It is easy to spell out the obvious flaws in modern, mainly western, democracy. Huge state institutions are much more powerful than any parliaments, and behind them are the class of people who own most of the world's wealth, land and property. Naturally these people spend their lives defending their dominion in society and preparing its future inheritance. In Mexico, chunks of the armed state are bought by the rich to kill opponents that challenge the status quo. In Britain most of the social crime carried out by the rich, and the more deadly of the state's interventions, tend to happen at points of crisis (Ireland after WW1 and the 1970s and 80's, the 1984/5 Miners Strike, the theft of state property under Thatcher, the general corruption of MPs etc). But the needs of the rich and powerful in Britain are constantly promoted through society, via select public schools, the 'City', the unelected House of Lords, the clubs, the Caribbean and other islands and, of course, the Tory Party.
Although these general features regarding power and wealth are brutally true, they are, nevertheless, remote abstractions for most people most of the time. Daily life for the vast majority, who are without wealth and power, is tricky, worrying, immediate, practical and, often painful. Much thought and effort is required simply to survive. Struggle against social unfairness, when it happens, often starts at a very local level, is family based and specific. As it expands, and workplaces and housing estates mobilise in collective action, the eruption is often inspiring and society is gifted with crucial, eye-opening moments. Such events often win reforms against the wishes of the rich and powerful, and the state. Collective actions are always dangerous precisely for that reason. Large demonstrations and more direct action that challenges 'the system' are immense steps out of the 'norms' of daily life and proportionately more powerful still. They can create new 'norms' and a fresh 'common sense' across the whole of society. For example the anti Iraq war march did not stop that war but it ended Prime Minister Blair's fortunes.
So when millions of people in Britain voted in higher numbers in the Brexit referendum than in decades of General Elections, it was novel, exceptional, and it was to be decisive and sovereign in respect of its results. All this looked as though 'the system' had at last provided some real democracy for the ordinary people. The fresh and untainted referendum was certainly counterposed by swathes of the public to the earlier years in politics where 'the system' had only provided two main political parties that were 'both the same', which was followed by the discovery that a lot of identikit MPs stole large chunks of money for themselves. The mass parties were declining in membership and committed to the same policies and Parliament was in any case just a honey pot. The referendum looked like a complete break from all this.
Except it wasn't
Despite all the discoveries of false claims and dodgy money surrounding Britain's referendum the potential loss of its meaning and power is acutely painful in society as thousands of canvassers in England's local elections are discovering - from both ends of the argument. Those who voted to leave feel that their decision is being overturned by wretched politicians. Those that voted to remain feel that people who voted to leave were cheated and led on by wretched politicians. But in reality it was the offer of Brexit that was the real lie. Staying in the EU solves nothing for the increasingly desperate lives of millions of people whose living standards are continuing to fall, whose lack of housing and welfare is getting worse in Britain. But leaving the EU under the Tories means getting exactly the same, maybe worse - if the Tory right get their way!
This blog has argued before that the 'leaver's' vote should be upheld. But this is not an argument that 'leavers' should have the benefit of 'democracy', which many do argue, from both the left of British politics and from the right (including previous 'remainers'). Tory PM Cameron did not launch his referendum as a democratic gift to the people. He made his decision because he wanted to unify the Tory Party and solidify his own post. The big corporations and Capital want to stay in the EU and, like Cameron, their 'choice' is not about democracy either. It is entirely calculated to the nearest Euro and has nothing to do with the real needs of either the British or of the European people as a whole. The reason to leave the EU, simply put, is that it would be easier for a Corbyn government to carry out its program - having to fight against the EU's rules. That's why leaving the EU is better than remaining in the EU, and that will remain to be the case until and unless political conditions dramatically shift away from the prospect of a Labour government in a big turn to the right.
EU exit is easier for a Labour government, but it is still not decisive. What is decisive in Britain now is the unification of working class people around the possibility of what is a real and fundamental change. The serious, genuinely democratic choice now is building the votes necessary for an opening offered by Labour's proposed reforms that can drive inroads against the system that now rules Britain. Corbyn provides a real context that is democratically worth a real vote. Brexit via Cameron and now May has no real context on its own that would allow the Brexit vote to have any real content. Their empty Brexit is the ultimate abstraction. The rulers would fill its shell with whatever pleased them. Brexit on its own, whether 'yes' or 'no', is the opposite of real democracy. It does not win the vast majority anything. It does not defend the people or provide any of the real choices if it is not tied to a Corbyn led government.
If Brexit is not it, have there been any concrete, practical examples of a real democratic fight, even in a class society, which has been forced from British political system in recent times?
Yes. The 2014 Scottish referendum, which was dug out from the British government, reorganised itself into the opposite of a symbolic enterprise. It became, over the months and with the mobilisations of millions in debate and discussion, a great argument about what sort of society should be built if there were to be the chance of changing the whole Scottish nation. It was a referendum tied to an exciting context. Rich and moving, creating real fear across Britain's establishment, it had the chance of breaking up Britain into countries that would lose their echoes of Empire and create medium sized nations focused on the needs of their people. The Scottish referendum became a model of democratic decision making, despite the immense ruling class pressure.
In the end, the weight of Britain's economic heft stalled a future Scotland (and a future united Ireland, and the possible countries of England and Wales.) All who had participated knew that a possible moment of history had been lost. The British ruling class had prevailed, in part because many of the traditional Scottish Labour Party institutions had feared divisions between the working class of Scotland and the rest of Britain. This was a classic failure to understand that the international unity of the working class is not created by the arrangements desired by the capitalist order. Many on the left make the same mistake when arguing about staying in the EU. And now of course traditional Labour has diminished to a smidgen. The leading strength they once held for decades in Scotland has faded away.
'Democracy' is often used in the West as a useful abstraction, as a 'good thing', as a promise. And inevitably across the West, as the mass of the people have lived with the reality of 'democracy' that is actually offered to them, 'democracy' has become a totally passive, even marginal activity. That can include responding to a particular state's so-called 'democracy' by voting for prank Presidents or supporting playful if bitter mockery as responses to the empty promise of modern 'democracy.'.
What this proves is that the modern structure of democracy has now reached the point where it is merely a facade. Paradoxically, the bitter Brexit battle displays this most vividly. Democracy needs to be recreated, in action, by the mass of the people who need to make decisions and who must have change. In that way democracy becomes real. At the present it is just another poisonous trick which people can become desperate to destroy thus creating the real potential of long term disaster.
No comments:
Post a Comment