The Euro vote, Labour and Boris Johnson.

The biggest problem for the British Labour Party is not Boris Johnson nor Labour's poor results in the recent local council elections and now in the EU parliament vote, it is the success of the German Greens.

The EU elections (traditionally a democratic sideline in most of the EU) are now spinning Europe - and the UK.  They are already wiping out the decaying Syriza, the self-styled left government in Greece, as it decides it has to go for a suicidal general election. The two major parties that ran the EU Parliament since its origin in 1979 no longer have the majority. Marie (the pen), a proto fascist, beat Macron in France. (This particular 'white knight of the future' has already fallen off his horse in France. Now he's also blown his main international project. And, with Macron on the skids the Blairite hopes for the both the UK and the EU have also faded away.) Italy, France, Poland, Hungary and Britain are now filling the majority of their Euro seats with mini Trumpites. Luckily, the British MEP Trumps are too dumb to realise that they are on the same side as the right and extreme right in the EU parliament. Together, if Farage could remove his jingoistic eye pads from his Brexit eyes, the new right have the numbers to take the leadership of the EU parliament, the only vaguely democratic part of the EU! 

It was German voters (and partially the revival of social democracy in Spain and Portugal) that halted the march of the of the hard right in Europe. And it was the German Greens in particular who soaked up the disillusionment created by Merkle's coalition, instead of the expected rise of the Alternative for Germany. Among other things, this was a dramatic shift away from the anti-immigrant upsurge in a key part of the continent. (The UK's Farage echos this when he tells us that his Brexit Party has nothing to do with poisonous immigration - which is now old news. The issue now is democracy!) The German Green's 20% plus, formed a barrier which held back the steady advance of Germany's new fascists to 11% (though the AdF still had more than double the votes of the left party, Die Link.) 

Returning to political life in Britain, desperate efforts are being made across the media and among many would-be Labour supporters for the Labour leadership to stop their complex set of balletic steps to Brexit and settle for a new referendum vote. After all, there was a significant majority of 'remainer' support in the British EU vote, despite the Brexit Party's win. 

The Tory half-baked government maybe spinning but once again, (see Blog May 24) the confusion in Britain, in the British Parliament and in the Labour Party, is clearing.

The British Tory party is now coalescing around Boris Johnson. First there is an enormous pressure for all Tory MPs to support 'No Deal' if the EU do not make major (post Teresa May) concessions. In fact, 'No Deal' has become the watchword of success in the politics of Brexit.  Second, and more important to Britain's elite and many anxious Tory MPs, nobody else from the Tories except Boris has a chance of stopping Corbyn's Labour. (The last 25 polls in Britain on the outcome of a possible general election put Labour in the lead.) One of the 9 (and growing) Tory candidates for Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary Phil Hammond, states categorically that an early general election 'would be a disaster for the Tories.'

All this shows that the political initiative, at least in England, now firmly rests with Corbyn's Labour Party. But things have changed. What should Labour do now?

Over the last two years the Corbyn leadership has insistently argued for a General Election in Britain as the main instrument to resolve the overall direction of the country - part of which would have been involved with, but not become dominated by - Brexit. And, if Labour had been successful, the types of Brexit might have been calmly and fairly resolved in the context of the broad reforms carried out from the party's manifesto. Instead, in those two years, the growing Tory leadership's uncertainty about Brexit, whether it was hard or soft, could there be a deal or no deal - led by a Prime Minister without any strategic grip or base in her party - has ended up creating two new dangerous disasters. First, Brexit itself has become the synonym for all government activity and policy. Never mind the precipitous decline for millions. Second, UKIP's racist party, with its 4 million voters, who had retreated and dissolved its own leadership by 2017, has now been recreated, by the Tory government's shambles, in the form of the Brexit party.

The Tory projection of its own crisis over Europe onto large swathes of the British population will not now simply dissolve in thin air. And neither will the second UKIP. The Corbyn led Labour leadership now need to break the momentum of this originally second rate turmoil and thereby re-instate the priority of the giant reforms desperately needed by the British people who took Labour to the brink of Government in 2017. But how?

By accepting that Brexit can now be a major problem for the British people - should the 'Brexit believers' decide that they can run British capitalism as a tax haven with 'no deal'. Then Labour should say that the Tories have now brought us very close to that very precipice. If Boris (or a mini Boris) is selected by the Tory Party that will mean all forces opposing Boris, the Tories (and the Brexit Party) have to fight together with the Labour Party for another vote. The vote might contain various options including remain in the EU, devise a close partnership with the EU outside its management, remove all links with the EU. If the Tories back Boris and the Brexit Party then the response has to be crystal clear. And this cannot be subordinate to the call for a General Election, but alongside it.

In the end Brexit (outwith its extreme versions) is not decisive for the future of the British people. And that is why making concessions in either a leave or remain direction in principle is less important than Britain's future government and the implementation of its plans. While there are definitely better and worse outcomes and the different options are not neutral regarding membership of the EU, because Brexit is less important it is therefore possible to amend a position for or against. (And it would be, for example, a wholly negative abstraction to use the Tory referendum to pretend that somehow some sort of genuine democracy was at stake here.) Nevertheless, despite these deeper realities, extreme Brexit is now immediate and Brexit in general has undoubtedly conquered the concerns and understanding of political choices in the population at large - as the Tory Party floods its European contradictions across the land they have fed the soil. This has to be faced now in order to move beyond it.

And the German Greens? If Labour now needs to punch through the Brexit wall it will then need to rally the forces that started to build around the 2017 General Election. The big majority of youth were the bedrock for Corbyn's Labour - and remain so according to social polls. But, the youth were also largely 'remainers.' And it has taken a long time for Labour to recognise their views on Brexit. There is little danger that the LibDems have purchase with Labour's young base. But the new strengths of the Greens, created by the big movements of youth to defend the planet ... that is a much larger question. Whether Europe's official Green Parties are at the centre of, or even really connected to the new climate movement's anti-system thinking is another question, and will be looked at in the next Blog.  

May Day for Brexit and Britain

British Prime Minister May has (finally) accepted her much deserved fate. Besides the Brexit folly she was completely unable (unwilling?) to implement her other pledges after she took office in 2016. (Listening to her valedictory resignation speech was cringing.) Personal ambition was her real motor. May had no strategic aims. Her secret and tricky manoeuvres all fell flat. She was unable to connect with ordinary people. She will hopefully disappear off the political landscape as soon as possible.

But it would be a mistake to see May's collapse as the unavoidable intransigence of a hung parliament  - a condition that could certainly recur under a new Tory Prime Minister, according to most British political correspondents. Or to point to Farage's magic in capturing swathes of Tory Party members in the Euro elections, as the substantial reason to swap the Tories' leader in Parliament. May's dismissal is not just the product of the big, white, public school men, under pressure from the ancient and dwindling cadre of the Tory Party. May's failure (over Brexit) is ultimately the pressure of a ruling class, channelled through all parts of the relevant economic institutions, cliques, top universities, inns of court, Mayfair clubs and the rest, focussed on the Tory Party in Parliament. May inherited Cameron's ridiculous attempt to 'heal' the Tories (and place himself in the pantheon of Tory leaders). But Thatcher would not have agreed a referendum any more than she would have left the EU - despite all her jingoistic vitriol. She knew who ruled; who it was that could be called 'one of us.' 

Now May has gone, from a (ruling) class perspective the new leadership of the Tory Party has not one but two priorities. And the first is the destruction of Corbyn's Labour Party. Removing Brexit comes a serious second. 

A victory for the Labour Party based on Corbyn's 2017 Manifesto would be a disaster, a bigger disaster for the ruling class than Brexit. Why? The main Labour proposals are relatively mild in comparison, for example, of the 1945 reforms. But the reason for the ruling classes' fear is the direction of Corbyn's reforms, and the implication of their movement, in a society driving for radical change. It is the very opposite to the direction being taken by any of the major capitalist countries in the world, both economically and politically, including those led by new right wing demagogues. And it is these facts that will clarify what happens next in the British Parliament. 

Boris Johnston has always held himself aloof from the European Research Group - the faction that wants a 'No Deal' Brexit. Yet he apparently supports 'No Deal'. No he doesn't. Boris supports himself. When he ran London as the Mayor, he supported 'free movement' from the EU. He praised the EU. He fitted himself in to a Labour city that is run by the the Banks and by wealth management. More importantly, much more importantly, the British ruling elites believe that Boris would beat Corbyn's Labour Party. Indeed, only Boris, who, in his Churchilian way remained on the margins, deliberately, could recompose the wreckage of years of Tory infighting - around himself. Support me or you will be defeated! 

The most likely angle that Boris will take if he wins the Tory leadership is that only an early election can shift the answer to Brexit. He will face Corbyn's Labour Party's and call for a general election. If he were to win, and he has built himself as a dynamic outsider separate from the Westminster 'traitors', after a supposed victory he could do almost anything he liked.

He has two immediate options. He might try to rewind Brexit with new trade arrangements - after shouting his lack of fear of 'no deal'. Alternatively, he could do a Trump and turn a massive income tax cut in Britain turning the country in the direction of the largest cash haven in the world. (The City of London is halfway there.)

This is the political crunch. Boris Johnston is odds-on to win the Tory leadership. He will fight Corbyn's Labour Party; before Brexit if he can.  And he will fight with the fullest support of all the strength and force that a ruling class can provide. He will prevaricate on Brexit while shouting the noisiest bravado. He intends to lead a a big country. He will do whatever is necessary. Brexit, delay, no Brexit, return to the EU, whatever. He has other options. The Tories, mark-Cameron and May, are dying. His real barrier is Corbyn. And that's the fight which is now starting.   

EU Parliament on attack.

On May 23 Britain and the rest of the EU will vote for members of the European Parliament. Normally the EU parliamentary elections have meant very little to the bulk of the UK electorate. But Brexit now smothers all debate in Britain. New parties have formed, one around leaving the EU and another around remaining in the EU (refusing to join up with the other two 'remainer' parties). The EU parliament vote in Britain is therefore likely to become another surrogate for the Brexit argument. And a larger vote in the EU elections than normal in Britain could easily occur. Up to now most commentators believe that Britain's new 'Brexit Party', led by Nigel Farage, will win a majority of seats (thereby strengthening their demand that the British Parliament accept an immediate exit from the EU.)

So this time the European elections are likely to have a bigger impact on Britain's politics than usual. But half the story of that impact has not yet been told. The insular and chauvinist view that predominates the great majority of Britain's media in relation to the EU means that critical aspects of the coming election have so far been almost entirely missed. (One exception was the British 'Observer' newspaper on May 13, which offered a summary of most of Europe's voting intentions - available from various news sites, like Politico.)

Going through the facts of the EU election it is important to understand that immigration (or the stopping of it) is the main issue for most EU member countries and their voters. Immigration, followed by Terrorism are the two top concerns for EU voters. Also, for the first time in EU elections, all of the polls in EU countries show that the main parties that have led the EU parliament up to now, the European Peoples Parties and the Socialists and Democrats, will lose their historic domination of the EU parliament, to be replaced by the right and extreme-right parties. Polls (Politico's European summary) suggests that the traditional and mainstream parties of Europe will win 44% of the European parliamentary seats out of the 705 available. More concerning for those traditional EU leadership parties, is the fact that they lead in only two of the ten most populous EU countries. It is generally conceded that the right and extreme right will win the EU parliament by about one hundred and twenty seats.

In the polls that examine the view of EU members regarding the quality of their own country's democracy and that of the EU, 44% of French voters are unhappy with their own democracy and 47% are unhappy with that of the EU. (In Germany 26% are unhappy with their own democracy and 41% with that of the EU.) In Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria and six other countries, voters believe the EU democracy is better than that of their own country. This in part accounts for the fact that while right and extreme-right parties are dominating voting expectations this is not the same as in the UK. Britain, or mainly England has the Brexit Party, an extreme-right party, which is totally opposed to the EU. Most right and extreme-right parties in the EU currently support EU membership - and are seeking, in due course, to 'win' the leadership of the EU.

There are exceptions to this trend. More traditional far-right parties, like the previously named National Front, now National Rally, in France, are still flirting with versions of Frexit. But generally rightist parties in the EU seek leadership of the EU rather than its dis-aggregation - for now. Estimates suggest that general pro EU MEPs will number around 448 while MEPs hostile to, or just marginally critical of, the EU, will number only 250 in total. Of course that might shift if the new EU right does not win its goals for immigration, drastic reductions of human rights including labour rights and the dismissal of climate change. (About 82% of EU, 80% German and virtually all Polish coal power plants do not comply with a new EU regulation on industry air pollution emissions standards. The Polish government plans to expand its coal generation at least through to 2050.) But for now, Farage's Brexit Party is in a small minority in Europe's right wing when it comes to european unity.

The consequences of this drastic shift to the right in the EU parliament could be considerable in the UK but will take time to be processed.

The new reality of the EU - with its most directly 'democratic' component locked into a right and extreme right direction - will first change some of the credibility of British 'remainer' parties and movements in respect of their promotion of the EU as 'liberal' with a small 'L'. It turns out that Farage's Brexit party, and his likely success, will be the closest representation of the EU's political direction in Britain except, due to super-chauvinism in their case, it will not be part of it!

In 2016 when the Brexit referendum was held in Britain nearly 4 million had voted for a rancid and racist UKIP in the General Election. It followed that the racist swell in Britain's society had to be countered and those who saw that plague as more critical than whether or not Britain was in the EU as such, called for a vote in favour of the EU to stem the rightist tide; including this blog. Today there is a solid chance of a genuine left government in Britain. Indeed, that single fact has already forced Farage to say that immigration to Britain is no longer the main issue! And, meanwhile, it is the EU that is now about to wave the racist banner, from the EU parliament no less.

All this implies two, critical facts for the left in Britain today (and after May 23.) First, the EU was never anything but a machine designed to defend, at all costs, big capital based in Europe's larger countries. And second, one of its main institutions will shortly be going into battle to massively increase the Continent's racism as its version of a challenge to globalisation. The idea that EU represented any sort of moral, political, economic or social safeguard for European citizens is again to be tested to destruction. (The EU's 'wall' against immigrants from the African and Middle Eastern world, made tougher by the Lisbon Treaty, was already the moral compass provided for Trump's actual wall against Latin America.)

Today, the biggest question in Britain is whether or not a Corbyn-led government is established soon. But yet again it is a phantom question that is used to replace the main issue. For sure it is marginally better if a soft Brexit is agreed to prevent EU rules playing a part in the efforts that big-capital will make to mow down Corbyn's economic reforms. And the latest EU racism can quickly be substituted for the UKIP version if needed by the right in Britain. But frankly, it matters little whether a soft Brexit or remaining in the EU is chosen. For example youth support for Corbyn's Labour might be enhanced by a second vote. The pressing goal now must be to make an end of the Brexit parody altogether, clearing the way for a government that will begin to address the dismal decline for most people in British society.      

Brexit and democracy

Both sides of the Brexit argument in Britain insist that their view is the democratic view. But what is 'the democratic view'? For example, although the polls that show a small lead in favour of remaining in the EU, it turns out many people who initially voted to remain in the EU are now reported in the media as troubled by any idea that there should be a second vote over Brexit. The reason for this, at least in the discussions on the doorstep, when party canvassers have been trying to win votes in the local Council elections, is explicitly that a second vote would be anti-democratic.

Yet those seeking a second vote on Brexit also present two, apparently inescapable, democratic reasons why a new vote should happen. First, now that Britons face the reality of 'the deal' needed to get out of the EU, they are able to decide the reality of Brexit. This is a reality that was unavailable in the previous contention over the first referendum where all sorts of notions were presented to the public without any evidence. The second vote would therefore be more democratic than the first.

Second; the democratic weakness of the referendum campaign itself was a barrier to younger voters. The emphasis of the referendum campaign did not relate to younger people (who overwhelmingly, opposed leaving the EU but voted much less than older voters). Instead the de-facto character of the referendum campaign focused on those older voters with their dislike of a failing political class and their fear of the decline of social resources, underpinned by the impact of racist propaganda. This, according to those who want a second vote, undermined the legitimacy of the first vote because those who would be most effected by its result were least present in the traditional and essentially Tory led debate (on both sides). 

How can these 'democratic' arguments be decided against each other? Whose 'democracy' is biggest? And, more concretely, if there were a second referendum (which most polls suggest would produce a close result either way), what would be resolved? To understand this apparent conundrum it is necessary to take a step back. 

What is the true case for democracy in Britain today? It surely starts from the basic fact that Britain's democracy is, and has been for decades, a miserable thing. 'Fake news' some might call it. 

The Liberal Democrat Party managed to launch their assault designed to widen Britain's democracy from their long-standing platform of alternative voting systems. In 2011 this perfectly sensible proposal was voted on and 32% of the voters voted 'yes'. 13 million plus voters voted 'no.' The vote showed that whatever was the malaise in British politics it could not be dealt with via a new voting system - according to a vast majority of Britons - whatever its abstract and theoretical advantages. It was more the irrelevance of the issue than its errors as the UK strode into its first year of austerity that doomed its impact. 

Britain has proportionally the largest Parliament in the world. The largest part of Britain's largest Parliament is the House of Lords. 782 people play a major part in Britain's laws and none of them are voted in by anybody. Institutionally, Britain maintains, finances and allows a vast carbuncle that crushes whatever little squeak of democracy that might emerge from the aptly named 'lower house.' And yet the entire removal of the 'Lords' and their playground and their replacement by a voted Senate or a Federal House to represent the countries of the UK would not determine the critical question of Britain's democracy - however worthy such a step might be in its own right.

The absence of Britain's democracy does not lie in the voting system, although voting reform could become essential. Neither is it the removal of the 782 jokers who feed off their £300 a day expenses - although their removal would be more than a vital piece of surgery. It is something more basic. The bit of Parliament that British people can vote for do not have any power over the country's wealth or its power. Worse; it is a decision that the Members of Parliament and their Parties have made - for decades. Parliament has accepted the 'free market', the tax havens, the 'freedom' of the City of London. On and on it rolls. And that is the reason why Britain's democracy fails. And that is why millions smell something very fishy about the the political class that live there.   

While Briton's are fighting over Brexit a much greater issue has emerged that puts Brexit in its proper place. There is now a battle, led by the current Labour Party leadership, to win a government that will at least begin to reach the owners of wealth and the leaders with power and take some of their assets away - in the name of the rest of the people. If Corbyn's Labour Government emerges, Parliament will begin to face, and hopefully face down, the non elected, normally unreachable parts of society that now drive the engine of Britain's declining society. And that is the broadest and widest expansion of democracy that has been seen since 1945. 

And the Brexit vote? It is an important but secondary issue in relation to Britain's democratic future. The main concern is surely the political recomposition of the young, the old, the white collar workers and the workers without rights, the cities and the towns, the homeless and all those on the edge. Whatever the Brexit vote, the new democracy will have to bust through all the main EU economic rules. And that will be the best possible connection with Europe.