In case you've been under a rock, Musk has accused Starmer of the "rape of Britain" and said Jess Phillips should be in prison for refusing a further inquiry into grooming gangs, or what Musk calls "rape genocide". For context, this is the kind of bullshit peddled by assorted fascists and neo-Nazis as an adjunct to their great replacement "theory"; that white women are being raped and having mixed race children to hasten the take over of the Western nations by black and brown people. Hence why grooming and rape gangs were okay when his friend Jeffrey Epstein organised them. Musk has undoubtedly been radicalised as he's become conscious of his political interests as a billionaire, and is banging on about this because he wants to push UK politics further to the right and visit naked class politics upon the country. As if we haven't already had a bellyful of this destructive rubbish.
Labour are on a sticky wicket. The situation demands a straightforward riposte and, because Starmer is opposed to "sticking plaster politics", retaliation in the form of enforcing the provisions of the Online Safety Act against hate speech. But this is complicated by Musk's being a powerful figure in the incoming Trump administration, and so any response would be overdetermined by Labour's customary obsequiousness to the United States, regardless of who is in office. And if that wasn't bad enough, Labour - and especially this leadership - are loathe to take billionaires on anyway.
As someone not at all fond of Wes Streeting, his comments on Laura Kuenssberg this Sunday morning walked the tightrope the government has set itself. He said the attack on Phillips was a "disgraceful smear". She and Starmer had done more to lock up rapists and "scumbags" than most people, and social media platforms should work toward online safety. He also said that the voices the government should be listening to are those of the survivors of sexual assault themselves. A text book response from the Blairite book of rebuttal. Appear to take a hard line by dismissing the argument, defend the record of one's colleagues, and proferr a course of action that steers away from more confrontation with someone Streeting, Starmer, et al would much prefer to cultivate. An effective rebuttal? I'll leave that up to readers to judge.
Writing prior to this weekend's farrago in The Lead, Zoe Grunewald argues that Labour should stick to the priorities and not get blown off course by criticism, be it from the Tories, disgruntled landowners and the like. Wisely, she suggests taking on the right on grounds of Labour's choosing instead of attempting to outdo them on immigration. It appears Starmer is in part agreement. According to Alex Wickham, there will be no new year address as such on Monday. He's going to plough on while ignoring the "gossip" and, presumably, the "distractions" of the daily headline generators. This studied aloofness didn't serve the government well over freebies or the removal of winter fuel payments, but as all the "difficult" (i.e. poor) choices are supposedly out the way Starmer can focus on the managerialism and, perhaps, recapture something of the appearance of his first week in office.
Smashing the delivery button so government churns out tractor production figures runs the risk of leaving the field to Labour's opponents, but right now that is not too bad an option. With Musk now calling for Farage's removal from Reform's leadership, the divisions among Team Trump over there are finding an echo over here. Despite toadying to Musk across the Sunday politics shows, he dared disagree with his would-be sugardaddy over the release of Tommy Robinson. Farage wants "respectable" distance between Yaxley-Lennon and his thuggery because there's only room for one senior personality on the extreme right, and undisciplined street violence is impossible to wield if one's chosen route to office is electoralism. This exacerbates divisions in Reform itself, which saw Lee Anderson of all people heckled at Reform's East Midlands conference for refusing to back Yaxley-Lennon and his thugs. Meanwhile, the Tories are nowhere with Kemi Badenoch pathetically repeating Musk's calls for inquiries into child sexual abuse, and Robert Jenrick has disgraced himself further with another racist diatribe that, at an earlier period, would have been on the receiving end of a prosecution.
Just as Boris Johnson was lucky in 2019 because of the divisions between his opponents, it's possible Musk's influence could destabilise the opposition on the right and make things easier for Labour than they might otherwise be.
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16 comments:
I think there's a deeper problem in that Musk is not just a millionaire "tech bro", he is in fact embedded in the Military Industrial Complex. It should be obvious that the likes of SpaceX, Starlink and xAI are military development companies lightly disguised as civilian businesses. Given how a Tesla Cybertruck recently withstood an internal bomb blast in the foyer of Trump Tower, I would guess that there is military development going on at Tesla too. Note also that his buddy Peter Theil's Palantir provides the US military with its missile targeting systems.
As such, Musk is part of the US deep state, and if he wants to redirect British politics, it means that forces within the deep state do too. It's also notable that Trump hasn't attempted to reign Musk in, which means he tacitly approves of what Musk is doing. Trump holds the Sword of Damocles over Starmer's head, because if at any time he retweets any of Musk's anti-Starmer missives, this will be a signal for the UK deep state to remove him.
Another aspect to this saga are the underlying rumblings that a number of senior Labour politicians, and senior policemen, are up to their necks in organised crime. I recently came across this piece, but I'm not sure how much credence to give it:
https://www.redwallandtherabble.co.uk/why-a-public-inquiry-is-the-only-way-to-uncover-the-truth-about-what-really-happened-in-oldham/
Sidenote: that a cybertruck 'withstood an internal bomb blast' is more down to a bad explosive than particularly good construction on the part of Tesla.
Give it no credence at all. Raja Miah is a prolific conspiracy theorist with extreme right links well known in this area
The "deep state" - what is that other than a far right, petty bourgeois conspiracy theory construct, as against the actual state, i.e. the state of the bourgeois ruling class - is no friend of Trump, nor Farage, and certainly not Tommy Robinson, nor even, for that matter Blue Labour.
If that state acts against Starmer and Blue Labour, it will not be on instructions from Trump or Musk, but on the basis that they threaten the interests of the global ruling class, with their reactionary petty-bourgeois nationalist politics, just as much as did Truss, which led to her downfall as that ruling class, via its control of financial markets crashed the £, and sent interest rates soaring.
They are just as likely to act against Trump as against Starmer, and a look at the rise in US bond yields over the last few weeks shows the same processes, and talk of the return of the bond vigilantes.
You see now you've got me pondering how this bourgoise global ruling class does not include the richest man in the world and his billionaire pals.
Hmmm.
Even if you start your analysis from the perspective of the individual, and try to stick each individual into a class "box", which Marx specifically rejected, then, its quite possible to include Musk as part of the global ruling class - and Trump for that matter - without that in any way changing anything I said.
The global ruling class is proportionally very small, constituting only around 0.001% of the population, but that still amounts to several million people, of which Musk is just one person. His personal views, and even material interests do not, and do no need to coincide with those of the ruling class as a whole, anymore than the views or material interests of any worker are those of the working class as a whole.
Karl Marx, for example, came from the bourgeoisie, Fred Engels even more so, but their ideas were certainly not those that represented the objective interest of the bourgeoisie. That is the trouble with the lazy, subjectivist methods of much of the "Left", today that works with stereotypes, and cliches, and broad vague categories, rather than engaging in Marxist analysis of the real world, and the objective interests of classes, as representations of antagonistic forms of property.
But that is the point - I don't think Musk is "just one person". He is acting as a tribune for a portion of the bourgoisie. Whether that is the dominant portion I do not know, but it could be, because no effort is being made to restrain him, no matter how many UK politicians protest.
He clearly is just one person, and even if he acts as a tribune for a few other mavericks, he clearly does not speak for the large majority of the ruling class and their state. Moreover, as has already been seen, these mavericks and their relationship to each other, and the petty-bourgeois base is racked with contradiction. Musks' comments in relation to needing to bring in more immigrants to the US, for example, required by his businesses, has already caused a rift with the MAGA base. A blow up with Trump is also inevitable.
The ruling class has already given its opinion on the coming Trump administration. It has been busy selling US bonds, pushing bond yields/interest rates higher. Trump's petty-bourgeois nationalism, as with that of the Brexitism of Blue Labour, is anathema to them. Blue Labour could solve many of its funding problems by scrapping Brexit, bringing in an additional £40 billion a year. Trump's tariffs will hugely push up US costs of production and in conditions, as seen, today, with the economy still demanding increasing numbers of workers, and those worker households having more money to spend, which keeps pushing up consumer demand that firms must respond to, that means wages will rise to compensate, reducing profits at just the time when firms need those profits to finance expansion, and so causing interest rates to rise further, which causes asset prices to fall.
As I've said when the problem is uppity workers using industrial muscle, and worse taking over companies etc., fascism can provide a solution. When the problem is that a growing economy causes interest rates to rise, and asset prices to fall, it provides no answer at all. In the US, wage rises for those staying in the same job are running at around 4% pa., whereas for those changing jobs, it is around 7% p.a. (down from around 14% a year or so ago, but still way above the rise in prices), which means that it is the demand for labour that is causing wages to rise, far more than trades union might. As I pointed out to Dan Gay recently, I've seen this before back in the 1950's, and its the precursor to workers gaining strength, and rebuilding their organisations, which happened in the 1960's and 70's.
I agree with @Boffy that the "Deep State" is a conspiracy construct. It is one that suits the larger, real power elite as it redirects anger, frustration and protest from them to a mirage. The mirage is a reflection of the real state, distorted sufficiently to suit their preferences for a redistributon of resources from welfare, public goods and protection of civil liberties towards security, control and exploitation. They can claim support for measures that lower taxes or reduce rights, while continuing to invest public money in the apparatus of repression and rentier enrichment. Its win-win for them, while the anger is aimed at a suitably convincing distraction.
Where is the POLITICAL wing of this ruling class gestalt, Boffy?
Neoliberal "centrism" is a dead political position walking. It can only now win elections after periods of misgovernance by unhinged chaos - as with Biden's narrow victory following the explosive conclusion of Trump's first term, and Starmer's loveless ascension on a tiny support base following Brexit, Boris, and Truss. The return of Trump should leave nobody sane in any doubt that this game is up. The absolute best that it can do from now on is to win one electoral cycle in every two, by conceding the other to a rampage by destructive Surplus Elites - and in every country, sooner or later one of those rampages will reach critical mass and morph into a dictatorship or one party state.
According to this pattern, if Starmer can't find a way out of his current spineless malaise then his Labour are going to lose in 2029, no matter how bad or fractured the alternative is. A far right victory which seems impossible right now will suddenly find a way to become possible.
The bourgeoise ruling class can make their presence felt by putting their collective shoulder to the levers of finance all that they like. But if they don't have a viable political wing, which can win more than one election in a row against the "tear it all down, put a psycho in charge" party, then they're in serious trouble. They can't control the laws and they can't control the guns; and one or both of those things will eventually strip them of their property and possibly their lives.
So far there has been just ONE lonely, solitary sign that they recognise this - the grudging admission of Walz to the Democratic Party limelight. The fact that it came so late and limp tells us that the ruling class, prior to that, simply had not yet accepted the new political reality.
If they're ready to accept it now, then they'll have to pull a viable political vehicle from somewhere. The Democratic Party and the Labour Party do not currently look anything like it.
I've been saying since before 2008 that conservative social-democracy (neoliberalism) had run its course. The model of paper wealth based on asset price inflation exploded in 2008, and has only continued since on a surreal basis of QE, negative interest rates, and attempts to hold back real economic growth/capital accumulation to hold down interest rates. What makes the current period different to the post-war period is that in that period, the ruling class of rentiers had no come to depend on capital gains on asset prices. In the post-war period, share prices rose by much less than did GDP. They drew their revenue from dividends/interest payments, as profits expanded with growth.
By comparison, between 1980 and 2000 share prices rose by more than 4 times the rise in GDP. They became addicted to that paper wealth, and its hard to break from it, especially as in 1987, central banks provided what seemed to be the answer, by simply printing "money" to buy up the worthless paper, to reflate the share prices. Similarly, as those prices rose, the dividend yield fell, requiring more of the profits to be diverted to dividends rather than retained for real investment. In the 1970's, 10% of profits went to dividends, today its 70%, according to Haldane.
They have to accept - much as Greek bondholders did - that to save themselves, they have to suffer a huge crash in asset prices, destroying their paper wealth, as the cost of actually saving their system, and doing so by real capital investment, which means a rise in interest rates. Which is happening anyway, despite them. Marx explained that in Capital III, Chapter 23.
They are not going to accept it easily, and as I've also set out, my guess is that, here, Blue Labour get hammered in the Spring, Starmer gets challenged by Blair-rights and the latter realign with Liberals, and Conservatives, as the Tories realign with Reform.
There is one way that the ruling class can also ameliorate their problem. That is economic growth based on reducing costs and frictions, i.e. that does not require large amounts of real investment. But that is what globalisation is about, and the opposite of Brexit/Trumpism!
Most of what you say seems reasonable enough, but you're still talking about politics as being dictated by finance. When the ruling class digs itself as deep a hole as it has now, rampaging Surplus Elites throw out the rule book and the relationship begins to run the other way. It's obviously already begun. Can they respond, or not?
Starmer has clearly signalled a course to try and reverse the Tufton St/ERG Brexit project, which will not mean reversing Brexit itself in the medium term (it only requires grovelling to the EU for a workable deal). That should help promise to hook the paper wealth addicts back up to their supply, but it won't improve his electoral chances unless it produces tangible improvements in mass living standards in an unrealistically short time. Nor will a takeover by the Blair-right do anything to make the party's position viable again. It's simply a dead duck for as long as it sits anywhere between the Green Party and Reform. Not a viable political vehicle for 2029.
Which, if the ruling class remain unable to stomach allowing any power to real leftists, leaves only one single game in town: the demagogic isolationist-nationalist racism of Reform. So, if I follow your analogies correctly, then the ruling class are now incapable of continuing to rule, and that's that. They are going to be taken off their paper wealth drip by a crash in asset prices caused by a murderous fascist coup. Which will of course have to be followed by war, because how else will the economy be restarted to serve its new masters?
There is no chance that Starmer can get a meaningful deal with the EU outside reversing Brexit, but he can't do that either. So, he has to go. If the PLP splits, as the Blair-Rights takeover (and as I've said elsewhere, the union bureaucrats will play the role of useful idiots for them, as they are desperate for any chance of Labour winning the next election) and merge with Liberals/Greens, and the "Left" of the Conservative Party, this new centrist majority in parliament will do a deal with the EU.
It doesn't solve the problem, but it provides £40 billion a year in additional tax revenues, reduces UK bond yields, opens up additional growth and so on. That growth is made possible out of savings on business costs, and so does not require additional calls on money-capital to fund it, i.e. does not cause interest rates to rise, and so does not pose a problem of an immediate crash in asset prices. Moreover, a solution at the EU level, based upon the need to deal with collapsing infrastructure - which I will describe in future blog posts as rejuvenation - is easier to achieve than by individual nation states.
I have set out elsewhere how the ruling class can be persuaded to accept a crash in the prices of their assets. Between 1965 to 1982, asset prices rose in nominal terms, but during that time, profits were getting increasingly squeezed by wages, due to an extensive accumulation of capital, and slowly reducing productivity. (See Glyn and Sutcliffe, Workers and the The Profits Squeeze). Its the process Marx details as leading to the overproduction of capital. This process during that time, as firms had to expand to meet demand, largely from rising real wages, but with profit share declining meant that the demand for money-capital rose relative to its supply from realised profits. Interest rates rose, peaking i 1982. A look at real asset prices after inflation, shows that they fell not rose. In other words, the state cushioned the effect on the ruling class of falling real asset prices by inflating the currency supply. That came to a point of crisis in the stagflation of the 1970's, early 80's.
So, a rise in interest rates which is the inevitable consequence of the growth required at the current conjuncture, will cause real asset prices to fall, by the use of inflation can give the illusion of no such fall in nominal asset prices. Given that faster growth and capital accumulation will lead to increased masses of profits that is a further incentive for them. I suspect that further crashes in nominal asset prices are ahead first though, just as happened in 1962. A strong labour movement backing a more progressive social-democratic agenda would act as a further whip on them in that direction.
Let me get this straight. You think that the Blairites are going to eject Starmer, split their own parliamentary party, "merge" with the Liberal Democrats and Greens AND a significant number of defecting Tories, and then get a good deal with the EU that is not currently anywhere near the table, all within one term and while retaining union backing, and then defeat the inevitable far right alliance in 2029 on the basis of that EU deal?
I think the Blair-rights will challenge Starmer and his Blue Labour faction, after the Spring elections. The PLP is not a Blair-right Party, but a reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist party, in terms of its dominant ideology and policies. They won't eject Starmer from the party, just assert their control with the backing of the union leaders, by removing him from his position, as they tried to do with Corbyn. Starrmer and Blue Labour have of course been far less successful electorally than Corbyn, despite the huge parliamentary majority that was the result of a corrupt electoral system, and the fact that Reform split the Tory vote.
The Blair-Rights do not have to split the PLP, simply assert control over it. Whether they technically merge with the LIberals, Greens et al, or simply form an electoral bloc initially makes no difference. Change UK provides the model, but this time in conditions where it has legs. Certainly, a bloc of votes in parliament, should it come to it, of those elements, plus SNP, Plaid to remove Starmer, in a Confidence Vote, would have a majority.
Ultimately, the Blair-rights want to create a new party formally merged with Liberals, because in that way they achieve their goal of freeing themselves of the TU connection, and ability of the labour movement to intervene in its processes, but they can't say that initially, while they want the backing of the TU bureaucrats.
If such a formation made an open bid to the EU to join, I think there is a possibility it could even happen before the end of this parliament, because the EU has always been able to find ways of fast-tracking where its to its advantage, and taking back Britain would be to the advantage of both. But, even if not, such an application does make possible before formal membership a deal with the EU that currently is not possible. It is that which makes possible the additional growth via reducing frictions on trade etc., which then produces the additional tax revenues, reduces bond yields and so on.
The far right, which is just a political expression of the petty-bourgeoisie has no real social or economic power. Its Summer riots ended as a damp squib, put down by the capitalist state. Its power has always been its numbers when it comes to elections. It forms around 30% of the electorate, but even that is not entirely coherent given the heterogeneous nature of the petty-bourgeoisie, as Trotsky noted. Confronted by a single electoral alternative it would fail. Already its vote is split between Reform and Tories, with Blue Labour offering no progressive alternative, but acting to split the vote of the working and middle class. Amidst the electorate as a whole there is a clear majority for joining the EU, making it the obvious flag around which those progressive forces rally.
Ed Davey calls for joining the EU Customs Union. Of course, that is not actually possible without joining the EU, under current EU rules. Also, bear in mind that the main lever for the ruling class besides its control of financial markets, and of ideology is via the state. The state is not government, or governing parties, but the permanent state machinery, including the courts, police and eventually the military. If Trump or Farage present a threat to the ruling class that state will slap them down.
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