The British Daily Mail and Express newspapers have printed ecstatic front pages about the Prime Minister's latest manoeuvre in Parliament. Apparently she has settled a majority in the House of Commons in supporting a specific Brexit plan and at the same time she has united the Tory Party and 'defeated' Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the British Labour Party.
The less jingoistic commentators pointed out that May's new plan (which is her old plan minus what is called 'the backstop) would not be accepted by the EU. Indeed, the initial comments by EU leaders following her 'victory' on the evening of the 29 January, directly opposed May's proposal. They point-blank refused that the the legal definition of the backstop should be re-opened from May's previously accepted proposal. The EU's stance, it was argued, would therefore return May to exactly the same point she was in before the 29 January. That is, she would face a deeply split Tory Party and no majority Brexit plan among the MPs. Then May would be seen as an absolute failure and new proposals for Brexit (including a possible new referendum) would be 'back on the table.'
History may repeat itself when it moves from tragedy to farce - but it never repeats its content. The tragedy may shape the farce but both of these states of history are also unique. The Mail and Express writers and their more thoughtful colleagues have entirely missed the point of May's latest initiative.
May has made a great deal of the 'meaning' of the 2016 Referendum vote for Brexit. She has argued for example that coming out of the EU's Custom Union and the EU's 'single market' are actually decisions made by the referendum vote itself. In her speech on the 29th she 'promised' full equivalence between British workers rights and their European counterparts. Indeed she hinted that she might go further. All this is rubbish of course. In fact May is not interested in the content of the 'deal'. No doubt she has to give a nod to her own Brexit Manifesto commitments from her disastrous election of 2017. But her real purpose? Here May has a clear set of immovable priorities.
First; she should remain PM at all costs. Even her 'self sacrifice' not to stand in the next General Election was presented as conditional on whether her Party wanted her and in any case not before the 'end' of Brexit (which will spin-out way beyond 2020.) Second (and a requirement of the first priority) she would keep the Tory Party unified. And the third priority - her only deep political commitment outside of herself and her political ballast - to prevent at all costs a Corbyn led Labour Party winning a General Election. This is what Prime Minster May offers to the future - and to Britain's ruling class. She hopes her last priority in particular will go some of the way to reconciling her leadership to the class that the Tories were built to defend.
How does May's insular but deep-rooted priorities work out in the here and now?
May perfectly well understands two things about her latest approach to the EU; first the EU needs to defend their union, particularly before the May European Parliamentary elections where Europe's new right-wing will flower. But that means that they need to show that the UK remains, albeit to a negative degree, dependent on the EU. (This is not about loss of car sales to the UK. German car manufacturers are much more interested in selling cars to China than most British Brexiteers imagine.) The issue for Germany in particular is that it is well aware of the possible impact of a European Singapore. The EU are opposed to a 'no-deal,' not because there will be empty shops and no insulin in the UK. They are opposed, particularly in Germany's case, to being damaged by a fierce, tax-free, virtual slave-labour competition. As a result, a convoluted piece of legalism, a great skill in EU corridors, is the most likely thing to emerge from May's second EU campaign.
Secondly, according to her own priorities, May, while hoping for an early and easy result from the EU, believes that she personally and politically can win either way. Should the EU slip up, or their legal language prove unsuccessful in Britain, who is then to blame? Certainly not Britain's valiant PM. And she appears not just innocent of failure but the only key to further Tory unity. May, whose orientation has always been towards the 'no deal' Brexiteers - because they are the strongest element of her Party - would sadly respect the consequence of the EU' hard headed intransigence' (should it prove necessary.)
Nothing is certain in a convulsive political crisis and accidents happen, but in the general trend of things May's nemesis will not come about as a result of Tory annoyance at her battles with the EU (and neither from a deeply unlikely 'no deal Brexit.') It will come from a General Election. May would probably fall at the moment it is announced. It is unlikely she will be left to deliver another Tory disaster. But an election will not come from Brexit tricks in a corrupt and decrepit Parliament. It will come when the majority of people in Britain recognise May's real priorities, when they disentangle themselves from divided Brexit tribes and focus on those across Britain who are already challenging Britain's (and the EU's) desperately failing politics and economics.
Wednesday 30 January 2019
Sunday 27 January 2019
Bigger than Brexit
The Times we live in.
On the 25th of January 'The Times', Britain's main 'newspaper of record' (called that because the government uses it for legal or public notices and conventional historians quote its journalism) printed two articles - aimed directly and indirectly at Labour's leader, Corbyn. Directly, on page 27 a full-page lead comment article by Phillip Collins used the Venezuelan crisis as a lesson against the British left, a movement which is travelling, according to Phillips, onto 'a road to hell.' Page 28 is a piece by Ed Conway titled 'Two cheers for Davos's carnival of capitalism' with a sub-title which reads 'Global elite's get-together has plenty of flaws but still exposes what makes our economy tick.' It does not mention Corbyn. Instead it celebrates current capitalism.
Collins, on page 27, is full of pity for the socialist Brits. He writes;
'The important point here is not, as the witless Tory attack has it, that the British left is staffed by dreadful people who are all motivated by envy of the elite. The truth is much deeper, more sophisticated and insidious than that.' If only the British socialists would pay attention to the full-of-wit Collins, who has read his Karl Popper, which told him, according to Collins, that 'utopian fantasy always ends in violence.'
Conway, on page 28 doesn't mention socialists. Instead he ops for Voltaire.
'With apologies to Voltaire, if Davos did not exist, we'd have to invent it: the bankers would still find somewhere to meet, do deals and carry on being the elite. Politicians would still be lobbied behind closed doors. Billionaire tech giants would still throw shockingly lavish parties.' Davos's 'influence is on the rise.' And 'in the end, Davos is a kind of in-between place at the heart of capitalism, and it is hard to see that changes any time soon ... it is a neutral ground where moguls, ministers, spies and most of all, elites can meet and make deals.' 'Deals' and 'the elite'; according to Conway, those are what make the good-old, apparently endless, mix of capitalism.
A permanent problem.
Every struggle in known history, from Spartacus to the 'yellow vests' that are taken up by different sections of humanity to win a society that benefits those who gain little from the existing arrangements, have always been described as dangerous and doomed to fail by those with the equivalent of access to the 'newspapers of record'. At the same time the vast majority of violence in human life is a daily experience and a direct result of the oppression of ruling classes' social systems. Taking just one historical example - of the wars and destruction in warlike conditions that directly or indirectly stem from colonialism immediately reveals the planet's source of violence. It seems that most of the violence in the world, regardless of Collin's version of Popper's thesis, belong to the system we have all been living in. It has little to do with the results of 'utopian fantasies.' But the pesky, rebellious behaviour against the status quo still keeps coming up. And the status quo always takes the position that the here-and-now maybe imperfect - but it's as good as they are going to let it get! It endlessly denies its own, built in, violence of suppression, which becomes the opposite in the 'newspapers of record', and described by the would-be journalist philosophers as the violence of a utopian fantasy.
Since the French Revolution, millions of people across the world have begun to battle consciously, with defined purposes, not religiously, nor mythologically, to change their system of society for the better. Part of that upheaval is the desire to put the end to war, be that the state violence which underpins their oppression or the capitalist hunger for international seizure that provokes lethal competition. And that remains the main question that faces the whole of humanity. It's simply the major fact of world history since 1789. And the elites, for very obvious reasons and despite our journalist's versions of Voltaire and Popper, are in permanent denial - as with Conway's patient and pleasurable acceptance of Davos as a cheery carnival that rules a rotten and violent world.
Where are we now?
Over the centuries vast efforts and sacrifices have been made to challenge and overthrow the world's the most current and dominant system of society, capitalism. Many of those battles and struggles have failed. But there have also been enormous, albeit uneven, successes. The Soviet Union had been crushed and had failed by the end of the 1920s. China's state capitalism is now throwing up the beginnings of a new class war in its corruption and political centralisation and dictatorship. Nevertheless, Fascist Europe, built as a means to destroy the potential German revolution and the remains of the USSR, was itself destroyed. Vast inroads were won by millions of post-war WW2 workers and their organisations against European capitalism in the form of its concessions in education, welfare, health, pensions etc. Later, China's 1948 revolution, and its relentless resistance to Western colonialism, turned into a barrier to the Western powers and the booster for an albeit cock-sided development, under Chinese state-controlled capitalism, to lift hundreds of millions out of deep poverty (which has changed the poverty indices of the whole world.)
Returning to Collins philosophical analysis of Venezuela and its obvious parallel to Britain under the deadly Corbyn, it turns out that despite the effects of colonial domination and a neighbour which is the most powerful capitalist power in the world, Latin American people have also constantly battled for a century and a half against their poverty and in rejection of US violence and control. In the case of Cuba - the Latin American revolt has maintained a platform for continental resistance over nearly 60 years.
And Venezuela?
As yet another anti-imperialist, socialist oriented wave rolled over Latin America in the 1990s and 2000s, new political experiments started up across a range of countries, the most radical in Venezuela. There are many serious and independent analyses available of Chavez's and now Maduro's regime in Venezuela (but not, it seems, in Britain's main paper of record). In this short summary three elements stand out. The super-dependence on oil, led by the already nationalised company with its deep connections to international oil. The use of its profits as the main instrument for the regime to re-distribute wealth (and the cutting off of technical investment by the US conglomerates needed to break open new types of reserves). The continued resources that remained with a spectacularly rich and previously powerful ruling class - constantly attached to the US. Finally, the partial and underdeveloped reorganisation of the state which has failed to organise the people. An example of which is the current dominant role of the military.
The mistakes of the regime are one thing but the bottom line is the immense power of the US, which is wallowing in the roll-back of social democracy in Brazil etc, and which is now reorganising its sub-continental hegemony. The Venezuelan peoples' hostility to US management, despite its vast power, and a root and branch reform of the regime, are the now only real means to defend and re-start Venezuela's revolution.
It is difficult to match Venezuela's plight to the tasks facing Britain (despite Collin's fearful warnings). But one lesson regarding violence is clear enough. And whatever Collin's favourite philosopher, it is Corbyn not Collins that has understood it. Corbyn's support for the Chavez regime was a support for the independence of the Venezuelan people and for the resistance to US domination in Latin America. For US armed force is what always comes with the biggest and most ferocious violence of all.
And British socialists?
The demand for radical reform in Britain does not come from Corbyn. Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party comes from the radicalisation of large parts of the British population, especially the youth. Deep studies in social attitudes over the last two years show large majorities in favour of a major nationalisation programme, free education, and end to outsourcing and private attachments to state services. Most people in Britain are angry about the endless inequality. They have lived with 12 years of (failed) austerity. (The main failed policy, incidentally, of the EU.)
Britain's anger has little to do with 'utopian fancies'. But it is the fuel for yet another movement across the world pushing against a system that not only does not fit most peoples' needs and wants but also pushes them back. What is guaranteed is that the defenders and the benefiters of the status quo will tell the rest 'there is no alternative', 'there is only one way not to have a no deal', 'utopian fantasies end in violence', 'we have to face the global reality' and it will all duly be repeated in the traditional media. But the truth is that Britain is in a cruel mess and there needs to be fresh changes in every area of Britain's failing institutions, its over-blown economy and its increasing inequality. And Corbyn is offering some initial steps to challenge those major failures. Collins and Conway are happy with (their) status quo - and scared to death of Corbyn. And 'The Times' has made its record.
On the 25th of January 'The Times', Britain's main 'newspaper of record' (called that because the government uses it for legal or public notices and conventional historians quote its journalism) printed two articles - aimed directly and indirectly at Labour's leader, Corbyn. Directly, on page 27 a full-page lead comment article by Phillip Collins used the Venezuelan crisis as a lesson against the British left, a movement which is travelling, according to Phillips, onto 'a road to hell.' Page 28 is a piece by Ed Conway titled 'Two cheers for Davos's carnival of capitalism' with a sub-title which reads 'Global elite's get-together has plenty of flaws but still exposes what makes our economy tick.' It does not mention Corbyn. Instead it celebrates current capitalism.
Collins, on page 27, is full of pity for the socialist Brits. He writes;
'The important point here is not, as the witless Tory attack has it, that the British left is staffed by dreadful people who are all motivated by envy of the elite. The truth is much deeper, more sophisticated and insidious than that.' If only the British socialists would pay attention to the full-of-wit Collins, who has read his Karl Popper, which told him, according to Collins, that 'utopian fantasy always ends in violence.'
Conway, on page 28 doesn't mention socialists. Instead he ops for Voltaire.
'With apologies to Voltaire, if Davos did not exist, we'd have to invent it: the bankers would still find somewhere to meet, do deals and carry on being the elite. Politicians would still be lobbied behind closed doors. Billionaire tech giants would still throw shockingly lavish parties.' Davos's 'influence is on the rise.' And 'in the end, Davos is a kind of in-between place at the heart of capitalism, and it is hard to see that changes any time soon ... it is a neutral ground where moguls, ministers, spies and most of all, elites can meet and make deals.' 'Deals' and 'the elite'; according to Conway, those are what make the good-old, apparently endless, mix of capitalism.
A permanent problem.
Every struggle in known history, from Spartacus to the 'yellow vests' that are taken up by different sections of humanity to win a society that benefits those who gain little from the existing arrangements, have always been described as dangerous and doomed to fail by those with the equivalent of access to the 'newspapers of record'. At the same time the vast majority of violence in human life is a daily experience and a direct result of the oppression of ruling classes' social systems. Taking just one historical example - of the wars and destruction in warlike conditions that directly or indirectly stem from colonialism immediately reveals the planet's source of violence. It seems that most of the violence in the world, regardless of Collin's version of Popper's thesis, belong to the system we have all been living in. It has little to do with the results of 'utopian fantasies.' But the pesky, rebellious behaviour against the status quo still keeps coming up. And the status quo always takes the position that the here-and-now maybe imperfect - but it's as good as they are going to let it get! It endlessly denies its own, built in, violence of suppression, which becomes the opposite in the 'newspapers of record', and described by the would-be journalist philosophers as the violence of a utopian fantasy.
Since the French Revolution, millions of people across the world have begun to battle consciously, with defined purposes, not religiously, nor mythologically, to change their system of society for the better. Part of that upheaval is the desire to put the end to war, be that the state violence which underpins their oppression or the capitalist hunger for international seizure that provokes lethal competition. And that remains the main question that faces the whole of humanity. It's simply the major fact of world history since 1789. And the elites, for very obvious reasons and despite our journalist's versions of Voltaire and Popper, are in permanent denial - as with Conway's patient and pleasurable acceptance of Davos as a cheery carnival that rules a rotten and violent world.
Where are we now?
Over the centuries vast efforts and sacrifices have been made to challenge and overthrow the world's the most current and dominant system of society, capitalism. Many of those battles and struggles have failed. But there have also been enormous, albeit uneven, successes. The Soviet Union had been crushed and had failed by the end of the 1920s. China's state capitalism is now throwing up the beginnings of a new class war in its corruption and political centralisation and dictatorship. Nevertheless, Fascist Europe, built as a means to destroy the potential German revolution and the remains of the USSR, was itself destroyed. Vast inroads were won by millions of post-war WW2 workers and their organisations against European capitalism in the form of its concessions in education, welfare, health, pensions etc. Later, China's 1948 revolution, and its relentless resistance to Western colonialism, turned into a barrier to the Western powers and the booster for an albeit cock-sided development, under Chinese state-controlled capitalism, to lift hundreds of millions out of deep poverty (which has changed the poverty indices of the whole world.)
Returning to Collins philosophical analysis of Venezuela and its obvious parallel to Britain under the deadly Corbyn, it turns out that despite the effects of colonial domination and a neighbour which is the most powerful capitalist power in the world, Latin American people have also constantly battled for a century and a half against their poverty and in rejection of US violence and control. In the case of Cuba - the Latin American revolt has maintained a platform for continental resistance over nearly 60 years.
And Venezuela?
As yet another anti-imperialist, socialist oriented wave rolled over Latin America in the 1990s and 2000s, new political experiments started up across a range of countries, the most radical in Venezuela. There are many serious and independent analyses available of Chavez's and now Maduro's regime in Venezuela (but not, it seems, in Britain's main paper of record). In this short summary three elements stand out. The super-dependence on oil, led by the already nationalised company with its deep connections to international oil. The use of its profits as the main instrument for the regime to re-distribute wealth (and the cutting off of technical investment by the US conglomerates needed to break open new types of reserves). The continued resources that remained with a spectacularly rich and previously powerful ruling class - constantly attached to the US. Finally, the partial and underdeveloped reorganisation of the state which has failed to organise the people. An example of which is the current dominant role of the military.
The mistakes of the regime are one thing but the bottom line is the immense power of the US, which is wallowing in the roll-back of social democracy in Brazil etc, and which is now reorganising its sub-continental hegemony. The Venezuelan peoples' hostility to US management, despite its vast power, and a root and branch reform of the regime, are the now only real means to defend and re-start Venezuela's revolution.
It is difficult to match Venezuela's plight to the tasks facing Britain (despite Collin's fearful warnings). But one lesson regarding violence is clear enough. And whatever Collin's favourite philosopher, it is Corbyn not Collins that has understood it. Corbyn's support for the Chavez regime was a support for the independence of the Venezuelan people and for the resistance to US domination in Latin America. For US armed force is what always comes with the biggest and most ferocious violence of all.
And British socialists?
The demand for radical reform in Britain does not come from Corbyn. Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party comes from the radicalisation of large parts of the British population, especially the youth. Deep studies in social attitudes over the last two years show large majorities in favour of a major nationalisation programme, free education, and end to outsourcing and private attachments to state services. Most people in Britain are angry about the endless inequality. They have lived with 12 years of (failed) austerity. (The main failed policy, incidentally, of the EU.)
Britain's anger has little to do with 'utopian fancies'. But it is the fuel for yet another movement across the world pushing against a system that not only does not fit most peoples' needs and wants but also pushes them back. What is guaranteed is that the defenders and the benefiters of the status quo will tell the rest 'there is no alternative', 'there is only one way not to have a no deal', 'utopian fantasies end in violence', 'we have to face the global reality' and it will all duly be repeated in the traditional media. But the truth is that Britain is in a cruel mess and there needs to be fresh changes in every area of Britain's failing institutions, its over-blown economy and its increasing inequality. And Corbyn is offering some initial steps to challenge those major failures. Collins and Conway are happy with (their) status quo - and scared to death of Corbyn. And 'The Times' has made its record.
Tuesday 22 January 2019
Brexit; plan May Day.
The want of any strategic vision of Britain's Prime Minister Teresa May, is obvious. But her dismal Parliamentary tactics are working away. They are designed to maintain her role as the UK's most important politician regardless of cost. The results of this dogged daily heave to victory may be grim for her but they are potentially destructive and dangerous for most of the people in the country that she aches to lead.
The danger for most Britons does not lie in any sensible step away from the EU. In reality the EU leadership would happily join the barrage that big Capital will launch in the event of a Corbyn government. Indeed, the EU would provide the key laws designed (among others by Margaret Thatcher) that 'prove' Corbyn's program is illegal!
But, as a matter of fact, should Britain remain in the EU, the current upheaval against austerity across the European Continent, despite the rise of the right, already reduces the power of Europe's traditional political and economic rulers. A Corbyn government (whether 'out' or 'in') would still find significant allies for its direction of travel across the EU and beyond. But it would need to start from the repudiation, not just opposition, of key EU statutes.
The real danger for most people in Britain now lies in the eruption of a wild, blinkered, madness created by the Tory Party right, as they haul and grab their way to the abundant riches promised by a European Singapore. This certainly does start from a 'no deal' Brexit.
This is the direction that the Tories and their government will travel (however May footles around with her blown-out plan). Why? For two reasons. First the biggest single economic force in Britain is centred in the City - of London. Inevitably that will be prime mover for Britain's new attempt to 'open itself to the whole world'. It is the only engine in the British economy available to to make the 'deals' which Messrs Trade Minister Fox et al slaver over. Second, May and her wretched plan have no coherent or strategic content. It was dissolved in Parliament where it is now allowed to be resurrected out of the ancient murk of Britain's tottering democracy, but it will be crushed definitively by the real world of international Capitalism - if the Tory government survives. And in its place will come the real objective, currently being prepared by the Tory right-wing.
Coming out of the EU successfully - from the point of view of ordinary British people - has to start from the end of the Tory government and the creation of a government that will lead the drive against austerity and the wealth and power of the City.
The danger for most Britons does not lie in any sensible step away from the EU. In reality the EU leadership would happily join the barrage that big Capital will launch in the event of a Corbyn government. Indeed, the EU would provide the key laws designed (among others by Margaret Thatcher) that 'prove' Corbyn's program is illegal!
But, as a matter of fact, should Britain remain in the EU, the current upheaval against austerity across the European Continent, despite the rise of the right, already reduces the power of Europe's traditional political and economic rulers. A Corbyn government (whether 'out' or 'in') would still find significant allies for its direction of travel across the EU and beyond. But it would need to start from the repudiation, not just opposition, of key EU statutes.
The real danger for most people in Britain now lies in the eruption of a wild, blinkered, madness created by the Tory Party right, as they haul and grab their way to the abundant riches promised by a European Singapore. This certainly does start from a 'no deal' Brexit.
This is the direction that the Tories and their government will travel (however May footles around with her blown-out plan). Why? For two reasons. First the biggest single economic force in Britain is centred in the City - of London. Inevitably that will be prime mover for Britain's new attempt to 'open itself to the whole world'. It is the only engine in the British economy available to to make the 'deals' which Messrs Trade Minister Fox et al slaver over. Second, May and her wretched plan have no coherent or strategic content. It was dissolved in Parliament where it is now allowed to be resurrected out of the ancient murk of Britain's tottering democracy, but it will be crushed definitively by the real world of international Capitalism - if the Tory government survives. And in its place will come the real objective, currently being prepared by the Tory right-wing.
Coming out of the EU successfully - from the point of view of ordinary British people - has to start from the end of the Tory government and the creation of a government that will lead the drive against austerity and the wealth and power of the City.
Thursday 17 January 2019
Brexit tricks
The collapse of the British PM May's Brexit plan (on the 15th of January her proposed deal was crushed by a big majority of MPs led by the Labour Party) is now being replaced by May's biggest trick so far.
The Prime Minister told Parliament that she would consult with the leaders of the other Parties in Parliament and with leading MPs in order to get a consensus for a new deal. Accordingly, various addled Party leaders duly tramped up to Number 10. 'At last' they said, May is consulting with us!' They all told PM May their very interesting versions of an ideal Brexit and, in the case of the ancient, but media loving leader of the Liberal Democrats, his proposal for another referendum. May of course knew all this stuff months ago and is not interested in any of it. Apparently she said very little to her excited 'consultees', nodded a lot, added the odd question and then sent them all away to get their 5 minute interviews on the TV channels explaining how important it was for them to talk to the PM.
Simultaneously Labour's leader, Corbyn refused to meet May unless she dumped the wild schemes of her Party's right wing, to leave the EU without a deal (and open the world's largest tax haven.) Despite the howl of indignation of the nations' mainstream media against Corbyn's 'bad show' he was the only leader in Parliament with the wit and wisdom to refuse May's farcical invite. Naturally May is not dumping the 'no deal' Brexit because her plan depends on the 'No Deal' maniacs levering the rest of her MPs into support for what? Why, it is version 2 of the 'dead and buried' January 15 deal - but now decorated for the DUP. (The 10 DUPers are the only people in Parliament that she will give any decorations to because they give her a majority in Parliament and they also prevent any scary General Elections where she might disappear!)
And, surprise after surprise; Parliament have now been told that there will be no vote on the January 15 mark 2 proposed deal - until January 29. Time ticks away. May hopes to terrify her brave Tory rebels into supporters. And if January 29 is not close enough to the March deadline, she hopes to do the same again to get through February etc.
May is a narrow thinker and utterly self-absorbed. But she is heroic (and crafty) in her self-defence. She does not present this cause in terms of the future of Britain and its depressed, angry and sold-out people. Instead she is determined to rule this particular bit of history in her name. Except Labour leader Corbyn has exposed her shenanigans. His clear thinking is the best platform for more action in Parliament (and, who knows, in May's normally terrified Cabinet) to block this latest manoeuvre and push open the potential for the changes, including in Brexit, that might end up defending ordinary peoples' lives.
The Prime Minister told Parliament that she would consult with the leaders of the other Parties in Parliament and with leading MPs in order to get a consensus for a new deal. Accordingly, various addled Party leaders duly tramped up to Number 10. 'At last' they said, May is consulting with us!' They all told PM May their very interesting versions of an ideal Brexit and, in the case of the ancient, but media loving leader of the Liberal Democrats, his proposal for another referendum. May of course knew all this stuff months ago and is not interested in any of it. Apparently she said very little to her excited 'consultees', nodded a lot, added the odd question and then sent them all away to get their 5 minute interviews on the TV channels explaining how important it was for them to talk to the PM.
Simultaneously Labour's leader, Corbyn refused to meet May unless she dumped the wild schemes of her Party's right wing, to leave the EU without a deal (and open the world's largest tax haven.) Despite the howl of indignation of the nations' mainstream media against Corbyn's 'bad show' he was the only leader in Parliament with the wit and wisdom to refuse May's farcical invite. Naturally May is not dumping the 'no deal' Brexit because her plan depends on the 'No Deal' maniacs levering the rest of her MPs into support for what? Why, it is version 2 of the 'dead and buried' January 15 deal - but now decorated for the DUP. (The 10 DUPers are the only people in Parliament that she will give any decorations to because they give her a majority in Parliament and they also prevent any scary General Elections where she might disappear!)
And, surprise after surprise; Parliament have now been told that there will be no vote on the January 15 mark 2 proposed deal - until January 29. Time ticks away. May hopes to terrify her brave Tory rebels into supporters. And if January 29 is not close enough to the March deadline, she hopes to do the same again to get through February etc.
May is a narrow thinker and utterly self-absorbed. But she is heroic (and crafty) in her self-defence. She does not present this cause in terms of the future of Britain and its depressed, angry and sold-out people. Instead she is determined to rule this particular bit of history in her name. Except Labour leader Corbyn has exposed her shenanigans. His clear thinking is the best platform for more action in Parliament (and, who knows, in May's normally terrified Cabinet) to block this latest manoeuvre and push open the potential for the changes, including in Brexit, that might end up defending ordinary peoples' lives.
Wednesday 9 January 2019
Britain's Brexit troubles.
When US President Trump walked across the G20 podium, ignoring the host Argentina's President Mauricio Macri, he was heard demanding to someone in the wings to -
'Get me out of here!'
Trump likes to populate his own podiums and carefully constructs his 'love-in' audiences. The UK Prime Minister, Teresa May is the opposite. She is uncertain on her Party's podiums and frightened of her closest allies. Teresa May, is secretive and suspicious. The pressures of Brexit have sharpened, even exposed, many characteristics of of Britain's leading politicians. PM May is revealed by her haunting ambitions to remain PM at all costs - regardless of the loss of dignity, the hostility of her party members and her lack of any strategic imagination, she keeps running only on her sense of her own significance. She is of course a product of the dire condition of her party that has itself vacated from its traditional role in its historic defence of Britain's ruling class.
PM May, despite her dogged self-defence, will be seen as a minor, unresolved and uncertain figure in Britain's political history. Unlike Thatcher for example, May has no vision or perspective for the future of British capitalism, let alone British society. Even her would-be pithy sayings have collapsed spectacularly, virtually almost as soon as she had (endlessly) related them. A 'strong and stable government' was washed away by an election that she called, and which has created the most incoherent government in living memory. 'Brexit is Brexit' has turned into 101 versions of Brexit without any deal that protects the majority of British working class people. 'No deal is better than a bad deal' has been entirely reversed by her own proposal of a very bad deal indeed. That same 'deal' destroys her prediction that 'nothing is agreed until everything is agreed'. Instead May proposes that the UK pays the EU and follows its rules while nothing substantial has been agreed at all.
Could it get worse? It does. May's one talent of keeping-on, keeping-on and the fear of all of the factions of the Tory Party of a General Election, is the increasingly sterile basis of her utterly uncertain command. PM May would literally allow anything rather than accept a Corbyn-led Labour government. She reminded us all of the real danger of the 'dark forces' represented by Messrs Corbyn and McDonnell, Labour's main leaders, even as she was defending herself from being shot down by her own party!
The leadership crisis in Britain's mainstream politics also extends to the Labour Party (which is riven by class contradictions as well as its factional differences.) This has two key aspects. One large, group of Labour MPs give first priority to a new EU referendum, based on the general mainstream view that the UK economy will do less well in all versions of Brexit so far, compared with remaining in the EU. Others, closer to Corbyn, still argue that a General Election is the first priority. Labour's strategy, as voted at their conference, agreed with this priority and placed support for a possible 'Peoples Vote' as a last resort. The millions outside the Labour Party, looking for answers to the Tories' crisis, accurately see Labour's two different proposals not as a logical extension but rather as a confusion of alternatives. And they are right.
It is a simple truth that the most radical parts of the new Labour Party's 2017 Manifesto run against EU laws and rules. Yet it is the strongest weapon in Labour's armoury. It would be the means by which Labour could win an election - at least in respect of the big majorities in society who are angry at inequalities, private mismanagement of public services, the running down of community police, schools and the destruction and theft of public wealth.
Labour's uneasy Labour Party conference 'alliance' between MPs that want to remain in the EU, as much as anything else because it would be a block Labour's manifesto measures, and those that demand an election to open the possibility of a new sort of economy, cannot hold. The 'alliance' is already preventing Labour from directly and powerfully winning the hearts and minds of an increasingly puzzled and demoralised population which sees the Tories collapsing and Labour apparently dithering.
Of course Britain's political crisis is a crisis of the mainstream parties. It was always inevitable as social forces erupt. But Britain's two main parties have different destinies in which the Brexit battle is only a part. Eventually, perhaps later than sooner, the new Tories will coagulate around the mission of a regrouped ruling class, in or out of the EU. A Labour Party and government however will face a class war against its proposals - a war which will require the removal of the EU's rules either inside or out, and Labour's implementation of its projects and its divisions will see its MPs falling on either side of the sharpest line of all - the division between classes.
The responsibility of the new Labour leadership is to explain, now, to the people, that their essential reforms will require overturning the whole status quo - which includes breaking Brussel's main economic rules and the traditional direction beloved by the bulk of Labour MPs.
'Get me out of here!'
Trump likes to populate his own podiums and carefully constructs his 'love-in' audiences. The UK Prime Minister, Teresa May is the opposite. She is uncertain on her Party's podiums and frightened of her closest allies. Teresa May, is secretive and suspicious. The pressures of Brexit have sharpened, even exposed, many characteristics of of Britain's leading politicians. PM May is revealed by her haunting ambitions to remain PM at all costs - regardless of the loss of dignity, the hostility of her party members and her lack of any strategic imagination, she keeps running only on her sense of her own significance. She is of course a product of the dire condition of her party that has itself vacated from its traditional role in its historic defence of Britain's ruling class.
PM May, despite her dogged self-defence, will be seen as a minor, unresolved and uncertain figure in Britain's political history. Unlike Thatcher for example, May has no vision or perspective for the future of British capitalism, let alone British society. Even her would-be pithy sayings have collapsed spectacularly, virtually almost as soon as she had (endlessly) related them. A 'strong and stable government' was washed away by an election that she called, and which has created the most incoherent government in living memory. 'Brexit is Brexit' has turned into 101 versions of Brexit without any deal that protects the majority of British working class people. 'No deal is better than a bad deal' has been entirely reversed by her own proposal of a very bad deal indeed. That same 'deal' destroys her prediction that 'nothing is agreed until everything is agreed'. Instead May proposes that the UK pays the EU and follows its rules while nothing substantial has been agreed at all.
Could it get worse? It does. May's one talent of keeping-on, keeping-on and the fear of all of the factions of the Tory Party of a General Election, is the increasingly sterile basis of her utterly uncertain command. PM May would literally allow anything rather than accept a Corbyn-led Labour government. She reminded us all of the real danger of the 'dark forces' represented by Messrs Corbyn and McDonnell, Labour's main leaders, even as she was defending herself from being shot down by her own party!
The leadership crisis in Britain's mainstream politics also extends to the Labour Party (which is riven by class contradictions as well as its factional differences.) This has two key aspects. One large, group of Labour MPs give first priority to a new EU referendum, based on the general mainstream view that the UK economy will do less well in all versions of Brexit so far, compared with remaining in the EU. Others, closer to Corbyn, still argue that a General Election is the first priority. Labour's strategy, as voted at their conference, agreed with this priority and placed support for a possible 'Peoples Vote' as a last resort. The millions outside the Labour Party, looking for answers to the Tories' crisis, accurately see Labour's two different proposals not as a logical extension but rather as a confusion of alternatives. And they are right.
It is a simple truth that the most radical parts of the new Labour Party's 2017 Manifesto run against EU laws and rules. Yet it is the strongest weapon in Labour's armoury. It would be the means by which Labour could win an election - at least in respect of the big majorities in society who are angry at inequalities, private mismanagement of public services, the running down of community police, schools and the destruction and theft of public wealth.
Labour's uneasy Labour Party conference 'alliance' between MPs that want to remain in the EU, as much as anything else because it would be a block Labour's manifesto measures, and those that demand an election to open the possibility of a new sort of economy, cannot hold. The 'alliance' is already preventing Labour from directly and powerfully winning the hearts and minds of an increasingly puzzled and demoralised population which sees the Tories collapsing and Labour apparently dithering.
Of course Britain's political crisis is a crisis of the mainstream parties. It was always inevitable as social forces erupt. But Britain's two main parties have different destinies in which the Brexit battle is only a part. Eventually, perhaps later than sooner, the new Tories will coagulate around the mission of a regrouped ruling class, in or out of the EU. A Labour Party and government however will face a class war against its proposals - a war which will require the removal of the EU's rules either inside or out, and Labour's implementation of its projects and its divisions will see its MPs falling on either side of the sharpest line of all - the division between classes.
The responsibility of the new Labour leadership is to explain, now, to the people, that their essential reforms will require overturning the whole status quo - which includes breaking Brussel's main economic rules and the traditional direction beloved by the bulk of Labour MPs.
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