<nettime> Paul Mason: Britain's impossible futures (Le Monde diplomatique, English edition)

[Patrice Riemens <patrice@xs4all.nl>]

Orignal to:

https://mondediplo.com/2019/02/01brexit


Brexit deadlock as countdown continues
Britain’s impossible futures

The UK parliament is at an impasse, the latest vote producing a majority 
for a renegotiation of its departure from Europe that the EU cannot 
grant. Both main parties risk fracture. So does the UK.
by Paul Mason, Le Mnde diplomatique, January 29, 2019


A woman harasses Brazilian skateboarders on a London street, demanding 
they stop speaking ‘Brazilian’. The confrontation, emblematic in its 
stupidity, goes viral on Twitter on 29 January. The chief executives of 
major supermarkets, plus McDonalds and KFC, warn of significant supply 
disruptions if there is a No Deal Brexit. The government admits on 27 
January that it has contingency plans to introduce martial law to avoid 
‘death in the event of food and medical shortages’. On the night of 29 
January, Britain’s parliament votes for something it cannot enact: 
Conservatives, Ulster Unionists and a few opposed to immigration from 
the right of the Labour party combine to demand that the EU make changes 
to a deal the British government had agreed last November. EU leaders 
immediately emphasise that no eleventh-hour renegotiation is possible.

If a hostile power had scripted Brexit, this is how they would have 
written its final act. Unfortunately, the British people have scripted 
it for themselves (1).

How did we get to this pinnacle of unreality? Because the UK’s political 
class has fragmented over issues that are too fundamental to be 
contained by the party system, and because much of the ideological glue 
that held British civil society together for two generations no longer 
sticks.

For the Conservative party, the relationship with Europe has been a 
chronic psychosis. It split Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet in the 1980s, 
destabilised John Major’s government in the 1990s, then kept the party 
out of office for 13 years, crashed David Cameron’s premiership, and has 
now destroyed the credibility of almost every politician associated with 
the May administration.

The sources of Euroscepticism have changed over time. In the early 
1970s, there was still nostalgia for the days of empire. By the time of 
Margaret Thatcher’s Bruges speech in September 1988 (2), it had become a 
project to restrain the Franco-German impulse towards political union, 
while maintaining the then EEC (European Economic Community) as a 
liberalised market in which the British business class could lead a 
low-wage ‘race to the bottom’.

Thirty years on, the business class has itself changed shape. The 
globalisation of manufacturing, with the financialisation of the world, 
has produced separate business elites in Britain: a managerial class 
overseeing the locally based plants of stock-market listed companies 
such as Nissan, Honda, Airbus and BAE Systems; and a class of money 
managers, commercial lawyers and property developers who represent the 
interests of global finance and (unofficially) of corrupt oligarchic 
power.

During the crisis of neoliberalism, the second group called the shots, 
not just within the Conservative party but through, and across, the 
media. The relationship was symbolised by the £250,000 annual salary 
once paid by the owners of the anti-EU Telegraph newspaper to Boris 
Johnson, before he became May’s foreign secretary, for writing one 
column a week. After 2008, the money men began to conceive of Britain’s 
future as primarily a supplier of business, technology and financial 
services to emerging markets such as China and India, and as the 
financial manager of the world. A project of ever closer European union 
wasn’t necessary for that future.


Doctrine of ‘global reach’

However, British conservatism is never simply the sum of the intentions 
of the elite. It has also to incorporate ideas formed in the bars of 
suburban golf clubs, and in the tearooms of seaside resorts full of 
retirees. From the mid-2000s, sentiment here became hostile to the 
restraint Europe-wide regulations imposed on a low-wage, low-regulation 
capitalism, and intensely hostile to migration.

Only one underlying myth could hold together the golfers, the small-town 
van drivers and the British hedge fund guys domiciled in Dubai: the myth 
of empire. After the Conservatives took power in 2010, the place to 
study the evolution of this myth was defence policy.

Out of nowhere, and almost without scrutiny, the Conservatives 
introduced the doctrine of ‘global reach’ that same year: in addition to 
all its NATO commitments, Britain would build a ‘war-fighting division 
optimised for high intensity combat operations’ (3). Military planners 
became obsessed with the idea that, as Britain is a major importing 
country, its defence must begin with a naval presence in the Singapore 
Strait.

Since austerity had depleted the armed forces, commentators assumed 
global reach was a political conceit. Its true meaning was revealed once 
the political programme of the Conservative right emerged in the Brexit 
referendum, with the European Research Group (ERG) led by Jacob 
Rees-Mogg.

The section of the elite oriented to global finance — including managing 
the money of oligarchs via a network of offshore institutions — intends 
metaphorically to abandon Britain’s real economy, together with its ties 
to Europe, and to erase the institutional muscle memory generated 
through decades of operation as an EU member. It wants Britain’s armed 
forces to police the world, but not in order to impose favourable trade 
terms on poor countries, as in the 19th century. In this vision Britain 
would become the guarantor of globalisation in the abstract, and its 
embodiment.

One form of the fantasy is ‘CANZUK’ — a revival of a white, Christian, 
trading empire including Britain’s former settler colonies in Canada, 
New Zealand and Australia. In another form, Britain becomes an enlarged 
version of Singapore. For a Trump-supporting faction on the right, 
Britain would be a glorified airstrip for the US in a larger game of 
great power rivalry. None of it makes sense, but all of it can be pushed 
to the public, via rightwing media, as a new imperialist ideology.

As a result, neo-imperialist fantasies have filled the imagination of 
conservative-minded voters. In a poll in January, 31% favoured a No Deal 
Brexit if May’s deal were to fail in parliament: among Conservative 
voters this rose to 57%. Only around 17 out of 317 Conservative MPs were 
prepared to vote in parliament for a motion delaying Article 50 to rule 
out a catastrophic exit.

If there were already a serious liberal centrist party, capable of 
limiting the damage, those engaged in British-based business would 
switch to it en masse. Instead, the only alternative is Jeremy Corbyn’s 
Labour party.


Labour’s dilemma

Opposition to membership of the European Union has a long history inside 
Labour. The alternative economic strategy of the Labour left in the 
1980s involved capital controls, tariffs and leaving the EEC. But that 
is not primarily what is behind Corbyn’s lukewarm opposition to Brexit. 
Instead it is the moral authority of the referendum’s Leave vote in the 
working class areas Labour needs to win to gain power. Labour 
campaigners, including me, tried internationalist arguments on the 
doorstep during the 2016 campaign and found them ineffective. What 
persuaded large numbers of Leave supporters to vote Labour in 2017’s 
general election was the assurance that Corbyn would honour the 
referendum result.

This strategy of satisfying Brexit voters and trying to move on ran into 
a big problem in November 2018, when it became clear no possible form of 
Brexit was acceptable to all Brexiteers. If the Conservatives could not 
make Brexit happen, any deal that passed through parliament would have 
to rely on the votes of rebel Labour MPs.

Suddenly, a section of English Labour MPs were in stark opposition to 
the desires of their membership and voting base; this opened a crisis of 
direction within Corbynism itself. This was never a single ideology, but 
an alliance of the old, statist left and the younger generation oriented 
to social justice movements.

A polling analysis seen by this author shows that overall the electorate 
has swung against Brexit, with 55% now saying they want to remain in the 
EU. The analysis claims that if Labour were to go into a snap election 
promising to enact Brexit, it would lose, not gain, seats, and it needs 
at least 31 additional seats even to form a minority government.

According to this poll, it would lose five out of seven seats in 
Scotland, where the working class is strongly pro-EU, and up to 14 seats 
in London and the southeast, where educated, young, globally focused, 
Labour voters might desert Corbyn for the LibDems or Greens. By 
contrast, even if Labour supported Brexit, it would gain no seats at all 
in Brexit-supporting areas, where the politics of English nationalism 
and xenophobia are out-shouting traditional concerns over jobs, wages 
and public services.

The problem for Labour is that in England and Wales, Brexit had been (to 
borrow an economic term) ‘priced in’ to politics. It was assumed that 
prime minister Theresa May would deliver Brexit, Labour would vote 
against her proposal, and two-party politics as usual would be resumed. 
As this began to look impossible, Corbyn faced competing demands.

Among Labour’s members, according to this same poll, 87% are pro-Remain, 
while 65% of those who voted Labour in the last election want Remain. In 
September 2018, the membership committed the party to opposing May’s 
Brexit deal, fighting instead for a customs union plus alignment with 
the single market, triggering a general election and, if that failed, 
supporting a second referendum. But by late December, in the face of the 
party’s official position and despite the polling evidence, both left 
and centre Labour MPs had begun to rebel against this strategy.

Individual members of the Corbyn parliamentary team, including education 
spokeswoman Angela Rayner and party chair Ian Lavery, expressed concerns 
about a second referendum, claiming it could be seen as a betrayal of 
the first. This emboldened those on the traditionalist right of the 
party to contemplate voting for a version of May’s deal.

As the crisis intensified in December, divisions over the second 
referendum question became so strong within Corbyn’s inner circle that 
shadow ministers on both sides of the argument threatened resignation. 
Corbyn should have been riding high on the disarray of Theresa May, but 
instead his popularity plummeted. Just before Christmas, his approval 
rating fell to an all-time low of 19% (4).

This explains why seven Labour MPs voted with May’s Tories on 29 January 
for the fantasy renegotiation strategy, and 14 rebelled against the 
party line on delaying Article 50, helping to cancel the votes of 17 
pro-EU rebels on the Tory side.


Brexit now the only topic

To understand where Britain goes next, you have to understand how 
visceral is the plebeian passion that has been stirred up by 
parliament’s failure — in the pubs, at the school gates and on 
increasingly emotion-driven talk radio shows.

Only in November 2018 did Brexit become the key issue for the 
electorate. The realisation that May’s deal was doomed pushed the issue 
from 30% naming it as their top issue to 65% and rising (5). In the week 
May lost the vote on her original deal in parliament (15 January), that 
figure rocketed to 86%: Brits were talking about Brexit and almost 
nothing else (6). Simultaneously, the public became aware that after 
years of discussion, Brexit might at last be about to happen, and the 
government might irremediably split while still in office; an 
anti-politics mood favouring neither party seemed to be growing.

In a working-class community, if Brexit is a minor issue, then the far 
right has very little leverage to set the agenda. If 86% consider it the 
number one issue, and think mainstream politicians have messed it up, 
there is a big opening for rightwing populism. Fear of this has been a 
leading driver of compromise with Brexit among Labour MPs on the right 
and left.

Though the left is active and visible in working-class communities where 
pro-Brexit sentiment is high, it has neither the appetite nor the 
resources for a head-to-head fight with a far-right movement. As one 
activist in the English Midlands told me, ‘people come into the Labour 
party to stop the closure of their local maternity ward, not to be 
chased down the street by fascists in MAGA hats, claiming they are 
traitors.’

That is how the unstated fear of a far-right rebellion has begun subtly 
to shape the actions of both main parties, and is being talked up by 
some on the right as a threat, though it is not yet a reality and with 
luck may not happen.


The left at a crossroads

By the end of February it is likely that May’s attempt to renegotiate 
Brexit will fail, stockpiling of food and medicines will increase, and 
sterling and growth will fall sharply. In an atmosphere of crisis, May’s 
bluff will be called. It is unlikely that all her cabinet members would 
remain in office if she sets her sights towards the finishing line of a 
No Deal Brexit.

To prevent No Deal, the cabinet is going the have to pull the plug on 
Article 50, or on May herself. For either May or her replacement, the 
option then would be to embrace Labour’s proposal of a customs union 
plus single market alignment, to get Brexit through with Labour votes. 
That would split British conservatism strategically, probably for 
decades.

Behind all the hashtags, anger and parliamentary manoeuvring is the 
existential crisis of a ruling class. Britain is ruled by a super-rich 
elite with scant material interest in operations in the UK. If necessary 
it will form an alliance with people in poor, white, low-skilled 
communities to disrupt the multilateral order.

This ‘alliance of elite and mob’, which Hannah Arendt recognised as the 
material basis of fascism (7), does not need to become fascist. It only 
needs to defeat and demoralise the forces of globalism and social 
liberalism, imposing a decade of uncertainty. What this alliance wants 
is best described as ‘Thatcherism in one country’, a form of nationalist 
neoliberalism. If it succeeds, in the coming decade there will be an 
acrimonious breakup of the UK, with Scotland seeking a second 
independence referendum, while resurgent English nationalists fight 
rhetorical wars with the EU, from which it will take its rules.

The left is at a crossroads. Corbynism was always an alliance of two 
main social groups: urban, educated, networked youth and the survivors 
of the class struggles of the 1980s. As one of those survivors, I know 
they include many who have fought to commit the party to a second 
referendum and to Remain. But their organic link to the communities in 
thrall to English nationalism has blinded them to the danger the Corbyn 
project faces. The danger is that a new centrist party will emerge, 
committed to rejoining the EU, and that a section of Labour voters will 
go with it. And that Corbyn will look like ‘just another politician’ who 
has triangulated between his own principles and the prejudices of 
voters.

The tragedy is that Labour went into this with a clear strategy, 
endorsed unanimously by its membership through a conference vote. But on 
the crucial day of 29 January, Labour’s parliamentary group included — 
not for the first time in history — too few with the courage to stand by 
what the membership wanted.

It is still possible that parliamentary deadlock will produce a 
government collapse and a second referendum; 60% of voters say they want 
it in that case, and 55% say they would vote Remain. That outcome would 
destroy the project of the neo-Thatcherites forever, which is why they 
are risking economic collapse to avoid it. Those are the stakes.

(Paul Mason is a writer and journalist. His forthcoming book Clear 
Bright Future: a radical defence of the human being will be published by 
Allen Lane in May 2019.)


----------
Notes

(1) Read Paul Mason, ‘UK: lost, divided, and alone’ and ‘Bad news from 
Newport’, Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, July 2016 and October 
2018.

(2) See ‘How Thatcher’s Bruges speech put Britain on the road to 
Brexit’, Financial Times, 31 August 2018.

(3) ‘A Secure and Prosperous United Kingdom’, National Security Strategy 
and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015, London, November 2015.

(4) Wikipedia Leadership Approval Opinion Polling, updated on 27 January 
2019.

(5) See Paul Mason, ‘A Country in a critical situation’, New Statesman, 
London, 21 November 2018.

(6) Populus poll, January 2019.

(7) See Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Schocken Books, 
1951.

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