As the 'baked in the oven' Brexit pie appears to have collapsed, it is time to get to grips with the emotional beliefs of those who have accepted Brexit at all costs; if you like as a national necessity. Ex Chancellor and expelled Tory MP Kenneth Clarke said on the 10th of December that he accepted Brexit now, but that a no-deal would be a suicidal decision. He seemed incapable of finding any rational basis for such a step. Of course there are plenty of Brexiteers still cuddling the notion that they are being hood-winked by 'project fear'. They simply do not believe that things will get worse. Others, especially several cynics in the Tory Cabinet, including PM Boris, will use the economic result of the Corona virus to hide the consequences of 'no-deal' or an extended bad deal. They, and the banks and economists, know that a no-deal Brexit would be even worse for British capitalism. But there remains millions of mainly white working class English people, in the Midlands, the North East and across a thousand towns and villages, who have decided that whatever else might be said, Brexit for them has summed up their first success, as opposed to decades of their rejected culture.
On the other hand, in the last 20 years or so the media, the universities, politics, the theatres and parliament - all of the apparent structures that look like the interests of a ruling and upper middle-class culture - have been playing with their 'culture wars!' How did that come about? What does it mean?
Starting from the working class, the destruction of trade unions and traditional work from the 1980s, thereby the reducing living standards, has led to the deterioration of the working classes' in all parts of life. Stemming first politically from Ronald Reagan's Presidency in the US and Thatcher's Prime Ministership in the UK, the self-confidence and the coherent history of working class people was smashed in the Anglo-Saxon West. The sense of purpose and immense historical achievements of the working class were thereby largely lost. A whole majority class in the US and UK appeared to dissolve.
What was left? In the UK a core of trade unions has evolved over years and gradually radicalised but they are as yet unable to lead a social class, a class that as a whole is now largely detached from unions. In desperation, many English working class families began to look back to the 2nd World War as the only inspirational motif around which they might understand their own place in society. The actual and long gone millions who fought in WW2 did not see themselves as heroes. But the War period became a prevailing fantasy for the lost sons and daughters and the grandsons and grand daughters that swallowed a dream of a working class success in mid 20th century life, tied to the success of a 'national' Britain. In the US, the social gaps had a different evolution culturally, which was filled with criminality, with immense drug use and with hostile detachment from politics in general. (There are some parallels across Britain, at least in terms of the cultural use of drugs, in the West of Scotland for example.)
Politics does not allow permanent gaps. In both the US and the UK a numb irritation surfaced against sectors of working and middle class society that appeared to have achieved successes - or at least some sort of recognition. In the UK the monetisation of housing courtesy of Thatcher, became one avenue of advance at a cost of millions who have to rent. This was, in reality, the only means by which some of the working class might succeed. And, gradually, this and other sectors of the working class were dissembled and defined by the new, self-employed ways.
Promoted by upper-middle class liberal sectors that dominated the media and defined poverty and oppression in terms of sectoral groups and minorities of society, led to the working class, the largest collective socio-economic part of society, being broken up, not only politically and socially but also culturally. Parts of the women's movement for equality for example, or particular upsurges by black movements against oppression, appeared to be promoted primarily by liberal authorities, which were often presented as against the working class. Liberal ideas peaked in the Blair era. They were used deliberately to determine significant bits of oppression as a worthy improvement in society so long as they maintained the opposite of any general working class resistance. In this period Thatcher's anti-union laws, the privatisation of health, 'freedom' for banks and the start of widespread casual employment were all supported along with the acceptance of the police's institutional racism.
Also emerging simultaneously were new political forces that deliberately began to try and mobilise white working class people. These forces used the social, liberal 'causes' negatively. Specific challenges by black people, women, gay and gender movements were poisoned; described as the choices of the middle and upper classes. The government and liberal initiatives had become, for many, the symbol of the weakness and marginality of the working class. In the absence of their own history, the rights that had been won, the causes that had been fought, the white working class instead saw specific individuals, promoted and deliberately coupled with the upper middle class's desires, as liberals who wore their cultural badges of honour. Inevitably raw racism surfaced as the response to these 'liberal successes'. The new politics was gathering a revolt in the remains of the traditional white working class against what should have been a common cause. The definition of the referendum for Brexit was thereby created, against enemies who appeared to be part of the cosmopolitan culture and were supported by the predominant, higher classes' in Britain.
In the US, the mobilisation by Trump of large parts of the smashed-up, working class, has been used to shift liberal capitalism into a para-nationalism. Huge resources of big capital have, momentarily, stopped that flow. But with Biden's victory, there is not yet the slightest opening of any independent working class America.
While the Biden 'success' means nothing yet for the American working class, with the US Civil War still be resolved, there has, on the other hand, been a substantial shift in the English working class's view since 2016 that supported Brexit. The shift in the Brexit argument has evolved in a definite class direction. The political views of mainly working class Brexiteers moved away from their initial, racist, response to the Brexit referendum, and has shifted its priorities to the desperately required issue of democratic rights. In the course of this development, 'immigration' has been reduced to the third most important issue in the polls that study support for Brexit. And democratic rights, attached to the severe contempt of the current political leadership, has grown into the first issue. Racism remains - in all classes. But it has stopped being waved as the main flag by the white working class regarding Brexit. In fact an opening for a newly reconstructed English working class is tentatively emerging.
It is perhaps not surprising that a society-wide crisis, that has to involve the testing of politics, economics and of the culture of social classes, opened up with the pandemic Corona virus. As with great movements in the past, new definitions of society are created against the experience of a fragile status quo. There is a large list with large events that can and will be studied, torn down, supported or recreated. Right at the front in Britain is the NHS (and associated carers.). Most significantly, the NHS is mainly a multi-racist, low paid, overwhelmingly female, proletarian, institution. It came to the fore with Corona virus. Even the Tory government desperately praised the NHS denying their obvious future, in monetising health.
The real shift of consequence regarding the NHS and the care workers is that it was built by working class decision; it was praised to the hilt by the working class in the main (anti-Brexit) cities and in the towns in the Midland and the North. It belongs to the working class, collectively, more than any Tory Minister or modern Labour would-be. The working class has saved the country. A part of the working class, led by health and care, followed by teachers and transport workers, risked their lives for others. PM Boris Johnson became fitter than a 'butcher's dog' after Corona and Trump 'rose again' following his multiple wealth and care. But the heroes are the workers. And millions know it.
This is the potential new working class history in the UK. Its new collective culture. And from this new working class history comes the need for the class that built this amazing moment, first to defend the NHS and carers against moneymaking and second, to use this moment, this working class victory, as the momentum for a politics and economy.
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