Sunday 20 November 2022

The Bourgeois Politics of Brexit

As forecast on many occasions, Brexit is unravelling. It was and is dysfunctional for British capital as a whole, apart from a few outliers, and is depressing GDP growth on mainland Britain as Boris Johnson's deal multiplies paper work and closes off markets on the continent. Polling supports the view that Brexit is turning out to be a failure, with a branding it as such by 56% to 32%. Even the government can't deny reality any longer, with the Sunday Times reporting how Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are considering a closer, "Swiss-style" relationship with the European Union. Putting this to one side, within establishment circles there is something of a gap. On the one hand, popular support for Leave has been explained as a plebeian revolt against immigration and wokery by white working class people. A bullshit argument if there ever was one, but precious little has been said about the persistence of Brexit and Leaveism among Tory MPs themselves. It's treated like an irrational affectation by centrist and EU-leaning elites.

This "explanation" from a couple of months back from Matthew Syed illustrates the thinking perfectly. Brexit is a cult, and it has the Conservative Party in a vice-like grip. He argues that to understand Tory behaviour of the last six years, only one perspective makes sense: group psychology. Drawing on the work of Leon Festinger who was interested in the sustenance of group delusions, he infiltrated a UFO cult to observe what would happen when its predictions - that members would get whisked away by flying saucers on such-and-such a date - didn't happen. When the aliens stood them up, the cult guru rescheduled their appearance to the future and doubled down on their beliefs. Syed's contention is that believing in Brexit shares these characteristics. Pointing out data demonstrating that Britain is poorer, weaker, and more diminished is like talking to a wall. They're not interested, with its adherents lashing out at the "remainer" Treasury and "woke" financial markets for the country's predicament this last month. More reasonable Brexiteers might point out that Sunak did offer Tory members an alternative, and what we see now is thanks to Truss's idiocy. Which is only partly true.

The only way out for Syed is a change of government. The Tories need to relinquish power. That this is being touted openly across the Conservative press is remarkable and a sign of how dire their circumstances are. In a paean to Tory MP Charles Walker who famously denounced the collapse of government discipline and said the first duty of the Tory party is to the country, Syed writes,

I almost felt like hugging him as I heard those words, for it hinted at the Tory party that so many of us once admired. A party of pragmatism, of moderation, of realism. We need that party back for the health of our democracy. So, please, call an election, take a break and find yourselves again. Do so now, and you’ll be back. Cling on to the bitter end, changing leaders, jumping through hoops, gazing at navels, and you may never be forgiven.
It's worth noting Syed is a former Labour candidate, an admirer of briefcase politics, and a fan of good Tories. But still, his argument is superficially plausible. The Tory majority made a Leave judgement call because reasons and have stuck with it to the moment of destruction. But this explains nothing. For instance, why was Brexit the glue that held their voter coalition together when the Tories might easily have clung to the cuts-and-deficit dogmatism of the Dave and Osborne years? After all, wasn't it Labour's perceived weakness on the issue that won the Tories the 2015 election? Syed does nothing to explain why Brexit was the object of Tory "cultism". And that's fine, for in the bourgeois press it doesn't do to peer too closely into such things. Hence we're left with a junk psychosocial argument that says something while not saying anything.

The truth of the matter is Brexit and the Tory attitude to Europe are closely bound to issues of statecraft, class struggle, and divisions among British capital. It is not a whimsy impermeable to serious analysis, nor a matter of emotional attachments to a free-floating "ideology" these elite circles subscribe to. Consider the obsession with sovereignty, a much-invoked concept at the heart of Tory Brexit discourse. It's not enough to point out that the European Union can't be described as an anti-democratic affront to the UK state, nor that since leaving the EU British sovereignty has declined vis a vis global markets and our reduction in status from a European rule maker to rule taker. These don't matter, and understanding why requires a short descent down the Tory time tunnel.

Euroscepticism as we understand it is inseparable from Thatcherism. As is well known, the overriding (and self-defined) purpose of her governments was putting the labour movement back in its box. This involved shutting down nationalised industries and the deliberate stoking of mass unemployment, and smashing trade union power - above all, the miners - in set piece industrial disputes. This project demanded a centring of state authority. Then, as now, the state was a sprawling set of institutions with their areas of competence, lines of accountability, and degrees of autonomy. This reflected not just the expansion of the state to meet social demands and expectations placed on it, but also the (semi-) integration of the labour movement into official society, the absorption of a growing strata of professional and middle class occupations, and the management of an increasingly complex and variegated population. If the Tories were going to smash the labour movement, the writ of the executive, of the government, had to be enforced in deed and not in word inside the state. Hence, as per its confrontation with pickets Thatcher's government simply trampled over convention, regulation, and expertise in health, education, local government, and social security. In each case the aim was the same: destroy the relative independence they enjoyed from the centre, and firmly subordinate all state institutions to a rapidly centralising, authoritarian government and its habit of arbitrary intervention.

Thatcher made the state's class character more explicit. It became a machine overtly concerned with smashing working class power and eroding its institutions. Therefore any apparatus, within or without, that checked governmental power in some way had to be (and was) seen off. And this is where the antipathy toward the European Community and then the EU came from. Thatcher was a known Europe enthusiast during the 1975 EC referendum, but became progressively more hostile during her premiership. This was simply because, as barriers to governmental authority were dismantled, the European Court and the European Commission, offered limited means by which Tory schemes could be frustrated. As Thatcher put it herself in her famous Bruges speech, "We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level". Sovereignty then has nothing to do with democracy, and its only relationship to freedom is allowing the British government to do as it may without oversight or blockage. As subsequent governments have only enhanced the power of the executive at the expense of other institutions, most Tories experienced the EU as an increasingly burdensome check. Their antipathy persisted because, wrapped in all kinds of nationalist nonsense, was a frustrated class instinct, and one that was finally freed when the UK finally exited the EU. It's therefore no accident the calamity of Liz Truss happened after Brexit and why many Tories cheered her ridiculous budget. This was democracy for them - the complete freedom of the British government to act as it pleased, and "it pleased" meant sustaining the prevalent balance in the relations of production.

Politics, they say, are concentrated economics. And it's not just the practical politics of waging class struggle that made Euroscepticism the common sense of the Tory party but the economics itself. As argued here several times, the Tories are committed to maintaining the global supremacy of the City of London. This comes before increasing GDP figures, deficit management and paying down public debt, dealing with unemployment and tackling the balance of payments. There are several reasons for this. Many Tories, their families, and the networks they move in have direct interests in the health of the City. Sunak as Prime Minister typifies this linkage. It is crucial for the British bourgeoisie itself. The traditionally dominant bloc in the capitalist class owe their fortunes to City-based commercial capital and the investments made via its offices. They have a vested interest in attracting more capital flows to London (i.e. more brokerage fees to be extracted, more opportunities for "wealth management", and a local high end property market to park cash in), and therefore possess an antipathy to anything that might threaten its operation. Such as state regulation of transactions, moves to close tax loopholes, checks on inward "investment" - in other words, anything that might provide a check on these markets. Indeed, the congruence between seeing the City "free" of external interference is not unrelated to the Tory preoccupation with state sovereignty. Finally, the privileged position the City occupies in the raising and disposal of capital grants the British bourgeoisie and, by extension, its state a similarly advantageous position. The empire is long gone but their empire of capital remains, and this extra clout in the international arena can (and does) afford British capital as a whole more access to global investment opportunities. I.e. It opens markets for the export of capital, as opposed to the export of goods.

The interests in the City might be broadly the same, but those who own and manage funds and capital flows aren't necessarily of like mind. All want to expand the City, increase transactions, attract more capital, and keep the British position as global leaders in commercial and finance. But how to go about it? One side, arguably the largest section of the City (as well as the ruling class as a whole), were broadly aligned with the EU project. Having been integrated into the wider European economy for 40 years, the pooling of sovereignty with the UK's traditional rivals offered plenty of opportunities as part of the world's largest economic bloc. The opt outs negotiated by successive governments from certain EU rules enabled the City to enjoy considerable autonomy while remaining within the formal umbrella of its regulatory regime. And, as part of said bloc, the EU's collective muscle would leave the City well placed as a direct beneficiary of trade deals negotiated with the rest of the world. A minority among the City and the capitalist class generally disagreed. For some, it was the swashbuckling view that without the EU "getting in the way" that even more advantageous deals could be pursued by facing outwards. As the sub-Saharan African and East Asian states are on long-term growth trajectories, the EU is in relative decline. A more agile Britain (i.e. the City) could take advantage of this by casting off from the EU. A component of this community of opinion was dark money, whose interests were tied up in laundering money through the capital. Sometimes proceeds of crime, but usually the corrupt acquisitions of heads of state and their families. The Tory support of the Russian oligarchy is a case in point. Outside of the EU, and with a government desperate to cultivate favours with regimes the world over, regulatory oversight of this financial sludge would be weak to non-existent and this section of British commercial capital would benefit handsomely.

As we know, Vote Leave and Leave.EU, who not at all coincidentally had money from murky overseas sources tied up in their enterprises, won. The section of the Tory party who agreed with the Leave prospectus for prosperity outside the EU perfectly understood that this was for them, and not the millions who voted for Brexit. It was only when Liz Truss carried Brexit and the sovereignty it afforded to its logical conclusion, when all but a few Tory-aligned hedge funds were hit by the Truss/Kwarteng car crash that a key section of elite Brexit supporters, again personified by Sunak's briefcase tendency, that perhaps the hard Brexit pursued by Boris Johnson needs unpicking. The wider economy has taken a hit and has added to the pre-existing inflation problem, but more importantly the City itself has been severely degraded thanks to the double whammy of EU capital diverting to its own commercial and finance markets, and the war in Ukraine and associated sanctions has (temporarily) stemmed corrupt Russian capital flows. To salvage something from the wreckage, a closer relationship with the EU is now an obvious necessity.

Ultimately, explaining Brexit and why sections of business and the state are wedded to the project means understanding class politics and divisions within ruling class politics. It does not explain how Brexit won the referendum and, subsequently, won the politics, but it helps us understand the character it has assumed, why euroscepticism was primarily an elite pursuit among the ruling class's preferred party and, because of how it's linked to coalition of interests, why some of these want to double down on Brexit. Values and identities and dogmatic attachments to ideas are fine things to have, but they all pale against power and filthy lucre.

9 comments:

Blissex said...

«Even the government can't deny reality any longer, with the Sunday Times reporting how Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are considering a closer, "Swiss-style" relationship with the European Union.»

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/07/lord-michael-heseltine-boris-goes-brexit-goes/
If Boris goes, Brexit goes, says Lord Heseltine
Tory grandee says Prime Minister’s departure likely to lead to shake-up in relations with EU


«The Tories need to relinquish power. That this is being touted openly across the Conservative press is remarkable and a sign of how dire their circumstances are.»

At this point I suspect that the next election is being thrown to New, New Labour so that Starmer can take the responsibility of bringing the UK into a "Norway" (relabeled "swiss") association with the EU, that is "soft brexit", which was Corbyn's compromise for Labour's "Remain"ers and "Leave"rs

«For instance, why was Brexit the glue that held their voter coalition together»

This seems to me a rather inaccurate claim: in 2019 nearly all of the 30-40% of those who had voted Conservative in 2015 and "Remain" in 2016 still voted for "get Brexit done" Johnson, which shows that brexit was not relevant to them. The glue that holds tories together is property for most of them, and EU membership, whether for or against, is only a distant second for most, even if it is a first for a small but vital minority (see the UKIP threat).

«the complete freedom of the British government to act as it pleased, and "it pleased" meant sustaining the prevalent balance in the relations of production.»

That “relations of production” seems to me the usual old-fashioned assumption that the central sectors in the UK are still industrial, while instead the english ruling class makes nowadays most of their profits from property and finance, as indeed argued later:

«As argued here several times, the Tories are committed to maintaining the global supremacy of the City of London. This comes before increasing GDP figures, deficit management and paying down public debt, dealing with unemployment and tackling the balance of payments.»

Plus property, which is how the ruling class buys the consensus of the upper-middle class by redistributing to them enormous amounts of income from the lower classes.

Blissex said...

«It was only when Liz Truss carried Brexit and the sovereignty it afforded to its logical conclusion, when all but a few Tory-aligned hedge funds were hit by the Truss/Kwarteng car crash that a key section of elite Brexit supporters, again personified by Sunak's briefcase tendency, that perhaps the hard Brexit pursued by Boris Johnson needs unpicking.»

The attacks on Johnson and Truss by the neoliberal media begun well before that. The faction fronted by Heseltine, Major etc. has been working behind the scenes for a long while, working slowly but determinedly.

The loudest signal was the ejection of Paul Dacre from the "Daily Mail" to be replaced by a "Remainer" already in 2018:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/commentisfree/2018/sep/09/daily-mail-geordie-greig-brexit-paul-dacre
«the former cabinet minister Andrew Adonis said that the slight and softly spoken Greig’s appointment marked nothing short of “a revolution in the British media … very likely we will now stop Brexit”. There is possibly no greater testament to the suspected power of Dacre and his rabidly pro-Brexit Daily Mail than that his successor is thought able to single-handedly reverse EU withdrawal.»

Another clear signal was a similar operation at the "Daily Express":

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/28/gary-jones-on-taking-over-daily-express-it-was-anti-immigrant-i-couldnt-sleep
«Which national newspaper is edited by a lifelong Labour supporter who voted remain, wants to promote the positive impact migration has on the UK, thinks Brexit is going badly, and has pledged to do all they can to fight Islamophobia? The answer is the Daily Express, the once-mighty tabloid newspaper that over the last two decades has become associated with barely veiled racism, a relentless campaign for Britain to leave the EU, and an obsession with Princess Diana. “The Express was undoubtedly anti-immigrant, despite the fact that without immigration we would not have a National Health Service,” said Gary Jones, who took over the editor’s chair last March and appears to have recanted almost everything for which his publication was known.»

georgesdelatour said...

Have you never heard of Tony Benn?

Labour opposition to the EEC/EU goes back to Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin, and includes such figures as Hugh Gaitskell, Michael Foot, Clive Jenkins, Barbara Castle, Judith Hart, Gwyneth Dunwoody, Peter Shore, Dennis Skinner etc. How can you memoryhole all of this?

Robert Dyson said...

As always, fascinating insights. There must be those delusions of grandeur, the idea that Britain can go it alone, the exceptionalism of less than 1% of the global population.

Blissex said...

«even more than part of the City (which anyhow is largely USA-owned)»

Since politics has many contradictions, one of the reasons for the support of brexit by some ruling elite factions has been the resentment for the reduction in status of the english ruling class to "compradors" for the USA ruling class (same as most european ruling classes), when their grandparents ruled over "comprador" classes in the Empire, and their realistic perception that the UK was mainly the USA (and Japan) bridgehead into the EU. Which people like Cameron tried to extend to being also the chinese bridgehead into the EU, attempting to play both sides. That aim has not aged well.

Phil said...

George, if I wanted to right a piece about the Labour Party and euroscepticism I'd have written a different post.

georgesdelatour said...

You wrote "Euroscepticism as we understand it is inseparable from Thatcherism." I’m simply pointing out that Hugh Gaitskell and Tony Benn were not Thatcherites. I think Euroscepticism is definitely separable from Thatcherism, even on the right. Peter Hitchens has been a longstanding traditionalist conservative Eurosceptic who definitely isn’t a Thatcherite; he favours rail re-nationalisation, for instance. The principal reason he disliked the UK being in the EU is because he believes our membership undermines Common Law, progressively overwriting it with a Civil Law dispensation. He also thinks jury trials and an adversarial Parliament are things which would be doomed by the progressive homogenisation of governance which is the essence of the EU project.

Margaret Thatcher was obsessed with reversing Wagner’s Law (which predicts the inexorable rise in the State’s share of GDP). It took her 10 years to reduce it from 40% to 35% of GDP, but two years after she left office it was back up to 40% again. In 2019, on the eve of COVID, it stood at 39%.

Next door there’s a very pro-EU country which has been pursuing Thatcher-style policies British Conservatives can only dream of: Ireland. In 2019, on the eve of COVID, Irish state spending was 25% of GDP. Corporate taxes are 12.5% - half that of the UK - and there’s no NHS. I don’t want the UK to copy Ireland’s version of Thatcherism, but clearly such economic policies are fully compatible with enthusiastic membership of the EU.

Phil said...

I thought it would be obvious from the context what was meant by euroscepticism but sure, carry on by all means.

Jim Denham said...

"Tony Benn?

Labour opposition to the EEC/EU goes back to Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin, and includes such figures as Hugh Gaitskell, Michael Foot, Clive Jenkins, Barbara Castle, Judith Hart, Gwyneth Dunwoody, Peter Shore, Dennis Skinner etc. How can you memoryhole all of this?"

All the above little-Englanders and reformist "socialism in one country" advocates do, indeed, deserve to be remembered: as idiotic fools whose version of "socialism" was essentially reactionary and belongs in the dustbin of history.