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.

Reaction to Scotland's No vote.

So the votes are in. Scotland has voted 44.7% for independence and 55.3% to remain within the United Kingdom. Voter turnout was close to 87% in a display of participation greater than we have seen in any recent election. The EU elections in May drew 33.8% of the British electorate out of their homes to the local voting booth. It’s standard in UK general elections for turnout to be almost twice as high as in EU elections. Consequently, the protest vote looms large in one and not the other (at least usually this is the case).

It was said in the run-up to the referendum that Alex Salmond couldn’t lose either way: if it’s a ‘yes’ then Scotland becomes an independent state, if it’s a ‘no’ then Scotland will win more powers. Originally the proposed referendum was to include three options, not just yes or no, but the option of maximal devolution would have been on the table too. This led many to suggest Salmond was really pushing for greater powers. If Salmond was aiming for independence then this might not be the end of the story, as we have seen in Quebec where there have been two referendums on independence. The major issue for Whitehall is how they can prevent such an occurrence in the British Isles.

No wonder then David Cameron has raised the West Lothian question. He speaks of a ‘devolution revolution’ for the English and not just Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Endless bifurcation has its appeal to international capitalism as each entity can be picked off, its economy chiselled and its workforce disciplined. The appeal is to English parochialism, the same mobilising force behind UKIP, Powellism, and the EDL, can be seen as a move to strengthen the rightward trend of British politics through coalescence and triangulation. Boundary changes would have to be made in any large-scale constitutional shake-up in a country where such questions have been held-off for far too long. So devolution may not necessarily result in an automatic Conservative stranglehold in Westminster.

Decentralisation in a neoliberal world would suit Cameron and his party just right. The Conservatives are facing inexorable decline, having only increased their share of the vote by 3% in 5 years against the Brown government. It’s highly unlikely for any governing party to increase its share of the vote, even if you have the Liberal Democrats as human shields. Meanwhile, the Labour Party lacks any vision or impetus to stand up for its traditional social base. The bet may not be for a rejuvenated Tory Party, that fight may have already been lost. It’s not just that the social democratic model is rotting before our eyes; the old Toryism is going the way of the dodo too. In that regard, what is left but to fall back on the trilateral consensus and devolve the Union into a morass entrenching austerity.

As for the Scottish National Party, it was once the case that the left-right coalition (which composes the SNP) was set to break apart once they had achieved independence. It looks unlikely that will be the case as long as Scotland remains within the UK. Salmond will try to maintain the public services and welfare provisions in Scotland for as long as he can. Additional powers may help this, or hinder this, it’s difficult to foresee. It still is the case that the SNP is not a socialist party, it isn’t even a republican party, and it was willing to accept NATO, as well as international free-trade agreements, and the vanity projects of Donald Trump. I can see the ultra-left in Scotland pinning the blame on the SNP for not being pure enough and Salmond will rebuke this with the language of pragmatism.

This post was written as an immediate reaction to the outcome of the referendum on Scottish independence. It will be reproduced at Souciant later.

The Boris Johnson Symptom.

 

In recent years there has not been a more significant symptom of disarray within the Conservative Party than the undiluted veneration of Boris Johnson. This is especially the case with the constant talk of Boris becoming Party Leader and maybe even Prime Minister one day. The Conservative Party must be aware of the fact that they haven’t won a majority government in more than 20 years. It’s hard to picture the traditionalists being massaged into ecstasy by a Prime Minister BJ, perhaps even less so than Prime Minister DC. So it must be about the desperation in the knowledge that the Party seriously needs popular appeal. The right-wing adoration for Boris ranks in high farce. There were those who claimed his re-election in 2012 was down to his strong conservative principles. Toby Young has bet £15,000 with Nigella Lawson that, by 2018, Boris will be Tory leader and, in the imagination of some, a prospective Prime Minister. Then in 2012, that custodian of the sacred foetus, Nadine Dorries came out in standard reactionary flair to berate David Cameron as a ‘sheep in wolf’s clothing’ before fawning over the imaginary prospect of a Boris Cabinet.

 

The prospect remains a realistic one in the minds of many. Yet we’d do better to examine the Boris phenomenon with more serious eyes. If we assume that Boris is sensible (a risk we may live to regret) then surely the Mayoral office is much more suited to his attributes. It’s not that he is an effective politician due to his strong conservative principles. The efficacy of the Johnson persona is his relatively detached relationship with power which lends great prowess to the anti-political role of a clown. As Mayor Boris enjoys the freedom to rail against the government and not commit to anything. In a higher office Boris would lose this non-committed freedom and be held to rigorous scrutiny within Parliament and in the press. No amount of bluster from foolish reactionaries and eejits will change this obvious flaw in the delusion. It was precisely the anti-political purity of Boris Johnson by comparison with Ken Livingstone that secured the glass testicle for the Conservatives. Boris doesn’t come across as a politician. He’s a combination of the Wodehousian aristo and a political tabula rasa. Behind the blank veneer you find, at best, the incoherence of market liberalism.

 

Last week Boris put forward a series of proposals for a ’2020 vision of London’ which he claims as his own. Apparently the future will be a ‘golden age’ in transport for Londoners. The programme is exactly what we would expect from the anti-political populist who has run City Hall for five years now. The prospect of 75% automation has the mouths of many commuters watering profusely. Smashing the last of the strong trade unions in this country is a cause endorsed by liberals as well as conservatives. It’s a broad based appeal to the urban poor who don’t want their lives disrupted regularly by strikes (and with good reason); as well as the suburban middle-classes who hope the roads may be less congested if the unwashed hordes are shuffling about underground. The regressive fare hikes are defended as necessary measures in austere times, yet it was Boris who closed the deal with Venezuela for cheap oil – a deal cut by Mr Livingstone to maintain low bus fares. There is no talk of necessity when it comes to slamming the breaks on the congestion charge to rake in petit-bourgeois votes. Simultaneously the £12 billion development of Crossrail 2 no doubt offers prospects for speculators, just as the extension of the Jubilee line cost £3.5 billion while it raised land values for speculators to rake in £13 billion.

 

Much has been made of the late date at which these proposals have been put forward. It is five years since Boris strode into City Hall on horseback leading a populist cavalry against ‘Red’ Ken and only three years until the next Mayoral election. It’s possible that the plan has been timed so that only a few of the proposals actually come into fruition. The safe bet would be that the transport reforms will pass, but the aim of building 400,000 new homes may not. After all this city is not for the poor, it’s for the wealth-creators in Canary Wharf. The London working-class find themselves battered by such regressive taxes as VAT and the exorbitant travel fares which absorb so much of the wage packet. Meanwhile the housing benefit reforms are likely to force many out of their homes as the question of extreme rents remains unanswered and even unacknowledged.

 

Take note, the so-called plan to build 400,000 new homes for the next decade amounts to releasing more publicly-owned land to be developed (probably by private companies) combined with greater borrowing for local government to boost building projects and a ‘use it or lose it’ measure to ensure private investment leads to development. The Mayor advocates the devolution of power – particularly over property taxes – to City Hall in order to further facilitate greater investment. All the while Boris Johnson argues that there is nothing to be gained from regulating the financial colossus in the City. It would seem this is more of a plan for profitability than anything else. It’s possible then that the houses may be built, but in what form we can only speculate. We can gauge as much from the fact that City Hall approved the construction of a block of luxury flats in Elephant & Castle as part of a billion-pound gentrification project. Just as we can expect similar efforts in Hammersmith around the Westfield centre where land values have risen. It’s plausible that the local working-class will be pushed out to make way for very nice houses for the more bourgeois.

 

With all this in mind, it seems there is an uncertain future for the Conservative Party with its shrunken talent pool. It seems probably that Cameron will hold onto his position simply because there isn’t a serious contender to unseat him. That goes for Ed Miliband, who poses little serious opposition to Cameron’s government in terms of policy. We can thank the Labour Party for helping to keep Margaret Thatcher in office for 11 years and we shouldn’t shirk to place the blame where’s its due come 2015. Not that we should really care that the Conservative Party seems a bit short of an effective leader, as it has been since the hag was slain, as what’s really lacking is opposition. The economy is still struggling to drag itself out of this slump, for the ruling-class there aren’t any clear answers at hand. Likewise, there aren’t any obvious ways for the Establishment to circumvent the problems incurred by economic crisis and electoral despair. In short, the signs of disarray within the Conservative Party are to be welcomed as much as the timidity of Labour and Lib Dem is to be despised.

This article was originally posted on the Third Estate on June 15th 2013.

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.

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.