The Bad Smell of Blairism

The Blairite MP's think that they have been oh so clever in their coup attempt against Jeremy Corbyn, and the hundreds of thousands of party members behind him. But, not only are they yesterday's people, that same fact means that they do no have a clue about what is going on around them. They represent all that is rotten about politics, everything that has been rejected by millions of people not only across Europe, but in North America too. In their tiny bubble, they see politics as nothing more than a real life version of House of Cards, or perhaps in the case of Kinnock Minor, Borgen.

As careerist politicians, their whole world revolves around the kind of unprincipled stitch ups they can arrange behind closed doors with others of their ilk, or in the corridors of power. The coup against Corbyn has nothing to do with the referendum result. As James Schneider pointed out to Kinnock Minor in a TV interview, where Jeremy and the Labour Party nationally secured 70% of Labour votes for Remain, in Kinnock Minor's solidly working class, South Wales constituency, 60% of the voters voted to Leave!

The reality is that the Blairites had been waiting for a pretext to launch this coup from the day Jeremy was elected Leader. They continually claimed that Labour's standing would fall in the polls with Jeremy as Leader, but it didn't. They claimed that Labour would lose elections, but when the Oldham by-election came, Labour increased its majority. It also increased its majority in the recent Tooting By-election. The Blair-rights did all they could to undermine Labour's campaign at the May elections, including launching the Anti-Semitism moral panic – which went into a deathly silence as soon as the May Elections were over – but Labour won the London Mayoralty with an overwhelming majority, as well as the Mayoral contests in a string of other cities, and it at least matched the best performance of Ed Miliband in the local elections.

Some Blair-rights were stupid enough to come out to decry those results, as part of their planned coup, back then, but their complaints simply looked carping, and their plans were shelved. They let it be known back then what their plans had been, had the results been bad, which was to have a string of Shadow Cabinet Ministers resign along with a series of Council Leaders coming out to call for Corbyn to stand down.

Let's be clear, many of these council leaders are cut from the same cloth as the Blair-right MP's. They are career politicians, many of whom only have their positions because of the control over the party machine that Blair and his allies had in previous years, which allowed them to impose candidates on local parties. Many of those Council Leaders receive salaries as high as an MP, some even more when other allowances are included. Its obvious that such people will consider their own career and their own financial interests first, rather than any concern for the party, or the working class, at a time of considerable chaos.

But, they do not seem to understand that their old rules do not apply any longer. In the past, they could get rid of one of their own, by such a vote of no confidence, and silly childhood political manoeuvring. Today that will not wash. Corbyn and McDonell must hold the line. Any wavering on their part, in the face of this coup attempt would be a betrayal of the hundreds of thousands of party members that stand behind them, and who are counting on them to hold that line.

The Blairite MP's and Councillors represent only themselves. They can pass as many motions of no confidence as they like, but if we the party members continue to support Corbyn, as we must, their attempts will be futile. In fact, we should tell them straight, if you do not like the party you are members of, if you can't reconcile yourself with Corbyn as Leader, then for god's sake go, because you are causing a bad smell within the party as the corpse of the regime you represent putrefies. We say to the Blair-rights, on your way, and don't let the door hit you in the arse on your way out!

Europe Declares War On Britain

The EU has declared diplomatic, political and economic war against Britain, following the Brexit vote. Socialists should adopt a position of revolutionary defeatism, in response.

At the start of the Liberal-Tory government, back in 2010, I wrote several posts noting that their regime was characterised by a high degree of incompetence, and ineptness. So, it proved to be, throughout the period of that government, that had in reality been cobbled together on the basis of fulfilling the individual egos of the individual politicians, particularly the leading Liberals. But, the calling of the EU Referendum, and then losing it, is the apogee of that ineptness and incompetence on the part of Cameron and the Tories.

Cameron put forward the idea of the referendum solely to ward off a challenge to his right flank from UKIP and the euroseptics in his own party. He thought he would never have to call it, because he expected not to win a majority at the 2015 election, which would have given him Liberal cover to not go ahead with it. Having won that majority, he could still have faced down the Tory right, and refused to go ahead with it, or at least have kicked it into the long grass. Instead, with the now familiar hubris, mixed with incompetence he pressed ahead.

As Jean Claude Juncker commented, yesterday, in relation to Cameron, you cannot complain about the EU from Monday to Saturday, and then on a Sunday expect everyone to believe that you are a Europhile. What is more, the EU Referendum was never about the EU. In poll after poll during elections, voters signalled that the EU was an issue that did not feature in their top concerns. The referendum, as with most of UKIP's vote in preceding elections, was about immigration pure and simple. It is the problem with referenda, that, in the end, voters often base their vote on a whole series of concerns that have nothing at all to do with the issue on the ballot paper.

In reality, many of those in the Tory Brexit camp did not favour leaving the EU either. They really sought to do what they have done all along, which is to use the EU as a scapegoat. Boris Johnson, who became the figurehead, was well known as a proponent for remaining until this vote gave him the opportunity to take centre stage against his rival Cameron, as a launch pad to the Tory leadership. He made it well known that he saw a Brexit vote as a means of negotiating further concessions from the EU, prior to a second referendum.

But, they gambled and lost. Large numbers of voters, who have been portrayed as traditional Labour voters, but who, in reality, form part of that sub-class, or dangerous class, as Marx described them, that either do not vote, or else vote for parties like the BNP or UKIP, were given a motivation to congeal around the issue that primarily concerns and drives them, a racist, xenophobic dislike of foreigners, the extent of which has been shown in vox pops with them, after the vote, where those elements have felt themselves freed to vent openly what they previously only expressed in couched terms.

The extent of that has also been seen in the attack on a Polish community centre, and in the reports of Asian people, who have lived here for generations, being assailed on the streets by people saying "We've voted to leave, so now its time for you to go!"

Having won, the Tory Bexiters now want to delay implementing its consequences. They now clearly hope, as Bojo said before the referendum, that the EU would come back with another offer to get them out of the bind they have put themselves in. But, the EU have no reason to do that. Its quite clear that, for the EU leaders, Britain is now like a bad smell in Europe that is lingering, and which they want to blow out of the door as soon as possible.

The Foreign Ministers of the six founding members of the EEC met as a Council of War on Saturday, and made that clear. They speak as the leaders of a super state of 450 million people compared to Britain's 50 million people. They addressed Britain accordingly as a puny adversary. They told Cameron in no uncertain terms that he had brought this situation on himself, and that he should either start the Article 50 procedure to take Britain out of the EU immediately, or else he should stand aside and a new British Prime Minister should be appointed within days, who would undertake such action. Anyone who thought that voting to leave the EU would mean Britain obtaining sovereignty will thereby soon be disabused of that misconception, as it finds itself told what to do at every turn, by much bigger, much more powerful players in the global game.

Already, Moody's Credit Rating Agency has downgraded Britain's credit rating, a dangerous thing for a country like Britain that is so much in debt, has such a large trade deficit, and which depends upon the kindness of strangers to lend it money to stay afloat. The EU has also said now that British banks will have to give up their passporting rights, which allowed them to operate in Europe as though they were members of the Eurozone. With the ECB based in Frankfurt, there will now be a fairly quick move of Europe's financial centre to Germany, and away from Britain, which, given Britain's reliance on foreign earnings from Financial Services, will quickly tank the UK economy.

For socialists, we have no reason to support the actions of the EU capitalist state in their war against the British capitalist state. But, nor do we have any reason to support the British capitalist state and its political representatives either. Our task lies as always in building unity between workers across Europe, in order to build a different kind of Europe, a Workers' Europe. For us, in Britain, now that means immediately opposing the Tory government, even if that means that government is defeated by the EU capitalists.

The current situation is unusual in that, its not clear that even the British state is at odds with the EU state here. Its hard to believe that the British state actually wants to be outside the EU. One of the representatives of that state, Lord Hill, has, in fact, resigned his position as an EU Commissioner, negotiating over the unification of capital markets, a move that would have benefited the City of London, to the extent of trillions of pounds. Now that process will benefit Frankfurt, as the new European financial centre instead.

As with all wars, this war is not starting with a shooting war, but with an economic war, a war of words and diplomacy. But, it is no less the start of war.   War is merely the continuation of politics by other means.  The reason it is being undertaken, is precisely because Britain is not Norway or Switzerland. Those two countries are so small that they have no real significance, they pose no threat whatsoever to the EU, and they have already found themselves only nominally outside its jurisdiction and subordinated to it. But, Britain although puny compared to the EU, the US, or China, is still big enough to be problematic, especially given its previous imperialist role. The EU has to squash an independent Britain from the beginning, and ensure that its role as a subordinate is established.  That is how imperialism as a global hierarchical system of states operates.

Socialists should give no succour to the Tories that have created this mess by their ineptness and incompetence. They should also highlight the role played by the Liberals, who facilitated the Tories regime in the first place. But, we should also highlight the role played by the Blair-rights, whose own conservative politics following in the footsteps of Thatcher, created the blight in the urban areas that led to the creation of the under-class and its desperation, whilst their craving for fictitious paper wealth, in the form of huge asset price bubbles created a massive inequality of wealth and income within the country that fuelled this hostility. 

Its rich that the Blair-right Hodge-podge now seeks to use this issue to attack Corbyn, who has been closer to workers on this than they ever were or could have been, because it is their politics, their economic policies that created the basis for this vote in the first place. That Stephen Kinnock lines up in that camp is not surprising, because it was his father that started that process of destroying the Labour Party back in the 1980's, and opened the door to Blair. If Britain is now like a bad smell lingering in Europe, these Blair-rights are a bad smell lingering within the Labour Party. If they cannot reconcile themselves with the Labour Party as it now exists, as a movement of half a million people standing four square behind Corbyn and McDonnell, then they should do the decent thing and Leave themselves. At least their predecessors, the renegades of the Gang of Four of Williams, Owen, Rogers and Jenkins had the courage of their convictions to march off into oblivion in the SDP!

Defend Corbyn – Expel The Traitors

Jeremy Corbyn was quite right to sack Hillary Benn for attempting to lead a palace coup against him. It was obvious over the last couple of day that the Blair-rights were scurrilously trying to use the referendum result as a paper thin pretext for such a coup, having failed to generate one during the May elections. We have seen now a Bonapartist coup that has been long expected in the Tory party, and now attempts at a similar coup in the Labour Party. There are lessons there too for the proponents of so called Lexit, whose politics of idiot anti-imperialism, and idiot anti-capitalism have also been exposed for what they are.

The actions of the Blair-right plotters are typically unprincipled. For years as careerist politicians, and elitists they have seen their privileged position not as something that depends upon tens of thousands of party members, who put them where they are, but as something they hold as of right. They see their personal interests, their personal views as overriding the views of the hundreds of thousands of party members. In that their egos are flattered by the Tory media. Today that media has spoken about a critical mass of the party opposing Corbyn. But, not such critical mass of opposition exists.

What exists is a handful of Labour MP's who are putting their own career and financial interests above those of the hundreds of thousands of party members. There is no critical mass of opposition to Corbyn within the party. If a leadership election were held today, Corbyn would win it by an even larger margin that he did last year. The Blair-right MP's know that, which is why instead they have been looking for an opportunity to launch a coup, and to unseat Corbyn by undemocratic means over the heads of the party. They cannot be allowed to succeed.

Constituency GMC's, must convene emergency meetings to support Corbyn. A campaign amongst party members via social media must be launched to back Corbyn, and to call for the expulsion of the plotters and traitors, seeking to undermine the party's democracy. All MP's should be told that if they vote against Corbyn they will be deselected. In fact, this has simply brought to a head what everyone knew had to happen sooner or later.

The current set of MP's and Councillors hold their positions only as a result of historical accident, arising from the bureaucratic control of th party machinery that the Blair-rights previously had. The current MP's and Councillors, in their large majority are now completely out of step with the party they are supposed to represent. That in itself is an affront to democracy and a situation that could not have been allowed to continue for long, because it meant that those MP's and Councillors were always going to look to every opportunity to undermine the party leadership, and party democracy.

The renegades of the SDP, at least had the decency to leave the party, when it was clear they were out of step with. But, Benn, Hodge and the other traitors know they cannot do that. They saw what happened to the SDP. Thy have also seen in the last election what happens to parties such as the Liberals that advocate the kind of Tory-lite politics they represent. They were eviscerated. It is only the same process that has led to the destruction of Pasok, and of other such parties across Europe, and the collapse of the political centre in the US, which threatens to let Trump into the Presidency.

The Blair-right traitors' arguments against Corbyn are paper thin. Even Ed Miliband in a speech yesterday pointed out that the foundations for the result could not be found within this campaign, but within the actions of successive governments, both Tory and Blair-right, over the last thirty years. He is right. The rot set in with Neil Kinnock back in the mid-1980's, as he began to undermine the party, and to open the door to Blairism. The party abandoned any semblance of principal in a more open search for votes at any price, than it had ever done in the past. It became a pale imitation of Thatcherism, with even Gordon Brown inviting Thatcher to Downing Street, and then inviting Thatcherite businessmen like Digby Jones into his cabinet!

Around 30% of “Labour” voters voted to Leave. Which means that around 70% voted to Remain. Even on that basis, the arguments of the Blair-rights against Corbyn fail, therefore. But, if we look at who these “Labour” voters are, they are in fact all of those sections of the population that the Blair-rights abandoned over the last 30 years, and drove into the hands of the BNP and UKIP. How on Earth do the Blair-rights think that a party under their leadership is going to win back all of those elements, the same elements their policies created, and those same elements they have ignored!

It was the Blair-rights whose policies sought to focus on the middle class and to ignore the traditional working-class whose vote they thought they could take for granted. It was their policies that were summed up in Mandelson's comment that they were “extremely relaxed” about some people getting filthy rich, whilst all the time urban areas sank further into deprivation, whilst those same policies that enabled a few to get filthy rich, as paper asset prices were inflated, also put the prospect of buying a house or getting a decent pension became further and further out of the reach of millions of younger workers.

Moreover, during this campaign it was the Blair-right Alan Johnson, who we had been told could walk on water, that had the job of leading the Labour In offensive. In fact, Johnson's arguments were weak, muddled and he himself was hardly seen. Hillary Benn who has been placed in the forefront of the coup against Corbyn, is also the Shadow Foreign Secretary with a particular responsibility, therefore, for Labour's campaign in relation to the EU. But, his comments have been equally weak and muddled, and he has not been particularly visible either. But, the fact is that had the Labour Party been led by David Miliband, Son of God, himself, it would not have changed the result of this referendum, other than the vote to Leave would probably have been even larger. The Blair-rights above all others should know the old saying that you cannot fatten a pig on market day, and all of the policies that created the conditions for this vote over the last thirty years could not be reversed in a matter of a few months.

A look at those that voted to Leave shows that they are predominantly amongst the older generations that grew up on a diet of British imperialism and superiority, and for whom casual racism is a way of life. It is reflected by the fact that amongst those who voted to leave 80% thought that Feminism, Multiculturalism, Social Liberalism, and the Green Movement were forces for ill, whilst 70% thought that the Green Movement was also a source for ill.

This shows the point I have made over recent weeks that those who voted to leave represent that 30% of the population that are bigots. The idea that these are natural Labour voters, is from the beginning false. Just because people are poor or paupers, or suffer deprivation and so on does not make them natural Labour voters. In fact, quite the opposite. It places them in that class of people that Marx in the 18th Brumaire describes as the dangerous class. It is from those layers that the right-wing Bonapartists and fascists obtain their support. It is why the policies of the Blair-rights over the last thirty years that allowed such layers of the population to grow, as a result of their economic policies are the material basis of this current crisis.

It also shows the lunacy of the proponents of so called Lexit. The basis of Lexit was idiot anti-imperialism, and idiot anti-capitalism. It started from the idea that a vote against the EU was a vote against imperialism. But, opposing imperialism in the name of a step backwards is by definition reactionary. Its been seen elsewhere around the globe, where in the name of such anti-imperialism unthinking support was given to reactionary forces such as the clerical-fascists in Iran, and which then led to the growth of other such reactionary forces such as Al Qaeda and ISIS across that region.

The vote against the EU, has not set in train any progressive anti-imperialism, but has fuelled other reactionary nationalist forces like the FN in France; it has strengthened the hand of right-wing nationalists in the UK such as Farage and Johnson; it has led to renewed calls for the the fragmentation of the British Labour movement by strengthening calls for Scottish independence, and even calls for London independence.

Of course, the sects that proposed this crazy idea of Lexit do not even see any downside in that, so far are they from reality. They are outside the Labour Party, and so the rise of Corbyn was a threat in itself to the world view they have been presenting for decades. If the coup against Corbyn succeeds, in their sectarian swamp they will see in it only good, and the prospect of picking up a few more members to their insignificant organisations. If it leads to the separation of Scotland, they like some members of the SNP will also see it as a good thing, as furthering their reactionary dream of an independent Scotland, with Scottish workers separated from workers in the rest of Britain.

The consequence of the vote for Brexit is not an opportunity for the Left, as the daydreamers of these sects believe, but has been a significant shift to the right. It is why the calls for abstention by the Weekly Worker were also a dereliction of their class duty. A Tory Party that was already one of the most vicious right-wing regimes in years, has seen a Bonapartist coup that is likely to put Boris Johnson into Downing Street, leading an authoritarian oppressive regime. At the same time, the Blair-rights supported by the Tory media have used it as the opportunity they have been seeking for the last year to launch their own coup against Corbyn, and the party. Only the fantasists of the sects can see that as any kind of opportunity or advance of the left.

In fact, they also make the mistake of seeing the Leave vote only in terms of a vote against the establishment. All of those same social layers that voted for Hitler, or who supported the mullahs in Iran, and so on, were protesting against the establishment too. But, they were doing so from a reactionary not a progressive perspective. It is what makes idiot anti-imperialism, and idiot anti-capitalism idiotic.

Our task is to forge the unity of the working-class, but a unity based upon a progressive and positive vision for the future, not simply a cut your nose off to spite your face hostility to the status quo. The sects offer the working-class even less of a way forward than do the Blair-rights. The immediate task is to defend Corbyn, and to defeat the traitors. It is then necessary to begin the process of transforming the party. We need a party that turns outwards even more into the communities with a positive programme based upon independent working-class action, and self-government. We need to continue the perspective of linking up with the working class across Europe, and Labour should fight any upcoming election on the basis of staying in or rejoining the EU, around the demand for the creation of a United States of Europe, and a struggle for a European Workers Government.

Capital III, Chapter 37 - Part 10

Ground rent is often confused with surplus labour and the surplus product.

“The natural basis of surplus-labour in general, that is, a natural prerequisite without which such labour cannot be performed, is that Nature must supply — in the form of animal or vegetable products of the land, in fisheries, etc. — the necessary means of subsistence under conditions of an expenditure of labour which does not consume the entire working day.” (p 632)

The production of surplus food is a prerequisite of freeing up labour-time for other activities. Originally, the primitive community engaged in agriculture and industrial production without any distinction between the two. It was impossible to hunt, fish or cultivate without producing suitable tools, whilst activities such as spinning and weaving were undertaken as sidelines to these activities.

Just as the individual workers labour-time is divided into necessary and surplus labour, so the social labour-time is so divided. So, part of the working-class may produce the things required by the whole of society, whilst the other part produces the surplus product of the society. 

The necessary product of the society, however, does not just consist of agricultural products, but also of all those manufactured products, required for the workers' subsistence. So, although some workers may be considered to produce only surplus products, because others produce only necessary products, this division is not between agricultural and industrial products; the industrial worker cannot be seen to be a producer only of surplus products.

The division between agricultural and industrial production is a fairly recent phenomenon, whereby also some workers can produce only agricultural products, because others produce only industrial products, and vice versa. But, similarly, some workers can produce only luxury products, because others produce only necessities. That applies both to agricultural and industrial products. And, some workers produce goods, which are only used in the production process, whilst others produce goods only destined for final consumption.

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Capital III, Chapter 37 - Part 9

Between 1849 and 1859, farm wages rose because of special factors: Irish emigration reduced the flow from Ireland to England; the industrial boom absorbed more agricultural workers into the industrial proletariat; there was increased demand for soldiers during the Crimean War; and a larger than usual emigration to the US and Australia fuelled by the gold rushes.

During this period, grain prices also fell by an average of 16%. The capitalist farmers demanded a reduction in rent, but other than in a few instances, failed to get it. Marx refers to this situation in “Value, Price and Profit”, in his debate with Weston, to demonstrate that in the end, wages are determined by the demand and supply for labour-power. Faced with these rising wages, and falling prices, the capitalist farmers did what capital always does – it sought ways of reducing its demand for labour-power, and bringing about a relative increase in the supply.

It does this by technological improvement to raise productivity.

“They had recourse to a reduction of production costs, among other things by the mass production of steam-engines and new machinery, which to some extent replaced horses and pushed them out of the economy, but also brought about, in part, an artificial over-population by throwing agricultural day-labourers out of work, and thereby caused a new drop in wages. And this took place in spite of the overall relative decrease in agricultural population during that decade as compared with the growth of total population, and in spite of an absolute decrease in agricultural population in some purely agricultural districts.” (p 628)

Marx quotes Henry Fawcett, Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge.

"The labourers were beginning to emigrate, and the farmers were already beginning to complain that they would not be able to pay such high rents as they have been accustomed to pay, because labour was becoming dearer in consequence of emigration." (p 629)

High ground rent was then here directly linked with low wages, and because the price of land is determined by the level of rent, we have then here a direct connection, Marx says, “... a rise in the value of land is identical with a depreciation of labour, the high price of land is identical with the low price of labour.” (p 629)

It is a direct connection, which once again has been witnessed in the 1980's, with soaring land and property prices, alongside stagnant and falling wages.

Marx quotes from Du Mécanisime de la Société en France et en Angleterre, by M. Rubichon, 2nd ed., Paris, 1837, p. 101, who relates how rental prices in France had risen along with the prices of bread, wine, meat vegetables and fruit, whilst wages over the previous one hundred years had remained unchanged.

Marx also quotes John Lockart Morton, “The Resources of Estates”, 1858, who describes how there is necessarily more competition to obtain the smaller estates than the larger estates, which only the large capitalist farmers could afford. The consequence is that the smaller farmers, who had less alternatives for their own employment, and employment of their capital, paid larger rents than were paid on the larger estates. 

Morton illustrates ground rent ate into the subsistence of the small tenant and their labourers.

“This takes place in the case of leaseholds with less than 70 to 80 acres (30-34 ha.) where a two-horse plough cannot be maintained. 

"Unless the tenant works with his own hands as laboriously as any labourer, his farm will not keep him. If he entrusts the performance of his work to workmen while he continues merely to observe them, the chances are, that at no distant period, he will find he is unable to pay his rent" (1. c., p. 148). Morton concludes, therefore, that unless the tenants of a certain locality are very poor, the leaseholds should not be smaller than 70 acres, so that the tenants may keep two or three horses.” (p 629-30)

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