, by an authoritarian regime that has systematically expelled opponents.  Faced with a Tory government that has almost universal disapproval and disgust, Starmer's Blue Labour looks set, according to the poll to underperform Corbyn's Labour in 2017, by securing only 39% of the vote.  Only the actual polling will tell us how many votes it actually obtains, but it looks unlikely to beat Corbyn's 2017 performance.

Yet, in 2017, Corbyn's better electoral performance secured only 262 seats, compared to the Tories 317, whereas Starmer's Blue Labour is forecast to win 431 seats, compared to the Tories 102, giving Blue Labour a majority of 212.  What the poll also showed is that both Sunak and Starmer are intensely disliked by voters.  You would have to go to the dislike for both Trump and Biden to get any similar kind of comparison of voters faced with the unsavoury choice between two turds out of the same arse.

What this shows is not that Starmer and Blue Labour are going to win this election, but that Sunak and the Tories have lost it, a process that began with Boris Johnson, as all of the nonsense and contradictions arising from Brexit tore them apart, and which now looks set to tear Blue Labour apart when it takes office.  It illustrates not just the sham nature of bourgeois-democracy in general, but of the particularly corrupt nature of British bourgeois-democracy, and its electoral system that amounts to systematic and legalised ballot-rigging.

Starmer's Blue Labour is set to have the largest majority since 1832, and yet will have secured a smaller vote share than Corbyn's Labour in 2017.  According to the MRP, the Liberals are set to obtain 12% of the votes, but get 72 seats, whereas reform are set to get 15% of the votes, but only 3 seats!  Similarly, Greens are set to secure 7% of the votes, but only 2 seats.

The supporters of Blue Labour will undoubtedly trumpet their victory in securing so many seats, and such a majority, but the reality is that they will have done worse than Corbyn's Labour in 2017, in conditions that were not only far more favourable to them, but almost unique, given the melt down of the Tory Party in the intervening period.  In 2017, the Labour Right did all they could to undermine Corbyn, and that continued over the next two years, as they mounted the campaign to unseat him, and to smear party members with fraudulent charges of anti-Semitism supported by the Tory media.  No one was more shocked and disappointed than the Labour Right, when Corbyn's Labour did so well in 2017, which caused them to redouble their efforts to undermine him.

We will have to see how many votes Blue Labour secures even compared to that 2019 performance, which the Labour Right, and Tory media wasted no time in proclaiming to be the worst since 1935, which, in terms of votes, and vote share, as against seats, it was not.  But, even compared to that performance, Blue Labour's performance, in terms of votes, in this election is likely not to be anything to write home about.  basing yourself on ephemera such as the number of seats won, as against the underlying trends of votes, as an index of social movements is a delusion.

Boris Johnson, in 2019, won an 80 seat majority based on the idea of "Getting Brexit Done", and taking back control.  He built a shaky electoral coalition of traditional middle class Conservatives, and petty-bourgeois Tories, dragging behind them declassed elements in the decayed urban areas of the North and Midlands.  That coalition contained an inevitable contradiction between the middle-class Conservatives that backed Remain, and the petty-bourgeois Tories, and declassed elements that backed Leave, on the basis of a lie.

Even in 2019, the consequence of that was manifest, as in the Spring EU, and local elections, those middle-class conservatives, swung increasingly behind the Liberals.  Every since, the Liberals have been gaining ground in those areas at the Conservatives expense.  But, Brexit was built on a lie, and increasingly the lie was exposed.  The lives of the immiserated petty-bourgeois, and particularly of the declassed elements got markedly worse, not better, after Brexit, despite all the talk about "levelling-up".  Instead, most of those decayed urban areas simply looked like they had just been levelled, or needed to be levelled by bulldozers, are they fell into even greater decay.

The chaos inside the Tory Party was just the external manifestation of these contradictions, and the inability of the government to make good on its unachievable promises.  The electoral coalition fell apart, as the middle-class Conservatives, in the "Blue Wall", have deserted them as they flock to a Liberal Party that more closely represents their bourgeois values and interests, as epitomised in the opposition to Brexit.  But, as the Brexit lies were exposed, so too the Tories lost that flaky support of the petty-bourgeois and declassed elements in the North and Midlands too.  Some of the latter has gone to Reform, where it will be disappointed again, leading some of it to move even further Right to the BNP etc., whilst others will have returned to their usual apathy, and others will have voted for a Brexit supporting Blue Labour, where they will again have their reactionary dreams of "Making Britain Great Again", dashed.

Blue Labour's electoral coalition is so full of contradictions, and based on the same reactionary nationalist lies as those of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage that is must inevitably blow apart in short order, and in a similar manner.  Blue Labour has already enraged and antagonised a large part of its core, progressive working-class vote, many of whom will only turn out to vote Labour, out of an even greater hatred of the Tories, and knowledge that given the corrupt nature of Britain's electoral system, other parties such as the Liberals and Green, let alone the smaller socialist parties and sects have no chance of winning enough seats, even if they win a large number of votes.  But, that does not change the fact that a large groundswell of dislike for Starmer and Blue Labour exists, in conditions where the working-class is rising from its knees for the first time in nearly 20 years, and starting to organise itself once more.

Brexit Is Central - Part 4 of 6

So, just as we have no illusions in bourgeois-democracy or the bourgeois national revolution, being only moments in the transition to Socialism, via permanent revolution, yet go along with the workers in such struggles, on that basis of permanent revolution, so, too, we adopt that approach to the EU. We sow no illusions in its capacity to solve workers' problems, but we go along with workers who do have such illusions, on the basis that, in the course of this struggle, we build workers' unity across Europe, we posit workers' interests to the interests of capital, across Europe, and we posit independent workers' parties and organisations across Europe as the means to achieve it. In doing so, we draw out the logic that workers across the EU can only resolve their problems by creating a Workers Europe, on the road to a Socialist United States of Europe.

Of course, none of the main parties seek to get anywhere near such a condition, in which they would provoke the ire of the global ruling class. That is why they have already committed to such modest proposals, and why they have stated so vociferously that they will not raise taxes or borrowing. But, that does not change the fact that their current plans simply do not add up, as the IFS has set out. They must implement spending cuts, or raise taxes, or increase borrowing.

The ability to raise taxes has been discussed, but the position in relation to borrowing is very similar. Lloyds Bank has already warned them not to try to raise borrowing to meet the gap. Blue Labour, and to an extent the Liberals, have sought to blame the constraints on them on the Truss government. But, as I have set out previously, the rise in interest rates was underway long before that government. It is a global process, driven by the dynamics of the long wave cycle. A long, secular decline in global interest rates began in the mid 1980's, as the annual average rate of profit rose sharply, and the supply of money-capital from realised profits exceeded the demand for it, for capital accumulation. It is what created the initial surge in asset prices.

That secular fall in global interest rates ended around 2012, and was presaged by the global financial crisis in 2008. It is only the extraordinary measures introduced by states and central banks, since 2010, as they sought to slow economic growth via austerity, and to boost asset prices by QE, that has subdued that dynamic, bringing its own contradictions and idiocies, such as negative yields on bonds, with it.

The lunacy of Truss's government gave the opportunity for the ruling class to slap down the petty-bourgeoisie that has been ascendant since the 1980's. It used its power in global financial markets to hammer the Pound, and drive down UK bonds, sending UK interest rates higher. It was a soft coup against the government, showing just what a radical Left government would face. But, having carried out that coup, the Pound rose, and UK interest rates fell back. That those rates are again higher is not a consequence of Truss's government, but of those underlying longer-term dynamics that are driving global rates higher as part of a long-term secular rise in interest rates establishes itself. Just as the secular decline in rates lasted for around 30 years, so too the secular rise will last for around 30 years, and these minor fluctuations are merely bumps on that upward slope.

Conservative social-democrats, and petty-bourgeois nationalists, such as those of Blue Labour, do not want to acknowledge that reality, because it undermines the whole of their strategy of the previous forty years, based on low interest rates, rising asset prices, and the illusion of wealth created from thin air, out of the rise of these asset prices, as the basis of debt collateralised on them. Rising global interest rates, induced by a rising demand for money-capital to fund capital accumulation, at the same time as the supply of money-capital grows more slowly, as rising relative wages squeeze profits, of itself, puts a further huge hole in the budgets of governments, simply to cover the rising cost of servicing their existing debt. So, any addition to that debt, by further borrowing, will result in government's facing sharply rising interest rates. The right-wing, petty-bourgeois, populist government, in Italy, has already found that, clipping its claws, and, now, France is seeing the same thing, as the yield on its bonds rises sharply compared to that on German Bunds, even before Macron's party loses control of the Assembly.

The idea that Britain could just borrow its way out of the problem is, then, simply not tenable. Ten years or more ago, Britain could have taken advantage of historically low interest rates, so as to thoroughly renovate its national infrastructure, and so on. That would have repaid itself, as it brought improvements in productivity, and so on. But, instead, the government imposed austerity, to slow the economy and slow wage growth, to enable asset prices to be inflated.

The idea that this problem could be avoided by simply monetising the debt, i.e. by printing money tokens to pay the debt, or to finance the additional spending shows a lack of understanding of what money is. It is to invite a repetition of the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic, and elsewhere, when such measures are undertaken, and of what happened in the 1970's and early 80's. It is what happened on a smaller scale when liquidity was injected to cover the furlough payments and other costs inflicted due to lockdowns. The inflation that results simply increases money costs, rather than reducing interest rates, and acts like wear and tear of fixed capital, in respect of the money advanced by lenders. It means that they seek to compensate for that depreciation (Net Present Value) of their capital, by demanding higher nominal rates of interest.

Moreover, as already seen, lenders are more likely to lend to EU countries, backed by the ECB, than they are Britain, as its economic problems intensify, as a result of Brexit. Its true that Britain can always print additional currency to pay back its creditors, but, in doing so, it devalues that currency, paying them back in “funny money”, just as when states used to reduce the gold content of the currency. Lenders simply respond to such measures by demanding even higher nominal rates of interest.

So, any incoming government will find that it has a hole in even the existing budgets that cannot easily be filled by either taxes or borrowing. That is why they use the magical thinking of “growth” to resolve this dilemma. But, as I set out earlier, and as the IFS also state, to rely on growth requires that you set out where this growth is suddenly to come from. The obvious quick answer would be to re-join the EU, but none of the parties dare speak its name, despite the fact that a clear majority of voters are in favour of it!

The only response they can give as to that is that the 2016 referendum voted for it, and for some unknown reason that decision binds us for all time!! That's like deciding to drink from a bottle that you did not know contains poison, and then, discovering your mistake, assert that you must still drink from it, because that was the decision you had made, and so must stick with it!!!!

Back To Part 3

Forward To Part 5

Brexit Is Central - Part 3 of 6

Of course, as I have set out previously, the idea of increasing taxes on large-scale capital is not only utopian, but itself reactionary, a reflection of a petty-bourgeois mindset. The progressive social-democratic approach would, instead, be to remove the right of shareholders to control capital they do not own, and to give that right to the collective owners of that capital, the workers in the respective corporations. Those workers would have no reason to export that capital. It would also make possible the taxation, not of the profits, but of any unearned income by share and bond holders.

However, again, to do so would mean to declare open class war on the ruling class. The idea that any national government, be it in Britain, France or anywhere else could do that without the global ruling class responding in kind is utopian. That global ruling class would throw all it had into removing such a government, and would inevitably succeed unless workers in other countries came to its rescue, and pursued the same course. Again, for Britain that is inseparable from re-joining the EU, and a struggle with other EU workers for a Workers' Europe. Commencing that struggle only after the ruling class has mobilised its forces is to invite disaster, as most recently, also, Greece discovered.

As I wrote at the time of the EU Referendum, the Marxist argument for voting Remain could not be that presented by Cameron, the Liberals or Blair, which was a bourgeois, social-democratic argument, based on national self-interest, i.e. the interest of British capital, and therefore, free free trade and the rule of market forces. The Marxist argument, rather, was, and is, that to defend workers' interests, be they British, French, German etc. workers, requires those workers to unite across the EU, as a European working-class to confront European capital. Removing outdated national borders is as important for that, in the age of imperialism, as was the removal of the old provincial barriers in the 19th century, so as to create the nation states.

As Lenin and Trotsky described, where Marxists joined with workers and peasants in those national revolutions, in the 19th century, and early 20th century, it was not because they supported, or had any illusions in that bourgeois-democratic, national revolution, but that they recognised that a large proportion of the masses did, and that the way too divest the masses of those illusions was to go through that struggle with them, to show that the only means of achieving even the limited aims of those bourgeois revolutions was by the masses creating their own independent organisations – parties, trades unions, factory committees and workers' councils/soviets.

This is the basis and lesson of permanent revolution. It is the same principle as that set out by Lenin in Left-Wing Communism. We have no illusions in bourgeois-democracy or parliamentary elections, but a large proportion of workers still do, and so we relate to those workers in those elections, and in those parliaments. We stand our own candidates in elections on revolutionary platforms, exposing the bourgeois nature of the social-democratic and reformist workers' parties. Where we are not strong enough to do that, we engage with those workers inside these parties, to do the same thing, and, where possible, to stand candidates under the banner of those parties, but on the basis of a socialist programme, for example, as with the Socialist Campaign For A Labour Victory, in 1979.

Where we get our own representatives elected to parliaments, we use that tribune again to expose the sham nature of bourgeois-democracy, and of the bourgeois workers parties. We refuse to engage in all of the parliamentary routinism and chicanery, and, instead, at every opportunity, use those positions to support workers engaged in struggle. Even when we have large numbers of such representatives, we refuse to join the government, or form a government, or government coalitions, instead adopting the position of extreme opposition. That is true even when we call on the reformist and centrist workers' parties, the Stalinists and Anarchists, to form a Workers' Government, and demand that it break with the bourgeoisie, and represent workers' interests, as the Bolsheviks did in 1917, when they demand of Kerensky's government “Down With The Capitalist Ministers”.

In relation to the EU, we also know that a majority of workers do not, yet, understand the sham nature of bourgeois-democracy. Indeed, it is that fact that enabled the Brexiters to seize upon the democratic deficiencies of the EU, and, opportunistically, sell the lie that British bourgeois-democracy was an alternative to it. Some backward workers, and more or less the whole petty-bourgeoisie bought that lie, even though many of them quickly learned that they had been lied to, by Fartage and Johnson, as Brexit not only failed to deliver what had been promised, but led to one ill-effect after another on their lives. But, even for the majority of workers who were not taken in by that lie, and who voted Remain, they did so on the basis of another lie, the lie sold by Cameron, Clegg and Blair that the EU, as it stood, as a bourgeois-democratic, capitalist Europe, was itself the answer to their problems.

It clearly wasn't, but what the EU, even in its capitalist form, does is to clear away a lot of the barriers that stand in the way of workers creating the solution to their problems. As Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky described, even the creation of freer, more rational conditions for the development of capital is, itself, progressive, and facilitates the transition to Socialism. We are not petty-bourgeois, moral socialists, or “anti-capitalists”, seeking to hold back or reverse capitalist development. We do not see less mature forms of capital as preferable to its mature forms in the shape of monopolies and multinational corporations. Quite the contrary. These mature forms, as socialised capital, Marx explains, in Capital III, Chapter 27, are the collective property of the workers in those companies. They are the transitional form of property between capitalism and socialism. But, also, because of their size, and need to plan and regulate their production, they must also draw on all of those aspects of the encroaching socialist future that requires a close relation to the state, which must also incorporate this contradiction within itself.

The fact that these mammoth capitals must, themselves, burst out of the reactionary constraints of the nation state, becoming multinational and transnational companies, itself acts to unite the workers of these corporations across national borders. But, this same requirement drives the requirement to establish ever larger single markets, such as the EU, within the framework of a multinational state, which becomes the minimum adequate political form in the era of imperialism, just as the nation state was in the era of privately owned, competitive, free market capitalism. All of these features of imperialism, and of the multinational state are, also, features required by socialism.

Back To Part 2

Forward To Part 4

Brexit Is Central - Part 2 of 6

In the proposals put forward by Labour and Tories, its clear that they both contain huge fiscal black holes of around £20 billion, to begin with, even before their miserly plans for additional spending are added, which, without additional taxes or borrowing, means more austerity, more cuts to spending, more real wage cuts for workers. Already, Starmer has made a point of saying that he will not pay doctors the 35% wage rise needed just to get them back to where they were in 2008! That is an indication of the attacks that workers can expect from a Blue Labour government, from day one, and is why workers need to organise now, in the workplace, in the unions, to resist the attacks of Starmer and Blue Labour. The unions should start, now, not only preparing for that industrial struggle, but also engage in the political struggle, inside the Labour Party, to get shut of the Tories like Starmer, Streeting and co.

The NHS is in a state of collapse, and what Starmer's refusal to pay doctors means is a willingness for it to collapse even faster, as those doctors move into the private sector, or overseas. That is no problem for Blue Labour whose leading members like Streeting have bragged about privatising large parts of the health service, but others of whom are already openly connected to those private companies set to profit hugely from that privatisation. The corruption in the Tory party, as seen with the provision of contracts during Covid, will be nothing compared to that in Blue Labour, as these careerists and parasites force their snouts into the trough. 

So, rather than the economy getting the kind of fiscal stimulus that the US has had in the last few years, the UK looks set for further significant austerity, taking demand out of the economy, and slowing it even further. However, there are contradictions, here, too, as I have set out before. For statists, the privatisation of the NHS, and other areas of state capitalism is significant, in its own right. However, the reality, in recent times, has been not only that such state capitalism failed to deliver for workers as consumers, but it was also even more oppressive and exploitative of them as employees, too. Despite the continued high levels of unionisation, it was in the state sector that governments used their power to hold down wages, and to impose cuts in pension provision and so on, whilst, in the private sector, rising demand, and consequent demand for workers led to rising wages and better conditions.

Blue Labour may well carry out its privatisation plans, but, its in those private companies that competition between them will, be intense for workers, more easily facilitating workers to get higher wages and so on, compared to Starmer's declaration of war on them in the NHS. This is not the 1980's, 90's, or even early 2000's, when governments could simply count on a working-class, on its knees to accept what was thrown at them without response.

Of course, the idea of growth stimulated by tax cuts was one tried by Reagan in the 1980's, which turned the US from being the world's largest creditor to the world's largest debtor, as both its fiscal and trade deficits rocketed, leading to a spike in interest rates, and the world's biggest ever crash in asset prices, in October 1987. The same idea was proposed on a much smaller scale by Truss, in 2022, with the same effect, and the swift removal of her government. That Fartage proposes to repeat that disaster tells us all we need to know about his agenda, and the extent to which he knows he will never be in a position to implement it.

Blue Labour has said it will not raise Income Tax, NI, or VAT, the biggest sources of tax revenues. Income Tax thresholds have already lagged way behind inflation, drawing millions of low paid workers into paying more tax, as a result of fiscal drag, so the scope for Blue Labour to raise tax by that method is also limited. It should be raising those thresholds to around £20,000 a year, so that no one on the Minimum Wage pays Income Tax or National Insurance.

Not raising VAT is defensible, because it is a regressive tax. Indeed, it should be reduced, not only for that reason, but for the reason that Marx set out in his programme for the First International. However, it produces so much revenue that to cut it would require significant tax rises elsewhere, or else a big reduction in state spending. The latter, of course, was the consequence that Marx sought, preferring that workers, collectively, organised their own social insurance and welfare, as part of the development of workers' self government. But, given where we are, any such immediate reduction would be imposed at workers' expense, without that workers' alternative being in place.

The point is that Blue Labour, indeed any government, is not a free agent in raising these taxes, particularly Corporation Tax, or various forms of Wealth Tax, or taxes on assets and capital gains. This was part of the fallacy of Brexit/Lexit that leaving the EU restored national sovereignty and independence. It is the lie behind all forms of nationalism and talk of national self-determination, in the age of imperialism.

Blue Labour talk about raising tax revenues by removing VAT exemption on private school fees. This measure, even on Blue Labour's estimates, raises pitifully little extra tax to fund the hole, even in current budgets. Its so little as to be essentially an accounting error. The global ruling class, likewise, would not be put off sending its kids to the top private schools by such an increase in costs, which, to them, would amount to pocket change. Indeed, by making those schools more exclusive, they would become even more attractive to the ruling class. However, those that will be deterred, and already are being deterred, are those sections of the middle-class, and even working-class, that send their kids to the less renowned private schools, in the hope of securing a better education for them.

Around 16-20% of current private students are estimated to be deterred, as a result of the increase in costs, with a consequent reduction in the estimates of how much tax will actually be raised. In fact, as those students then enter the state sector, the capitation means that the state will have to find additional sums to cover school budgets, leaving little net benefit. It would have been far better and more principled, to have just banned private schools, but that would really have meant, even on a tiny scale, taking on the ruling class, and its sources of power in society.

This small example of the limited scope of national governments, when it comes to taxation, is nothing, compared to the limitation when it come to the more significant forms of taxation on unearned income, and wealth taxes. The ruling class have always sent their children abroad to the best schools, to gain the benefit of access to foreign culture, and to network with the children of the ruling class of other countries, solidifying their common class interest against the working-class still mired in the idiocy of national life, culture and its limitations. Membership of the EU opened up that possibility for the children of the working-class too. Brexit, and the ending of free movement put an end to that as well, for British workers and their kids.

If Starmer wants to raise significant amounts of tax, even to finance his timid spending plans, ending VAT exemption of school fees will not cut it, and having ruled out Income Tax and VAT, that leaves, basically, Corporation Tax. But, if Blue Labour wants to grow the economy, it needs additional capital investment by corporations, not less. Increasing Corporation Tax means less profits available for reinvestment. Moreover, it will drive multinational corporations to move their activities out of Britain, and into the EU at an even faster pace than they have already been doing, as a result of Brexit.

The EU can get away with higher rates of Corporation Tax than Britain, because it is a much bigger market for those companies to operate in, and the other costs of that operation are much lower. The EU economy is seven times bigger than the UK, and so companies can operate on a larger scale, enjoying the economies of scale. Moreover, they do not face all the costs and frictions operating in that market that Britain faces outside it. So, the mass of profit and rate of profit is higher. Even with a higher rate of tax on that profit their mass of profit and rate of profit is higher than in the UK. That gives an incentive for companies to locate their production in the EU.

Even so, national governments inside the EU have been tempted to try to gain national advantage by introducing low rates of Corporation Tax. The Irish Republic did so, and successfully gained large-scale investment from tech companies like Apple. If allowed to continue, such beggar-thy-neighbour policies undermine the foundation of the single market. That is why the EU, as a single market that must increasingly move to a single fiscal policy as well as monetary policy – necessitating ever closer political union – intervened to stop that practice by Ireland.

Multinational companies can move capital from one national economy to another to obtain tax or other benefits, but they can't move capital out of the EU as a whole, because it is simply too big a market, too important to their profits to do so.

Consequently, if Starmer and Blue Labour, and this applies even more to the more ambitious plans of the Greens, just as it did to Corbyn's Labour, seeks to raise the tax revenues by increasing Corporation Tax, it will face an immediate capital strike, as well as an increased movement of capital from Britain to the EU, with a consequent slowing of the economy. Incidentally, this kind of social-democracy in one country approach also led to the failure of the Mitterrand government, in France, in the 1980's. As with the reactionary notion of Socialism In One Country, it shows that no progressive solutions are now possible on a purely national basis, and hence, again, why Brexit and re-joining the EU is central.

Back To Part 1

Forward To Part 3

Brexit Is Central - Part 1 of 6

The main parties have engaged in a conspiracy of silence over Brexit, during the election. The Liberals have relegated it to the back of their Manifesto, and EU membership as a far distant goal, much as the Left sects do with Socialism, as they pursue their immediate interests. The Greens are slightly, but not much, more vociferous in noting the damaging effects of Brexit, but it s only the SNP and Plaid that really make more of it, rather hypocritically given their own nationalist and separatist agenda. There is the Rejoin The EU Party, but its really an irrelevance to the election.

Yet, Brexit, and the need to re-join the EU, is, itself, far from being an irrelevance. On the contrary. It is central, which is why the main parties have engaged in a conspiracy of silence over it, because it exposes the thorough bankruptcy and duplicity of their polices and politics. It does not matter what issue is considered, whether the economy, employment, workers' rights, taxation, the environment, migration, war, health and social care, education, science, transport etc., the damage done by Brexit, and the need to re-join the EU to resolve it, cannot be avoided.

Take the economy. It is 6% smaller than it would have been had Brexit not happened. That is a loss of £140 billion of wealth that could have gone to schools, hospitals, welfare, and raising living standards. It would have increased employment and so on. Nor has that damage ended. It will be a continuing and growing hit to the economy, for as long as Britain stays out of the EU, because it is the closest and biggest trading partner. By 2035, the economy will be more than 10% smaller than it would have been, equivalent to £311 billion of lost wealth, compared to had Britain remained in the EU.

All of the Brexiters claims about it enabling Britain to establish new markets on the other side of the world, epitomised by Truss's speech about selling port in China, were nonsense at the time, and proved to be such in what has followed. 

The trade deals done did not even replicate those Britain had with those countries as a member of the EU, and necessarily so, because the EU, as the world's largest single market has far more heft in trade negotiations than the relatively small British state. Its like expecting the corner shop to be able to negotiate as good a deal with suppliers as TESCO. In fact, the trade deals done with New Zealand and Australia, in desperation to be able to say a deal had been done, are very bad deals from a British perspective.

The Tories have tried to claim that the UK economy has done better than economies in the EU, but that is only in terms of recent growth, following earlier poorer performance. Moreover, there are specific reasons why EU economies have performed poorly more recently, though those reasons come down to self-inflicted wounds imposed as part of the imperialist conflict with Russia and China. The boycott of Russian oil and gas raised energy costs, and caused disruption for the EU on a greater scale than for the UK, which still has access to North Sea oil and gas, for example.

In addition, the EU economy is significantly driven by the powerhouse that is the German economy, and it has grown, in recent times, by its high value manufactured goods exported to China. But, as part of the growing global inter-imperialist conflict between NATO and Russia/China, increasing barriers to trade with China have been created, whose economy was also slowed by its imposition of lockdowns. With China facing restrictions on its exports, it has responded, in turn. Its notable that Germany has opposed the recent proposals to impose high levels of tariffs on Chinese EV's into Europe, recognising the potential for similar restrictions on its own luxury cars exported to China.

Moreover, the data on, for example UK exports, is interesting, because of the role of the UK in relation to gold trading. Sky News' Ed Conway has shown that the claims about an improved export performance since Brexit, put forward by Sunak, falls apart once you take the re-export of gold out of the figures.

But, the UK, outside the EU, has not escaped these rises in costs either. It not only took part in the boycott of Russian oil and gas, but, as the European agent of US imperialism, was in the vanguard of proposing it. The US and UK, of course, not only have their own domestic oil and gas production, but are home to the world's largest energy companies, operating around the world, and benefiting from those higher oil and gas prices.

Similarly, Britain, that was only a few years ago touting Brexit as enabling it to divert its attention to the faster growing markets in China and the Pacific, has also tagged along as the poodle to the US in that developing trade war with China. However, despite it joining the Pacific trade partnership, it has been unable to significantly increase its exports to China and the Pacific, and lags behind Germany in that respect. So, the slow down in China, necessarily, affected Britain less than Germany and the rest of the EU, because it was smaller to begin with. That would still have been the case had Britain remained in the EU.

Indeed, the latest data shows that not only has Britain's trade with the EU suffered, but so as its trade with other countries, because in order to produce goods that are sold to those other countries it is still reliant on components produced inside the EU, and Brexit has both caused delays in the supply chain, and raised the costs to Britain of those components, so that its prices to other countries have risen. Many other countries have shifted to buying from the EU directly.

The temporary effects of the recent boycott of Russian energy, and so on, are just that – temporary – but the damaging effects of Brexit are permanent, so long as it is outside the EU.

Forward To Part 2

Farage, Putin and The Brexitories

In one of the seemingly endless and vacuous TV Leaders debates and interviews, Nigel Farage has, again, done what he always sets out to do, which is to draw attention to himself, by challenging the established narrative of the “establishment”, and its main parties – Tory and Labour. He did so, on this occasion, by pointing out what any honest observer of events already knew, which is that NATO provoked Putin into the invasion of Ukraine.

I was going to say that anyone who draws attention to this fact is automatically branded an apologist of Putin, but that is not the case. Blair-right, former Secretary-General of NATO, George Robertson, also admitted that NATO had goaded Putin into the invasion of Ukraine. It would clearly have been hard to accuse him of being a Putin apologist, but the fact that he, also, drew attention to this fact illustrates that the two things are not the same. Moreover, Robertson did not draw, from his observation of this fact, the conclusion that Putin's invasion of Ukraine was, therefore, justified. Again, these two things are not the same, and one does not flow immediately from the other.

As Trotsky points out, Lenin noted that prior to WWI, the dominant imperialist powers – Britain, France and Russia – had similarly goaded Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey into war. The former had been building up their armies and weaponry, ready for a war, and snapping at the heels of their adversary. Given the way that capitalism/imperialism works, therefore, it was no surprise that the latter, did not wait to be attacked. In those terms, that attack was “justified”, but that didn't mean that socialists had to support it.

“Imperialism camouflages its own peculiar aims – seizure of colonies, markets, sources of raw material, spheres of influence – with such ideas as “safeguarding peace against the aggressors,” “defence of the fatherland,” “defence of democracy,” etc. These ideas are false through and through. It is the duty of every socialist not to support them but, on the contrary, to unmask them before the people. “The question of which group delivered the first military blow or first declare war,” wrote Lenin in March 1915, “has no importance whatever in determining the tactics of socialists. Phrases about the defence of the fatherland, repelling invasion by the enemy, conducting a defensive war, etc., are on both sides a complete deception of the people.” “For decades,” explained Lenin, “three bandits (the bourgeoisie and governments of England, Russia, and France) armed themselves to despoil Germany. Is it surprising that the two bandits (Germany and Austria-Hungary) launched an attack before the three bandits succeeded in obtaining the new knives they had ordered?””

(Trotsky – Lenin On Imperialism)

In fact, back in 2008, following the ethic cleaning committed by the western backed Saakashvilli, in Georgia, and subsequent invasion of South Ossetia, by Russian forces, to end it, I wrote about the interview, on Newsnight of former Yeltsin Advisor, Alexander Nekrasov, who commented that, if a repetition of that week's conflict, in Georgia, arose in Ukraine, after Ukraine had joined NATO, then this would mean World War III.  Interestingly, it was in response to this post that I was contacted, by Paul Mason.  Reading the description of the ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia, by the western backed Georgian regime, its notable how it resembles the genocide being committed by the western backed Zionist regime against Palestinians, today.  The description of what might happen in Ukraine, if a similar pattern of what had happened in Georgia/South Ossetia happened, is pretty much exactly what has happened in Ukraine, since 2014.  Some of the comments, to that post including from the US, are also interesting.

The fact, however, that simply stating what is fairly obviously true, as Robertson had noted, that NATO goaded Russia into the invasion, does not, of itself, make Farage an apologist of Putin, also does not mean that he isn't!!! As the saying goes, just because your paranoid, it doesn't mean the state isn't watching you. The fact that the Tories and the media have drawn this simplistic link – as they do with anyone who challenges the established narrative – is simply a reflection of the degeneration of the political culture, in which we are asked to accept that there is always only a choice between one of two evils, in this case, either you back NATO/Ukrainian imperialism, or you back Russian imperialism, just as workers were told they could back British/French/US/Russian/Italian imperialism or German/Austrian/Turkish imperialism, in WWI, and British/French/US imperialism or German/Italian imperialism in WWII.

In WWI, as Lenin describes above, the gloss was added to this that the former were defending the fatherland, democracy and so on, presenting Germany, and the Kaiser, as a threat to such democracy – whilst the western allies not only denied democracy and freedom to millions of colonial slaves, and included in their ranks the brutal, Asiatic despotism of Tsarist Russia. In WWII, that narrative was only slightly changed, claiming the same defence of the fatherland and of democracy, but now with the lie that this was a war against fascism, the same fascism that those western states had welcomed, when it arose, in the 1920's and 30's, to smash down the workers' in Italy and Germany, and acted to threaten the workers' state in the USSR! For all of that time, from the 1920's and 30's, not only did the same denial of freedom and democracy to millions of British, French, Belgian and other colonial slaves continue, but the anti-Semitism that was also added as a cause upon which the war was fought, by those allies, also ran rife through the ruling classes of the US, Britain, France and so on. Churchill himself was a well known anti-Semite, along with the rest of his grotesque, racist and colonialist beliefs.

This facile insistence of a choice of one of two lesser-evils, of course, suits ruling classes, because, on each side of this dichotomy, the respective ruling classes present themselves as the “good guys”. Their own appeals to defend the fatherland, to patriotism, and use of the media, and all the other panoply of the ideological arms of the state, enable them to achieve that. Go to Russia, and you will find that a large majority of the population believe the nonsense that Putin and his regime pump out, just as in Nazi Germany, a large majority of the population, even of those that had opposed Hitler and the Nazis, needed little convincing that they were under immediate threat from western powers, and that they had to “rally around the flag”. The fact that “socialists”, and “communists”, then and now, associated themselves with their own ruling classes, facilitated that narrative by, then, Hitler, and, now, Putin. As Trotsky put it,

“The democracies of the Versailles Entente helped the victory of Hitler by their vile oppression of defeated Germany. Now the lackeys of democratic imperialism of the Second and Third Internationals are helping with all their might the further strengthening of Hitler's regime. Really, what would a military bloc of imperialist democracies against Hitler mean? A new edition of the Versailles chains, even more heavy, bloody, and intolerable. Naturally, not a single German worker wants this. To throw off Hitler by revolution is one thing; to strangle Germany by an imperialist war is quite another. The howling of the "pacifist" jackals of democratic imperialism is therefore the best accompaniment to Hitler's speeches. "You see," he says to the German people, "even socialists and Communists of all enemy countries support their army and their diplomacy; if you will not rally around me, your leader, you are threatened with doom!" Stalin, the lackey of democratic imperialism, and all the lackeys of Stalin —Jouhaux, Toledano, and Company — are the best aides of Hitler in deceiving, lulling, and intimidating the German workers.”

(Phrases and Reality)

Everywhere you look, this same ridiculous presentation of a choice between two evils prevails whether it is a choice between the zombie-like Biden or the moronic fascistic Trump, the genocidal Zionist regime, or the Islamo-fascist Hamas, the Brexitory Sunak, or the Brexitory Starmer, the anti-working class Macron, or the anti-working class Le Pen. But, the reality is that workers do not have to accept that these grotesquely horrible options are the only ones they can choose.

Farage made the comment in relation to Ukraine, not because, it is a fact, as previously established by George Robertson, but, because it has, again, given him the headlines he relishes. As with his proposal for a £20,000 Income Tax threshold, the purpose is also to expose and put on the spot the main parties. But, as with that proposal, as I set out, previously, the fact its designed for that purpose, does not mean that its content is not valid. And, the two things are related. The main parties as they have talked about “inflation”, and a cost of living crisis, have tried to excuse their own culpability for it, by claiming that it was all the fault of Putin, and the invasion of Ukraine, but that is nonsense.

Inflation is the result of years of excess currency being pumped into the economy to push up asset prices – shares, bonds, houses/property/land – and specifically, in order to finance the furlough and other income replacement schemes made necessary by the imposition of the ridiculous lockdowns. Sunak was the architect of those furlough payments, but it was Starmer and Blue Labour that was most insistent on the implementation of the ridiculous lockdowns of the economy that made those payments necessary!

As for the sharp rise in energy and food prices, that resulted not from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but from the UK and EU's decision, under instruction from NATO, to boycott Russian oil and gas, supplemented by the US's blowing up of the Nordstream pipelines, just in case a cold Winter had caused Europeans to change their minds! The rise in food prices was a result both of the rise in gas prices that flowed from that, because the gas is used to produce fertiliser, but also from the fact that Russia is by far the largest exporter of grain, and western sanctions on it, prevented a large part of those exports, pushing up global food prices. So, by making his factual point, Farage also draws attention to the fact that the cost of living crisis, and the hit to the economy – though it is even more apparent in the EU – is, itself, also, a consequence of the policies pursued by the Tories and by Blue Labour.

Of course, what Farage does not say, is that an even bigger hit to the UK economy, and to the living standards of workers, in Britain, is the Brexit that he championed. As I wrote at the time, the connections between Farage and Putin, on that score, were again, rather clear. But, the sensationalist media were, of course, keen to get ratings by having him on their screens and filling their pages, at every opportunity, and so paid little attention to those links. Moreover, it was not just Farage that had those links with Putin. As I wrote, then, the reactionary Brexit supporting wing of the Tories, also had those close links with Putin, just as they had with Trump, who, in turn, had those links with Putin.

Putin's aim in supporting Brexit, as with his support for Le Pen, and other nationalists across the EU, is to weaken the EU, or, if possible, break it up, because that removes a large imperialist bloc on Russia's borders, thereby, relatively strengthening the position of the Russia/China/BRICS imperialist bloc. But, in attacking Farage as a Putin apologist, the Tories also open up these old wounds of their own support for Brexit, and links to Russia, especially as they continue to push that damaging Brexit.

And, of course, it is not just the Tories. There were right-wing, nationalist Labour MP's that were part of Farage and Boris Johnson's “Leave” coalition also, and, now, Starmer is Brexiter in chief, as his reactionary Blue Labour proclaims that it will NEVER re-join the EU, or the Single Market, and so on, despite the terrible damage that is doing to the UK economy, and to British workers. In continuing to push that line, which even the clear majority of the British electorate reject, Starmer is, himself, not just insisting on damaging the economy, and the interests of workers, but is also doing the work of Putin, in weakening the EU!

And, of course, the more you draw these connections, the more the shifting alliances of various sections of the global ruling class, and of its factions appear. Starmer, of course, has continued to support and apologise for the genocide being committed by the Zionist regime in Israel, but who are also the backers of Netanyahu – Putin and Trump! Indeed, as Trump looks set to replace the walking dead regime of Biden, Blue Labour's David Lammy, who is lined up as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, has been led to claim that Trump is not a racist, and is misunderstood!

This is the cesspit that politics has become, and we are asked to choose between one turd or another.