An Establishment frenzy

According to Britain's media, including the God and government - fearing BBC, the 'debate' over maintaining Britain's membership of the EU versus Brexit, has reached fever pitch. This, claim various commentators - endlessly - is the greatest decision of this generation, certainly this century so far and
'much more important than deciding who occupies number 10 Downing Street.' (See virtually every mainstream commentator on virtually any day.) Then, with a puzzled air, the politairiat continue with the now routine assertion that what the British public are really searching for, in this crescendo of rhetoric, are 'the basic facts' about what will happen if Britain stays in and what will happen if Britain leaves.' It is the absence of such 'basic facts' that is the reason why (strangely and disappointingly) the British public seem unable so far to get themselves seriously worked up by the discussion so far.

It is true that people such as self styled 'quiet man' Duncan Smith and the unknown Gove, and the cheery clown Boris as well as the Prime Minister, have been going at each other like Punch and Judy while all demanding that both sides respect each other. That's all quite funny. Perhaps it will help obscure mid March's real news for most of Britain's people - when Osborne presses the austerity peddle again. But so far the increasingly alarmed calls for the British to rouse themselves, at least to the level of the Scots when they debated and decided on the Independence referendum, have fallen on deaf ears among the public at large.

Is this because the 'basic facts' about EU membership as they effect the people of Britain are being hidden?  One 'basic fact' about Britain's great debate is certainly being obscured. The turmoil now unleashed by PM Cameron's proposal for Britain to remain in a 'reformed' EU has divided Britain's ruling class and is pulling Britain's traditional establishment politics apart. And that is the main engine of the argument so far. It characterises exactly what the debate has been about. It is however not quite accurate to see the British ruling class as split. More precisely it is the social base of the ruling class that is in danger of decamping from its allegiance to the traditional ruling class bloc at least on the question of the EU.

The 'conspiracy theorists' of the left imagine that ruling class political and economic domination is a matter of their monopoly control of armed force and all the rest consists of their secret tricks and domination of the mass media. There are many secret tricks played on the mass of the population and the media is controlled by billionaires but since those who have to sell their labour have forced the extension of the franchise, ruling class politics has had to play the role of an essential tool to build a social base for the tiny minority ruling class in the country. This base is persuaded to detach themselves from most of those who labour in favour of two (false) premises, that they are on their way to rise above common work and become rich and secure; and that competition with their peers - coupled with repulsion for organised labour - is the route to that success.

Their leadership in society is dominated by the millionaire and billionaire owners of property and capital. But the political formation of the Tory party was explicitly designed and redesigned over a 150 years to create the 'common sense' of national interest, of 'hard working families', of the domestic security offered by long term state institutions and all the rest of the social, political and psychological construction of a society that could depend on its traditional establishment. And millions of small owners, millions of skilled workers, of layers of managers etc accepted and adopted these foundations in their political psyches. (The role of Labour in all this has a different, albeit essential supporting story.)

But something new has happened. The British Empire, which once underpinned the economic and social privileges of the aristocracy of labour (in all of its forms) has long gone. But the new European Empire, led by Germany, which Britain has now joined, shares out its privileges stolen from its own labour, the labour of millions of migrants and of the rest of the globe, on a much wider and sometimes uneven basis. That makes the compact between Britain's tiny ruling class and its social and political base uneasy. The main social means by which the EU reinforced ruling class leadership in most European societies was via the CAP. Agricultural subsidies are still more the 40% of EU expenditure. This never fitted with the British social and political context. And now there is something worse.

Most obviously since 2008 the British ruling class have seemed to take on a new persona  - at least to its millions of day to day supporters. It appears that they have abandoned Britain. (Read - they have abandoned me!)

This is a social, political even a psychological disaster for those who form the base of popular support for Britain's establishment. Worse still it is true. In two eminently practical senses desertion is exactly what Britain's modern ruling class and their families have done. First they are no longer in any real sense British citizens (exception made of Eton, Oxbridge and the Royal Shakespeare Company for which some at least have fond memories and others wish they did.) They live, control, exist, globally - along with their peers. Second, they have magnified their wealth to the point were only the most stupid 'hard working family' could believe that the super rich's lifestyle, wealth and power was in anyway attainable (except perhaps for the many sharp elbowed young graduates starting in politics - where, if you are lucky, you might get to meet the movers and shakers.) The traditional British ruling class has left. And the traditional base of the party of the ruling class in society, the Tories, is cracking up.

This has been a trend in British politics for a couple of decades. But now it has reached a crisis point. While staying in or leaving the EU will make little difference to who really rules in Britain, to the domination of the City of London, to the decreasing role of Parliament and the decline of democracy, to the relentless drive for more austerity and against the social wage, it will however make a difference to the composition of ruling class politics and its social base in Britain. In the absence of a lead from Britains' other main class, this will take the form of a wrench to the right by a significant proportion of Britain's population.

Of the 4 million voters who voted for UKIP candidates in the last election an estimated half were ex Labour voters. It is not a surprise that with the decline of the post WW2 labour movement and the triumph of Blairism a proportion of working class voters go beyond abstention and regroup around Farage's racist and nationalist UKIP 'rebellion' against the establishment. The vote for Brexit is the same rebellion - the rebellion of the social and political base of the ruling class against its own leadership. The danger here is that this rebellion is then confused with anything radical or progressive for the working class as a whole. Some on the left do exactly that in abstract arguments that effectively confuse calls for more democracy and for more sovereignty with the real nationalist and racist motives of the exiteers. Her majesty's call for Brexit on the front page of the Sun newspaper sums up the irresistible attraction of the combination of Thatcher and the Queen to this layer. And, like Thatcher, it will need to be taken on and defeated.

The analytical mosaic sketched above when looked at close up, is spotted with all sorts of personal greed, self aggrandisement and ambition. Boris probably hopes that Britain stays in the EU but has prepared his future Tory leadership tussle with Cameron's anointed successor Osborne by wooing the ancient Tory mini-grandees in the shires with his noble stand for exit. The first photographs of George Galloway standing close to Nigel Farage on a common platform for Brexit shows George beaming with pleasure while Nigel looks sick.  The individual dramas and follies will be enough to continue the barrage of empty sounds that will characterise Britain's EU 'campaign.' Against the roar some simple ideas need to be clear:

Refugees and immigrants are to be welcomed in Britain and in Europe. Austerity in Britain and in Europe must end. The support of wars and nuclear weapons by Britain and by Europe must be stopped. We will make alliances and common fronts in action with anybody and any organisation that supports and fights for these ideas, in Britain and in Europe.

We do this because the mass of the people need both a new Britain and a new Europe.