Johnson's latest Brexit move involves passing a new UK internal market bill, the full details of which are to become available on Wednesday. On BBC Breakfast this morning, environment secretary George Eustice tried gamely to make it sound like a technical matter, a case of checking the commas and evacuating the colons. But it is not. The specifics would make changes to seemingly arid aspects of the withdrawal agreement around customs arrangements and the rules governing UK state aid for Northern Ireland. These, however, could risk unilaterally revising the agreement.
Over a year of Johnson in government should have insulated Westminster watchers against Number 10's contrivances to shock. And yet. The first thing we have to keep in mind is who this theatre is aimed at. Allowing the flames of ambiguity to get fanned by half-hearted denials opens the door to reports of "concerns" in Brussels. While a frisson of panic is sending shivers down the spines of remainers, it guarantees favourable editorials in the Tory press and more red meat for the hungry Tory base. Seeing the government self-consciously and ostentatiously acting tough with and trolling the EU is something they definitely love to see. Would the Tories be so petty? When you consider we're stuck with Brexit because a Conservative Prime Minister wanted to stop UKIP winning a couple of parliamentary seats, the answer is a definite yes.
This latest round of Brexit brinkmanship is faithfully reproducing behaviours past, then. There is another good reason to view it as pure bluff: the fact we're dealing with an international treaty. As we saw before when, for a while in 2019, May telegraphed to her honourable members how she didn't really mean the things she signed the UK up to and we wouldn't have to abide by them anyway. Or Johnson's rhetorically playing fast and loose with the law a year ago, there is a very simple fact of geopolitical life the Tories cannot escape from. If they renege on treaties, the trading relationships they're going to get Tony Abbott to negotiate for them won't happen. A Brexit deal with Japan won't fail because of Liz Truss's red lines on Stilton, but simply because the UK cannot be trusted to abide by legal agreement. That means no deal with the EU, none with the emerging markets supposedly poised to replace trade volumes with our closest neighbours, nor the holiest of holies, the United States. If some weird hobbyist writing from the back streets of Stoke-on-Trent can discern this, so do the civil servants, the politicians, and the UK's chief negotiator.
This posturing is not without risk. The Tories' stance could box them in to not striking a deal at all. And the interests closest to the Tories could live with that. With an opposition at best "measured" in its criticisms, the Tories can rely on its press friends and supine broadcasters to bury the damage of a chaotic Brexit amid the Coronavirus winter wreckage. And if Johnson does strike a last minute deal (which remains more likely than walking away), it will be thin and fall far short of the oven-ready promises made last year. Not that this is overly concerning: they can again call upon their friends to herald it a triumph. You can write the Daily Express headlines already.
Where does this leave the rest of us already at the sharp end of a pandemic and an economic depression exacerbated by the Tories? With a serious organising job to do. Because the Tory constituency is somewhat shielded from the consequences of these three crises now coming to a head, Johnson thinks he can carry on as he has for the last year. Labour for its part is left without a strategy of breaking up and disorganising the Tory coalition, unless making nice to the Mail and the Telegraph is it. Until the left comes up with a disruptive strategy of its own as well as continuing to organise our people, they shall rinse and repeat it all the way to 2024 and another unconscionable victory.
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43 comments:
Starmer's self-imposed omerta on Brexit has, up to now, been tactically astute, even if very frustrating for us anti-Brexit socialist internationalists. But now he needs to come out clearly and forcefully against no-deal and if challenged (as he will be) about whether he still regards Brexit itself as a mistake, answer simply "yes - but we'll see how it pans out if a proper deal can be achieved."
I don't think Starmer's position has been in any way astute. As with his policy on the lockdown it has been supine, opportunistic, unprincipled, and an attempt to appease reactionaries, the vast majority of whom do not vote Labour anyway - and a good thing too.
Any change of position by Starmer would now simply expose the nature of that Opportunism, even more the closer he leaves it to the election before changing tack. He should have said from the start that Brexit is reactionary, and if elected Labour will reverse it, and will instead build an alliance of progressive social-democrats and workers organisations across Europe.
Unfortunately for the progressive, internationalist, social-democrats in the LP, I doubt that Starmer has any thought of doing so, and is on course to move steadily further and further to the Right, especially as the Left appears disorganised and ideologically confused.
Don't we need some media outlets of our own to reduce the Tory strangehold over the political narrative?
The EU negotiations are going as expected. I'd like a deal. I don't think we will get one.
I've argued quite a lot on here and elsewhere that everyone is looking in the wrong direction. Obviously most people on here don't like Tories in general and Johnson in particular and will be intent on wading in against Johnson. But wait!
The direction we need to look is at the EU. Their opposition to a nation leaving the EU and wishing to be an independent nation state in Europe is little short of all out war. They are demanding we relinquish control of our waters, still demanding the right to make our laws, and are now using the Good Friday Agreement as a pretext to annex UK territory. If we refuse to yield they will act as a hostile nation and look to punish us in a clear breach of article 8 of the Lisbon Treaty.
So, I would suggest a bit of caution before wading in on the EU's side. Agreeing that the UK should, in effect, be a colony of a European superstate isn't a good look. Surely if there is one lesson to learn from every election since 2015, it is that UK general elections are decided by a lump of English working class voters who are intensely patriotic and vote to maintain as close as possible control over the politicians who govern them.
At the Battle of Crecy the French cavalry charged across an open field towards the English position only to find they were in a bog and couldn't move, then the archers picked them off. The left would be wise to avoid a similarly reckless charge as there is significant risk of being bogged down in an unintended anti-UK position and simply being picked off.
"Don't we need some media outlets of our own to reduce the Tory strangehold over the political narrative?"
I can see the headlines now Carty,
Fuck the weak and vulnerable, End Lockdown now!
Carry on consuming and fuck the planet!
And one from Denham, Hang Assange, he put our royal secret operatives in danger!
To be honest Carty I think you already have a media!
What I read of the Boffy/Carty/Denham/Sentinel brand of politics is a kind of end of history ultra ultra rightism. Boffy literally offers us nothing but capitalism without the capitalist, no he literally has nothing else to offer.
Denham's own nauseating and disgusting politics, extreme social chauvinism etc has itself contributed to Brexit. So Denham can prattle all he likes about socialist internationalism, because all this tosser as ever done is act as a cheerleader for the biggest criminals on the planet.
He extreme hostility to Assange, whose crime was exposing the empires grotesque mass murder, shows that his brand of internationalism involves carpet bombing nations on the periphery. He is a cheerleader for gansterism and the fact that he dresses this up as internationalism is truly disgusting.
Carty, Bofft, Denham and Sentinel are all just different manifestations of white supremacy.
They talk anti brexit but actually contribute to its existence.
«Don't we need some media outlets of our own to reduce the Tory strangehold over the political narrative?»
Every right-wing faction have their own "aligned" media from "The Guardian" to the "Daily Express", but the centre and the left don't. Have you have asked yourself why? Because it would be "treason". The demands of the thatcherites have always been about three things that if done by the centre/left are undemocratic but if done by the right are "liberal democracy":
* To be funded by members or by the trade unions.
* To have a parliamentary lobby.
* To own mass media.
Only business, finance and property interests are allowed to fund parties, to "sponsor" politicians, to own mass media, else it is not a "liberal democracy" (one of the many euphemisms for "thatcherism").
Obediently the Mandelson Tendency entrysts in Labour ensured that New Labour was funded by big business and rentier donors, that politicians would be "sponsored" by the same, that they worshipped the mass media owned by the same. To deviate from that is treason of thatcherism.
The one mistake the Mandelson Tendency made was to obsessively press for OMOV; they did this to nullify the influence of the trade unions, and because they expected that the servant classes would be too poor and distracted to be members and pay subs, and the membership would become limited to a small number of "aspirational voters who shop at Waitrose and John Lewis".
If there is a consolation for the centre/left is that with blogging or podcasting the cost of owning a "press" is very low and some have become mass media. There are some centre/left blogs or podcasts that are read by more people than most magazines or some newspapers. But so do some right wing ones.
«If we refuse to yield they will act as a hostile nation and look to punish us in a clear breach of article 8 of the Lisbon Treaty.»
Why worry about what a weak, poor, messy transnational state in deep crisis and that risks splitting apart might do?
Since we have got all the cards, the cheese eating surrender monkeys will inevitably fold at the last minute, England prevails!
:-)
Blissex, I am interested in your definition of centre/left?
It seems to me the centre or the centre left views are strongly reflected across the media, along with all right wing opinions.
Real and genuine leftism is of course nowhere to be seen, one reason for that in Britain is that there are so very few genuine leftists. So it is no surprise there is no leftist media to speak of.
And in the specific case of Brexit both leave and remain positions were strongly represented in the corporate media.
The left don't need to create its own media to see anti brexit arguments being made, they are literally being made every single day.
Dipper: The direction we need to look is at the EU. Their opposition to a nation leaving the EU and wishing to be an independent nation state in Europe is little short of all out war. They are demanding we relinquish control of our waters, still demanding the right to make our laws, and are now using the Good Friday Agreement as a pretext to annex UK territory. If we refuse to yield they will act as a hostile nation and look to punish us in a clear breach of article 8 of the Lisbon Treaty.
Who started this conflict though?
Ardent Brexiteers have made it very clear that their real goal is not merely to leave the EU but to destroy it: they believe that the EU will not survive the UK's departure and gleefully anticipate its disintegration.
(Indeed, given the very sensible "don't let the Continent unite against us" British foreign policy of the last four centuries, isn't that the only way leaving the EU can be seen as making any sense?)
And it is Ireland that is looking to enlist the EU to help them annex UK territory: and the fact that a not-inconsiderable part of the UK's food consumption is imported from Ireland gives them another card to play.
Blissex: Every right-wing faction have their own "aligned" media from "The Guardian" to the "Daily Express", but the centre and the left don't. Have you have asked yourself why? Because it would be "treason".
It wouldn't be literal (ie criminal) treason (hence your quotation marks) so what are you implying exactly? Are you just arguing that the right-wing and centrist media would portray it as treason, most likely because the kind of social programmes that (for example) Labour advocated during the Corbyn years would be unaffordable unless Britain's warfare/national-security state were dismantled?
George,
You quote Dipper "he direction we need to look is at the EU... If we refuse to yield they will act as a hostile nation and look to punish us in a clear breach of article 8 of the Lisbon Treaty."
Assuming all that nonsense an Tory Brexiteer propaganda were true, so what? All it shows is the politics of the real world that a brexit Britain will have to face just as every small company has to face in competition with big companies, and every small country has to face in relation to bigger more powerful countries and blocs. Indeed, its precisely why across the globe, smaller countries are forming into large politico-economic blocs to increase their power. Its the idiocy of Brexit that is trying to go against the natural laws of history and social development!
So, its no wonder that it is the UK not the EU that is more likely to break up as NI joins a United Ireland, and Scotland becomes an independent country in the EU. Even Wales has seen an increase in support for independence. As small countries they would have the power of the huge EU behind them in negotiations with a backward moving England. A Scottish/EU customs border with England, would see many English firms relocating to Scotland to avoid EU duties, for example, just as many in NI are planning a move into the Republic, and many English businesses have relocated to the republic.
In the twentieth century it was quite common for mass circulation labour movement papers, and for example the Co-op to argue an international socialist position against war, and so on, and for international solidarity of workers even when the war was being fought.
Christopher Meyer at @SirSocks gets it spot on. ''Into law is here a red herring. The problem is political not legal: the failure of the EU to negotiate in goof faith the future relationship, with the result that, absent an agreement, NI becomes by default a gateway for EU law into GB, unless Parliament takes preemptive action.'
Nigel Farage also got it right. You may not like Nigel Farage - not a lot of people do - but he is doing an absolutely fantastic job of patrolling the nationalist edge of UK politics. Dinghies of paying customers in the channel, EU encroaching on the freedom of the nation, whatever the issue, he is absolutely on the case.
The view on my chat group is this is Cummings again. A repeat of prorogation. He is forcing the issue by doing something outrageous and forcing the opposition to take a losing position. It is a clear trap. Look at Major stepping up to defend the annexation of NI. He looks a complete clown.
George,
As I said previously all the Tory Brexiteer claptrap about how terrible the EU were behaving is irrelevant moralising, even it were true. But, of course, it isn't even that. The FT has printed papers showing that Johnson was told at great length by the civil service what the implications of his Withdrawal Agreement were, but he clearly has shown yet again he has not time for details, as he bluffs and blusters and bumbles his way through life. He's not an idiot like Trump, but he clearly is a lazy, incompetent oaf.
He has managed to create conditions for breaking apart the United Kingdom, he has created an unprecedented degree of hostility from both Democrat and Republican politicians in the US. If he actually miscalculates and ends up with a No Deal, which will in any case be catastrophic for Britain - which is why he doesn't want to end up there - any chance that the EU would now provide any kind of friendly terms to him, or even with a so called "skinny deal" have been completely destroyed. But, yesterday showed he has even managed to unite both Leavers and Remainers in his own party against him!!! Incredible incompetence. He now faces his Bill being voted down or amended away by his own backbenchers, but of course, that would allow him to get off the hook he has impaled himself on.
Later today I have a guest post from an Irish comrade, who makes the same point I have made several times. That is all this sound and fury from Boris is almost certainly the prelude to him making yet another of his many U-Turns, as he capitulates entirely to the EU, and has to accept either an extension of the Transition Period, or else a Brexit in Name Only.
Either way he still hasn't got Brexit Done, meaning its yet another of his broken promises.
Again, people, not just Boffy, not understanding the depth of this issue.
The Belfast Agreement is, apart from a document that enabled the release of several hundred terrorists from prison, an agreement that enables agreements. It is not in itself an agreement that contains details, with the specific exception of stating that both parties accept that NI is part of the UK.
NI has Irish people who wish to be politically part of an independent Republic of Ireland and Irish people who wish to be part of the UK. What the document does is enable a political process which allows both parties to feel that is the case, and allows individual issues to be discussed and agreed through co-operation.
It should be possible, under the processes and bodies established by the Belfast Agreement, to reach a position which allows for free passage of people and personal goods across the border, to enable small businesses to trade across the border, but prevents large scale egregious abuse.
The EU is not interested in that. What the EU is doing is throwing the agreement under a bus. It is effectively forcing NI to be either in the RoI or in the UK. This is completely inappropriate and highly dangerous.
'making yet another of his many U-Turns, as he capitulates entirely to the EU'. Whoever comes up with this isn't been paying attention. The story of the last few years of politics in the UK is the steadfast refusal of an electorally dominant majority to allow the process of leaving the EU to be fudged. I voted for Johnson, not because I think he is a great guy with exemplary morals, but because he was the one politician who stood up to be counted on my behalf. If he buckles, then we move on to the next politician and keep going and keep going.
just to completely bang on about this, the point about the WA and the customs in the Irish Sea is not 'this shows Johnson is a massive incompetent cock', which he may well be, but instead is 'our country is about to get completely and permanently fucked'.
I suppose its a bit optimistic to expect one of the many critics to comment on what they think should happen now? Whether we should actually have checks down the Irish Sea? Where that leaves us?
And if you answer is 'yes because the public disagreed with me so I want them to be punished', then that is not a constructive attitude. that is petrol on a bonfire.
Is the radicalization of Leave voters towards a "no deal" stance in part because they sense that any Brexit deal will set in stone the UK's chronic trade deficit with the EU?
While the 1970s were an inflationary time globally, inflation was worse in the UK than in other developed nations, and this helped drive British industry out of business by making it uncompetitive on world markets. Joining the EEC contributed to this inflation in two ways: one was that it required the UK to introduce VAT (which covered a much broader range of goods than the old purchase tax) and the other was that it brought the UK under the Common Agricultural Policy.
From the 19th-century repeal of the Corn Laws up to when it joined the EEC, Britain had made cheap food (imported from Empire/Commonwealth countries) a key part of its economic policy. This was at odds with the policy of France and Germany, where food prices were kept high to protect domestic agricultural interests: a policy continued within the EEC. When Edward Heath negotiated to join the EEC in the early '60s he tried to get tariff-free access for Commonwealth food producers, and the French shot him down in flames.
This additional inflationary spike in the 1970's – resulting from how EEC membership had shifted the UK from a cheap food to an expensive food regime – had the consequence that while the UK had run a current account surplus in the 5 years before joining the EEC (after the pound had been devalued and the old sterling zone dumped) it has run a continuous current account deficit ever since (except for a brief period within Thatcher's first term, made possible by high North Sea Oil revenues and a very nasty recession). This persistent current account deficit has caused foreigners to gradually take over the British economy, resulting in the tsunami of nationalist rage that was the 2016 Brexit vote.
Surely the key to winning back the "left behind" areas (and perhaps to creating the conditions where the UK – or its constituent countries – will be able to rejoin the EU) must be to find a way (without imposing a regime of austerity far more swingeing than that of Cameron and Osborne) of eliminating that damned current account deficit?
George,
"Is the radicalization of Leave voters towards a "no deal" stance in part because they sense that any Brexit deal will set in stone the UK's chronic trade deficit with the EU?"
If it is then they are again highly deluded. The consequence of No Deal is a) an immediate economic and social catastrophe b) a collapse in the £, a sharp rise in interest rates, and collapse of UK asset prices shares, bonds, property, c) a rapid relocation of larger businesses, and high value exporting businesses, particularly services out of Britain to the EU d) a sharp rise thereby in the UK trade deficit on goods and services, bringing a bout a further sharp fall in UK living standards.
It will be another great incentive towards NI becoming part of a United Ireland, because otherwise its economy will be completely fucked. It will also be a big boost for the SNP and Scottish independence, because a lot of financial services and other high value service industry is already in Scotland (Edinburgh) and its an easy move to a neighbouring English speaking country, which would gain quick readmittance to the EU on admittance, all the more as BJ has being pissing off all and sundry.
I'm guessing some of these people think that a collapse in the £ would help make Britain more competitive again (although the post-2008 collapse in the £ didn't have that effect: the trade deficit got ever worse since then) and a collapse in property prices might also help in that regard (because before 2008 the trade deficit always increased most when house prices surged, presumably because homeowners spent their paper capital gains on holidays or imported consumer goods).
I'm guessing that it was widely believed even before the referendum that Brexit could crash house prices, which is why the places with the highest house prices (urban cores, or the affluent M40/M3/A34 triangle) tended to vote Remain.
And perhaps the Leave voters believe that a negotiated Brexit would result in much the same flight of service industries and foreign-owned manufacturing industries as a "no deal" Brexit, but without giving Britain the freedom to take the measures (state aid etc) that just might rebuild a UK-owned manufacturing base? I am increasingly drawn to the view that (no deal) Brexit is a kind of desperate Hail Mary strategy more than anything: the fact that no UK government since 1973 seems to have been able to anything about the current account deficit might certainly drive such desperation!
If you're wondering where I got these ideas from, it was from the commenter "Froghole1" on the Guardian's website: he actually voted Remain, but believes that if we must Brexit then No Deal would be the most appropriate way to go.
George,
" Joining the EEC contributed to this inflation in two ways: one was that it required the UK to introduce VAT (which covered a much broader range of goods than the old purchase tax) and the other was that it brought the UK under the Common Agricultural Policy."
This is false. Taxes do not increase values, and so do not increase the general level of prices. Taxes are a deduction from profits, and so only a redistribution of values. Inflation is a monetary phenomena, and the inflation of the late 1960's, through the 1970's, into the early 80's was a result of money printing to finance government spending, on a global scale primarily Vietnam, and the US Great Society welfarism programme, and also in the 1970's, to finance government borrowing as part of Keynesian intervention of the kind that the proponents of the Magic Money Tree suggest today. It led instead to stagflation.
George,
The idea that EEC/EU membership increased inflation because of CAP is also false. For one thing, spending on agricultural products was relatively small, and more than offset by the reductions in costs on trade and on manufactured goods resulting from the removal of trade barriers and restrictions.
George,
Your analysis in relation to the current account is also flawed. The change simply reflects the fact of changed trade flows with food etc coming from the EU - not wholly still - rather than from former sources. But, focusing on the current account simply misses all of the trade in invisibles, and on capital account, which with services now being 80% of the economy is far more important.
The idea that this was the cause of "foreigners" buying up large parts of the UK is a bit silly. The first "foreigners" to buy up chunks of British business in the 1980's were, alongside the US, also Japan that sought a convenient door into the huge EU market. And, of course, more latterly it has not been EU "foreigners" that bought up British industry bought Chinese, and particularly Indian capitalists, such as Tata's purchase of JLR, most of what was left of the steel industry, and part of what was left of ICI.
Indeed, its this growing British-Indian bourgeoisie, and its growing representation inside the Tory Party that explains part of the support for Brexit amongst its ranks, as it seeks greater access to the UK economy by both Indian capital, and Indian students, curry chefs and so on. I doubt that is the actual result of Brexit that most of the racists who voted for it, anticipated, however.
The idea that EEC/EU membership increased inflation because of CAP is also false. For one thing, spending on agricultural products was relatively small, and more than offset by the reductions in costs on trade and on manufactured goods resulting from the removal of trade barriers and restrictions.
Food was a considerably more prominent part of household budgets in the '70s than today, because the massive increase in housing costs hadn't yet occurred. And while joining the EEC reduced costs from trade barriers and restrictions in a way that didn't favour any one country in particular, the CAP increased the price of food for UK consumers alone. The result is that British industry was rendered uncompetitive (the industrial strife triggered by the higher food prices of course made things worse) and EEC (mostly West German) imports flooded into the UK market.
But, focusing on the current account simply misses all of the trade in invisibles, and on capital account, which with services now being 80% of the economy is far more important.
The current account does include invisibles (and is the exact inverse of the capital account), and while services may well be 80% of GDP (and most likely even more of employment) I don't believe they'd be so dominant in the sphere of international transactions as most services are not internationally traded.
George,
"I'm guessing some of these people think that a collapse in the £ would help make Britain more competitive again (although the post-2008 collapse in the £ didn't have that effect:"
Again, if they believe that they are deluded. The collapse in the value of the £ would not compensate for the increased costs faced by UK business as a result of a No Deal Brexit. I don't just mean the 10-40% tariffs faced on goods exported to the EU, but the actual rise in costs caused by the general frictions in relation to the movement of goods and capital. On top of that is the effect of non-tariff barriers, the thing they Tories are currently trying to use NO as a Trojan Horse to get around, i.e. the fact that unless Britain abides by EU standards and regulations, it will either not be allowed to export them, or will have to first go through rigorous testing and approval of each product etc.
But depreciation never is a magic way of achieving greater competitiveness. What it really means is that an hour of a British worker's labour becomes worth less compared to an hour of an EU workers labour. It means a significant drop in UK workers' living standards. If UK cars become cheaper in Europe, it simply means you have to sell more of them in order to get the EU produced goods they previously exchanged for. Its effectively a transfer of capital from Britain to the EU, and it requires British workers to work longer and harder producing those cars in order to get back all those EU produced goods they previously enjoyed.
But, worse than that. The UK depends on the EU for a large amount of food and energy, which it will continue to have to import, but as the £ collapses the cost of that food and energy rises substantially increasing UK costs and wages, and so squeezing profits. The raw materials used in a lot of UK production is of components produced in Europe, as part of Just In Time production, and these components cross the border many times before the final product is complete. The costs of those components will rise massively both because of a lower £, and because of higher UK costs due to Brexit. So, any competitiveness from a collapsing £ would not exist.
Moreover, it would not just be against the € that the £ collapsed but also the $, in which much global trade is priced, such as oil. The UK would become way way less competitive as a result of a collapse of the £ arising from Brexit.
George,
"and a collapse in property prices might also help in that regard (because before 2008 the trade deficit always increased most when house prices surged, presumably because homeowners spent their paper capital gains on holidays or imported consumer goods)."
Do you really think is that likely? A collapse in asset prices would indeed be a good thing in the medium to longer term, as I've said before. A collapse in house prices makes the cost of shelter much lower, and so reduces the value of labour-power increasing rate of surplus value and profit. A collapse in bond and share prices makes the cost of pension provision much lower - i.e. £100 of pension contributions buys many more bonds and shares to go into a pension fund, so as to provide the interest/dividends on those assets to cover future pension liabilities - again raising the rate of s.v. and profit. But, in the short term, especially in the current context it will cause a credit crunch like 2008.
More importantly, do you really think people will stop wanting a foreign holiday? And, as UK car production ceases as firms relocate to the EU, possibly to an independent Scotland inside the EU, do you think that UK residents will stop wanting to have cars all of which they now have to import, mostly from the EU?
George,
"I'm guessing that it was widely believed even before the referendum that Brexit could crash house prices, which is why the places with the highest house prices (urban cores, or the affluent M40/M3/A34 triangle) tended to vote Remain."
Really? I doubt that all of those elderly Tory Daily Express and Daily Mail readers who live on the daily drip of news of now much the price of their house has risen, and who also make up the vast majority of those who voted for Brexit did so thinking that their Brexit vote was going to blow up their paper wealth in a puff of smoke!
George,
"And perhaps the Leave voters believe that a negotiated Brexit would result in much the same flight of service industries and foreign-owned manufacturing industries as a "no deal" Brexit, but without giving Britain the freedom to take the measures (state aid etc) that just might rebuild a UK-owned manufacturing base?"
But, the only possible negotiated Brexit is BRINO, and under BRINO there is no reason why such a flight would occur! Its just that its pointless. No doubt some - it is the case with the reactionary Stalinoid elements - beleive in the fantasy of Social-Democracy in One Country, but the Lexiters who pursued that reactionary fantasy are an insignificant minority. The majority of leave voters, who are elderly Tories certinly have no interest in some kind of Corbynite/Stalinoid policy of Social-democracy in One Country. They hated Corbyn not because he was not Brexity enough, but because he was Corbyn, was too much like Tony Benn or Arthur Scargill who most of them also hated in the 1980's, which is why they voted for Thatcher, opposed and income cases scabbed on the Miners Strike and so on!
But, in any case the idea of Social-Democracy in a rapidly declining and isolated Britain is indeed a rabid, reactionary fantasy. If anyone voted leave on the basis of it they were deluded and the job of socialists was and is to point out the delusion.
George,
" I am increasingly drawn to the view that (no deal) Brexit is a kind of desperate Hail Mary strategy more than anything: the fact that no UK government since 1973 seems to have been able to anything about the current account deficit might certainly drive such desperation!"
In the late 1970's, I used to write articles on economics for my union branch monthly newsletter. I remember writing one - I probably have it in my archives somewhere - pointing out that in the 1960's, everyone was fixated by the trade deficit, but by the late 70's, no one bothered to even discuss it, because it was no longer seen as important. And, indeed, it isn't on its own.
I doubt that the vast majority of voters Leave or remain even know what the trade deficit is, whether we have pone, how big it is or anything else, let alone it being a major concern for them in how they voted in the referendum. Let's just be hones and say what is obvious. The large majority of people who voted Leave are elderly Tory voters, reactionaries with a hankering for the days of Empire, and who hate foreigners, particularly those with darker coloured skins. As all the surveys show they are people who are less well educated, and whose approach to the question was driven by emotion rather than reason, and that emotion was driven by simple bigotry, as is the emotion that means that the same people are also marked by their homophobia, misogyny, and reactionary ideas on the environment and so on, with a huge correlation of all these views.
I wrote long before the referendum that such a condition existed amongst a significant section of the population, and that much of the middle class Left were foolish to close their eyes to it. Its why having opposed Brexit as vociferously as I could, and continue to do so, I pointed out two weeks before the vote that the mobilisation of that reactionary core was going to win it for Leave.
George,
"If you're wondering where I got these ideas from, it was from the commenter "Froghole1" on the Guardian's website: he actually voted Remain, but believes that if we must Brexit then No Deal would be the most appropriate way to go."
Oh I really do hope that BJ tries a No Deal crash out, because the disaster that unfolds within days of it will be such that his government falls within a couple of weeks and the Tories are never allowed anywhere near government again. They would undoubtedly have to split again similar to with the Repeal of the Corn Laws and creation of the Conservative Party.
The social-democratic wing of the Party would have a natural alliance with the Liberals and Blair-rights in such conditions. It would mean that Brexit was dead forever, and the ultranationalists in Europe, and Trumpists in the US would be dead along with it. It would mean that Britain would have to apply for emergency readmittance to the EU, which the EU would grant provided that Britian agreed to join the Eurozone, Shengen and so on, and gave up its current social opt outs on Working-Time etc., and gave up its rebate.
It would only be a question of whether under such conditions NI quickly joined in a United Ireland, and Scotland became an independent nation within the EU. Either way the position of England would be seriously weakened.
George,
"Food was a considerably more prominent part of household budgets in the '70s than today, because the massive increase in housing costs hadn't yet occurred. And while joining the EEC reduced costs from trade barriers and restrictions in a way that didn't favour any one country in particular, the CAP increased the price of food for UK consumers alone. The result is that British industry was rendered uncompetitive (the industrial strife triggered by the higher food prices of course made things worse) and EEC (mostly West German) imports flooded into the UK market."
In the 1970's, food accounted for 25% of household spending. Today, it accounts for only 15%. So either way, it accounts for only a minority, and today it accounts for nearly half what it did then, a large part of which has to be put down to the reduction in the cost of food production, contrary to your argument.
The industrial strife in Britain - and elsewhere - long predated joining the EEC/EU, as indeed did the high levels of inflation, which in any case as I said are a consequence of money printing not higher costs. The lack of competitiveness was why Britain NEEDED to join the EEC/EU not a consequence of doing so!
The point about the invisibles is that EEC/EU membership meant that Britain had far greater potential to expand exports of them compared to visibles. And, as Marx and Engels set outin Capital III, the Capital Account is not simply the inverse of the current account. Deficit countries ship capital abroad to cover current account deficits that is true, but they also ship capital abroad for other purposes - direct investment, for example, and these provide longer-term earnings that flow back.
I think the City of London would be surprised to hear your comment that most services are not internationally traded! Without the foreign earnings of the UK's services industry the trade balance really would be sunk. Its why they are desperate to ensure that the City of London retains passporting rights into the EU, for example.
In 2018, 51.4% of UK exports to Europe were services, amounting to £95.2 billion, up 17.6% from 2017. Services accounted for 43% of all exports. With the rest of the world a trade surplus of £81 billion on services counterbalanced a deficit on goods of £35 billion, giving an overall surplus of £46 billion. Much of that is due to the global trade deals that the EU has negotiated and from which the UK currently benefits until Brexit.
Boffy,
Really? I doubt that all of those elderly Tory Daily Express and Daily Mail readers who live on the daily drip of news of now much the price of their house has risen, and who also make up the vast majority of those who voted for Brexit did so thinking that their Brexit vote was going to blow up their paper wealth in a puff of smoke!
Great point! It seems like the places where Home-Owner-Ist newspapers are the most popular are NOT the places where actual house prices are highest. I wonder why this is?
But, the only possible negotiated Brexit is BRINO, and under BRINO there is no reason why such a flight would occur! Its just that it's pointless.
It is certainly true that an actual "BRINO" (as in the UK stays in both the single market AND customs union) would be pointless, but I don't see how that can be the "only possible negotiated Brexit" unless you make the assumption that Northern Ireland must have no hard border with the Republic of Ireland or with Great Britain: otherwise you could have the options of a free trade agreement only (Canada-style), customs union only (Turkey-style), or single market only (Norway-style).
George,
A BRINO in which Britain stays in the Single market and Customs union is the only negotiable Brexit for the simple reason that all the other options you mention have been available for the last three years, and none of them have been negotiated, and for good reason!
The Brexiters, including the Lexiters, and Labour Brexit proponents claimed that it was possible to have a Brexit in which Britain had just as good terms with the EU as it had as a member, and that was a lie that has been continually exposed.
The EU cannot give Britain a Canada style FTA, because Britain is not Canada. Canada does not sit 20 miles off the EU mainland, or immediately against the Irish border. The FTA with Canada does not mean a free flow of goods and services without checks, and so on.
The reason for example, that the EU said that it could give the UK third country status as part of any deal, was precisely that it was conditional on a deal, in which Britain agreed to regulatory alignment, which for the EU means regulatory convergence, but which for the UK, and for Gove was always a form of words that meant regulatory divergence, which is what is required to be able to continue to sell goods and services to the EU single market without checks, whilst continually undermining the single market, by divergent regulations and standards, as the UK accepts US regulations and standards over hormone treated beef, chlorine washed chicken, removal of labour, consumer and environmental protections etc. so as to get a trade deal with the US (whether Trump or Biden is President).
I wrote several years ago that that is what Gove's strategy was going to be, and so it has been. The EU clearly can't allow that, and won't. BJ has just been so incompetent as to alert them to the strategy if they didn't already understand it, which they probably did. The same with the Norway and Turkey options. Britain is not Norway, whose population is less than half that of London, and whose main concern is access to markets for the export of its oil and gas upon which its economy is largely based. Nor is it Turkey, which does not represent the same kind of competitive threat that the UK does. Nor would the UK under Tory or Labour accept the Customs Union only option of turkey, in which it has no vote in the setting of duties, and which also precludes entering other customs arrangements, for example with the US etc.
There have always only been two options. There is either a No Deal Brexit, or there is No Brexit, including BRINO. A No Deal Brexit will be disaster. A Crash out No Deal will just be immediately catastrophic,which is why they can't go for it, or if they do they have committed hari kiri.
George,
"Great point! It seems like the places where Home-Owner-Ist newspapers are the most popular are NOT the places where actual house prices are highest. I wonder why this is?"
Probably because the places where house prices are highest is not where houses form the majority of household wealth. The places where house prices are highest are in those places where the owners of those houses also hold vast amounts of fictitious capital in other forms - shares, bonds and their derivatives. These revenues, and ultimately, thereby, the price of these financial assets depends upon the fortunes of the large multinational companies, which is itself dependent on EU membership, and a continuation of the social-democratic state that creates the conditions in which such large-scale capital operates and accumulates capital. That is far more important to them than the small matter of whether the price of the house has added a paltry £25,000 a year to their paper wealth.
I remember some years ago talking to someone who worked for an IT company, but whose family had their own business. His brother had just been buying a house in the Manchester area. Even 25 years ago, he was looking at spending £250k. He told me that the estate agent had said to his brother that obviously he would need to think about it carefully as it was probably the biggest single item of expenditure he would make in his life. "Oh no, his brother replied, I've just bought a plane that cost more than this."
The industrial strife in Britain - and elsewhere - long predated joining the EEC/EU, as indeed did the high levels of inflation, which in any case as I said are a consequence of money printing not higher costs. The lack of competitiveness was why Britain NEEDED to join the EEC/EU not a consequence of doing so!
I'm concentrating on UK-specific inflation not replicated on the continent (as that is what matters where competitiveness is concerned): was the UK printing more money than continental countries?
While the spectacular economic growth that France enjoyed during the '60s certainly made EEC membership more attractive to UK politicians, isn't it the case that joining a common market from a position of weakness actually makes it more difficult to correct the weakness?
Since 2000 European solidarity has of course been harmed more by Germany's obstinate clinging to its current account surplus in the face of criticism from France and from the European Commission.
A BRINO in which Britain stays in the Single market and Customs union is the only negotiable Brexit for the simple reason that all the other options you mention have been available for the last three years, and none of them have been negotiated, and for good reason!
The reason those other options haven't been negotiated isn't because they are unacceptable to the EU (as you point out) but because of the bad faith of the Tory Brexiteers themselves!
And doesn't the whole desire to leave the EU's regulatory sphere in favour of that of the US (of which "chlorinated chicken" has become the media exemplar) go back to the hope that leaving the EU's regulatory and customs sphere will enable lower food prices, which was the main argument of the OUT campaign back in 1975?
Note that the IN landslide in that referendum was in part because EEC membership was supported by all national newspapers except the Daily Express (due to its owner's Empire Loyalist sympathies), but also because the (CAP-driven) UK-specific rise in food prices was masked by a global rise in food prices resulting from the oil shock.
Probably because the places where house prices are highest is not where houses form the majority of household wealth. The places where house prices are highest are in those places where the owners of those houses also hold vast amounts of fictitious capital in other forms - shares, bonds and their derivatives.
That's pretty much what I though the answer would be, and are you saying that housing wealth (especially in expensive areas, where most of the value is in the location rather than the building itself) is also classed as a form of fictitious capital?
George,
You don't half ask a lot of questions! I'll try to answer as I have time. I'll answer your last point first, as its easiest to answer quickly. A house (at least one you live in) is not any kind of capital, real or fictitious. Its simply a commodity that you consume over a prolonged period of time, like a car, or a piece of furniture.
However, for the owners of houses (including those buying them on a mortgage) they have some similarities with fictitious-capital. In particular, a rise in the market price of the house, has all the appearance of a rise in the price of a share or a bond i.e. of fictitious capital.
There is a difference, of course. If you make a capital gain as a result of the house price rising, you can only realise the gain by selling the house, but then you need to buy another house, or else rent one. If you make a capital gain on a share or bond, you can realise it by selling it, without any requirement to replace it, because you don't have to live in a share or a bond, whereas you do with a house.
The same applies with land. Money spent to buy land is not capital. If i spend £1,000 to buy a piece of land, then as Marx demonstrates this is then £1,000 that I do not have to spend on that land, in the form of machines, labour and so on. It is essentially the equivalent of rent i would otherwise have paid, but now capitalised into a price. Alternatively, I spend £1,000 to buy the land, not to farm it myself, but to rent it out to a capitalist farmer. The rent is now a revenue I receive on the money-capital I have advanced to buy the land, in just the same way that if I advance £1,000 to buy shares, the dividends I receive are an interest payment on the £1,000 of money-capital I advanced to buy the shares, or likewise £1,000 advanced to buy a bond, which provides me with an amount of interest in the form of a coupon.
In short houses are not fictitious capital - mortgages, however are - but their owners look at them in a similar manner. Another similarity is that some see ownership of a house as providing them with a revenue, as an "imputed rent", i.e. what they save in what they would otherwise have paid in rent.
George,
On inflation. Its not the absolute amount of money printing that is the basis of inflaation, but the excess money supply over and above what was required for the circulation of the value of commodities.
But, your premise is in any case false. Mandel in "The Second Slump" p. 16, gives data for inlfation for 1973, 1974, and first half of 1975. In 1973, UK inflation was 9.1%, but in Japan was 19.1%, Italy 10.8%, France 7.3%, Belgium 7%. In 1974, UK 16.1%, Japan 21.9%, France 13.7%, Italy 21.9%, Belgium 12.7%. Its in 1975 that inflation in the UK increased most dramatically, not in 1973, i.e. not on EEC entry. In 1975 UK inflation rose to 23.5%.
I can attest to the reason. The Heath government introduced the indexation of wages to prices, a similar thing existed in Italy, the Scala Mobile. My wages never increased so much in % terms as during that time, and with the oil price quadrupling, plus the Miners winning the 1972 and 1974 strikes, large amounts of money was printed to cover these rises so as not to squeeze profits.
George,
"While the spectacular economic growth that France enjoyed during the '60s certainly made EEC membership more attractive to UK politicians, isn't it the case that joining a common market from a position of weakness actually makes it more difficult to correct the weakness?"
That assumes that Britain was actually weak, as against still having a considerable position of strength built up over centuries. That does not mean its position was not weakening significantly. Nor does it mean that yet further weakening would occur if it stayed outside the EEC, at an even more rapid pace. Indeed, that is what it now faces.
Had it stayed outside, its relative position would have deteriorated more quickly. European capital would have concentrated and grown more rapidly, and would simply have bought up UK capital on the cheap, which is what its fate now is ultimately. Its why Britain always tried to prevent the creation of a European state in the 19th century, hence the Napoleonic Wars, and also hence WWI and WWII. But, in the postwar period, it was powerless to prevent its creation. Its also partly why DeGaulle opposed UK membership as a destabilising influence.
George,
"Since 2000 European solidarity has of course been harmed more by Germany's obstinate clinging to its current account surplus in the face of criticism from France and from the European Commission."
I wouldn't disagree. However, that is more to do with the domination of European national governments, including Germany, by conservative parties than with the nature of the EU itself. It shows why its necessary for socialists and progressive social democrats in Europe to unite and to transform the nature of both the EU, and of the national governments. Its why an EU unified, or at least federal state is required, so that the required central borrowing, funding and fiscal transfers can be established.
George,
"The reason those other options haven't been negotiated isn't because they are unacceptable to the EU (as you point out) but because of the bad faith of the Tory Brexiteers themselves!"
But the bad faith is simply a reflection that their promises could not be fulfilled in reality - and nor could the have cake and eat it promises of labour, or the proposals put forward now by, for example Paul Mason. There is no possibility of such an have cake and eat it Brexit that gives all the benefits of EU membership without membership of the Single Market and Customs Union, and all the things that go with it like Free Movement.
So either they will have to accept that Brexit is not going to get done, whether it takes the form of BRINO or an extension of the TP into the future at which point with a million Leavers a year dying, and a million Remainers joining the electorate means not rejoining becomes unsustainable, and simply a matter of fiddling the paperwork to change from being in transition out to being in transition back in, or else it takes the form of BRINO, in which case everyone says, what the fuck was the point of all that, and we go back in again anyway within the decade.
George,
"And doesn't the whole desire to leave the EU's regulatory sphere in favour of that of the US (of which "chlorinated chicken" has become the media exemplar) go back to the hope that leaving the EU's regulatory and customs sphere will enable lower food prices, which was the main argument of the OUT campaign back in 1975?"
Not really. On the one hand there is the Miseans like Rees-Mogg who want to go back to an 8th century form of capitalism based upon a myriad of small essentially peasant produces, each competing viciously against each other with no regulations, and on the other there are those who think that some golden age could open up in trade with the US to which hey have always leaned as against the EU.
But, the reality is that trade with the US, or the rest of the world is never going to be more important than trade with the EU, simply because of proximity and size of market. So, again the choice is align with the US, and thereby get shut out of a lot of Europe because of regulatory divergence, or align with Europe and hold on to your export markets, including those you only have access to because the EU as a huge trading bloc has negotiated them on better terms than you could have done as a small independent state.
George,
I was a young TU militant and political activist in 1975, when that referendum took place. I can assure you that the majority for IN was not at all down simply to the media. In fact, there was plenty of coverage of wine lakes, and grain mountains.
And, I have given you the details of inflation in the 1970's in a range of countries, showing that your assumption about UK specific food price inflation, simply isn't supported by the facts.
Carty might be an ultra ultra right conspiracy theory loon who believes the lockdown is some sort of eco warrior conspiracy theory, rather than what it actually is, vital public health measures but he certainly has a knack for getting Boffy to display his utter nonsense.
Who knew, the way to get an idiot to reveal his idiocy is to constantly flatter him! Keep up the great work Boffy!
Hi Boffy,
My name is Trixie and I am your biggest fan.
Please tell again about your incredible ideas, that seem to come from some crazy, almost insane netherworld that only you inhabit. It is as if some magical pixie creature is whispering secrets into your ear and it won't tell the rest of us the mystery.
So please tell us again,
How if house prices fall everyone will be able to move to a bigger house.
Also tell us how we are all going to starve within a year if people can't go to Wetherspoons.
Oh and please tell me how kids can't spread a virus, I am interested in the virology from such as expert as yourself.
You also mentioned how NHS direct were encouraging lazy people to phone up their helplines to claim sick days.
Love to hear again your incredible insights on the above.
Love and Kisses
Trixie xx
BCFG, I said that eco-warriors have welcomed lockdowns, not that they actually played a role in imposing them (as we both know they don't have the power to do so).
But where is the evidence that lockdowns are actually saving lives (other than when they needed to be impose to prevent health care systems from being overwhelmed)?
Worst 10 countries (Covid-19 deaths per million as of September 19 2020)
1. Peru: 948.78 (harsh lockdown)
2. Belgium: 857.4 (harsh lockdown)
3. Bolivia: 646.79 (harsh lockdown)
4. Brazil: 638.85 (no lockdown)
5. Chile: 638.15 (harsh lockdown)
6. Ecuador: 625.97 (harsh lockdown)
7. UK: 614.74 (lax lockdown)
8. USA: 599.96 (lax lockdown)
9. Italy: 589.93 (harsh lockdown)
10. Sweden: 580.74 (no lockdown)
When would lockdown be ended by the way if you had your way?
* X days after the last death?
* X days after the last positive test result?
* Some other criterion (please describe)?
So, BCCFG, DFTM, CAAC, SIOB, Dave, Chris, Sentinel, ad infinitum adds another persona to his multiple personalities - Trixie Trickle. Just as inane as all the others of course.
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