Harsh Kapoor - The Brexit working class counter-revolution: British lefties who are rejoicing today risk being engulfed by a right-wing firestorm
[A version of this
article is appearing in print and web editions of the Mainstream Weekly]
After 1945, war
ravaged Europe, its people economically drained, saw peace as crucial for
democracy; and the route taken was economic integration. The Treaty of Paris
was signed in 1951 to set up the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and
in 1957 the Treaty of Rome had six countries forming the European Economic
Community (EEC). It was a project of the elites to engage in creating economic
cooperation, and for social stability, and it took decades to grow into what
became the EU of today. European unity, abolition of the borders that separate
the peoples of Europe, a European Parliament where directly elected
representatives from 28 member states from all political streams from across
Europe meet and debate issues of import, are commendable gains made in the EU
experiment. These are progressive social gains. Why would any sane person or
political formation want to roll them back?
But for all its early
social democratic promise and internationalist virtues, Yes, EU’s policies over
the past decade or so have become sharply driven by an economic governance
model based on austerity and neoliberal policies (what was called monetarism in
the 1960’s). EU needs democratisation and change.
Britain joined the EEC
in 1973, but with reservations and in a half hearted manner; and even decades
on, they did not join the Eurozone, had restrictions regarding the schengen
pact, etc. Unlike many other European states, Britain has a long tradition of
Euro-scepticism.
Euro-scepticism has
been around on the left, got big with the British Conservatives, particularly
after 1988, and Thatcher led the charge; but it had its votaries in the left
already in the 1970s. The most adored figure of the Labour left in Britain,
Tony Benn, had been an opponent of the EEC (sadly he had even shared an anti-EU
platform with Enoch Powell at that time). In 1975, in the United Kingdom’s
referendum on Europe, 47.5% of Labour supporters voted to leave the EEC — at
least a third more than in the referendum of 23 June 2016 .
In 2013 David Cameron
promised Britons a referendum on whether the UK should remain within the
European Union. Euro-sceptic, right-wing United Kingdom Independence Party
(UKIP) won just a single seat in parliament in the 2014 elections, but its
influence set the Brexit vote in motion. There was a massive
campaign by the right in Britain and its simple anti EU, anti immigrant props
with a nationalist tone had an echo that dragged in a large section of Labour
and working class voters to its side. A genie of ugly nationalism got un-bottled.
On June 23, 2016 the Leave EU campaign had won the referendum.
Brexit is a triumph of
national chauvinism and is damaging to the left. We have seen a dramatic spurt
in instances of racism all over Britain. All this is shot in the arm for the
far right. Europe’s far-right
parties have hailed the UK’s vote to leave the European Union as a victory for
their own anti-immigrant and anti-EU stance and have vowed to push for similar
referendums in their own countries. Marine Le Pen of France’s far right
National Front, in an op-ed in the New York Times, described
the Brexit vote as a courageous act of the British, and said that now it’s time
for a people’s spring across Europe. Le Pen and her counterparts from far right
parties have a big resonance among sizeable sections of the labouring people
The EU has been
weakened by the fallouts of the 2007 financial crisis, and now Brexit threatens
it in a big way with ricochet effects in different parts of Europe. The EU will
be under the huge stress of being pulled apart not by any left driven idealism
of the people but by brute hyper-nationalism and inward looking politics of
fear. The right wing is far better at selling nationalism, and the left
shouldn’t be playing this game.
International capital
and the big banks that face damage will weather this storm. Trade unions will
not in any way come out strengthened by Brexit. The EU has been weakened, with
a country that was the second largest economy of Europe, contributing 15 per
cent of its overall GDP, leaving. Britain lost more money in the 48 hours after
the referendum than it ever contributed in the past decades when it was
part of the EU. The British economy has apparently shrunk to become the 6th
largest in the world, ceding its place to France which has now become the 5th
largest.
Most disturbing in all
this is the unmistakable working-class character of the Brexit vote. Like the
labour Party, the British trade union leaders have shown themselves to be out
of touch with the views of their own members. The Labour party is reeling from
the fact that voters in areas that have traditionally voted Labour swung
heavily behind Brexit. Labour Party’s leader Jeremy Corbyn (he like Tony Blair
voted against EEC referendum of 1975), a long-time Euro-sceptic, has defended
his conduct amid criticism of his lukewarm support for the remain in EU
campaign. (Weeks before the referendum a leaked memo from ‘Britain Stronger In
Europe’, a group campaigning for the UK to stay in the EU, pointed out that
some 50% of the labour party supporters didn’t know whether their party was for
Brexit or was in favour of the EU.)
o o o
EU technocrats running
EU affairs far removed from ordinary citizens is a problem, but this is true
also of technocrats in national governments and the UN. Ultra Nationalist
parties, far left groups and anti globalisation movements within Europe rub
shoulders at anti-EU campaigns for the past many years, and they share a common
repertoire.
The nationalists
groups convenient clubbing together of anti EU-ism along with anti-immigrant
propaganda. Xenophobic fear of migrants giving them better sales pitch than for
the left salesmen. Many on the left denounce racism but have hardly taken this
problem head on. Workers and union members, and the unemployed, in large parts
of Europe are racist: but unions haven’t run mass campaigns to address this.
Widespread unacknowledged everyday racism exists in Britain. Great Britain is a
“tolerant” country, Immigrants have been tolerated, not really integrated.
Britain is divided and ghettoised thanks to institutionalized multiculturalism.
These are dark times
in European politics. The backdrop for this crisis dates to the 2008 financial
meltdown that affected the world economy and the Eurozone. Across Europe the
economic crisis fuelled the rise of quick fix, ‘anti political’ and
‘anti-systemic’ movements and also of the far right while taking away the sheen
of the old established mainstream political parties, leading to loss of
influence. Nationalist and far right parties that have been on the margins have
been slowly but systematically growing across Europe. Many of these ultra
nationalist parties with xenophobic and retrograde social agendas have been
getting mainstreamed by repackaging themselves in Europe.
France’s National
Front was formed in 1972 and was on the margins, but today it has some 30% of the
national vote share. In the UK we have had many euro-sceptic and right wing
formations, the fastest growing one being UKIP, ‘Britain First’ (emanating from
British National Party and the English Defence League). Across the continent,
from Switzerland (Swiss People’s Party), Belgium (Vlaams Blok now
Vlaams Belang), the Netherlands (Party for Freedom), right down to the south in
Italy (Northern League, Tricolour Flame, New Force etc), Greece (Golden Dawn),
the far right groups have crafted a comeback. In the once famous social
democratic north from Austria (Freedom Party) to Denmark (Danish People’s
Party), Sweden (Swedish Democrats), far right parties have made huge forays. In
former socialist bloc countries from Poland (Law and Justice party) to Hungary
(Jobbik party), and Serbia (Serbian Radical Party) there is a huge
resonance of the far right. Memories of Fascism and the terrible price that
Europeans paid seem to have been set aside. However corrupted the European
Union project was about ensuring free movement of people across Europe, the
creation of the schengen and the roll back of borders was indeed a marvellous
project.
The forces of the left remained in their national cocoons and never
really built a cross border solidarity movement in the past decades. Why should
the left in the 21st century oppose European capitalist integration any more
than opposing the merger of two companies. Shouldnt they have been arguing for
ground level Europeanisation of the union federations. NO they prefer the
prison house of the nation state.
Sections of the
British Left Getting a High on Nationalism
In 2009 ‘No2EU’ a
left-wing Eurosceptic electoral alliance (Socialist party, Communist Party of
Britain and National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT)) was
formed in the UK. It participated in the 2009 European Parliament elections and
the European elections in 2014 with the party name "No2EU" It
campaigned for Britain’s withdrawal from the EU.
Like the No2EU nuts
other reckless fabulists of the British far left pushed a Left
Exit (Lexit) campaign that was led by the Socialist Workers Party — saying
that withdrawal from the European Union would strike a blow to the interests of
dominant sections of British capital, and to European elites, opening
opportunities for workers’ struggle in the United Kingdom. Similarly there was
a Labour Leave campaign from within the Labour Party campaigning for Brexit (it
has been revealed that this group was funded by right wing and Conservative
Party donors). The left-wing fight against neoliberal globalisation sits neatly
juxtaposed to the strategy of right-wing movements and makes the left allies of
Farage (UKIP), Le Pen (National Front), Wilders, et al. Large numbers of Labour
voters have voted for UKIP (something similar has been happening in France,
where large numbers of socialist and communist voters have switched to the
National Front)
A Modern Cross
Border Euro-Left
In 1972 Tom Nairn had
shown unique moral courage from the new left in critiquing dominant socialist
opinion on British entry to the Common Market and argued that the Left was
betraying its principles by siphoning discontent into nationalistic opposition
to Europeanisation… read more: http://sacw.net/article12853.html
see also
Militarism and the coming wars
