What does Corbyn have to lose?

For a long time, I thought that the Conservative government was a weak regime depending on a slight majority in Parliament. This starting point was necessary to proceed on the assumption that the Labour Party stands a chance of winning in 2020. Particularly as Jeremy Corbyn and his left-wing supporters are trying to turn the party around from Blairism. However, the new terrain of Brexit shows 2020 is far from a certain defeat for the Tories.

What I failed to take into account: The Conservatives could well expand their majority by swallowing up the UKIP vote. The Tory majority, the smallest since 1974, counts on just 24.6% of the eligible electorate, which translates to 36% of the vote under our antiquated electoral system. Note UKIP counted for 12% of the vote in 2015 - that's 4 million votes. So Theresa May is going for a full-blooded Brexit because she thinks she can steal back these right-wing voters.

If the Corbynistas are to succeed, the Labour leadership needs to refocus its policy initiatives around a few key areas, adopt a permanent campaigning style to remobilise the base, a voter registration drive and, perhaps most importantly, reshape the media debate. This is vital if Labour is to answer the questions facing the country. In short, Labour's only hope is to increase voter turnout (which is easier said than done) to thwart Tory incursions and expand into enemy territory.

Stoke and Copeland

This is why the by-elections are not simply reflective of future prospects. For starters, the victory in Stoke was partly based on a low turnout and yet Labour came out on top: the Tory-UKIP vote fell by 4,000 votes, but remained split in the end. So the first-past-the-post system favoured Gareth Snell's Blue Labour campaign to rescue English nationalism from the racists. In other words, this win was not an unambiguous one. Though it is possible to rebuild the party's Stoke base over time, it just depends on what happens over the next three years.

That being said, it was great to see Paul Nuttall knocked back on his ass. It wasn't just because Nuttall lied about Hillsborough though, more importantly UKIP has lost its raison d'etre since Leave won the referendum. Still, Paul Nuttall was thick enough to believe the bogus media narrative that the Northern working class vote was more UKIP than Labour. The UKIP base has always been a strange right-wing coalition: one part Tory lite, one part fascist, one part libertarian fruitcake. This is a multi-class bloc, but the working class element are unlikely to come from the Labour base.

At the same time, the real triumph of Nigel Farage may be that the Conservatives are taking up UKIP's nationalist agenda. The May government has made it clear it is going for a hard Brexit and that it is open to restricting immigration, even at the detriment to economic growth and stability. Farage has already won without ever coming close to real power. The electioneers around May will have calculated that the party can survive the social fallout, while Labour remains divided and weak.

By opting for a hard Brexit, Theresa May has successfully neutered the UKIP threat to her party. UKIP was only gaining in Labour seats because it was subsuming the right-wing opposition vote under one umbrella. If the Tories had been more focused on Stoke they might have eaten through Nuttall's base and squeezed Labour's majority even further. But the Conservative leadership decided to focus on the easy target. This brings us to Copeland.

There's no doubt about it, the loss of Copeland was a serious blow. It revealed three factors: 1) the Conservatives were able to swallow up UKIP, while the Labour vote was squeezed on two fronts by 2) the Tories over Sellafield and 3) the Lib Dems over Brexit. The lack of a clear message on nuclear power cost Labour the jobs vote, whereas Corbyn's three line whip on Article 50 cost the party support among Remain voters. The latter factor may be far more important in the end, compared to the more localised nuclear issue.

None of this takes place in a vacuum, the Labour Party is in historic decline because the Blair years cost the party 5 million voters. The New Labour strategy of taking the working class vote for granted, as it chased after middle class families, has cost the party dearly. This is why the 2010 and 2015 elections were lost. It's partly why Scotland was lost. Despite the flaws of the Corbyn leadership, the Blairites and Brownites lack an alternative. A return to New Labour is not possible in a world where the combined Tory-UKIP vote stands at 48%. But a nationalist turn won't cut it either.

Corbyn's Promise

The promise of Corbynism to reverse this trend has not yet been realised. I put this down to a lack of political strategy and coherence on policy and message, as well as the overwhelmingly hostility of the media and the efforts of Blairites to undermine Corbyn. The illusion is that Corbyn is the fundamental problem for Labour, when it was clear that the Brown government lost power and Ed Miliband lost Scotland. Putting a David Miliband or a Dan Jarvis in Corbyn's place will not change the reasons why Labour is in a losing streak.

It's not about your jawline or what suit you wear. The bid to transform Labour is still real for as long as there is no alternative to the radical left in the party. But it takes work to repair 40 years of damage. Some pessimists would argue it is hopeless. If Labour is unsalvageable, then Corbyn may go down with the ship - taking the blame for decades of rot. Even still, I think it would only ensure the collapse of the party to turn back now. It's not about Corbyn, it's about what kind of country we want to live in. The old phrase "socialism or barbarism" is more than rhetorical now.

Bizarrely, Conservative Lord Finkelstein has offered some recommendations in his Times column. Far from arguing for retreat in the hope of saving face (as Owen Jones has done), Danny Finkelstein suggests the only hope for Corbyn is to instigate a new antagonism within the Labour Party to change it forever:

"[Corbyn's] only hope must be as a subversive challenger, relentlessly organising to take over the party and talking about his efforts to do so. He should come out with huge, earth-shaking radical left-wing policies and not care that Yvette Cooper and I both think that they are bonkers. He should skip prime minister's questions in order to attend protest rallies. He should organise to deselect critics and win selection contests for his people."

Finkelstein is not alone, but it's interesting to hear this from a prominent right-wing journalist. Another writer, Benjamin Mercer, has taken to the pages of The National Student to make the case for far-reaching democratic reform within the Labour Party. This is surely the best case for Corbynism, and the best hope of the Labour left:

"Much as the franchise has been expanded for the leadership elections, so it must be expanded at the level of the CLPs. power should be transferred downwards from the General and Executive Committees to the grassroots. Participation should be made easier and the decisions should be made by a committee of the whole membership, not merely a clique of the same. Every member of the CLP must have the right to become its MP, and the membership should be ballotted before every election - or by-election - in order to choose the party's candidate. This should end the practice of 'parachuting' supposedly orthodox candidates into allegedly safe seats. No more Hunts in Stoke. labour Party MPs will be accountable, first and foremost, to their constituencies and not to the leadership, the PLP or the NEC. Re-selection at every election will ensure that this remains the case."

Up until now Jeremy Corbyn has stuck to a centrist style of leadership. However, the Labour coalition of liberals, social democrats and socialists, may just be too broad for the new situation. The broad church approach has been a recipe for incoherence on policy and a lack of strategy on the media. If Corbynism is to succeed, the party has to be transformed in the long-term and that requires thinking beyond 2020. A surrender or a retreat would just offset this process of democratic reform.

If the experiment ends with Corbyn stepping down in 2020, the opening for transforming Labour into a mass democratic party would be lost. This would close the space for a radical leadership. Not only would it mean that the left would not be able to contest the elections in 2025 and 2030, it would mean Labour would fall back into the hands of the extreme centre. Contrary to Blairite illusions, the party would resume its lacklustre performance under Ed Miliband, or, worse, try to stake out a position as the party for English nationalism under the guise of Blue Labour. Either way, Labour is dead meat.

This article was originally written for Souciant on March 3, 2017.

"Red, White and Blue Brexit"

In a little over 70 pages, Theresa May has confirmed the worst nightmare for Remainers. Not only is Britain leaving the EU, we are leaving the single market and the customs union too. This may mean immigration controls are being placed before economic growth. The political is being put before the economic. This is what she meant when she engaged in such sloganeering as “red, white and blue Brexit”.

Speaking at Lancaster House, May deployed the language of internationalism, Theresa May laid out the contours of the plan for Britain to leave the EU and become a “great, global trading nation”. She was careful to talk about diversity, multiculturalism and fairness. It was not a speech at a UKIP rally. Instead, May has tried to rearticulate the centre ground as a nationalist space.

In the aftermath of the June referendum, Britain was left in a state of shock. Even the Leave voters could not believe they had won, for many the vote was an opportunity to register their distaste with the establishment. Not many people expected Brexit to go ahead, certainly not in the Remain camp where people felt they had fallen into a parallel universe.

Nearly eight months on, the unknown is still here. It haunts us all every day. We voted for it, and we don’t know what will happen next. The pound has been degraded, and some people have lost thousands from their pension pots. Inflation and instability are on the rise. And this is just the beginning. The process has not even started yet.

Mayday, Mayday!

Electoral strategy has trumped economic stability. Withdrawing from the EU will allow the Conservatives to ward off the threat of UKIP and satisfy their own Eurosceptic backbenchers. The question of European integration has been a crucial question for Conservative administrations going back to Ted Heath. Those were the days when the Tories were passionate Europhiles.

Since then Euroscepticism moved across the aisle and became embodied by right-wing mavericks on the Tory backbenches. Despite her reputation as ‘anti-European’, Margaret Thatcher signed Britain up for the Single European act and took the country into the ERM before her resignation. Yet it would be John Major, whose government would be lacerated by infighting over Europe. David Cameron would offset the issue until 2016 when he finally held the referendum.

Unlike her predecessors, Theresa May wants to resolve the European problem once and for all. She hopes she can save face by taking Britain out of the single market and the customs union. May promises she can do this with minimal pain. This is akin to David Cameron’s promise to cut spending without hurting public services. It was wrong in 2010, and it’s wrong in 2017. But this is not May’s consideration.

Freedom of movement with the EU will come to an end, but it’s unclear what this may mean. Contrary to popular misreading, the end of free movement with the EU does not necessarily mean immigration will cease. May has already gestured towards a deal on EU nationals living in the UK, and for UK nationals living in the EU. The real issue is the economy’s need for more and more cheap labour as the population age and approach retirement.

One scenario is that the UK will continue to accept migrant labour and use the tax receipts to prop up its pension system. The government could still introduce new penalties to squeeze migration, turn away more refugees and continue to suppress wages. In another scenario, the UK restricts its border thereby reducing its own labour market and creating the pre-conditions to privatise the pensions system. In either scenario, the working class stands to lose out.

A Not-So-New Economy

One of the reasons why I doubted Brexit was possible was the loss of British manufacturing. If we’re going to weather the storm ahead we will need an industrial base as part of a viable economic strategy, yet this economic base was destroyed by four decades of Thatcherism. So, the industrial option no longer exists, the Conservatives are left in a tricky position.

There are few options on the table for any government right now. Before the Conservatives were simply trying to reflate the housing bubble – that flourished under New Labour, only to go pop in 2008 – as they tried to stripped the state down to the buff. The Cameron era is over, and the May government must chart a new course.

Unfortunately, the Tories have destroyed the other options, it looks like they are going to give supply-side economics another try. Thus, Chancellor Philip Hammond has suggested the UK should slash taxes for the rich and take a hatchet to what little regulation is left. Who will pay for this? Everyone who depends on benefits, state schools, the NHS and state pensions. It’s all up for grabs now. The profits must be extracted from somewhere.

More important than growth, the system needs to facilitate the accumulation of capital. It’s a mistake to think the capitalist buzzword is ‘growth’. The neoliberal period is marked by low growth rates in many cases. The average rate of growth in the 1970s was 2.2%, and under Thatcher it was 2.2%. All that changed was the distribution of growth. Profitability was restored by the defeat of organised labour, whose demands for high wages were eating into revenue.

At the same time, Trump says he wants to cut a deal with the UK once in office. Expect the free trade deal to mean a “bonfire of regulations” presided over by the Treasury. It could be worse than TTIP. You can imagine an unprecedented pig-out by the rich, in which the NHS, state pensions and education, are all eviscerated and served up on a silver platter. This isn’t to say the Tory government wasn’t going to do this anyway.

All of this as the country is hit by the consequences of a falling pound and little to export. The trade deficit is already massively bloated, whereas financial capital is the only thing going for the economy. This is likely just the beginning of a very bumpy ride.

This article was originally written for Spectre.

Thatcher 2.0

So, the heir to Blair is gone, Theresa May has come to power, George Osborne has been replaced with Philip Hammond and Boris Johnson is now in charge of MI6. It's plausible that the Tory Party may be returning to its wilderness period in opposition to New Labour. Cameron's Blair-style of leadership is now over. All that's left is the mess of party politics before Cameron took over in 2005: fools, creeps, lightweights and nobodies.

Yet inevitably, the new British prime minister will be compared to Margaret Thatcher. Not that May has a substantive political agenda. If Andrea was going to play Thatcher 2.0, she would have faired no better than Theresa. Love her or loathe her, Thatcher was a seizmic figure in UK politics. She redefined the conversation and changed society in a little over a decade. We have remained on the same track ever since, while the political class has changed in style and tactics.

The truth is the Conservatives never got over Thatcher. The Iron Lady's fall from power left behind a vacuum, which has never really been closed. John Major and David Cameron are passing, managerial figures. Unusually for a Conservative, Thatcher was a formidable ideologue. But let's pull back for a moment. It's worth reflecting on the events of recent weeks. Despite appearances the Conservative establishment was hit hard by the Brexit shockwave. The dust has yet to settle.

Electorus interruptus

Once Brexit hit, David Cameron was forced to resign – a decision which clearly stung. By contrast, George Osborne disappeared into the shadows for the weekend. He finally resurfaced to provide reassurances to the business community, after three days in hiding. The look of complete devastation on Osborne's face must have been very reassuring. Both men – a duo of the major league – were physically shaken by defeat. The Cameron legacy died on June 23, and Osborne's hopes of taking over died with it.

The Tory government has been rudderless since the leadership contest ensued. At first, everyone thought that the favourite candidate, Boris Johnson, would easily swoop in and become prime minister. Then Johnson committed electorus interruptus with no warning. The Boris campaign was dead before the man could even announce his candidacy. Michael Gove delivered the fatal blow and quickly usurped the candidacy.

This was great drama for political junkies. Boris has been lurking on the sidelines for years – clearly in preparation of a bid for the premiership. He wanted his birthright. Far from a conviction politician, or even a responsible human being, Johnson bet everything on the Leave vote. In actuality, the former London mayor was hoping for a slight Remain vote, which would create the pre-conditions for a hard-right Tory revolt against Cameron. Such a situation would be favourable for a prominent (and opportunistic) figure to seize power.

The chancer got exactly what he didn't want. Johnson was quick to cleave to the centre-ground in the hope of salvaging a position as a 'unifying figure'. But this strategy was doomed to fail. The parliamentarians would want a Remain candidate, whereas the members might prefer a Leave campaigner. Boris was seen as a gamble. He had himself stabbed Cameron in the back over the EU debate, giving him just 10 minutes to adjust before he announced his support for Leave.

It was obvious, for some of us from the start. The favourite candidate has lost every Conservative leadership election in the last 60 years. In other words, the commentators get it wrong regularly. The real battle for the ruling party is to reproduce itself as the establishment. If the next leader tries to backtrack from EU withdrawal, the party could well split. It's even possible that the negotiations could lead to a bloody schism.

The death of the centre

Theresa May was clearly the strongest contender from the outset. Soon she was the last candidate standing, and then the last woman standing. May has a tough reputation on immigration, which plays to her advantage right now. However, it is also clear May is a pragmatist and a centre-right politician more than anything else. She is, no doubt, favoured by establishment figures because she is seen as a "safe pair of hands". Quietly pro-Remain, May is inoffensive to the party loyalists, but she's also capable of difficult policies – e.g. the reform of the police.

The problem for Prime Minister May will be walking the thin line necessary to keep both wings of the Conservative Party contented. The eurosceptics will be looking for any sign of compromise, any whiff of retreat or hesitation in the negotiating room. At the same time, there are still strong europhiles in the Tory hierarchy. The former will want red meat on immigration, the latter will recognise the practicalities of free movement.

The UK has had freedom of movement with Ireland on and off since the 1920s. If the new administration wants to control EU migration, the Irish border will have to be patrolled and the symbolism of British troops on the Irish border should not be taken lightly. Likewise, there are over 2 million British emigrants in EU countries. Meanwhile the UK economy has a structural need for migrant labour, and this goes to the heart of the matter.

If it is to reproduce itself, British capitalism has to be reinvigorated. Right-wing eurosceptics want to revitalise the system by tipping further towards the American empire, while turning to the former colonies for trade, as an alternative to the continental European bloc. The centre basically want to extend the current system as it is – propped up by finance and hocked up with debt. But the Left could also push for a new social democratic turn.

Coming out with 'One Nation' rhetoric, May hopes she can differentiate herself from the Cameron era. She acknowledged disparities of race, class and gender in her first speech. But the 'One Nation' has a nasty side – namely cultural nationalism. This is somewhat different to so-called 'compassionate' conservatism popularised by George W Bush. May will look to forge unity by exclusion. It's just a question of who gets excluded.

This article was originally published at Souciant.

The 2015 General Election.

I covered the election cycle for Souciant. My first article focused on Ed Miliband and what he represents for the centre-left and for the Labour Party.

The early signs of the Miliband leadership were not promising. He shirked from making promises early on, apparently to avoid commitments he couldn’t fulfil, probably to avert any infighting. Labour veterans will remember, with no nostalgia, the splits in the 1980s, which ruptured the party’s electoral chances, consigning it to the wilderness for the best part of two decades. So long as the party remains united, it can back neoliberal policies. 

In this regard, sectarianism has its virtues over unity. As Leo Panitch has emphasised, it might be necessary to divide ranks, and prompt a full-blown confrontation, in order to rescue the official social democratic party from its own rightward drift. Contestation can lead to progressive outcomes, but plenty of people prefer to play the safe game holding onto a scintilla of hope. The last battle for the life and soul of the Labour Party was fought in the 1980s. 

The post-war Labour Party has consistently sought to buttress the system and avoid the redistribution of wealth and power. In the 1960s and ‘70s, the plan was to secure ever-rising living standards through adjustments to income and jobs policy, as well as an inflationary monetary approach, to make the pie appear bigger for everyone. Then in the 1990s New Labour promised it could do this by further compromise and, ultimately, by heaping greater debt onto people. 

Likewise, Miliband promises to tweak the system just enough to placate the incorrigible masses. He tries to make the right noises about taxes, health care, jobs and housing, but ultimately falls short. We’re told he’s the official left candidate, and yet he talks about ‘responsible’ capitalism. The days of Bevan and Attlee are long gone. These may be the end times for the centre-left.

I wrote these words for an article, the Death of the Centre-Left, published on March 31. For the election I looked at almost every major party, with the exceptions of Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems, with particular attention paid to the Green Party, Labour, UKIP and the Conservatives. Here's my take on the 2015 election:
The Anti-Cameron - On the significance of the SNP as an alternative to the Whitehall consensus and what it means for those of us on the left-of-centre.
The New Ted Heath - A historical look at Cameron's Conservative Party and how it reached this peculiarly modern manifestation of right-wing politics.
These Greens Are Different - A critical, yet sympathetic, look at the Green Party, their social programme and what has gone wrong for them on the campaign trail.
White Identity Politics - A comparison of UKIP and the DUP in historical terms of colonial and racial oppression, specifically how the oppression of the Irish helped to constitute the white identity to which UKIP now appeals.
Small was Beautiful - A look at the strangely reactionary history of the Green Party, how they came to be and why they are left-wing today.
Dead Labour - Again, a critical look at Labour and precisely the history of its infighting and how it produced the current political impasse.
Early 90s Flashback - Looking back to the 'surprise' victory of 1992 in terms of the Conservative majority won and secured by David Cameron. What lessons can we draw from this?

What does an honourable Tory look like?

I've always enjoyed the work of columnist and commentator Peter Oborne since first discovering his tirades against the oleaginous Tony Blair. So I was somewhat surprised to hear that he had resigned his position at the Telegraph, itself the flagship of media Toryism, where as its chief political commentator he had provided mild-mannered and sober reflections for many years.

Not so much a fulminating reactionary, Peter Oborne is an honourable conservative fellow and embodies the best of moralism. You know he means it when he's indignant with rage at political corruption, cronyism and opportunism, the three characteristics of our trilateral consensus, precisely because he's polite by nature. Compare this to Peter Hitchens, the chief fulminator, who does adhere to difficult principles and abhors the party system as it is. What's the difference? The little Hitch is a drama queen, who smells rot everywhere, whereas Oborne assumes the best of people (which isn't always an advantage).

Unlike the Daily Mail herd of scabrous journos, Oborne has kept his distance from the racist narratives around Muslims, their faith and terrorism. Instead of partaking in slanders against the Muslim community, Oborne embraces multiculturalism and tolerance, while at the same time, he condemns homophobia and other forms of bigotry. He's been willing to share platforms with Leftists on these very issues standing with the prickly George Galloway, whom he defended against a ghastly assault, as well as Charlie Brooker and Mehdi Hasan. He was one of the few commentators to argue that the London riots were a sign of a society increasingly polarised by a wealth gap. But this isn't the only instance.

On more than one occasion, Peter Oborne has eloquently raised the question of Palestinian statehood and the rights of its dispossessed people. He has not been afraid to criticise Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories, and he has done so at the leading conservative newspaper. He's even dared to slam the pro-Israel lobby and its dealings with British politicians, particularly the Conservatives. Oborne may assume the best, but he's not going to pretend he doesn't see wrongdoing by his side. This is a great public service on his part.

Not enough liberals, let alone conservatives, have the brains or the guts to take a stand on the issue of Palestine. So the decision to resign can only be seen as another instance of this integrity. It only reaffirms and consolidates his record.

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 Perils of Tax Populism.

 Cutting Both Ways.
 

 The cause of raining in corporate tax swindlers was once the monopoly of UK Uncut in its Vodafone protestations. Now it has been coopted by the political class, firstly by that shirker Ed Miliband and then by George Osbourne that dangerous radical who went to St. Paul's. Unfortunately, for Ed Miliband the language of ‘responsible’ capitalism is hardly anything radical and can be, demonstrably, filched by the less than scrupulous Tories. There was a time when talk of ‘responsible’ capitalism would have been a compromise too far for the Establishment Left. Even Andrew Neil thought it proper to point this out to Rowenna Davis. It looks like triangulation from the Right. Tax reform will be a bit of prog bait for the Coalition to wag at us (along with gay marriage) at the next election. Of course, the oik at the Treasury is just a poseur when it comes to serious tax reform.

 We can debate what this tells us about the Chancellor and the way his mind works. For quite some time the question was whether Osbourne knew what he was doing. There was no theory and the oik had no formal education in economics. The whole aim of deficit reduction seemed to revolve around the prospect of re-election in 2015, incidentally the Coalition are failing by their measures in that department. It is possible that the Coalition have pushed the austerity measures to the limit and have decided to slow down just in time for the General Election. So we find it is either a case of idiocy or wanton cynicism. If the Treasury are going to patch together a minor tax reform then it is more about appearances than content. This would mean that the Chancellor, or at least his advisors, are aware of the problem of tax evasion and avoidance. It is plausibly about the coming electoral battle. The Conservatives are painfully aware that they have not won a majority in over 20 years.

 Miliband has made his move, a bet on mansion tax. For a long time it looked like Ed Miliband was struggling to find the formula. The New Labour token of the ‘hard-working majority’ to the Blue Labour waffle about a ‘squeezed middle’. Well, first it was Blue Labour, then there was this brief gust about ‘predistribution’, and then, finally, settling on One Nation Labour pilfered from the One Nation Conservatism of Disraeli. Each instance can be seen as another attempt at triangulation. All the while Ed hasn’t promised us anything concrete, on the meritorious grounds that he doesn’t want to lie to us. And who could disagree with that? Just picture it, the Labour slogan at the next election: Don’t Expect Much! The success of Blairism was its lies, the Prime Minister was a conman and many of us wanted to be conned. That’s why so many liberals lapped up the drivel about WMD. Now little Ed has to appear to have found the formula even if he hasn’t.

 The trouble with the current Miliband (surely, the better of the two) is that he remains a creature of the End of History proclaimed by Fukuyama. The fall of the Berlin Wall and triumph of liberal capitalism signaled the end of the old politics of class. We had finally gotten past all of that. The new mission would be the Third Way, not even social democracy, more like a neoliberalism with a human face. Much like soft pornography this ‘soft-core’ capitalism promises everything except the penetration shots. Endless economic Progress without the harsh social costs. This is why Miliband still seems to be stuck in the spirit of the 1990s. Most of his leadership has been characterised by meandering around labels and the need for a new triangulation. First you nick planks from the opposing platform with the hope of bagging the votes and money that will follow it. Then you test the water to tune the policies perfectly to the ears of the votes you have yet to win.

 

 All of this falls back on the assumption that the traditional working-class base can be relied upon to turn out and cast an automatic vote for Labour MPs. All the while the liberal commentariat are kept on board with the lesser evil allure of the platform. Notice that when the Bradford byelection disrupted the natural order you had liberal journalists lining up to slime George Galloway. Sadly, it seems more likely that Labour could lose its seats to the populism of right-wing demagogues from parties like UKIP. No wonder Miliband bungled efforts to pander to anti-immigrant sentiment in the days when he was still testing the water. After so many botched attempts at populist appeals Miliband has chosen redistribution over predistribution. When in doubt turn leftwards. It reminds one of when Gordon Brown tried to squeeze back into those tight socialist trousers of yesteryear and started to bark at the market ‘fundamentalism’ he had bought and sold for over a decade.

 The Labour Party has yet to change much with the better Miliband at the helm. Like Brown and, indeed, Blair, Ed Miliband buys the fundamental lie that the primary goal of any government, whether short-term or long-term, ought to be deficit reduction above all else. Tax reform is certainly compatible, if not more effective, to that end given the deficit is more to do with revenue than expenditure. It could well be the common ground fought over at the next election. If the Coalition are serious about deficit reduction they will be much more interested in taxation. Up to now cuts have been a useful means to the continued transformation of the welfare state and public services. If the goals of tax justice can be coopted then it may be time to reposition ourselves and make more radical demands. It is not enough to simply try to preserve the remnants of social democracy.

This article was later posted on the Third Estate on March 3rd 2013.