Revisiting Brexit and Corbynism

While we're on the subject of marking Brexit's five year anniversary, an interesting story appeared in The Times on Friday night. We learn that the self-proclaimed genius of Brexit, Dominic Cummings, had a line into Jeremy Corbyn's inner circle during the first half of 2019 - when the UK's exit from the European Union was in the balance. Contacting former Corbyn spox Matt Zarb-Cousin, Cummings went out for dinner with him and James Schneider, then in the leader's office, and laid out Labour's path to victory. I.e. Rescue Theresa May's Brexit deal by whipping the PLP in favour of it, and sit back and watch the fireworks as the hardcore remainers in Labour - who were mostly opposed to Corbyn's leadership - deflated and the Tories irredeemably split for years to come. As we know, this was not to be. May was forced to resign, Boris Johnson became Prime Minister under the slogan "Get Brexit Done", and he won a crushing victory on that basis.

The piece argues that Cummings had seen the focus group data for the Midlands and what trouble Labour were storing up for themselves if they refused to go along with Brexit. But, by the same token, Get Brexit Done voters would look afresh at Corbyn and support Labour on that basis. Was this is a missed opportunity? I don't think so.

The problem was that by this point - early 2019 - Labour was split on Brexit and had become entrenched. The big mistake took place two years earlier when Corbyn was basking in the glow of Labour's unexpected surge in the polls and the torpedoing of May's Commons majority. That was the moment for not just getting through mandatory reselection for all Labour MPs and making the left's revolution permanent in the party's structures, but to also consolidate the position around leaving the European Union. Making it clear this was the line to be held, was part of why Labour performed so well in the election, and that the party would be developing its own negotiating position on the basis of the kind of Brexit deal that was least damaging. And, crucially, our class wouldn't pick up the bill for Dave's folly. After 2017's conference season, and particularly following the Skripal poisonings in early 2018, sections of the Labour right latched on to the second referendum position as a means of undermining Corbyn's leadership and winning back control of the party.

This isn't to say everyone who took this position were so motivated. At the time, it was obvious to some that the second referendum campaigns were not primarily motivated by campaigning for a second referendum. The vast majority of those turning up to the huge pro-EU marches were entirely genuine in their desires, which in the main was a mix of liberal internationalism and well-founded fears for the economic and political consequences of leaving. The problem was that not only was the majority of Labour's membership aligned with these views, so was the bulk of the party's base. There was a tension then between about two-thirds of Labour's constituency, and the position of the leadership which remained signed up to seeing Brexit done. It would have been remiss in light of the Labour right's eternal quest against the left not to have employed this to drive a wedge between the leadership on the one hand, and the membership and its support in the country on the other.

This is something few if any Labour's mid-late 2019 opponents of the second referendum appreciate, unfortunately. The EU elections that the UK had to take part in that summer annihilated the Tories, but dealt Labour a comprehensive drubbing too. Its constituency was prised apart by the Liberal Democrats and Greens on the one hand, and to the Brexit Party on the other. The last hurt the Tories the most, and so when Johnson came to office his strategy was clear. Champion the ending of the political paralysis by sorting Brexit once and for all, and he set about demonstrating his single-mindedness of purpose. Labour needed to bring its coalition together too, but theirs was a more difficult task. The hard remain positioning of the Lib Dems and Greens and firmed up enough support that were never going to vote for any party that kept Brexit on the table. But more numerous than this relative sliver were Labour leavers and who, as we saw, punished their party in significant numbers by either voting Tory or the Brexit Party - letting some Tories sneak through the middle.

The Labour leadership's difficulty was that if by this stage they had taken Cummings's advice, a much greater catastrophe would likely have been in the offing. Yes, sure, the Labour leavers by and large might have stayed on board. But with Brexit through, why would the Tories have split? We saw Johnson easily dispose of his remain-supporting back benchers prior to the election, and there's little suggesting they would have been in a stronger position had Labour whipped the PLP to support May's deal. No, it was much more likely that Labour would have split. More MPs would have walked out of the parliamentary party, finding succour with Change UK (remember them?) or the Lib Dems. But even more damaging would have been a likely mass desertion of Labour's support. The battlelines were drawn by 2019. Labour could only choose a second referendum or Brexit and all the consequences that flowed from that. Despite Corbyn's best efforts, there was no third way.

Returning to that dinner, what Cummings was pointing to on the menu was not salvation and victory, but the sort of ruin Labour experienced in Scotland in 2015. A terrible gutting defeat that might have put the party's existence as the Tories' primary competitor in jeopardy, and rejuvenated the Lib Dems far beyond the renaissance they enjoyed last year. In the end, because of the way politics played out between the summer of 2017 and the winter of 2019, the terrible result inflicted on Labour was, in all likelihood, the least worst outcome.

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New Left Media February 2025

February is here! And would you Adam and Eve it, enough new left media projects have made themselves known to me to warrant another update. Keep them coming! As ever, their featuring here doesn't necessarily mean an endorsement of content. Just in case you were wondering.

1. In Solidarity (Podcast) (Bluesky)

2. The Left Lane (Blog)

3. The Good Fight (Blog) (Bluesky)

4. What Can We Do? (Blog) (Bluesky)

If you know of any new(ish) blogs, podcasts, channels, Facebook pages, resources, spin offs from existing projects, campaign websites or whatever that haven't featured before then drop me a line via the comments, email, Bluesky, Facebook, or Twitter. Please note I'm looking for new media that has started within the last 12 months, give or take. The round up appears hereabouts when there are enough new entrants to justify a post!

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Five Most Popular Posts in January

January is now history, and the world has survived the first fortnight of Donald Trump's second presidency. So what were the items that excited and delighted the internet-travelling public who gave this site their patronage?

1. The Class Politics of Reform
2. Donald Trump's Expansionist Threats
3. The Tories' Terrible Truth
4. Bullshit and Bravado
5. Hyping Farage

Top of this month's heap was our friend Nigel Farage or, to b more precise, a reflection on where the company he owns sits in the web of Britain's class relationships. Reform is considered from the standpoint of the ruling class, and we ask whether it's the working class party a cottage industry of experts and commentators have asserted it is. The TL;DR answer is no. Coming in second is the tangerine terror across the sea and his promise to expand American territory. I.e. the threats issued particularly toward Denmark/Greenland and Panama. In third place are the travails of the Conservative Party in light of Kemi Badenoch's speech where she conceded that her party let the electorate down. Their problems are a bit more involved than an episodic lack of trust, I'd wager, and it appears the new Tory leader has scant awareness of the hole her party is in. Coming in fourth was Trump again, who will probably become a fixture of these round ups for the next four years. This was on the boosterism that occasioned his inauguration. And lastly, it's Farage again. This time on the "left wing" turn Reform has made to scoop up Labour voters, and the over-hyping of this threat by people who know better but do so for their own political reasons.

This time three (count 'em) posts deserve a second chance, so let's line them up. There is looking at AI in the context of contemporary formations of capitalist exploitation. What a cheery topic. There's last night's missive marking the five years since Brexit. Again, with the shape of this country's class relations in sharp focus. And lastly, I only had the wherewithal to write one piece on science fiction last month so here it is, an appreciation of Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity.

What might February bring? More Trump outrages, certainly. That's nailed on. Hopefully some skiffy and a social theory book review. Westminster's comings and goings will provide some opportunities, and who knows? Perhaps there will be some movement on a new left wing party. But I won't be betting the house on it. As ever, if you haven't already don't forget to follow the (very) occasional newsletter, and if you like what I do (and you're not skint), you can help support the blog. Following me on Bluesky, Facebook, and for what it's worth Twitter, are cost-free ways of showing your backing for this corner of the internet.

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Reflecting on Brexit

It's been five years since the UK left the European Union, and the occasion is marked with all manner of reflections. The pages of the terminally dull Daily Express saw Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage try and outdo one another as Brexit's best defenders, while Downing Street has put out a weak statement that said leaving the EU has had some benefits. Okay, but for whom? According to ONS data, services have prospered while the export of physical commodities has fallen. And which services might these be? Banking and wealth management? Professional advice services? Intellectual property trades? City transactions? Whatever it is, this is growth of the jobless sort - if the stagnation in employment rates since the end of 2020 are anything to go by. It's not just that either. The popular verdict on Brexit is decidedly negative.

Contrary to the myths spun about the Leave vote in the nine years since the referendum, this was no working class revolt - as recent research makes plain. Those shielded by property wealth, who tended to be of pensionable age, were more likely to support Brexit because they were shielded from its risks. Thy were not the ones who would face its consequences of falling order books, barriers to trade, and uncertain business outlooks. But these layers didn't see things that way. If they thought about the fates of their children and grand children at all, they were voting for a familiar, sepia-tinged Britain of the past that evinced feelings of security and familiarity, a place where everyone knew their place. There were no strange accents and languages in the bus queue, men and women were content with their stations in life, and you could say what you wanted and be greeted with laughter, not offence. If it was good enough for them, it was good enough for their kids.

This wasn't the only reason why millions voted to leave the EU, but it's part of the emotional economy that underpinned the ugly xenophobia and racism Brexit's elite congregants whipped up with much success. As we know, Boris Johnson's decision to campaign for Brexit and lead the leave campaign was probably decisive in what was always going to be a close result, and that this was motivated by ambition more than principle. Does he think his mercifully brief stint in Number 10 was worth it? As were those sections of capital that threw their lot in with the Brexit. To be crudely reductionist about it, the divisions among commercial and financial capital - the City - more or less broke along the lines of those individuals and firms whose interests were tied to the near abroad versus those oriented further afield. But there was more to it than economics as conventionally conceived.

Since Thatcher came to office, the Tories have gradually run down the capacities of the state. Their supporters have made money from the subsidised selling off of crucial public infrastructure, and have fully colonised those bits of the public sector that remain but are forced to work "in partnership" with business. The effect of the Tory counter revolution - perfected and deepened by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and the Tory and Labour governments since - has been most startling on class relations themselves. After the state was used to smash up and shackle the labour movement in the 1980s, successive governments have asserted the primacy of the executive over all aspects of this sprawling apparatus. The Tory assault on expertise curbed the relative autonomy of public institutions, and the use of market mechanisms for managing the public sector and the population at large saw a gradual removal of obstacles that block government from doing what it wants to do. The authoritarian state that has always enabled and accompanied the neoliberalisation of every day life is a project for making the centre, the Prime Minister's office and their satraps, fully sovereign. They are free to manage the class relations of this country as they see fit.

Except this was not enough for the most class conscious sections of the right. Their waffle about taking back control and restoring British sovereignty was the culmination of the Thatcherite offensive. They can never be fully sovereign if the British state is bound by laws and regulations made across the Channel. There was always the implicit threat that rulings from Strasbourg and Brussels could constitutionally bind their hands. Not that EU membership prevented the horror show of the Tory-led coalition government's further attacks on the most vulnerable. As far as they were concerned, a hit to GDP figures was a price worth paying for securing the untrammelled sway of a government apparatus over British society that, more often than not, they had controlled over the last century. Hence why Brexit was a thoroughly bourgeois project, and a particularly authoritarian, reactionary one at that.

That the present government has released a lukewarm statement is not a surprise. Brexit is a blight of Rachel Reeves's growth ambitions, but they have spent the best part of the last five years assuring all the right people that little will change. At least where the broad pattern of class relations are concerned. And part of that means leaving Brexit alone too. Just as New Labour accepted the class settlement of the Thatcher/Major years, the Starmerist project is about perfecting what they inherited without fundamentally altering it. On top of that, there is the political fear that any backsliding on Brexit would allow the Tories or Farage a way into serious contention and therefore 2028/9 could see a repeat of the 2019 calamity. It follows that no matter how sensible rejoining the customs union might be, or getting into the single market, or offering concessions in return for better trading terms, Starmer will say no. The politics of the settlement, and the politics of facing down the right wing opposition to Labour does not allow for it.

Reflecting on Brexit, its main outcome has been a further tilting of the balance of forces in capital's favour. And as that's the side this government are on, despite their affectations of being above such things, there is no way they're going to wind the Brexit film back.

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Living Her Best Life

Rachel Reeves hasn't had a good time lately. From the left, she's been (correctly) pilloried for putting the screws on pensioners. The right are upset about her increases to employers' National Insurance contributions, and were making hay when gilt yields reached danger levels ... before they receded again. But the economic growth figures are anaemic and unemployment is moving in the wrong direction, so while she was never in any danger (she and Keir Starmer stand and fall together, at the moment), Reeves needed to turn the page. Which is where her big speech on economic growth came in.

On Wednesday Reeves made an avalanche of infrastructure announcements. Heathrow's long-awaited third runway, the Oxford/Cambridge silicon corridor, the redevelopment of Old Trafford, reservoirs, airports, train lines, houses, new towns, a tunnel!. There were changes to planning rules that are meant to speed things up, which include "investment zones" that bypass some regulations (as per the Tory freeport idea, which has been retained by Labour and is now as much their idea), yes as the default position for new homes in the vicinity of railway stations, changing pension rules for allowing funds to make productive investments, and a more can-do attitude for infrastructural development outside the South East. Reeves was living the best life of every managerialist politician: the privilege of announcing dozens of megaprojects and basking in the resultant glow.

In all, the speech was a confident performance. On businesses concerned about NICs, Reeves was asked if there was going to be any wriggle room here. She said no, but added her October statement was a once-in-a-generation event. Stability was back in the public finances, and it was there in the economy too. Business can take it as read that, notwithstanding some disaster, they won't be charged for further contributions while she resides in Number 11. It was a theme Kemi Badenoch picked up on in Prime Minister's Questions as well, but going harder on the £5bn "cost" of Labour's employment rights agenda. Reeves and Starmer sang from the same hymn sheet when asked separately about it, but they might have gone further and said this estimated figure doesn't simply disappear from business balance sheets. It's extra confidence and extra money in workers' pockets, which will feed through into growth via their improved spending power.

The combined effect of these projects are bound to put figures on GDP. The IMF's growth forecast, which has uprated the economic outlook for Britain, specifically says this is the case. But there are some issues. Having observed Donald Trump's bravado, there were some Trumpesque flirtations - though Reeves didn't quite say make Britain great again. Government is a knight on a white charger, hacking away and doomer attitudes, nimbyism, and unnecessary regulation that has held the country back for decades. A pseudo-populist construction of a serious party, on behalf of working people, doing battle with an unnamed, sclerotic and complacent elite. But that was not all. Having paid lip service to net zero in the context of the third runway announcement, and new developments at Doncaster and East Midlands airports, she specifically declared bats and newts persona non grata in the new planning regime. So much for Karel Čapek's warning about going to war with the newts. And so, despite saying many times there is no contradiction between the environment and economic growth, Reeves's habit of showing herself up struck yet again.

There is an additional serious problem. On top of this, the government has already set a target of 1.5m new build houses by the end of this parliament. If you tour around Derby, for instance, it's a hive of building activity and a microcosm of what Reeves wants to see. Two housing estates have started, five or six huge blocks of new flats are due over the next few years, more offices and new homes around the railway station, a hotel and leisure complex to replace the derelict Assembly Rooms, and new university buildings due to start on the outskirts of the city centre. Great stuff, you might say. But where are the workers and the engineers going to come from to meet Labour's plans? We know Liz Kendall wants to expel as many people as possible from health and disability-related social security and getting them into work, but they're not going to fill the shortfall in construction. As PBC Today observed last summer, construction workers fell by 14% between 2019 and 2024 and there would need to be an extra 250,000 workers, more or less doubling the workforce, in the next five years to meet the government's ambitions. Training can only make an impact toward the end of the target date, so this means immigration - something Starmer has stupidly caved to the right on and will face some degree of punishment seeing as he's pledged to get the number of new arrivals down. A political problem needlessly of their own making.

Ultimately, as far as British capital is concerned, despite the chuntering over taxes on unearned income the common affairs of the bourgeoisie are happy with what Reeves had to say. The CBI have endorsed it. The big finance houses, foreign investors, and domestic property development are on board. The FT gave it a warm write up. The promise of guaranteed state money and the later productivity boost improved infrastructure is forecast to bring offers a bonanza of profit-making opportunities. Reeves doesn't have to worry about the press whispers about her position. She's safe because she's inviting all and sundry to partake of the public trough, which leaves to the Tories and Reform the most unrepresentative and backward-looking sections of capital. For now.

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AI as an Apparatus of Capture

You must have a heart of stone not to laugh. Hundreds of billions of dollars wiped off the value of leading US tech firms on Monday's markets as their expensive plagiarism machines, the misnamed language models trading under the name 'Artificial Intelligence', have been out done and out-performed at a fraction of the cost by the Chinese alternative, DeepSeek. Having announced untold levels of investments in new chips, new data centres, and new power stations, this vast supportive infrastructure designed to assure the dominance of Silicon Valley firms for the next century has seemingly evaporated as venture capital flees elsewhere. Egg on the face of far right oligarchs, and humiliation for Donald Trump's efforts at hitching his backward-looking project with the wave of the future.

America, the self-proclaimed home of buccaneering entrepreneurship and freedom stopped exporting advanced chips to China and showered the techbros with staggering sums. The ludicrous resources at their disposal brute-forced the pace of innovation. Think of all the money that has gone into producing applications less accurate than internet search engines, creates its own "facts" through "hallucinations", and has trouble drawing hands. A hell-for-leather effort that wanted to cement an unassailable technological lead. And that's been shown up by a network of Chinese coders using open source software, no state backing, and little but their skill and ingenuity. They have produced a better model with nowhere near the same demands on chips and energy. The tech oligarchs have got to be hoping the PhD-level language models, which according to the much-publicised rumour mill is weeks away, is more than a case of their getting high on their own supply. If not, some are looking at significant dips in their fortunes.

Yet none of this changes the fundamentals about so-called AI. It is a technology designed not to speed things up and make life easier. Like the vast majority of innovations in production, it's designed to deskill and disempower labour, forestalling the looming threat of a long-term shift in the balance of capital and labour in labour's favour. As discussed many times here, capital accumulation, particularly in the most advanced industrial countries, has become increasingly dependent on immaterial labour: the knowledge, skills, personalities, and social aptitudes. This is because capital itself is directly dependent on the production of information and relationships to sell a service of some description. However, the main force of production that counts is the brain, or rather the person of the worker. And it's inherently leaky. Despite the stringencies of copyright, industrial secrets, non-disclosure agreements, whatever competencies someone builds working with one employer remains with the worker, and can be the basis for future work elsewhere - be it for other employers (competitors), their own business, or outside the economy entirely. Capital ponces off the commons and whatever is produced "leaks" back into and builds the commons, leaving capital revealed as a parasitic social relationship. Whereas previous waves of technological development have increasingly done away with the masses of people production required and, more importantly, the knowledge of production that gave labour some leverage over the capital that employed them; the creativity, the ability to produce new information and maintain relationships appeared impervious, except around the edges where repetitive tasks were concerned.

AI changes this. The tech bro dream are machines that can code the software for other machines, which to a degree is possible now. They want to be able to generate their own images and text without having to bother with human artists and writers. Or the production of films, television, and music that can do without crews, actors, and musicians. In corporate and public sector bureaucracies, it's the automation of clerical tasks and, in some cases, front-facing work involving customers and clients that promises the most, freeing up managers for "strategy". Who themselves will become increasingly replaced by "thinking" machines. Even everyday communication skills, such as how to craft an email, is now something any old AI chatbot will happily do for you. What only a few short years ago was temporarily "captured" to generate surplus value is in the process of becoming absorbed into itself as 21st century fixed capital. AI might seem convenient, but it's first and foremost there at capital's convenience.

Opposition to so-called AI is not reactionary, or anti-technology. It is a healthy response to a power grab that will result in a privately-owned monopoly over creativity. This means, ultimately, to put hundreds of millions out of work globally and secure capital against its dependence on the intellectuality and sociality of human beings. These bots are "trained" by "reading" the sum total of our species' cultural output without any recompense whatsoever. What is presently ours becomes theirs, with the possibility of our common heritage being reduced to regurgitated AI slop that becomes a cultural staple, and one owned by the firms who end up winning the AI race. The loss of, the possibility of the privatisation of social competencies is real. Therefore, the rapid rise of DeepSeek and the humbling of the USA's richest companies, while funny, does not change the dynamics of the situation at all. Because this is capitalism, AI is more than a toy and a liberator of free time: it's the latest, and possibly the most complete means of capturing and imprisoning the soul.

Local Council By-Elections January 2025

This month saw 14,593 votes cast in eight local authority contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. Six council seats changed hands. For comparison with December's results, see here.

Party	Number of Candidates	Total Vote	%	+/- Dec	+/- Jan 24	Avge/ Contest	+/- Seats
Conservative	7	3,111	21.3%	-0.8	-7.9	444	0
Labour	6	2,489	17.1%	-7.3	-11.8	415	-1
Lib Dem	7	3,182	21.8%	+5.1	-6.0	455	-1
Reform*	7	1,534	10.5%	-5.2	+10.3	219	0
Green	5	825	5.7%	-1.4	-1.7	165	0
SNP**	2	1,405	9.6%	+3.2	+5.8	703	0
PC***	0						0
Ind****	10	1,982	13.6%	+8.0	+12.1	198	+2
Other*****	1	65	0.4%	-1.2	-1.0	65	0

* Reform's comparison results are based on recomputing their tallies from last year's Others
** There were three by-elections in Scotland
*** There were no by-elections in Wales
**** There were two Independent clashes
***** Others this month consisted of the Scottish Family Party (65)

January is a funny month for by-elections, and 2025 has proven no exception. Abnormally large vote shares for the SNP and Independents have depressed everyone else's vote share. It would therefore be wrong to suppose anything from these results. But let's be foolish. Conservatives and Labour continue to suffer as per the polls, but again and arguably, SNP/Indie caveats aside, Reform continue to underperform their polling. Surely it can't be the case that the media and mainstream politics are over-hyping them, which is feeding through to the pollsters? Likewise, for some time the Liberal Democrats have outperformed polling numbers in actual elections. Is the real politics of elections something going by unseen by those paid to watch such things?

9 January
North Devon, Instow, LDem gain from Con

16 January
Bath & North East Somerset, Ind gain from LDem
Cotswold, Chesterton, LDem hold

23 January
Edinburgh, Colinton/Fairmilehead, Con gain from SNP, Lab gain from LDem
Liverpool, Much Woolton & Hunts, LDem hold
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Town, Lab hold
Shetland, Shetland North, Ind gain from Lab
Stirling, Bannockburn, SNP gain from Lab

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The Case for Barry N Malzberg

Bullshit and Bravado

"Ambition is the lifeblood of a great nation." So was the theme of Donald Trump's inauguration address, a speech that saw the inveterate rambler stick to his script and, a rarity for him, deliver something coherent and within the envelope of "normal" presidential speeches. As petulant and fragile as he is, Trump couldn't resist taking sideswipes at his predecessor - as he sat there clapping like a trained seal as per his constitutional duty. There were the lies, that he was overturning a tyranny, and restoring American sovereignty - as if Joe Biden's presidency has proven anything but a faithful servant of US corporate interests.

It's long been obvious that a second Trump term would entail naked, oligarchical rule. Behind the warm noises of being a "unifier" and a "peacemaker", his attacks on immigration, "foreign criminals", trans people, and the recognition of minorities by government institutions are megaphones for crack downs on the most marginalised and oppressed in US society. "Radical leftists" did not feature in Trump's roll call, but you can be sure that shutting out the right to be different will, as night follows day, include diversity of thought. All for the greater glory of America, you understand.

Yet there were some signs of one nation conservatism, that much abused canard, in Trump's address. He positively referenced African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans, he invoked the spirit of those he said had built the nation - the pioneers, the cowboys, the soldiers, the agricultural and autoworkers, a who's who of Uncle Sam's most masculine tropes. But inseparable from this was the baseless boosterism. This was day one of a new golden age, where America becomes the envy of the world and seeks to expand its frontiers. The acquiring-new-territory line might have raised some eyebrows, especially as Panama was referenced again, though Trump quickly passed on to adventures in space - including the stars and stripes on Mars.

What was different about this Trump as opposed to his 2017 vintage was the confidence, the comparative lack of tetchiness, and the annexation of hope to his project. It doesn't matter that unconstrained class rule is backward and a new round of social devastation is the likely consequence of big government cuts and deregulation, the proposed tariff programme, more fossil fuel extraction, and the coming assaults on democracy, accountability, and freedom. This speech was the recognition that scapegoating can only distract some of the people some of the time. Strapping SpaceX rocket boosters to reheated American exceptionalism is, for the audience at home, about exuding confidence and power, if not awe. "The impossible is what we do best", said Trump to a standing ovation.

Conquering the impossible, however, does not extend to the politically impossible. Cracks have already appeared in the Trump edifice over immigration, and between the oligarchical desire to gut the state and grassroots MAGA supporters dependent on social security to get by. And day one reminded us of the clash of egos too. Positive write ups of Trump's inauguration are threatened by Elon Musk's antics, who couldn't hold back his inner far right edgelord and saluted Hitler three times at a rally, earlier. Not exactly the cuddly One America vibes Trump's advisors want to convey for the moment.

To be sure, the second Trump presidency is a catastrophe in slow motion, an abject lesson in the failure of centrist managerialism. A taster of what much of Western Europe, including us, could look forward unless we're able to build rooted, mass alternatives to the politics of bullshit and bravado. The only people who can save us from this are ourselves.

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Pausing the Massacre

After a three-hour wobbly thrown by Benjamin Netanyahu, the formal ceasefire in the "war" between Israel and Hamas came into effect at 9.15 on Sunday morning. The lead up was marked by more bombings and more deaths at the hands of the Israeli military, and if past behaviour is any indication of future behaviour the IDF will retain "the right" to carry on air strikes and targeted killings over the next six weeks. There will be harassment of aid convoys by soldiers, and Netanyahu will continue the bellicose ranting. Even as the ceasefire came into force, he promised the resumption of hostilities if the second phase of the tentative peace plan falls flat. Or he faces more domestic political difficulties, take your pick.

The sorties might have paused, but some things never change. At the time of writing the BBC News website leads with four stories about the three Israeli captives released as Hamas's part of the ceasefire deal. The dedicated Israel-Gaza War [sic] page is little different. 'What was it like to be a Hamas hostage?' goes one of the stories. 'Who are they?' asks another. Nothing on the Palestinian hostages Israel is releasing, on the abuses and torture meted out to the incarcerated. And you can forget anything about extra-judicial killings in Israeli jails. There are no interviews with Palestinian families welcoming home their loved ones, no human interest portraits about people being united amid the rubble of Gaza. The active phase of the massacre might be at an end, but the dehumanisation of Palestinians by the BBC continues unabated.

When the deal was announced last week, social media was awash with self-congratulation. Democrat supporters were praising the leadership of Joe Biden and thanking him for bring such a terrible episode of recent history to an end. It's as if the 50,000 tonnes of weapons shipped from American shores and making available United States surveillance capacity in service of the massacre of the Palestinians didn't happen. It was gut churning. But just as objectionable was their employment of the truce to score points against Donald Trump. "This is the Dems' victory. Trump had NOTHING TO DO WITH IT" was the flavour of many a contribution. It was, of course, completely wrong. Biden needed something for his legacy other than prices galloping ahead of wages, and Trump wants to start his second presidency on a high note. And so we had close collaboration behind the scenes in making sure a deal was done.

The truth is, as far as the US is concerned, Israel's massacre inadvertently led to rebalancing the Middle East squarely in the State Department's interest. Hamas might claim victory, but its most experienced cadre are nearly all dead, its tunnel network partially demolished, and its ability to wage asymmetrical warfare severely blunted. Likewise Hezbollah in Lebanon. The IDF's invasion was much bloodier than military planners were expecting, but its capacity is also stymied. It also appears the "reply" to the Iranian assault on IDF targets was more effective than the damage Israel sustained. And there was the small matter of Bashir al-Assad's collapsed regime, an Iranian ally, and the subsequent withdrawal of Russian military assets from Syria. The US did not foresee any of this, but with the benefit of hindsight the deaths of tens of thousands was a price they were happy for the Palestinians to pay for their regional goals to be met.

And now? Trump wants to keep everyone guessing with regard to his foreign policy, but it's not hard to discern what his priorities are. There is bipartisan agreement that China is the big threat to American hegemony. Biden did nothing to help thaw relations with Beijing, and Trump is keen to big up their "threat". It seems likely he doesn't want any distractions from confronting Xi Jinping. So a becalmed Middle East with Israel the regional arbiter, some sort of peace in Ukraine with a view to US rapprochement with Russia, and perhaps a rejuvenation of the North/South Korea peace process. Success is not just about boosting Trump's ego as a deal maker, they are steps aimed at isolating China diplomatically and reasserting American leadership on the world stage. By the end of his presidency and regardless of the horrors Trump commits domestically, centrist and establishment Democrats will show their appreciation for his positioning by carrying on where he leaves off - just as retiring old Biden did.

What that means for Israel and the Palestinians is anything but a lasting peace. The occupation continues, and so the resistance will continue. Assuming Trump's State Department follow through with the logic of peace through strength for the Middle East, that means an endless flow of weapons to Israel continues, and the turning of a blind eye to the pre-7th October business-as-usual of internment, "targeted" assassinations, and sporadic punishment bombings. Meet the new peace, just like the old peace.

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The Tories' Terrible Truth

Apologies for trying the patience of everyone reading, but this is another post about Kemi Badenoch. Some might have called her Thursday speech a relaunch, but for the Tory leader this was a further opportunity to set out her stall. And how does she wish to be known? As a "truth teller".

This self-designated title has a long history in politics, and it's always the right who lay claim to its mantle. Nigel Farage has built a career from "telling the truth" about the European Union, immigration, and the liberal elite. To his mind and those of his followers, he's cut through the obfuscation and crap and says it how it is, regardless of who gets offended and whinges about "you can't say that!". Boris Johnson was also a skilled practitioner of this form of politics. And all extreme right parties and demagogic figures use the same ploy - Trump, the AfD, the Le Pen family, Bolsonaro, Viktor Orban. A consistent pattern of behaviour.

Badenoch's truth-telling, however, alighted upon the failings of her party. She said politicians needed to accept and acknowledge mistakes, of which the Conservatives have made a fair few. She criticised the rush to leave the EU without having a plan for afterwards in place (you might recall the Japanese state did more contingency planning for Brexit than the UK did). She said setting the net zero targets without any idea of how to achieve them was another. And her party promised to cut immigration, but the numbers kept going up was probably the most serious of all. For Badenoch, this was symptomatic of a politics of wanting to be popular, of saying things the electorate wanted to hear.

The Tory leader didn't get the memo that admitting mistakes usually requires an apology, but that was too much to ask for. Instead, Badenoch promised there won't be any empty promises from her. With her Tories, the voters are going to have to face the facts. And we know what these are going to be: she's spent 2025's first fortnight exploiting sexual abuse and making explicitly racist political points about them.

Is there a grain of truth to her explanation about why the Tories have failed? Yes. The problem her party has is its strategic addiction to the politics of negativity, of undermining the efficacy of the state if not dismantling it and offering nothing but the demonisation of minorities for its support to rail against. With Brexit exhausted as an issue, the last five years of Tory party strategy can fruitfully be interpreted as the search for new glue to stick a coalition of voters together with. Hence, for example, why Rishi Sunak was set on burning down the house to get his Rwanda deal done. The problem with this is a party cannot wind its base up indefinitely. During their 14 years in government, the Tories were able to atomise British society further, create new points of distrust and division and pull the trick of presenting themselves as the only force capable of mending the insecurities they deepened. Yet if a party promises to do something about it and then doesn't, a slab of its support will sheer away.

This is what has happened to the Tory base. Its most racist and backward sections, those most excited by the rhetoric of division, have found a new home in Reform. Unlike the Tories, Farage has not been tested by office. He's established credibility on these issues through his long campaign against the European Union and, latterly, immigration. Married to his garrulous manner, he's become the beneficiary of the Tories' beggar-thy-neighbour policy pitches since 2019 - especially so after Johnson was forced from the scene and Farage re-entered the fray last summer.

And here's where Badenoch's problems are. Chasing after the right, on paper, makes sense for the Tories. They need to put their base back together again before they can contest Labour in a general election. But in practice, because the party's stock is so low with right wing voters, it doesn't matter how far to the right they go it looks like they're trying to catch up with Reform. They're seen to be doing it because they think they have to, not because they believe. What we saw with Robert Jenrick's conversion to the extreme right during the leadership election now applies to te Conservatives as a whole. Their posturing is tarred with the brush of inauthenticity, which makes Badenoch's gamble to try and unite the right under her leadership one unlikely to pay off. Indeed, if the polls are any indication the hole the Tories are in is getting deeper.

Yet there is nowhere else for Badenoch to go. She was elected on a right wing platform, nearly all of her party are committed to the rightist strategy of renewal, but that is inadvertently feeding the Reform beast. Every pulse of the Tory id is screaming that this is definitely going to work, that this path not only makes them feel good, it will make them come good too. But it won't. This is the hard truth about Badenoch's positioning and the party's orientation, and it's one you can guarantee she'll never mention at her next relaunch.

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