Four things Brexit means for the UK

When the EU referendum came around last year, I was conflicted over the vote if I'm honest. I could see the 'Lexit' case for voting to leave: the European Union is a neoliberal project with a serious democratic deficit. I have a great deal of time for the old Bennite arguments against the common market. However, it was also clear that the balance of forces were overwhelmingly right-wing, so any withdrawal from the EU would be shaped by the Conservatives and UKIP. In the end, I decided to vote Remain out of caution.

Many months later it's clear that the rupture was coming for some time. The problem was that the left was nowhere on the EU debate. You had a split between the Lexit camp, who were typically hard left, and the Remain camp, mostly left-liberals and reformist socialists. Both positions were reactive to the terms set by the right and its dominance over the question. The referendum itself was held by David Cameron for party political reasons. It was about the internal dynamics of the Conservative Party. Not about the future of the United Kingdom.

Without a clear position, the left could either side with the liberal wing of the establishment or the right-wing reaction to it. This was not a good place to be. I could have lived with Brexit if there was a strong left-wing government in place, or a chance that the right would lose power any time soon. Only under those conditions would the British government likely maintain an open immigration policy and pursue a radical programme to restructure the UK economy for working-class interests.

So where are we left now? As expected, I've been following the situation develop since the vote last summer and I've tried to consider the social and economic impact of Brexit carefully. Here are just a few thoughts on the unfolding crisis.

1. Brexit means the end of the UK

Despite the hopes of British nationalists, Brexit may mean the United Kingdom will cease to exist in the not-too-distant future. It was already possible that the UK would begin to fall apart over the next twenty years. The realignment of Scottish politics in 2015 shows that the conditions for a second referendum were already emerging, but the withdrawal from the EU has hastened calls for an independent Scotland.

Scottish independence is now a realistic possibility in the near future. If Scotland votes for independence in 2018 or 19, Theresa May will have to resign and the Conservative government will face serious questions over its credibility. They will go down in history as the party that literally broke the country in two. At least this could put the Labour Party on course to government (presuming the Blairites don't move to dislodge Corbyn). This is just one case.

Meanwhile in Northern Ireland, the republicans have gained a majority in Stormont for the first time. Ulster unionism is in crisis over corruption at the heart of government, and Brexit has stoked fears of a hard border arising between the North and the rest of Ireland. I wouldn't say Irish reunification is an imminent prospect, though it is clear that the UK cannot take Northern Ireland for granted. Even demographically, the Catholic community are likely to tip the balance towards Irish nationalism.

As for Wales, the situation is far more stable (for now) as the Welsh nationalists have yet to develop a strong constituency for independence. Unlike Scotland and Northern Ireland, Wales was very much for Brexit and the Welsh national question is not shaped in quite the same way. It's much more likely that the Welsh will remain tethered to the English, as the Scots and the Northern Irish break free. But this doesn't rule out Welsh independence in the long-term either.

2. Brexit is a disaster for the UK economy

As the pound continues to fall, the goods flowing into Britain will continue to rise in price and this is just after decades of wage stagnation and underemployment. Under these conditions inflation may well take a dreadful toll on working people, let alone people out of work. At the same time, the only way to generate growth would be to resort to an industrial strategy to bolster exports through state investment in the economy. This isn't going to happen. The Conservatives have spent 40 years dismantling industry and reorienting the economy towards finance.

For too long cheap labour has been a substitute for capital investment, as the British government has dropped its commitment to bolster the economy through Keynesian projects. Likewise, the Thatcher administration inflicted a historic defeat on the labour movement in the 1980s, from which organised labour has still not fully recovered. Without high levels of employment and high wages, the economy had a continuous need for demand and the only available means for this was to free up credit. This pattern looks set to continue.

The financial sector and the property market have become the core growth sectors, as services overtook manufacturing and old industry. Wealth became even more concentrated in even fewer hands than it has been historically. Yet it should be obvious that the debt bubble can't be inflated forever. Something will have to give. Another financial crisis or a property crash might do the trick. This is even with the European Union. Without the EU, Britain faces a situation where the strategy has already been ruled out by the political class.

3. Brexit is a disaster for migrants

Obviously, Brexit means that the British government will get to dictate the terms of inflows of EU migrant workers into the UK. Freedom of movement, as we know it, with the EU will change forever. The UK will still try to hold onto free movement with Ireland, possibly by introducing new mechanisms for regulating Irish migration onto the British mainland. This would be more sensible than sending British troops to the Irish border. Otherwise, the backdoor for EU nationals would be left wide open.

Many right-wing people voted leave because they wanted to close the borders. I suspect this will not happen due to simple economic factors: the UK relies on cheap labour. What is more likely is that the border controls will be adjusted to maintain a precarious workforce. The numbers may change, but not indefinitely. As the opening in the border narrows, the government would lose tax revenue from migrant labour and so would likely initiate greater austerity. Theresa May will have a new excuse for selling off the NHS, schools and pensions.

Expect more racist rhetoric. The calls for new pressures to be heaped upon migrant labour will only become more bold, and the Tories will pander to the xenophobes at every turn. VISA costs, repatriation and detention centres are just one front in this struggle. However, the aim will not be to reverse past immigration, but to shape future immigration to suit business interests. The divide and conquer strategy will continue to hammer the migrants already here and those who hope to settle here in the future. But this will help keep down British workers at the same time.

4. Brexit is a disaster for racists

Contrary to liberal hysterics, the threat of the far-right in Britain is marginal. UKIP has lost its raison d'etre, and Farage is off galavanting in the United States. The party's new leadership is incapable of seeing through the media's illusions of a white working-class thirst for fascism. As if UKIP ever had a chance of breaking through in Copeland or Stoke-on-Trent. The party's core support has always come from disaffected Tory voters, and even the former Labour voters it attracts passed through the Tories first. The real threat is that the Tory government is becoming UKIP to neutralise the threat of the party. This is far more serious than Paul Nuttall's antics.

Not that I would say the far-right is no threat at all. I suspect if Brexit doesn't pay off (which it won't) that the new far-right narrative will be that the Tory government "sold out". If immigration isn't totally restricted, the far-right will claim the EU is still violating everything we've held most often. Farage might even make a comeback with a new party. As people are hit by rising food prices and a shrinking job market, they will naturally seek out someone to blame. The usual nihilists and misanthropes will provide the scapegoats: immigrants, Muslims and the left. A populist upsurge is still a possibility in the future.

Brexit as Class War

In the wake of Brexit, we were told the vote was a great revolt by the white working-class. We were told it was grounded in racist discontent with an out-of-touch metropolitan elite. The Leave vote was entirely composed of ill-educated, poor racists living anywhere between the progressive bastions of London and Scotland. It's worth asking what's wrong with this view.

Too much bile has been directed towards the working-class for voting the wrong way. It's as if europhilic liberals cannot bring themselves to look in the mirror and examine the Remain campaigns for any failing. And the EU is left beyond scrutiny. Instead the working-class is supposed to play the scapegoat for an incoherent and lacklustre campaign strategy.

There are no legitimate reasons to advocate Brexit, in this view, the vote is simply an expression of racism and ignorance. Importantly, the European political terrain is increasingly split between liberalism and nationalism with each side helping to constitute the other. This basic antagonism has dominated the entire EU debate and, in turn, shaped the way the working-class has been tarred by middle-class journalists.

My first reaction was to characterise Brexit as a "fuck you" vote. I still think it was, but not necessarily by people who have been left behind by globalisation. As Zoe Williams has pointed out, it was the Southern English middle-class that tipped the balance – not working-class Northerners. This should not be a surprise. Middle-class and elite votes play a major role in all elections, as they dominate the whole discourse, the media and political agenda.

No War Like Class War

By holding a vote, David Cameron hoped to resolve the tension within the ruling-class and his own party. He did not believe he could lose the referendum because he was so accustomed to winning on every occasion. There was no game plan for an exit. So when the men who had always won everything finally lost, they had no idea what to do – and they still don't. But this is not the fullest account of the character of the vote.

Although the ruling-class was thinking of its own interests, the middle-classes and the working poor were significant actors. The breakdown of the Leave vote in ABC terms of class, not necessarily the best analysis, it must be said, shows 10 million upper/middle-class votes and seven million working-class votes cast for Brexit. By contrast, the Remain vote was made up of 12 million upper/middle-class votes with around four million working-class votes.

Similarly, the base of UKIP is often wrongly described as working-class and eating into the Labour vote. Actually UKIP has primarily threatened the Conservative Party, and often overtook it in Labour constituencies because so few locals would vote Tory. The UKIP base is petty-bourgeois with some elements of the poor and the rich backing them. Nigel Farage may be the first ultra-rightist to lead a party based on a cross-class alliance.

So we find the narrative of a working-class revolt is somewhat inaccurate. As in most votes, the working-class was present, but key roles were played by elite interests and middle-class votes. This is not to diminish the role of the votes cast by working-class people. Certainly, the grievances of the working-class were a significant factor. But the fact that the Leave vote was a convergence of different class forces should not surprise us.

Likewise, the vote was not a case of total white flight, though it is mostly. Around 33% of Asian voters opted for Brexit, alongside 27% of black voters. Again, this is not to explain away the role of the racism. After all, you can still cast a vote to limit EU migration on the grounds that the system privileges EU nationals over migrants from other parts of the world. This is why multiculturalism did not prevent Birmingham from voting for exit.

In fact, Nigel Farage often made this Commonwealth argument against EU membership. The basic idea goes that the UK should become closer to its former colonies and not the small cluster of European states. This reveals more than a scintilla of colonial nostalgia is present in the kind of nationalism invoked by Brexit campaigners. The wish to "get my country back" can take a variety of forms. It harks back to a dead empire.

The Left and Brexit

Still, the key question for the Left is the role of the working-class. There are those on the radical Left, who made the progressive case for British withdrawal from the EU. Veteran agitators such as Tariq Ali and George Galloway rank in the Lexit camp. Many other socialists found themselves sympathetic to this argument thanks to the EU's austerity programme. Ultimately, the prospect of siding with Farage may have been too much to stomach.

Economist Paul Mason warned against a Lexit vote on pragmatic grounds: the timing was wrong, as the Left lacked a mass movement and leadership, to overhaul the status quo. One might wonder if the time is ever right. Others like John Pilger framed the Brexit vote as an "act of raw democracy" by millions of ordinary people. This repeats the idea that the working-class was in the driving seat and this vote was a "fuck you" to the ruling-class.

Not only is the working-class not in the driving seat, the sections of the poor which supported Brexit may well have done so out of nationalism. This does not mean there was no left-wing element in the Leave vote, though it is a fact that the Left was divided over the EU – which, at once, stands for freedom of movement and neoliberalism. Poor people fell on both sides of the debate too.

Yet the Lexit crowd wants to pretend that the working-class is vote was devoid of racism. This brings us to one of the classic fixations of the Left: if the working-class as a revolutionary agent, how is it that capitalism has not been overthrown? The easy answer is that it is deficient leadership on the part of trade unions and parties. While this may well be true, it does not rule out the possibility that the working-class is open to demobilisation, as well as reformist and reactionary politics.

If liberals are guilty of presupposing the inherent backwardness of the working-class, then a number of leftists can be criticised for claiming the working-class is inherently revolutionary or even communist already. The working-class has agency, and the potential for revolutionary agency, which means the choice is not between a unwashed xenophobic rabble and a red flag-waving proletariat.

Revolutionary Ideals

Obviously, class interests are not self-evident axioms. Classes are alive, they are not subject to test conditions, as they engage in the world and face changing social conditions. If working-class agency means anything, it means the ability to disagree and make independent choices. But this does not extend to the terms of the choice itself.

Even if the proletariat is not on the cusp of a great revolt, it is the Left that needs the working-class and, likewise, class politics is the only way forward for ordinary people. Left-wing ideals without class is a form of anti-politics. If a section of working people, or even a majority for that matter, are not mobilised by the Left, this would not vindicate those who say the poor are backward.

It is worth acknowledging that the main demand of Leave voters was national sovereignty, whereas immigration controls was a secondary concern. Not that this changes the fact that the dominant character of the vote was nationalist. Sovereignty is one of those few ambiguous demands backed by radical elements across the spectrum.

Nevertheless, the Left should not try to externalise racism from the working-class in a bid to save its own romantic view of the workers. The problem here is that it presupposes that the poor ought to have the right set of ideas in order for socialists to stand with them. In this sense, the constant yearning for a revolutionary agent collapses into its opposite.

This article was originally published at Souciant.

Brexit: The Fuck You Vote

In one of the most contested votes in British history, the UK has voted for the unknown. Many believed the fear of change would triumph over anger. This is a moment of profound emotion. The door is wide open and there is nothing out there, but darkness. The unknown is here. The old post-war certainties are dead.

Far-right parties in France and the Netherlands are talking about withdrawing. Brexit sets a precedent for the European Union and it's unclear if it will be the catalyst for a wave of change. The US fears it will be just that. No doubt the symbolic break is enough to inspire eurosceptics of left and right across the continent.

Even the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by Tommy Mair failed to sway the vote far enough to prevent Brexit. Mair's fixation with Afrikaner nationalism in South Africa and American neo-Nazi movements was not enough to condemn him. Instead, Mair's violence was put down to mental illness. When asked for his name in court, Tommy replied: "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain!" Some began to compare Britain to late Weimar Germany.

Cameron, out!

As the news sank in for the nation, David Cameron presented his resignation. Next, Parliament will vote on the matter. The transition will take until 2018 even if there are no stalemates in negotiations. The Conservative Remain campaign only mustered 56% of Tory voters, while the Labour In campaign won over 70% of its base. Yet Labour MPs have tabled a no-confidence vote in Jeremy Corbyn. It's as if the Blair brigade feel their europhilia has been vindicated by this vote.

This is the first putsch against Corbyn. One hopes it will fail badly, as the party membership would back the left candidate in any future leadership election. The Blairites will want to throw him overboard and impose a leader of their ilk on the party. But this seems unlikely. If Corbyn is voted out, he could stand in a new contest. He may even win with a bigger mandate than in 2015. It's unclear if the right-wingers are aware of this possibility.

Of course, if the Remain vote had won out, the Conservative government would have moved to impose new immigration controls and squeeze concessions out of Brussels. Tory eurosceptics have always been fighting for a privileged British position within a loose European confederation. This is the tradition to which David Cameron belongs. Much like Thatcher, the European question has blown up the Cameron premiership.

Unfortunately, this may mean the energy of all other political forces still fall within the nation-state. The Scottish referendum was an early sign of this, though the result was not independence. Instead we have Nigel Farage heralding an era of "British independence". It seems Project Fear was far more successful in queling enough Scottish voters into accepting the Union. But this is not the end of the line. The shockwaves of this vote will reverberate for a long time.

David Cameron wanted the referendum to consolidate his place in the history of British Toryism. He wanted to step down on his own terms before 2020. Instead, the vote has consigned Cameron to his proper place in history. Unlike Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, there was nothing seizmic about Cameron – but he filled a gap. The Cameron years have only enforced the past more vigorously. The hope is that his successor (whether it is Boris or George) will serve as an incompetent caretaker before a swift defeat at the ballot box.

What a state!

Meanwhile the liberal and progressive Remain camp has been pouring scorn on the Brexit voters online and in print. There are jokes of London seceding from the UK to rejoin Europe, along with talk of moving to Scotland. Not much mention of Northern Ireland or Wales. The rest of the country is deemed an insane hinterland of xenophobes. Naturally, Brexit inspires fear in the hearts and minds of liberals across the British Isles.

It's easy to see why, the Leave campaign has been egregious in its race-baiting and flag-wagging. Project Fear was in full swing. Nigel Farage played every card in the deck. This is why the vote spells the worst fears of EU nationals and non-British residents. It's unclear where the vote leaves EU migrants. They are vital to the UK economy, but this vote has thrown their rights up in the air. The new immigration controls could be far more restrictive.

By comparison, the Remain campaign provided thin, lukewarm gruel to its base. Most of the people who voted to stay, I suspect, either voted out of fear or dogmatism. The core of the Remain vote was pro-EU conservatives and liberals based in London and the South. It was a campaign based on muesli, quinoa and complacent smuggery. In the end, it wasn't enough to overcome the level of anger directed towards the status quo.

My grandfather will be celebrating his birthday this weekend. This may be one of the best birthday presents of his life. He lives in the Labour stronghold of Bolsover, where Dennis Skinner – the so-called 'Beast of Bolsover' – has presided as MP since 1970. Almost 71% of voters in Bolsover voted to leave, including Skinner himself. The Beast was close allies with Tony Benn, who was calling for a referendum as early as 1968.

Even my apolitical relatives turned out for the referendum. The narrative around immigration has certainly propelled forward the forces of reaction in this campaign. However, this is not the whole picture. A great deal of Leave votes were cast in Labour areas. Voter turnout was far higher in England than in the last general election. This does not mean the Leave votes came from Labour in reflection of a working-class rightward lurch.

On the contrary, the Conservatives were only able to muster 56% of the majority they won at the election (just less than 25% of the eligible electorate), whereas Labour drew most of its voters into the Remain camp. This would suggest the main source would have been non-voters, with some overlap from various parties, that's the 34% absent from the 2015 election. It looks like most came from the communities torn apart and left behind by the economic consensus.

It's as if the political class abandoned vast swathes of England. The Conservatives bulldozed through the trade unions, social housing, state education and now the NHS; while Labour took the working-class vote for granted. After 40 years of degradation, many working-class voters suddenly saw an opening to inflict a deep wound on the elite and its system. In other words, this is a "fuck you" vote. It is loud and clear.

This article was originally published at Souciant.

Brexit: Toxic Kingdom

Some of us thought this day would never come. Others prayed it never would. The long awaited referendum on Britain’s EU membership will take place tomorrow. The results will be out by Friday morning. Project Fear is still going strong. But it looks unlikely to settle one of the biggest divisions in UK politics.

How did it come to this? The reasons are political in the worst sense. David Cameron gave an ‘iron-clad pledge’ for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. He did so to throw some red meat to the hard-right. Yet this did not have the desired effect. UKIP continued to grow, feeding off of the resentment of lower middle-class Tory voters in particular. The Conservative base was under threat from an ultra-rightist outlier.

By 2014, the British press had bestowed ‘fourth party’ status on UKIP. The Conservatives lost two seats after Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless defected. It looked like Nigel Farage would take Thanet South. But this was not to be. UKIP rapidly lost momentum despite winning 3.8 million votes in 2015. Farage was thwarted in South Thanet, Reckless lost his seat and Carswell clung on.

Yet the chasm over the EU in the Conservative Party has not narrowed. David Cameron could not ignore the votes lost to UKIP. He sought to placate Tory rebels and maintain the party’s support. This is why the referendum was called. There was no grand national interest in holding this vote. It wasn’t about democracy or security. It was about the Cameron legacy.

This has meant that the whole debate has been dominated by rival factions within the Conservative Party. Naturally David Cameron and George Osborne have led the Tory Remain campaign, while Boris Johnson and Michael Gove have positioned themselves as ‘renegade’ Eurosceptics. In other words, the national debate has been a bun-fight between the entitled sons of gentlemen.

Towards the fatherlands

The so-called ‘debate’ has been unbearably parochial. It’s either anti-migrant populism, or complacent liberal arguments for the status quo. Neither the Remain or Leave campaign offers a serious account of the EU. Nationalism is taking on the role of the opposition in European politics, as Slavoj Žižek argued years ago, while the establishment takes on the guise of liberal capitalism. This is what politics has become.

We’ve seen far-right parties make major gains from Austria, Switzerland and Hungary to Germany, France and Poland. Even Scandinavia has not been immune to this resurgent nationalism, we have only to look at the True Finns and the Swedish Democrats. The neo-fascists see Europe as a cultural theme-park lacking the vitality of nationalism. So they propose a rupture with the Whitehall consensus.

Meanwhile the mainstream looks increasingly decrepit. Conservative parties have become market liberal, while social democratic parties have turned from their traditional Keynesian policies and now stare death in the face. PASOK in Greece died on its feet, but its fate should send a message to every European centre-left party. SYRIZA filled the vacuum in its wake. But the defeat of the Greek radical Left poses a new crisis.

It’s unclear where the Greek people will turn. The Eurozone has become the means by which the EU core states (e.g. Germany and France) impose austerity on the periphery (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain). The EU now resembles a neoliberal machine, much more so than the social Europe envisioned by Labour activists. There is a real danger that the opposition will rally to calls for a ‘Europe of fatherlands’.

However, the referendum will not dispel the threat of a fascist resurgence in Europe, nor will it abolish the intolerable economic conditions perpetuated by governments. Whether we stay or withdraw, the real battles will be fought after the vote. This is why the stakes are so high. And this is why the outcome will not settle the European question.

As Edward Luce points out in the Financial Times, Washington fears Brexit would be a catalytic moment for the EU, after which all smaller countries could leave. This could threaten the transatlantic alliance. A gap could emerge between NATO and European political economy. No wonder Obama came running to tell us to stay. Though Brexit would not sever the alliance on its own, it could be the catalyst for a break-up.

This would be a dream come true for Putin. The separation of Europe from NATO would mean Russia could maintain its own sphere of influence. Not that this would equal anything like the Eastern bloc of Soviet client-states. Russia cannot even exercise anything like the kind of influence it could in 1980. Nevertheless, Putin casts a long shadow in the minds of American and European policy-makers.

The Left and Brexit

Although there has been speculation that Brexit could throw the UK economy into disarray, it is debatable. For starters, growth in the UK has been lacklustre for years. It’s likely much of the country would not notice the difference between Osborne’s “economic miracle” and a recession. In short, working-class voters have little to lose. After four decades of Thatcherism, it’s understandable why working-class people are willing to take the risk of a Brexit vote.

The so-called ‘Lexit’ argument – for a left exit, as it were – has a great deal of appeal. The European Union is not democratic, nor is it open to any pressure short of an international mass movement. It is a thoroughly right-wing project and may not be open to reform. This is why Tony Benn, Dennis Skinner and Jeremy Corbyn were all of the left Eurosceptic tradition. But this isn’t the 1970s.

Today the contemporary Left is split. Typically, you have the liberal crowd who are reflexively pro-EU, but you also have Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell arguing for staying and fighting for a different kind of union. Unsurprisingly, Momentum and a host of activists in the party base support this manoeuvre. Indeed, the Labour Party is, by a clear majority, for Britain remaining an EU member. Corbyn could never win that fight.

So the mainstream Left has no real presence on this issue. Instead, the radical leave campaign has been relegated to activist circles. This has contained the central division to the Tory Party. In one sense, this means the balance of forces are conservative whether the UK leaves or stays. But the vote could spell civil war for the Conservatives. The best case scenario may be a close call, where Cameron is ousted and policy is left paralysed.

Notice that even this hypothetical scenario limits the question to Britain. What Europe needs is an international movement capable of challenging its institutions. The problem is that the Left is still reconstructing itself at the national level. If the Left cannot do so, then Europe may be doomed to continue on the same track.

This article was originally published at Souciant.

The fourth party is a fourth problem.

The meteoric rise of UKIP and its charismatic leading man has been an irresistable subject for the British press and its insatiable desire for spectacle. It must be the fag in Nigel's hand, the twinkle in his eye, the mischevious grin, the accent of deepest, darkest Kent... Yet the full picture demonstrates quite well that the key to UKIP's success is in the mainstream.

It was only a few months ago that UKIP candidate Roger Helmer was easily defeated by mainstream candidates. It isn’t insignificant that it took an establishment candidate to secure the Party’s presence in Parliament. Douglas Carswell still stands as the kind of man UKIP sucks up in vast quantities. He stands opposed to universal healthcare and regulations on private enterprise. He wrote the Plan with fellow-traveling libertarian Daniel Hannan. It’s a free-market hymnbook for decentralisation and deregulation.

This is consistent with the reality of Farage’s success. The leap from 13 MEPs to 24 MEPs took five years, but the European elections only draw out 33.8% of the electorate. That’s half of the usual turnout in UK general elections. The entrance points are to be found in the weak spots of the Westminster consensus. Under these conditions the fringe parties can have greater influence.

UKIP gained 27.5% of the vote and outmatched Labour by a little over 2%. So that’s about 9.3% of the electorate. The Conservatives lost 4% of the vote, just as the Lib Dems lost 6% and were overtaken by the Greens at 8%. The vote for the BNP fell by 7%. Against this backdrop, it’s easy to see why UKIP bolstered its vote by over 10%. If you take the local elections, the Farage party lost 5% of the vote, but picked up 160 seats and gained no councils.

See the rest of this article at Souciant.

Angry, White and British.

My article on the UKIP phenomenon has been adapted and reproduced at Souciant:

Two weeks ago, Roger Helmer of UKIP was trounced by the Conservative candidate at Newark. It seemed to go against everything the media has told us about the UKIP threat. Many had claimed the gains UKIP made in May would be transformed into a fourth party presence within Parliament.

This was not a claim of the right-wing press, or at least not just the right-wing press. Even the BBC and the liberal broadsheets succumbed to this message. In late May, The Guardian reported a poll finding that 86% of those who voted for UKIP in the European elections said they would do so again in the 2015 General Election.

The leap from 13 UKIP MEPs to 24 UKIP MEPs since 2009 set off the British media to announce their well-cooked conclusion: it’s a political earthquake. The results are interesting. Labour came in second at 25.4% to UKIP came out with 27.5% of the vote, translating to about 9.3% of the electorate. The Conservatives fell by 4%, Liberal Democrats by over 6% and the BNP by 7%. UKIP increased its vote by more than 10%. The Green Party lost a little under 1% and gained three seats beating the Lib Dems with nearly 8% of the vote. Voter turnout was around 33.8% for the European elections. It goes without saying that the fringe right-wing parties do better out of low turnout. It was predictable that the ruling parties would face a drop in support.

At the local elections, UKIP’s vote fell from 22% to 17% and picked up 160 seats (but no councils) which was less than the Lib Dems who have been relegated politically toxic. UKIP may have eaten into the votes of Conservative candidates enough for them to lose overall control of several councils, but not enough to gain control of any councils itself. The media has claimed the results are ‘disastrous’ for Labour even though the Party gained 330 council seats and a net gain of five councils. The threat of UKIP is to establishment parties in its potential to divide the vote on sore issues like immigration. This matters as we’re about to go into an election. The Conservative Party have never fully recovered from the defeat inflicted on John Major, the worst since 1832, while Labour has still not filled the void leftover by Blairism.

Newark was not to be the first victory of the Farage Party. It should have been obvious from the beginning that the first seat in Parliament would not be offered to Roger Helmer with all of his obvious weak-spots. Helmer himself said that the absence of Farage hurt his chances in the by-election. It may have been a shrewd move by Farage to let Helmer take the fall on this occasion. He made it clear he had no interest in putting himself forward. Perhaps he had already gauged UKIP had little chance. Better to focus on the European and local elections, so let someone else test the waters for the UK Parliament. But that’s not where it ends.

Why Nana Didn't Vote UKIP.

"I'm the only politician keeping the flame of Thatcherism alive." - Nigel Farage

The night of Thursday 22nd of May I got a phone call from my nana. She told me, "I was going to vote UKIP, but then I read what they were for..." She referred to a spread in The Daily Mirror where the party's positions on issues other than immigration were presented. Farage was much less appealing as a Thatcherite, who wants the privatisation of the NHS, the abolition of maternity leave, sick pay, and redundancy pay. Tooth and nail libertarian ideas hardly appeal to a bread base of voters and for good reason. In the end my nana voted Labour, saying "I always used to vote Labour..." and adding "they used to be for the workers". That's the crux of the matter.

My nana was interested in voting for UKIP because she wants a referendum on EU membership and, in her own words, UKIP are "against asylum seekers". This is where the party appeals to a broad base of voters. Only on these grounds could an ex-banker and former Tory, like Farage, market himself as a man of the people. Relatives of mine have voted UKIP in the past out of opposition to the European Union and mass-immigration. But these are former Labour supporters. The media closes in on issues like immigration, benefits, and the EU, to steal away the core support for social democratic measures. It has been a successful campaign in many ways - there is widespread opposition to immigration and widespread support for benefit cuts - while failing in other ways - opposition to universal health-care remains insignificant.

How can people who have voted Labour all of their lives, and in the case of my relatives, even voted Green in the past, turn to a party of right-wing spivs. The extent to which UKIP has succeeded in stealing Labour voters is debatable, but it is the key to any long-term electoral strategy. It is not enough to compete with the Conservatives. Even though the raison d'etre of Faragisme is to force the Conservative leadership further rightwards. The current austerity isn't enough. The stealth privatisation of the NHS isn't enough. Anti-immigrant campaign vans aren't enough. Cuts to disability benefits aren't enough. The tax-cuts for the rich aren't enough either. It should be clear what these people are about.

The facts of UKIP's prejudices are not amazing to anyone on the liberal-Left. Never mind the core base of support for anti-immigrant policies. What does amaze people are the policies which Farage would implement if he had real power in this country. When asked by Norman Smith whether he would ringfence the NHS the UKIP leader said "No, I want to see us getting better value for money." Need I say anymore? Yet that wasn't plastered on every headline throughout the country. The media demands the debate on immigration because it can only move between two poles: liberal internationalism in one corner and populist nationalism in the other. It's convenient for a discourse which doesn't do serious politics and peddles easy answers to complex problems.

James O'Brien kicking Farage's ass.

People like to say Nigel Farage is a hypocrite as leader of UKIP, calling for limits to immigration, all the while he has a German wife, and bilingual German-British children. Well, if you want to maintain advantages for Western European economies over their Eastern European counterparts (at the expense of the working-class everywhere) then it's perfectly consistent. Romania was practically destroyed by Ceausescu's austerity (which has continued to this day) and now people like Farage want to put up a wall to stop them from settling here in search of work. Farage supports the conditions which destroyed the life chances of those workers in Romania, just as he supports Thatcherite policies in this country.

Nick Clegg has Only Himself to Blame.

Some of you may have tuned in to the LBC debate between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage on the European union. This spectacle was hosted by reactionary lard-arse Nick Ferrari. It was everything one would expect. Nothing outside of the oscillation between mainstream liberalism and nationalism came up and this debate can largely be understood as a sign of the rightward trend of British politics over the last four decades. Liberal internationalism and conservative nationalism feed into one another, their relationship is dialectical, both oppositional and complimentary, and ultimately, they spiral into the same downward trajectory. It's no coincidence that the Liberal Democrats signed up for the Coalition with a party torn over Europe and he now finds himself poised against UKIP. For the Conservatives, Nick Clegg is the canary in the mineshaft and little more.

It must have been a disparaging experience for Liberal Nick. No longer a sponge sucking up all those disenchanted votes Nick Clegg stood as the establishment figure with his old place usurped by Nigel Farage of all people. Of course, the underdog status of UKIP is a falsehood. Nigel Farage railed against the bankrupt establishment, which Clegg now embodies so thoroughly, all the while UKIP stands in necessary relation to the status quo. He was probably expecting reason to triumph over reaction. He littered his phraseology with references to 'dogma' and appealed to common-sense. Bad moves by definition in this kind of debate. I don't know how he could have expected it to have gone his way. Without any grounding to maneouvre on economic and domestic policy (where he is wedded to Conservative policy-makers) the only issue of contention was going to immigration. That is hardly a threat to the Conservative Party. And of course UKIP has no interest in combating neoliberalism.

Outside of conventional politics the demagogue sets himself and poses as raising the real questions, the dangerous questions, to which the Establishment then reacts to preserve itself. As with Romania we find that the UKIP lot are playing this game again. The real issue that the people in countries like Romania and Bulgaria are fleeing from social conditions produced by neoliberal globalisation cannot be raised. Should we repair the damage? Now that's a dangerous question! It would only mean that the level of immigration would be based on the free movement of people, rather than on economic desperation. The Lib Dems can't make such a point because they've accepted the neoliberal model prescribed by Brussels, Whitehall, and Washington; while the only criticism UKIP may wage is that this hasn't gone far enough in tearing through all forms of state-ownership. This is why a key issue was never mentioned, namely the EU-US free trade deal currently being implemented by stealth.

The Liberal Democrats emerged from the consolidation of gains for a third party after the founding of the Social Democratic Party from the right-wing MPs who abandoned Labour. The loss of 10% of their MPs helped to secure Labour's defeat and a victory for Thatcher in 1983. So you can see how far the Party has come since helping to divide up the voters for Thatcherism thirty years ago. They have now graduated to joining those forces they helped deliver Britain to in the 1980s. This is the stinking filth of the body of liberalism: inaction, hot-air, and endless compromise. It's clear the trilateral consensus are not only complacent in the face of the nationalist reaction to the rapid internationalising trend of capitalism. We see this quite well demonstrated in Ukraine where a coalition of neoliberals, conservatives, ultra-nationalists, and oligarchs, have seized power only to wrench the country into the orbit of the European Union and open it up to the IMF prescription for an economic miracle.

Meanwhile here in Britain we find UKIP is looking to force the Conservatives further and further to the right as it condemns the EU. Clegg doesn't deserve our pity for his pathetic belief that if he just said the right words the audience would dutifully nod their heads for him. He was asking for the kicking he got.

Eurofreaks!

Much has been made of the democratic deficit in the European Union (and no doubt there is a battle to be won) yet the right-wing critics usually have little to offer by way of serious reform of the system. This is especially so as many rightists would just like to see the whole project crash and burn. The improvement of the system could only risk prolonging its existence. At best the Right offers to reaffirm liberal ideas of democracy and freedom in the nation-states currently held captive by the European bureaucracy. Naturally it appeals to the small government fetishists of libertarian ilk, as well as the hyper-nationalist herd and populist shepherds like Nigel Farage. It's an easy game to play as the European Union lacks the legitimacy of a liberal democratic nation-state.
 

It's no coincidence that the same people - namely UKIP - who want a referendum on the EU are for the elections for Police Commissioners. The same crowd have been hollering for elected judges, all of which could be of great advantage to smaller parties looking to break in where voter-turnout is light. In such instances, we find that direct democracy is rather convenient for certain figures, those who need a horse to ride to their destination. And yet the majority would prefer a job of such importance to be done well. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the turnout for the election of Police Commissioners was so low. The defects of democracy in such an area of public service are clear to most people. It's only when there is an obvious blockage in the democratic system, as in Europe, that the ideal of democracy can move us to a burning rage. This is why the Eurosceptics need Europe, just as American conservatives need liberals to rail against in the culture wars. Victory would be a defeat.

It is the undemocratic state of affairs in Brussels that the Right can't resolve, as that would mean the end of the basis for their 'scepticism'. The calls for 'democracy' are doubly shallow as the Right has no serious solutions, or even an alternative, to a project which is in fundamental accordance with the neoliberal agenda. The austerity junkies in Brussels are hardly leftists. Yet even as the EU seeks to permanently limit the expenditure of its member-states Cameron vetoed it and still poses as a heroic bulldog to Eurosceptics. It would seem this is really a clash between different concentrations of capital, not the people of European nations. Furthermore, we know that in historical terms the idea that it's wrong to establish a political entity, like a nation-state, without democratic means is groundless. The European Union has developed into a powerful and effective structure precisely because it has no electorate as such. There is no 'European people' in the same way that there is an American people. The EU couldn't have gotten this far without its democratic deficit.
 

Consider the wedge-issue of immigration with regard to the European project. Immigration is meant to be the disruption of our cohesive and well ordered society, through its corrosive impact on civil society by way of its 'otherness', its dependency culture, abuse of our public services and advantage-taking of Western privilege. Common claims like "They're taking the jobs!" and "They're all on benefits!" stand together arm-in-arm in ignorance without bliss. At least these complaints of many working-class people about immigration have an economic basis (a more about that later) which we can't say about the culturalist whining of conservatives. The Eurosceptic rightist tend to foam at the mouth over the apparent loss of British sovereignty, for we can only limit non-European immigration. It's at this point that the Right loses sight of the Muslim 'problem' to gawp at the hordes of Slavs unleashed by the death of Communism. This is the doomed battle of anti-immigrant populists, just like the battle for democracy it cannot be won.

If immigration were actually blocked ff forever then the rightists would have lost in their own victory. Limitations on immigration can't possibly satisfy the demands placed on them: firstly, because the migrant serves a structural need within capitalism for fresh labour to squeeze dry; secondly, migrants can become a point of division insofar as they form a labour reserve army to be deployed to hold down the wages of the working-class. For these reasons immigration can only be impeded temporarily out of a cheap electoral opportunism.  The increased scarcity of labour in Britain would hasten the need for such unpopular measures as higher taxes to support the growing number of retirees. Of course, a cheap way out of this would be to pull the rug out from under the pensioners and privatise the whole pension system. All the while the lack of a readily available reserve army of labour would deprive the system of a means to hold down wages for an ever dwindling workforce.

The real answer of an extensive unionisation across borders to accomodate free-moving labour is out of the question for the Right. Even though that would mean higher wages for 'native' and 'foreign' workers alike. The same can be said of the possibility of repairing the damage of the brutal transition to capitalism in Eastern Europe. The contradiction between the economic need for immigration and the widespread opposition to the unconstrained flow of labour across borders can't be resolved by the mainstream parties. So it is the stomping ground of demagogues looking to ride a wave of racism into public office.

The Refuge and its Scoundrels.

When Dr Johnson famously remarked that patriotism is the 'refuge of the scoundrel' he was actually referring to the Patriotic Party. Johnson was a Tory and wouldn't have written-off the love of one's country, and to some extent, he was right to do so. For patriotism can come in handy, in the war against Fascism it was the Churchillian vision of a determined island nation that held the people mesmerised. It's also worth noting that the great anti-colonial struggles of the last century involved revolutionary nationalism, especially in Vietnam and Cuba. The calls for Irish independence and reunification came primarily from nationalists. Of course, there is the darker side of nationalism, the jingoist harbinger of irredentism and nativism. And it's worth noting that the dark spirit of nationalism is much more common than the progressive and revolutionary possibilities of nationalism. Today we can see the reactionnaire appeals of nationalism against the European Union, while there are active pushes towards independence in Catalonia and Scotland where greater moves to regional autonomy have hardly failed.

It makes sense that the ultra-nationalist defenders of secession are crawling out of the woodwork in Europe at this time. Though this isn't simply the case where independence is concerned. If the referendum had secured Catalan independence recently it seems likely that the new nation would've been quickly subjected to a series of austerity measures. Because once a country of that size has broken-off it would need a new orbit and the European Union offers the strongest alternative. There are progressive arguments in favour of Catalan and Scottish independence. Yet it seems highly unlikely that a fledgling Celtic republic would escape the clutches of neoliberal globalisation either. There's some truth in Portillo's words that the country might easily be transformed into a land of low taxes and a shrunken state sector. In other words, Scotland could easily become a breeding ground for an even more merciless variation on the free-market ideal. At this point we need more unity, not less. This was most potently demonstrated by the demise of Yugoslavia - one of the great tragedies of the last century.

Yugoslavia was a federal socialist system of devolved republics and autonomous regions. It was free of Soviet domination and maintained a multi-ethnic society where Christianity and Islam were practiced side-by-side. All of it was held together under Marshall Tito who inculcated notions of 'brotherhood and unity' into the society as he fought to stamp out the remnants of nationalism in the masses. The state was maintained by a market socialist economy, which featured decentralised cooperatives and worker self-management as well as  a state planning apparatus. It combined the state as a primary mechanism for the organisation of the society and economy, while markets and cooperatives offered secondary mechanisms. The people enjoyed a guaranteed right to a job with a month's paid vacation, as well as free universal health-care and education as part of a comprehensive range of state services. There was never a Soviet-style collectivisation of Yugoslav society, for that may have torn apart the entire project of a country for Southern Slavs.

For a time Yugoslavia prospered with an average rate of growth at 6% and remained a leading model of independent development. The literacy rate reached 90% and life expectancy rose to 72 years. To expand the productive base and increase consumer goods the Yugoslav government borrowed from Western governments throughout the 1960s and 70s. Given that Yugoslavia had achieved development along independent lines (from Russia and not just the US) its federalism came under attack in the 1980s. The dismemberment of Yugoslavia became a concerted US policy as the National Endowment for Democracy began to focus on Yugoslavia as to hasten its breakdown and implement a series of neoliberal reforms. The IMF then began to force an austerity programme on Belgrade as a condition for payments on the country's debt. The austerity measures did not just mean a reduced public expenditure, but huge job losses and wage-cuts for the working. Eventually it would amount to the abolition of workers' self-management in the Balkans.


In spite of the decline of economic conditions inside the country Yugoslavia remained the only socialist republic after the collapse of the Eastern bloc in 1989. The people didn't rise up to overthrow the Communist government despite widespread discontent and rising nationalist sentiment. By now the dream of a Yugoslavia free of the old ethnic strife was dead in the water, with the rise of nationalist demagogue Slobodan Milošević. The Serbian nationalists wanted to hollow out Yugoslavia to establish a Greater Serbia. But the other nationalist movements wanted to break-off from Yugoslavia completely. To hasten the burst of secessionism the US began to yank the chain. In 1990 the Bush administration saw to it that Congress cut-off aid to all Yugoslav republics unless they declared independence within six months. The US demanded elections in all republics and went on to stipulate that every election must meet standards set by the US State Department. Later Italy would try to bribe Montenegro with aid to leave Yugoslavia and join them in the new Europe.

Within two years the US delivered another blow to Yugoslavia in the form of international sanctions to put a halt to all trade to and from the country. The economy quickly dived further into the abyss, unemployment spiralled to 70% while the health-care system collapsed and inflation exploded. Michael Parenti sees this as part of an agenda to turn the Balkans into a Third World developing region and to reverse the achievements of the Communist era. It would be a fractured region of republics incapable of independent development. The economy would be shattered, its natural resources stripped open to exploitation by multinational corporations. The people of Yugoslavia would provide a skilled workforce vulnerable to suppressed wages, as well as a reserve army of labour to be deployed to sink the wages of workers in Western Europe. The designs of neoliberalism to break-up Yugoslavia - only for its people to be rinsed by the forces of globalisation - converged with the aims of nationalists.

What ever happened to Brotherhood and Unity?

Quite some time ago in the middle of a talk about a political union in Europe there was a debate on Newsnight. It was apt that Nigel Farage make an appearance in standard populist colours against the liberal multiculturalist elites. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as Farage drew a comparison between the European Union and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The UKIP leader suggested that the reason Yugoslavia collapsed into appalling violence in the 1990s was a result of the imposition of Yugoslavia over sovereign nations in a bid to craft a multiethnic federal system. Thankfully Farage is too thick to comprehend the implications of such an analogy. Effectively it would go as far as an endorsement of the Fascist movements - such as the Ustaša and the Chetniks - that devastated the region before the Partisans triumphed over them. This is nothing unusual, and it's not the first time that the analogy has been drawn between the EU and Tito's Yugoslavia. Farage has deployed it repeatedly.

After all it was the final victory over the Communist-led Partisans who had succeeded where the Left had been defeated in Italy and Greece where the West crushed left-wing movements soon after the War. Out of the warring chaos parts of the Yugoslav Kingdom fell into the hands of Hungarian fascists, as well as German and Italian occupying forces; the Bulgarians and Albanians. Croatia and Bosnia were unified under the clerical fascist Ustaša while the Serb Chetniks fought against the genocidal regime with the aim of building a Greater Serbia. The Croats became a client-state of Nazism where Jasenocav (the fourth largest concentration camp in Europe) was founded with the expressed intention of exterminating Jews, Roma and Serbs. There around 600,000 people were slaughtered. There was a great deal of collusion between the Ustaša and the Catholic clergy, going as far as forced conversions of Jews and Orthodox Christians. The establishment of a socialist Yugoslavia was the ultimate defeat of Slavic brands of Fascism.

The West took the side of Tito's Partisans for pragmatic reasons and the Serb Chetniks as well as the Ustaša of Croatia were defeated. The Soviet Union lent the Partisans support only to portray Tito as an agent of Western imperialism after the split between Tito and Stalin. It was clear that the new Yugoslavia was not going to bow to any foreign power. Instead Tito carved out a particular place for his country as a founder of the Non-Aligned Movement with an apposite place in Europe between the competing superpowers of West and East. The idea was that the unity of Yugoslavia would prevent it from being thrown about by international forces. This is contrary to Farage's warped wish to see a free-market world of nations, where every country is powerless to the onslaught of international finance and multinational corporations. In his invincible ignorance Farage fails to see that British withdrawal from the EU would undermine British sovereignty even more. Likewise Farage cannot understand the implications of what it means to say that the EU is just another Yugoslavia.

It should be kept in mind that there have been many right-wingers who found the sight of Yugoslavia's crumbling into barbarism absolutely beautiful. This differs strongly from the small band of leftists who supported Milosevic out of a misguarded belief that it was the last chance to hold together Yugoslavia. By the time of the explosion of violence it was already too late and Yugoslavia was dead on its feet. What did the Right see in this? Well, the multiethnic composition of the federalism and its dependence on a culture of solidarity could not have repulsed many rightists any more than it did. The Titoist campaigns against nationalist sentiment certainly worry backward types like Nigel Farage. No doubt the Eurosceptics fear a federal state where they will be stamped out. Even more freightening is the possible end of the racial tensions that the Right can exploit to its ends. A culture of solidarity doesn't stop at ensuring improved relations between countries and peoples, it could go as far as to build a strong working-class movement.

After all the primary reason for the policy of brotherhood and unity was to hold together Yugoslavia as a socialist system. Tito could not launch a Stalinesque collectivisation, as it would've torn the country apart. Instead Tito decided to give away power to the republics and build the country into a model of market socialism. It featured a limited place for private enterprise and markets combined with a decentralised state-planning apparatus and workers' self-management. It was a prosperous system of development and growth for quite some time. The average rate of GDP was 6% at one point and the standard of living increased significantly, with the establishment of universal health-care and education came a life expectancy of 72 years and a literacy rate of 91%. Every Yugoslav citizen had a right to a job, unemployment was reduced drastically until the 1980s and every worker had a free month-long holiday every year with pay. There was affordable housing and public transportation across the country, while the borders were held open.

It's this model that the Right despises. It is not coincidental that so many right-wingers wanted to leave the Slavs to slaughter one another. The more honest reactionaries have been blunt in their support for the violence. Michael Savage was an open defender of Serbian nationalists attacking Muslims. Later Savage went on to attack Bill Clinton during the intervention in Yugoslavia. He even labelled the President 'Clintler' with regard to the NATO bombing of Serbia. What else would you expect from this fascist? Then there was Nora Beloff who wrote to The Economist in condemnation of the critics of Serbian atrocities. The way she saw it the Muslims are guilty by virtue of being Muslim, she's of the Israel First brigade you see. In this view the Serbs are just exercising their right to self-defence as the Christians fending off the barbarous Muslim hordes. Hitler said about the same of the Poles. It's about the same line that Karadzic has used to defend his actions - such as sending snipers onto the roof of his hotel to shoot civilians as he made his escape.

Saying Yes!

There has been a lot of talk of referenda lately. We will soon have the results of another referendum in Ireland this week. The same can't be said for the prospect of Scottish independence, even as the campaign for a ‘Yes’ to Scottish independence in 2014 has just started. Then there is the usual talk of a referendum on Britain’s EU membership, which will remain as long as there is enough ink to waste on Euromyths in the gutter press. The option without competition is austerity has relevance to each instance of referenda as the Irish had to consider the neoliberal agenda of the EU. The Scots took have to choose how they wish to relate themselves to the austere doctrines of Whitehall and Brussels. Meanwhile there are a vast number of British people who think that the European Union are a threat to British sovereignty. The fact that Angela Merkel is as conservative as David Cameron doesn't enter into the picture as the libertarian tendency would have you believe the EU is just another left-wing exercise in utopianism.


At the same time the people are excluded from the decision-making process in the spheres of economics and foreign policy especially. The people are practically just there to reaffirm the status quo in various respects, not just at the ballot box but in polls too. Every state on earth seeks legitimacy, even to fake legitimacy and create the appearance of a democratic mandate. It is part of the long-term triumphs of the Enlightenment. There was never a referendum on whether or not Britain should hold onto nuclear weapons as part of the American nuclear command system. There was never a referendum over whether or not Britain should invade Iraq and Afghanistan. This is not to be taken as a reason for direct democracy, but it is clear that the democratic machine needs to be reinvented and deepened in a variety of ways. There would still be a place for vertical structures of power in order to maintain and coordinate horizontal developments of workers' democracy. There is a place for instantaneous decisions whether we like to admit it or not.

John McAllion put forward the socialist case for an independent Scotland in Red Pepper. The idea is that nationalism sets the pre-conditions for internationalism as Scottish independence would undermine Britain as a state-capitalist nexus and mercenary of the US. Still it seems to be divisive, even as McAllion notes that the Scottish working-class  have had to pay for the chaos caused by an unregulated banking colossus in London. And they are lucky to hold onto the social services that the UK government would like to destroy. He argues that Scottish independence could open up a space for an end to austerity and privatisation in Europe. He goes further to hold that independence could upon a space for a relaxation of laws against trade unions, giving workers greater power in the workplace just north of the border with England. There is some truth to the view that a country can break out of the neoliberal order. But it can only secure itself by reaching beyond its borders. The national is dependent upon the international sphere, just as the local relies on the national.

Its clear that the opening up of a space for better working conditions, rights and higher pay would undermine the anti-union measures in Britain. There could be a coordinated effort by the labour movement to strengthen workers’ rights and power across the mainland. It could also be used by the right-wing, to stew resentment and anger against the pampered Scottish workers. This would definitely be the case if Scottish independence led to disaster for the fledgling republic. The workforce may want to move north for better pay but the businesses might move south for a more vulnerable workforce. It would take state intervention to rejuvenate the manufacturing sector in Scotland, the matter isn't really whether or not this could be accomplished without the British military as a market. The real worry should be that the EU with its addiction to austerity would look to limit any attempts to raise public expenditure in Scotland. The EU could replace the UK in this way, leading to a shift towards economic nationalism and possibly even autarky in Scotland.

It isn't outside of the coordinates of the possible as manufacturing has a predisposition towards protectionism. It is compatible with anti-union measures in the private sphere because it has the most to lose to rising wages. Even with the financial colossus in London there may be more chance of progressive leaps as banking can live with unionisation and higher public spending. It is taxation and regulation that the financial sector fears, but it was banks that backed the New Deal in the US in order to buy-off socialism in the long-term future. When David Cameron stood up to the EU as a "bulldog" months back to protect the banks he resisted the limits that the EU wants to set on public spending. It may be possible to reconstruct industry and the labour movement in an economy which has undergone financialisation. But it will take a great push from below to initiate this change. Even if Scotland struck out on an independent line of development, it could not accomplish the level of public investment let alone redistribution that Britain can as a union.

David Mitchell recently wrote an article on the Strasbourg decree to extend voting rights to the prison population. It was a u-turn from his endorsement of the proposal when this was a major issue last year. The European Court of Human Rights is commonly seen as an extension of the European Union, a foreign force which interferes with the internal matters of a sovereign island. It just so happens that the proudest of islanders, who won't yield to a foreign court, feel more American than European. The illusion of nationalism is that we can stand as a proud and strong nation, free of international determinants and hegemons, in a position of glory not seen since the 19th Century. You might claim that it is better for the British to side with the Americans because of the obvious power the US still holds in the world. On the other hand, you might argue that the European Union is the only road left for a country aligned with an ailing superpower. Whatever the case it has to be noted that the issue of human rights as dictated from Strasbourg is not a pure matter of integration.

It does raise interesting questions of sovereignty. This was a case where Strasbourg infringed upon the coordinates of British sovereignty and that just intolerable for the Eurosceptics. The sovereignty of the state comes down to its capacity to exclude and include people in the realm of rights and freedoms. Only the state holds the monopoly - in its sovereignty - over the power to declare an exception, to suspend normal legal guarantees and deny basic rights to people. The state has sovereignty insofar as it can divide the people into those who qualify as politically recognised and those who don't. The former are adorned with the meaning that comes from recognition and representation in political society. This is what the latter is deprived of, it's the difference of being a human being and being a citizen in the moral sense. But sovereignty isn't just about prisons. This goes for states of emergency declared, for the suspension of habeas corpus in civil war, for assassination and for the torture of 'terror suspects'.

The normal expectations of life no longer apply in these instances. Prison may just about fall within in the framework of sovereignty, which is why there are calls for the return of the death penalty. This isn't the case with 'terror suspects', asylum seekers and gypsies who are just on the boundaries of sovereign power. We see this in 'renditions', in the detainment of asylum seekers and when Dale Farm was brushed away. It was act of American sovereignty that put Osama bin Laden to death and it was religious sovereignty that put a fatwa on Salman Rushdie's head. There was the more recent instance of the Libyan revolutionaries excluding Colonel Gaddafi in killing him as to establish the sovereignty of the new order. It's significant that the constitutional monarchy, which you fetishise, originates in the restoration - when Charles II had republicans gutted in Charing Cross and their guts burned in front of them. Then Oliver Cromwell was unearthed and his body decapitated. This is what established the monarchy until it took on a constitutional guise after 1688.

The financial crisis has hit Ireland hard and has blown away Fianna Fail, the old party of the Free State, with its 14 years of precarious coalitions with Progressive Democrats, Greens and independents. Now the country is in the hands of a coalition between the Labour Party and Fine Gael, a party of far less noble origins than Fianna Fail. The sight of social democrats climbing into bed with cultural conservatives is an old story in Ireland. This came only after the Fianna Fail had signed away Ireland's future to the bureaucrats of financial liberalism in Europe. There was the usual nativist noise in Britain at the prospect of bailing out Ireland at the time and the UK government maintained its commitments to Ireland anyway. To be more accurate, the UK as part of the  EU sought to safeguard banking interests in Ireland and ram austerity measures down the throats of the Irish people soon afterwards. Of course, the tendency towards self-pity will continue to see the British as the real victims of bailing out feckless hordes abroad in Ireland, Greece and elsewhere.

The British don't like to remember the crimes committed against the Irish and the brutish manner of occupation that the island was subjected to for far too long. Back in 1867 Karl Marx noted that the Irish needed self-government and independence from England, to achieve an agrarian revolution it would be necessary to implement protective tariffs against England. From 1783 to 1801 the Dublin Parliament, which represented the Protestant land-owners and bourgeoisie, maintained protectionist measures to insulate Irish industry from England. These measures were possible because the Dublin Parliament was able to attain a degree of independence from England in 1782. The rebellion of 1798 gave the British the opportunity to ensure impoverishment in Ireland, the Dublin Parliament was done away with and its decrees reversed. By 1801 the Irish had become subject to free trade that had been imposed over their country. The life of industrial life was quickly suffocated, with only the small linen industry surviving.

It was certainly the case with Australia, Canada and the United States that independence had turned to protectionism against the British Empire. Ireland didn't strike out on an independent line because of its unfortunate proximity to Britain. The island would only move to independence once the popular sentiments converged with the decay of imperial Britain. It could be argued that the reunification of Ireland may be a pre-condition for recovery and development in the country. From the same line of thought we could argue that Ireland really needs reunification coupled with independence from Europe. But this would leave a poor country vulnerable to foreign investment that can't be influenced in the Parliamentary systems of Europe and Britain. The case for a united Ireland as well as for European integration are really political, we should avoid economism here and stick to the political. What the referendum result may have proven is that there is a desire for security and that the EU, as it is, is incapable of providing that to the Irish people.