The Point

Last updated: 27 June 2022.

Why I popped a champagne cork when we left the EU

Left pro-independence voices opposing EU membership have been largely blanked in the mainstream media and by many 'official' indy outlets in Scotland. The run up to the exit from the EU last week saw a veritable tsunami of newsprint weeping at the departure, and hosts of tearful politicos painting the EU in the most rose-tinted and hagiographic terms. Previously, SNP left and Marxist George Kerevan wrote an article for The National about mourning the departure from the EU. In the interests of the kind of balance that hasn't been shown by the MSM, here's an article by BRUCE WALLACE, a YES voter and lifelong Marxist celebrating our departure from the EU. In that spirit of 'balance' he link to George Kervan' article is also included below

 

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All throughout January I kept thinking, thank the gods it’ll be as good as over at the end of the month! The UK, will leave the EU, whole and entire, on Friday 31^st January at 11pm. That’s when I’ll pop my cork and toast the end of an auld song. 48 years UK membership of the nascent super state now known as the European Union. We’ll be out! Great rejoicing!

More than a week on and there is no sign of the dreadul catastrophe predicted routinely by Remainer politicians north and south of the border

Let me be absolutely clear, I love Europe but I HATE the EU. The EU isn’t Europe and vice-versa, the conflation of the two has been the woeful practice of the remainiacs for the last three years and the bane of sensible debate, and long before the 2016 referendum.

Imaginary Losses

George Kerevan (The National Dec 23) has something in common with me. We both voted against joining the, then named, European Economic Community (EEC) in 1975. And we both voted for Scottish independence in 2014. Yet the sands of time have blunted his critical faculties.  The EEC  has metastasised into the  Moloch that is the modern European Union. George voted to Remain in 2016 but I voted for Brexit! He can’t see many negatives in the development of the EEC since 1975 and writes   “I now mourn what we’re about to lose”. He then treats us to his dark vision of what Brexit will mean.

The ending of European citizenship.  No more freedom of travel within the EU and the right to work in other member countries. This is just arrant nonsense. Whilst formally we will no longer be European citizens it is highly unlikely that there will be any major restrictions on travel to anywhere on the continent. Nor will leaving the EU mean that working or living in Europe will be terminated after January 31^st or even be much more difficult.  There will be certain changes no doubt. Like having no go into the “non-EU” queue at airports, but there is a transition period, ending in December 2020, during which the EU has agreed to negotiate a mutually beneficial free trade agreement. The final shape of this agreement will contain and alleviate many of the details outlined in George’s imaginary losses.

I’ve been heartily sick of the remainer catastrophist Brexit trope for the past three years, but deliriously happy now that I won’t be shouting myself hoarse at the telly as slavish Europhile politicians issue portents of doom. Scotland will lose 100,000(??) jobs if there’s a hard Brexit,  intones  blaw bag  Blackford of the SNP. There will be an 8% (??) fall in GDP warns Francis O’Grady of the TUC, as she licks the arse of Dame Carolyn Fairbairn of the CBI. The weirdest popular front ever. 

A no deal Brexit will be a catastrophe yada yada yada. Brexit-apocalypse  has been the daily fare of the Europhiliac MSM ad nauseum since June 2016 whilst the chicanery of the anti-Brexit majority in the House of Commons pre-Dec 2019  beggared belief in its anti- democratic shenanigans . In truth political decisions, such as leaving the EU, just don’t have the massive impact on economic development that the “experts” have predicted. Market forces are a far more important factor, and I honestly think that after Brexit we’ll hardly notice much of a difference in our daily lives, and definitely not if you’re an unemployed guy in Blantyre.

The 2019 GE has definitively ended the political farce we’ve had since the 2016 referendum. The remain balloon  has been burst, never. I hope, to be re-inflated. It sounded more like a whoopee cushion going down as Heseltine called surrender. Chukka Umunna and Anna Souberry are gone ( hallelujah ) A whimper after three years  of aerated rhetoric and faux outrage against the decision of the biggest democratic exercise in British political history.

 

EU fantasy land

Kerevan bemoans our departing the EU because, as an old- fashioned social democrat, he accepts that, in Europe, capital has not been defeated:

but it has been forced to make concessions. These democratic concessions are worth defending.

That is why we have an elected European Parliament.

Some people learn nothing and forget nothing. Many of us voted for Brexit  because  THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT IS A TOTAL SHAM!! It isn’t a democratic concession at all because IT ISN’T DEMOCRATIC! Yes, elections to it are run along democratic lines, but the parliament itself has absolutely no power to represent the demos which elects it.  And that’s because it has no power to initiate legislation. The executive (the commission) is not elected by it, but appointed by the 28 (oops sorry, 27) member states. The commission has the sole power to propose laws for debate. Not a single leading political figure in the EU (President of the Commission, for example, who is appointed by the European Council ) is elected or subject to re-election. The nearest thing there is to democratic accountability is when the parliament “approves” the commissions’ candidates. Hence why ex-German Defence Secretary, Ursula von der Leyan is now President of the Commission after the latest stitch-up by Franco-German imperialism.

One must discern fantasy from reality and presenting the EU institutions as democratic is pure deception, Mr Kerevan!  It gets worse, much worse, when he presents, in a highly abstract manner, the allegedly progressive nature of the EU in terms of worker’s and other rights:

That is why the EU has been forced to implement significant environmental legislation. That is why there  is a Charter of Fundamental Rights – now expunged from British law under the Brexit withdrawal agreement passed last Friday, excising key European protections regarding fair working conditions, unjustified dismissal, minimum paid holidays, statutory working hours and equal pay.

That, not the machinations of the European Commission, represents a real defeat for Scottish and British working people.

Faux concern for the rights of the working class. Like every left remainer  Kerevan points to the formal rights of workers within the EU while, simultaneously, ignoring the absolute disaster in practice that the policies of the EU has meant for millions of workers throughout Europe. Especially in the less developed south. As Ex MP and supporter of Labour Leave Kate Howie had to point out “these EU workers’ rights only apply to those in work”. Sadly, from the Euro crisis of 2008 onwards, mass unemployment has become endemic in much of southern Europe. Youth unemployment in the Eurozone is an international scandal. In October 2019 this stood at a rate of  33 per cent in Greece, 32.2 per cent in Spain, 27.1 per cent in Italy and even  19.7 per cent in Sweden.

This delusional presentation of the progressive nature of rights legislation in the EU ignores the fact that similar legislation pre-existed it in the UK, and that it already surpasses its European equivalent markedly in many areas. There is no EU right to mandatory sick pay or to a minimum wage for instance. These rights were won in the UK by the struggles of the working class, and the idea that Boris Johnson and the Tories plan an all out offensive on working class rights through Brexit are plain wrong in my view. I certainly don’t trust the Tories, but were they try to attack these hard won rights then they would face mass resistance from the working class.

Moreover, the prevailing economic orthodoxy in the EU is neo-liberal and deflationary.

Following the Euro crisis this has forced Greece, in particular, to the brink of absolute ruin with mass unemployment and horrendous  poverty. Of the financial rescue packages to the Greek state from the EU Central Bank not a cent  has gone to the Greek people. Everything has gone to maintain interest payments to the Eurobond holders while the Greek people have been crucified with higher taxes, massive public sector cuts/privatisations, raising of retirement ages, and so on. All of this imposed against the will of the Greek people in a referendum. Par for the course for the democratic EU which has ignored every democratic referendum which rejected its proposed treaties (Ireland, Denmark and France) or, where governments challenged EU fiscal orthodoxy, imposed technocratic governments without any democratic vote (Portugal and Italy).

The EU has prime facia strong workers’  rights but these are meant to keep  trade unions passive whilst the entire thrust of free movement of people (which effectively is another form of free movement of capital where labour power is harnessed to production and services) is designed to supress wage growth and boost the rate of profit.

This is enacted in practice by the European Court of Justice which has made several rulings against trade unions who have been trying to fight the importation of entire factory workforces to undercut local wages and conditions. Meanwhile freedom of movement has led to the virtual depopulation of certain east European countries. Especially of their most skilled and educated people.

In Europe itself the only people who love the EU are the rich and the political mmiddle classes. Country by country those opposed to the EU are growing in strength by the day and  not in the most democratic manner (Poland and Hungary).

Corbyn’s capitulation

Although Labour’s crushing defeat last month was a disappointment  I saw it coming a mile off. In 2017 Corbyn had come within an inch of defeating the Tories by getting 40 per cent of the national vote. Then, the party’s position on Brexit was clear. It was to respect and implement the decision of the 2016 referendum. Over the next two years the Labour Brexit position resembled a slow-motion train wreck. Initially we were treated to constructive ambiguity which meant that Labour’s position was impossible to understand. By December 2019 this had changed to supporting a second referendum. Even Stephen Kinnock MP, who was never a Corbynista, had the guts to say that Labour needed to “hang tough” and stand by its 2017 manifesto pledge of respecting the 2016 referendum result.

Corbyn, under the guise of respecting internal party democracy, capitulated to the pro-EU majority within the party (particularly the vast majority of the parliamentary party and some trade union leaderships) accepting a nonsensical policy. Campaign for a new deal with the EU and then put that deal to the people in a second referendum - music to the ears to the likes of  Keir Starmer and Emily Thornbury.

Most Labour voters who had supported Brexit in the 2016 referendum could see right through this policy of the Labour Party as another effort to thwart Brexit. It was the biggest factor in the breeching of Labour’s red wall by the Johnson Tories. Two thirds of Labour constituencies had voted Leave, for heaven’s sake. 

The outcome was inevitable and Corbyn needs to shoulder the main responsibility for allowing Labour to unite with the pro EU Tories in parliament to try to block Brexit. A disaster waiting to happen. I think this could finish Labour as a serious political force in the UK. It looks likely that the Europhile QC Keir Starmer will win the Labour leadership contest. He will usher in a Blairite  counter revolution against the democratic party reforms under Corbyn. The party’s radical policy platform will be ditched but Starmer will also be an electoral disaster as Labours traditional working class base in the north won’t be won back by the suave woke barrister from Holborn and St Pancras. The 2019 election for Labour was summed up by their holding Canterbury but losing Bolsover. The end of an era.

Reasons to be Cheerful

Unlike the ranks of the rabid petit bourgeoisie I don’t think Boris Johnson’s government is the precursor to fascism. Kerevan’s swipe at the left who voted for Brexit that they had somehow given succour Farage and Johnson’s xenophobia is beyond words. Unlike George, those of us who are left who voted to leave the EU did so on a socialist basis. Had Corbyn, for example, led a campaign for a Labour exit from the EU it could have acted as a major attractive pole to those workers who had voted leave. Only that could have countered the BoJo’s  “Get Brexit Done” slogan in December. Alas that didn’t happen but, to be frank, I don’t think that either Farage or Johnson are racists. Naturally today the meaning of the term “racist” has become so debased to be almost meaningless. Working class voters are heartily sick of the politically correct woke petit bourgeoisie lecturing them about their racism and xenophobia.

Meanwhile I’m cheerful that the UK is leaving the succubus of the EU but where does that leave Scotland? Up in the air to be honest.

The SNP’s current strategy of seeking indyref 2 on the basis of making it a joint choice on independence and remaining a member of the EU is - how do I put it - doubly bankrupt. Prior to the referendum in 2016 Sturgeon and the rest of the pro EU brigade (don’t forget that every major political party in Scotland supported remain) never mentioned, that if a majority in Scotland voted to remain but that the rest of the country voted leave, that this would be undemocratic! Since 2016 all we’ve heard from the SNP is that Scotland is being dragged out of the EU against our will. To be frank this is absolute drivel. The 2016 referendum was run on an all UK basis of which Scotland is, whether we like it or not, still a constituent part.

So the SNP argument is politically and constitutionally false in the first instance but, on tying indyref 2 to retaining membership of the EU it manages to alienate many YES voters who voted for Brexit. One million Scots voted for Brexit and a large chunk of them also voted for independence. The SNP’s conflation of independence and EU membership is another disaster. I have news for blawbag Blackford. The EU isn’t interested in Scotland. Even Michele Barnier has made it clear that Scotland isn’t an independent country and that the EU would only continue to negotiate with the UK government.

I’m cheerful because we are leaving the EU and that means Scotland is leaving too. To the Scottish remainers like Kerevan I say. Get over it. I’ll still fight for Scottish independence as I have throughout my political life, but that will only be successful if we accept the political reality that Scotland, as part of the UK, will no longer be part of the EU.

If we manage to secure independence at some point by all means put forward an argument for Scotland to re-join the EU (or not!) based on a democratic referendum of the Scottish people alone!

Meanwhile, let's oppose the Tories and oppose capitalism, and continue to put forward a vision for socialismand a vision for Scottish independence. And be wary of remain politicians and journos who will try to blame every little thing that goes wrong from here till eternity on the fact that we are no longer members of the EU!

 

George Kerevan's original article at 

 https://www.thenational.scot/news/18118139.voted-no-european-entry-now-mourn-lose/ 

 

Debunking The Tory 'Hard Work' Myth.

Regular Point contributor Robert Dewar deconstructs the Tory myth that 'hard work' is the way the working and non-working poor escape poverty. A myth that will now surely increase in stridency under Boris Johnson and his far right Tory Government.

 

 

IN BRITAIN, WORK OFTEN FAILS TO LIFT YOU OUT OF POVERTY

Of the late, unlamented head of the Department of Work and Pensions (which also sets policy for and administers social security benefits), Iain Duncan Smith, (that great Tory Persecutor-in-Chief), it was common practice in the Tory press to cry plaintively to his critics "You don't understand Iain Duncan Smith's moral mission!" In point of fact, his critics had quickly grasped the fact that I. D. Smith, like any Pharisee throughout history, liked to clothe his mistreatment of the poor, the weak and the vulnerable in the language of faux morality.

Between March 2017 to the end of April 2018 the Trussell Trust's food bank network observed a 13% increase in use over the previous year. (1) An increasing number of those who turn to food banks in order to eat are workers in work. (2) Tory commentators like to claim that the very existence of food banks "spurs demand", and that this accounts for their growth in numbers.

Rubbish.

Poverty, widening poverty, explains their growth in numbers.
The widening poverty that is an inescapable element of the triumphalist high capitalism the Tories promote; of an economic system that has terminated the last vestiges of "trickle down", and substituted in its place, "siphon up" :- where all wealth is ultimately siphoned up towards the already wealthy.

The Office for National Statistics said the richest fifth of the UK's population saw their incomes rise by 4.7% in 2018, while the average income of the poorest fifth shrunk by 1.6%. (3) More than a fifth of the UK population lives on incomes below the poverty line, after housing costs are taken into account. There is a sixfold difference between the income of the top 20% of households and those of the bottom 20%. (4) Nearly one in three children in Britain lives in poverty. (5)

Once jobs that do not pay a living, such as part time and temporary work, and zero hours contract work, are included, the number of people struggling to find genuine work (work that earns the worker a living) sees a huge rise over the official job-seekers' figures.

Between the years 2000 – 2017, the number of workers in Britain with zero hours work (hourly-paid work that does not guarantee a minimum number of hours) rose from 200 000 to 900 000. (6)

36% of workers in zero hours work are aged 16 – 24 years. Of workers older than 24 years, only just over 10% are working in zero hours jobs. (7)

Only 18.7% of people in zero hours work in Britain are in full time education. (8)
Therefore it cannot be argued that the figure for the number of workers in zero hours work represents primarily students and college-goers. 81.3% of zero hours workers are not in full time education. The growing number of zero hours jobs as a percentage of all jobs available particularly affects young people.

 

They are there because they can get no other work.

 

(The number of UK workers on zero hour contracts has more than tripled since 2012, accounting for almost a quarter of overall employment growth.) (9)

 

A poll by the TUC in December 2017 found that two thirds (66%) of British zero hours workers would prefer a job with a guaranteed number of hours to be worked. Only 25% of zero hours workers say they prefer being in zero hour contracts.
The main reason people in Britain are in zero hours work is because it is the only sort of work available for them, not because (as Tory employment propaganda would have it) they "like" working zero hour contracts.

 

In Britain only 12% of zero hours workers get sick pay.
Only 7% would get redundancy pay.
43% of zero hours workers get no holiday pay.
47% of zero hours workers say they do not get written terms and conditions.
51% of zero hours workers have had shifts cancelled at less than 24 hours notice.
73% of zero hours workers have been offered shifts at less than 24 hours notice.
59% of zero hours workers want to work more hours. (10)

 

As the number of workers on zero hours contracts rises, so the number of workers earning less than a living wage also rises. An increasing number of youngsters realise that the odds against them even landing a genuine full time job that merely pays a living, are slim.

The Tories, either trashing or ignoring the message of critics such as Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury (and in less targeted and possibly more general terms, Pope Francis also, with his relentless criticism of contemporary super-capitalism), continue to address themselves to the so-called "aspirational class". The harsh truth is that an increasing number of people in Britain no longer "aspire" to anything but mere survival in the face of a corporatist system whose entire aim is to enrich the already wealthy by separating the many from the prospect of any notable material progress.

Under this system, the "free market" is all. The Tories hate the EU not for any love of country, but because they hope that such few regulations as still apply to an extremely de-regulated free market system will be gotten rid of once Britain quits the EU.

Under this system, everything - absolutely everything - including the National Health Service, every last public service, the last remaining assets held by the Commonweal, the unemployed (with corporations such as Maximus exploiting DWP contracts to "train" unemployed benefits claimants), the gambling addicts, and those in work who simply cannot make ends meet (this explains the huge growth in numbers of loan shark outfits, aka pay day lenders, advertising on TV since the Tories seized power in May 2010 with the help of the Liberal-Democrats. The pay day lending business was worth a little over £100 million in 2004; it was worth about £2.5 billion in 2013. Following new regulations, it shrunk after 2013 to £220 million in 2017. Even with the new regulations, that is more than twice its worth of 2004). (11)
Every last area of life in contemporary Britain, must be subjected to the free market, and made to turn a profit for the few.

Under the highly unregulated, and extremely predatory, free market economic system that the Tories promote, an increasing number of people are coming to realise that their own children will not know what it was like to grow up in a well-heated family home that was owned by their parents. The chances of a young adult on a middle income owning a home in the UK have more than halved in the last twenty years. Two decades ago, home ownership among 25 – 34 year olds earning between £22 200 - £30 600 a year stood at 65%. In 2016 it had fallen to just 27%. (12)

Paralleling the growth in numbers of zero hour contracts in Britain, there has been a marked decline in the proportion of young people who own their own home.

In 1981 just over 60% of 25 - 34 year olds owned their own home in Britain. In 2013/14 that figure had fallen to only just over 35%. (13)
Home rentals across the age range have risen in Britain. In 1980 2.5 million homes in Britain were rented from private landlords.
By 2014 over 5 million homes were being rented from private landlords. (14)

 

Youngsters however (the age group that struggles most in corporate Britain to find work that pays a living wage) are particularly affected.
The proportion of those aged 25 – 34 who lived in the private rented sector increased from 24% in 2005/6 to 46% in 2014/15. (15)

Private landlords are happy to exploit other age groups too. There are increasing numbers of older people in private tenancies. (16)

 

An increasing number of workers realise that they will not retire with a private pension - and they understand too that by the time they reach what is currently the official retirement age, the retirement age for them will still be many years away. (17)

The British state pension is the lowest of any OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) country. The British state pension, together with other benefits, is, as an average percentage of what the retiree had previously been earning, only 29%. This compares with an average of 63% in other OECD countries. (18)

"Aspirational"?

Simple survival is the theme of this era of Tory high capitalism.

But the Tory government currently in power in the UK (particularly in terms of the policies they set for social security eligibility and benefits) still make their pitch as if this were the age of never ending material advancement, an era of social mobility; as if these were still the decades of economic trickle-down. That time of plenty is past, as an artificially induced era of austerity is mercilessly imposed upon the country - except for those lucky enough to be born to wealthy families; those who sail through life cushioned from harsh material reality by trust funds; those who stand one day to inherit sizable estates from their parents.

Deservedly, the Tory party shows no signs of gaining the backing of the majority of voters in my own country (Scotland), for all that the Tories are crowing that they are now the official opposition in Scotland, having overtaken Labour. (That this is so, says more about the devastation of trust in Scottish Labour, than it does for any swing to the Tories in Scotland).

 

 

 

NOTES

1)  https://www.trusselltrust.org/news-and-blog/latest-stats/end-year-stats/

2)  https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-45956546

3)  https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47370739

4 - 5)  https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2018/sep/05/qa-how-unequal-is-britain-and-are-the-poor-getting-poorer

6 - 8)  https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/contractsthatdonotguaranteeaminimumnumberofhours/april2018#what-are-the-characteristics-of-people-employed-on-zero-hours-contracts

9)  https://www.thehrdirector.com/business-news/employment/zero-hour-contracts-triple/

10)  https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/two-thirds-zero-hours-workers-want-jobs-guaranteed-hours-tuc-polling-reveals

11)  https://techround.co.uk/finance/payday-loans-industry-now-worth-220-million-2017/

12)  https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/feb/16/homeownership-among-young-adults-collapsed-institute-fiscal-studies

13 - 14)  https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/articles/ukperspectives2016housingandhomeownershipintheuk/2016-05-25

15)  https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/627686/Private_rented_sector_report_2015-16.pdf

16)  https://blog.shelter.org.uk/2018/07/grey-renting-the-rising-tide-of-older-private-tenants/

17)  https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-1679780/New-state-pension-age-retire.html

18)  https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/dec/05/oecd-uk-has-lowest-state-pension-of-any-developed-country

rabbiedeoir.com

 

 

21 big things to make an indy Scotland progressive and post-capitalist ready

Steve Arnott, editorial co-ordinator of The Point online platform, outlines 21 big musts he thinks left progressives of all parties and stripes should get behind for our future indy Scotland.

The pro-independence press and social media have lately been full of different economic and social visions for an indy Scotland. Common Weal have regularly published papers, Business for Scotland published their economic model this week, and the SNP’s own growth commission will report in the next month or so. Of course, it’s perfectly right that everyone lays out their different visions of what an indy Scotland could look like, but within an overall paradigm that getting independence is about giving ourselves CHOICE: the right to choose democratically our own route as an independent nation.

So bearing in mind that indy is about democracy and the normal state of being for a nation, and that’s what unites us all – here’s my sketch of what a left leaning, post-capitalist, socialist Scotland could look like (if we make that choice),maybe after a couple of Parliaments.

So, let's play imagine.

We are in the twenty twenties and Scotland has achieved its independence with an interim constitution in place. Capitalism internationally by this time will almost certainly have had Crash 2 - a loud echo, if not a downright repetition of the great financial crash and recession of 2007 to 2012 - because they never resolved, and, in fact, are incapable of resolving, the underlying issues that caused the first crash in the first place. It is increasingly clear, at least to a growing progressive minority, that capitalism as a socio-economic system no longer represents the future of mankind - if it ever did. An alliance of socialists, anti-capitalists, left-Greens, and left independence supporters is coalescing around the idea that our new indy Scotland can be a shining beacon for a better future internationally, by becoming the world's first post-capitalist ready state.

By post-capitalist ready we mean a state that has created the initial conditions for an organic and ongoing evolution towards a higher level of democracy, society, equality, culture, science and economics than the capitalist mode of life and production is capable of providing.

What is the progressive and radically transformative program that can get us there?

My shot at it is probably not exhaustive and it’s certainly not meant to be overly prescriptive - though it is meant to be pragmatic and doable as well as principled and transformative. It is one that can dovetail well, I think,  with some of the work and policy suggestions of both the Common Weal and Business for Scotland independence think-tanks. It also serves as a general but adaptable template as to how other countries might seek to achieve such ‘initial condition’ status – including our neighbours elsewhere in these Islands.

It's an ambitious program and clearly one for more than one Parliament. Obviously, a sense of urgency is always contending with our patience and sooner is better. Some of these policies are probably more immediately urgent than others, a few we already partially have and are in need of perfecting and setting in constitutional stone, but, if we are to do things right and take people with us, then implementing this program in full over three independence parliaments, say by the mid 2030’s, fifteen years or so years after independence becomes a reality, would be a huge and lasting achievement. For brevities sake I haven't incluuded things that are already 'in wi' the bricks' of the indy movement, like the removal of Trident nuclear weapons and ongoiong support for  policies we already have, like free tuition, personal care, free prescriptions etc.

• Democratic Public Ownership, using various competing models, of key utilities, key finance, key production and key distribution networks – including energy exploration and supply, banking and finance, public transport, water, and in telecommunications and digital communications, engineering and construction. This would be a program that would have to be implemented over more than one Parliament, in all probability. Part stakes in industries and sectors can be taken initially and then expanded, and costs kept as low as possible using a combination of long term bond schemes and windfall offset financing*.

• Reversal and cancellation of all PPP/PFI schemes on a minimum possible compensation basis and a return of all assets in health, education and elsewhere to full democratic NHS or local authority control

• A democratically elected and accountable Public Ownership Commission to sit in permanent session tasked with reviewing the efficiency and contribution of publicly owned industries to the Common Weal, and with making recommendations to Government on the expansion of public, social and common ownership within the economy.

• The setting up of a bespoke nationalised pharmaceutical and biogenetics company to provide generic and new drugs and gene therapy CRISP(R) based treatments to the Scottish NHS on a not-for-profit basis.

• Abolition of the monarchy and all feudal title and privilege. Creation of a modern democratic republic, with an elected ceremonial Head of State. Scotland's feudal estates and privately owned wild lands to be owned and administered for the Common Weal, either through national public ownership via an expanded and democratised Scottish Natural Heritage and Scottish National Trust, or though community ownership and buy out within a regulatory framework that supports common weal practices and aims.

• Community and social enterprise buy-out schemes to be developed and extended to urban areas and farm lands

• The setting up of a sovereign oil and gas/renewbles traansition  fund, with mass democratic oversight and control

• The setting up of a Scottish Public Patenting Fund* to drive new technology research and ensure it contributes to the national Common Weal, financially, technologically, socially and ethically.

• A progressive and redistributive taxation system, and the effective abolition of tax avoidance through a simplified and transparent tax system, to reduce the income gap and maximise tax take for social and productive reinvestment.

• The introduction of a Universal Basic Citizen's Income as of right, to replace large parts of the welfare state, tax credits and, where necessary, part of tax allowances, index linked to inflation and set initially at a level not less than the current higher rate of Employment Support Allowance. Housing benefit to continue to be paid additionally and seperately on the basis of need. To be introduced alongside a legally binding National Living Wage.

• Education, social and health services to be free at the point of need and paid for through general taxation. No private sector queue jumping and privileges for wealthy elites.

• Maximum devolution of democracy though a massive expansion of local democracy. Strategic local authorities to be reduced from 32 to 16 but to be given massively enhanced powers and responsibilities, including powers of fiscal competence to borrow within agreed limits for structural, capital and social investment. Cantons of 8-10,000 electors within each authority to be created, given a percentage of the annual budget to spend, and run by a combination of mass direct democracy, elected councillors and jury type selection by lot.

• Radical reform of local government financing to raise extra money and promote local taxation fairness; scrap the council tax and local business rates and replace with an income based Scottish Service Tax and a Land Value Tax respectively. Give cantons the right to raise local tourist taxes for special projects.

• A huge expansion of quality affordable social housing for rent, to be administered municipally.

• A single fully funded, comprehensive and secular education system, with an end to segregation of Scottish school pupils based on their parents' religion. Educational methodology to cease being a political football - with a permanent Education Commission composed of teachers, university specialists and neuroscientists replacing all current quangos and tasked with ensuring and monitoring the best, empirically verified, age appropriate teaching practice at each stage of education, commensurate with the values of humanity, dignity, excellence and the Common Weal.

• An ongoing expansion of mass direct democracy through the use of referenda and digital voting at national, regional and canton level. An elected Democracy Commission to be elected to oversee the process, and ensure democratic fairness, and factual information availability in all referenda and democratic elections.

• Gender balance at parliamentary and other elected levels of society to be achieved through constitutional electoral pairing* Equality rights – including a woman’s right to choose and basic biogenetic rights – to be included in any Scottish constitution.

• All elected politicians and officials to receive no more than the average income of a skilled professional worker in renumeration, with agreed bonuses for taking on ministerial, portfolio, chair or other additional responsibilities, and fully audited expenses. All elected officials to be recallable from post between elections if impeachable legal proceedings are laid against them, or more than 50% of their electorate signs a legal petition to that effect.

• An elected Technology and Infrastructure Commission, advised by technical and scientific staff, to sit permanently and progress and advise on capital projects and the development of the country's science and technological base, with a view to making Scotland a world leader in technological, science and infrastructure innovation and implementation.

• A renewables/clean energy only domestic energy policy and an ongoing and deep commitment to environmentalism, and meeting Scotland's international moral and legal obligations in combating climate change

• No membership of international institutions that promote neo-liberalism and capitalism, or membership of imperialist or first strike nuclear alliances such as NATO. Scotland to play its full part in solidarity with other nations seeking to become post-capitalist ready, and with working and oppressed people across the globe, to take as full a part as possible in international science and space exploration, and to take its seat in its own right at the United Nations.

(More detail on the idea of a public patenting fund* can be found here, on gender balance and Constitutional Elected Pairing* here and on the idea of windfall offset financing* at  http://thepointhowever.org/index.php/the-big-idea/87-reversing-privatisation-and-pfi )

This article was initially published in a partially different form as part of a part of a larger piece by Steve "Everything you wanted to know about how to get rid of capitalism and replace it with something nicer but were afraid to ask". This can be found in full on The Point magazine homepage or its Big Idea section.

Universal Basic Income: Why the Victorian Tories just won't buy it

UBI might have something going for it, writes Rob Dewar, but we should sound a note of caution. the Tories are almost never going to sign up for it anyway.

As we are all aware, Margaret Thatcher initiated a fundamental shift in Britain’s economy - broadly, from manufacturing to services. (The term “Britain” as used here includes Scotland for historical convenience. The writer is a supporter of Scottish independence). Successive governments, both Labour and Tory, have accelerated this shift. As Britain’s manufacturing base has shrunk, so at the same time economic globalisation has gained ground

Mechanisation of once labour-intensive jobs, and computerization of once skilled jobs, along with Thatcher’s closure of technical colleges and their translation into low-end “universities”, also play a part in the difficulties experienced by many British workers in earning a living today.  So too does the phenomenal increase in part-time, temporary, and zero-hours work. 

The globalised economy pits Britain’s workers not only in manufacturing and industry, but in downstream services also, against far eastern competitors who undercut our markets.

It is of course due to the generally poor working conditions and low living standards for the many that prevail in countries such as India, China and Vietnam, that Britain’s far eastern competitors can undercut her in so many markets: their labour costs, quite simply, are so much lower than ours. 

The Conservative Party would have Britain’s own workers adopt similarly low working and living standards that we might compete with China, Vietnam, etc, in producing goods and services. This is the logical outcome of embracing a global economic system: the lowest common denominator must prevail in the workers’ global race to the bottom.

That it ought not, on moral and ethical grounds, to prevail, is neither here nor there to the Conservatives.  However, it is certainly relevant to those of us who love our compatriots just sufficiently not to wish to see a sizable number of them reduced to becoming desperately underpaid slum-dwellers once again, negating all the advances in working conditions and workers’ pay of the later 19th, and first half of the 20th, centuries. It may be argued that since the late 1950s, no further such advances were made in Britain. It has been downhill ever since for British workers. (Excluding only those members of the working class who benefited under Thatcher from acquiring their council homes at hugely subsidized prices, and who were able thereafter to get onto the residential property ladder: the working class children of these beneficiaries of Thatcherism today mimic the children of the middle class in eagerly awaiting their plump property inheritances).

As long as the United Kingdom remained a member of the EU, there existed a seemingly inexhaustible supply of workers from eastern Europe who were willing to work for low wages. With the UK’s eventual exit from the EU now seeming probable, this supply will dry up. I have come across many apocalyptic stories about entire industries in Scotland that are threatened with collapse for lack of these eastern European workers in the future. Strangely, I have read not one report that suggests that if a business will not or cannot pay a living wage – or pro-rata – it does not deserve to survive. Scotland’s soft fruit will not remain unpicked once her supply of workers from Eastern Europe dries up - if the pickers are paid a decent wage.

We should not blame Britain’s educational systems for unemployment and under-pay. (The corollary is this: let us not assume that better educational systems will overcome unemployment and under-pay). Rather, we should blame economic globalism, which means that there are ever fewer jobs in Britain that pay a genuine living wage. For those workers who are unsuited to attaining advanced vocational qualifications, for those workers who cannot attain advanced vocational qualifications, there remains only work in the horribly inaptly-named "hospitality industry", or in the (retail-dominated) service sector. Living wages are scarce in either of these sectors.

And blame also the new national spirit that prevails in Britain: a spirit of callous disregard for one's compatriots, which means that a great many people in work have been taught to feel scorn for those out of work, and that to derive vicarious delight from persecuting them (along with the sick and the disabled) via successive benefits cuts, is an acceptable, even praiseworthy, attitude. At present, judging from voting patterns, this new national spirit is a little more advanced in England than it is in Scotland – but that could easily change: the Scots are not (contrary to popular Scottish folklore) an intrinsically “nicer” folk than the English. They merely have rather different political priorities. That the percentage of the electorate voting Tory is lower in Scotland than in England, had more to do, during the heyday of the Labour Party in Scotland, with the working class’ loathing for the boss-class, and for capitalist exploitation, and today, has more to do with a sizable percentage (possibly as high as 48%) of the Scots electorate favouring Scottish independence. 

We have eagerly embraced globalism. It is therefore morally incumbent upon us to care for those whom economic globalism has rendered forever unemployable, forever poor, in our own country.

Or we must reject globalism entirely. 

Perhaps we should not after all be looking at decently paid work for the many, rather than only the few, as the answer. Perhaps that is an antiquated concept. Perhaps we can get round the creeping impoverishment of the many that economic globalisation has brought into being in Britain, not through opting out of globalisation, but through advocating the idea of a “universal basic income” which is being increasingly discussed in even the mainstream (ie, neo-liberal) media: whereby everyone of working age is paid, whether in or out of work, the same basic living income by the state. For the capitalist, such a scheme has its appeal: one, it relieves them of “social guilt”; two, it serves to ensure that demand for the products and services they produce continues to exist. (For on present trends, a time is fast approaching when too few people will be left able to afford to pay for what the capitalists produce).  

Given that a majority of the population is not blessed with a creative, entrepreneurial spirit, but prefers to slot into a structured, ready-made working environment, in an ideal world it ought to be possible (as once it was) for those who lack academic skills to earn a genuine living, however modest. However, in a global economy, where more and more unskilled or manual or low-skilled jobs have been relocated to the Far East, it is becoming very much more difficult for the less academically able to earn a genuine living in Britain. (It is also becoming harder for even those with good university degrees to find secure, well paying jobs). The gulf between those who just about manage to survive economically, and those who can no longer survive at all in Britain, may be a tiny one in terms of income – but it is increasingly unbridgeable.

The gulf between the rich and the rest has grown phenomenally wide; indeed, it has never been so wide since the early years of the 20th century. British society is being re-Victorianised. The introduction of a universal basic income that pays everyone a genuine living income, would avoid such a total re-Victorianisation of Britain.

However, the creation of a new Victorian age in Britain, symbolised by the crudest expressions of nationalistic chauvinism, by widespread hardship and poverty, and by a shockingly wide gulf between the incomes of the richest and the poorest, seems precisely what the Tories intend. What, after all, is the point of being filthy rich, if there are not plenty of desperately poor folks around to envy and admire your good fortune?

And THAT is probably why a universal basic income that pays a genuine living income will never be introduced in Britain.     

 

You can read more of Rob at his personal blog www.rabbiedeoir.com

The Russian Revolution: Is it time for revolutionaries to define the future rather than be defined by our past?

Part of our series commemorating the October Revolution of 1917 and exploring its relevance, this article by Jade Saab challenges a discourse based on orthodox Trotskyist, Leninist, or Stalinist rationalisations of past events,  insisting instead we should look to our present and future.

 

1917: the dream that never was

Historical milestones are strange things, they give us moments of pause and reflection allowing us to decipher events of the past, assess what, if anything, has changed, and lessons for our future.

When it comes to the struggle for greater democracy – which is ultimately what I view communism to be - not much has changed. Capital and the liberal states that have developed out of the capitalistic models still rule supreme. Neo-liberalism continues to be the go to economic model, nationalism still the wax that holds people together and intervention/imperialism has managed to unlock beasts long dormant in the Middle East now terrorizing the world all over. What other than the capitalistic model can we assign all these symptoms to?

In our current state of global flux the Russian revolution seems to be a beacon of hope for many, and in its centenary it is shining brighter than ever. And why shouldn’t it? The revolution delivered a nation from a ruthless imperialist war, removed a despotic regime, and empowered its citizens and presented progressive policy and freedoms still fought over in present day democracies.

But there is an ugly truth to the revolution that we revolutionaries are quick to dismiss in our romanticization of the world’s first communist revolution; a massive death toll brought forth by a brutal 5 year civil war with atrocities easily classified as war crimes by any standard today.

The events of the Russian civil war can easily be dismissed as a result of counter-revolutionary activity to be expected, and analysis into the atrocities committed could probably be explained or undercut as a climate of violence imposed by the Tsar already gripped Russia even before the revolution. Nevertheless, they remain atrocities that need to be recognized for the human suffering they have caused.

The theoretical underpinnings

The violence resulting from the Russian revolution is not the only blemish the revolution holds. Lenin’s theoretical underpinning also posed the state at the centre and the NEP built up the bureaucratic machine that enabled a usurpation of power.

Lenin’s State and Revolution is full of excerpts that today seem reactionary themselves. The differentiation between formal and actual equality, the reliance of phased communism, and the totalitarian obsession with engaging everyone in bureaucracy are all examples of how post-revolutionary transformation held the kernel of changing the socialist dream to nightmare.

These are not just problems brought forth by Lenin but continue with Marxist theory as a whole. In our review of a 100 years since the revolution is it not equally important to look at these elements with criticism and a healthy dose of scepticism? How else do we expect to not only learn for the future of our movement, but distance ourselves from the lapses in communistic thought?

Lessons learned

With this in mind I find myself at odds with my fellow revolutionaries. I don’t see the Russian revolution as something to hold up and I definitely don’t see it as the emancipatory light that will lead us in the future.

If we remove the romanitcization of the revolution, what are the real lessons we learn? Well, not much. A revolution needs a strong leader to carry it through, a revolution will have its opponents willing to viciously fight against it, power seized is easily usurped, and that revolution holds the power of transformative change. But is there any difference between these lessons and the lessons learned from any other revolutions ancient or recent?

Novelty, then, is the only thing the revolution of 1917 offers. Is that worth the applause it has received this month? I find not.

In addition to the political discussions being suppressed by our romanticism, there is also one of tactical importance to be had. Here the words of Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias ring in the ear:

“The enemy wants nothing more than to laugh at you. You can wear a T-shirt with the hammer and sickle. You can even carry a huge flag, and then go back home with your flag, all while the enemy laughs at you… That’s how the enemy wants us. He want us small, speaking a language no one understands, in a minority, hiding behind our traditional symbols. He is delighted with that, because he knows that as long as we are like that, we are not dangerous.”

Isn’t our glorification of the 1917 revolution just us holding to our symbols and flags that bit tighter for the enemy to laugh at?

In organizational development, an academic by the name of Edgar Schein developed a three level model for culture. The most superficial expression of culture, according to this model, is the artefacts displayed the rituals and icons. These are followed by the deeper levels of values, and core assumptions.

Marxism has so much more to offer than the base artefact of our history and struggles; our romanticization of 1917 however, keeps us operating on that superficial level, near idolatry. Isn’t it time we start focusing on our core assumptions and display those to the world letting them loose to do the talking on our behalf instead of leaning on iconic historic events that hold no parallel to today’s conditions?

A final take away

Today, we know more about the Russian revolution, and any other communist inspired revolution, than ever before. And as is customary to the left, we are using this knowledge to further drive sectarianism, to bicker about whether or not the revolution became a bureaucratic dictatorship or state capitalism!

We have chosen to be insular and paralyse the development of a left that can engage with politics as it is today. with our intellectualization of not just the revolution and its fall out, but of Marxism itself, we have lost the ability of practicing the same level of concrete analysis that allowed Lenin to seize power.

It’s time to move past our intellectualisation of Marxism and communism, if 1917 taught us anything it is that those who mobilize for the revolution will not do so for the ideal put forth by a political philosophy, nor will they do so for some sort of glory gone which is what most leftists see 1917 as, but for something much more immediate and necessary – bread and peace.

It’s time we stop daydreaming about a nightmare, and start looking for our own bread and peace.

 

Jade Saab is a Lebanese/Canadian writer and political theorist based in Toronto. His writings cover topics of Liberalism, governance, and Marxism with occasional forays into current affairs. He is currently writing his first book – Finding Left

Consequences of Capitalism: creating mental health issues for millions

BRITAIN'S "MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS" IS A DIRECT CONSEQUENCE OF MATERIAL INSECURITY writes Rob Dewar.

Every day there are more reports in Britain's newspapers about the growing mental health crisis. There is little written about its fundamental cause.

Which is: the extreme material insecurity that affects more and more people.

Food is the most basic human need of all. After that, comes shelter/housing.

More and more people in Britain cannot afford to eat. The number of people needing help from food banks has risen by 7% in the last 12 month period alone. Between 2010 – 2016, the number of people reliant on food parcels has risen from 41 000, to more than 1 million.

Britain's largest food bank provider, the Trussell Trust, says that the 2016 – 2017 rise in numbers of food bank users is in great part a direct consequence of the chaotic new Universal Credit system of administering social security benefits, introduced by the Tory Westminster government: this system succeeds (a) in instituting lengthy benefit payments delays, and (b) in bringing about radical benefits cuts (always a vote-winner with Tory party supporters). 

In a report in today's papers, we find that there are more millionaires in Britain than in any other European country. The Malthusian paradigm (which it has long been popular to discredit) does now appear to hold true in Britain: it can sometimes appear that there is indeed only so much wealth that can be distributed, and as the rich get hugely richer in Britain, the poor become correspondingly poorer and more numerous - in order, one is tempted to conclude, to finance the rich.

I'm no psychologist - but even so, I'm fairly sure that fear of gradual starvation can lead to extreme mental health problems.

But fear of hunger is not all that Britain's poor have to contend with: fear of homelessness (with shelter - ie, a home - being the second most basic human need) continues to rise in Britain, where many people - even people working at two jobs - can no longer afford the astronomical rents being demanded by private landlords for renting a home. That such high rents can be demanded is only possible due to the grossly inadequate number of council housing units.

But even if poor people can afford to pay these mammoth rents for housing, tenants enjoy no security of tenure. Poor people almost always rent their homes from private landlords (for lack of Council housing), on a basis of a 6 month tenure that may thereafter be "rolled over", but which the landlord can discontinue (ie, serve the tenant with notice to quit their home) on a month by month basis.

The very real threat of imminent or likely homelessness that afflicts tens upon tens of thousands of people in Britain must surely pose a major threat to their mental health.

The Westminster establishment does not in fact so much as fail to address this problem, as simply refuse outright to concede such a problem exists, perhaps on the grounds that something like 30% of MPs are themselves private residential landlords, and residential and buy-to-let rentiers constitute one of the Tory party's major electoral constituencies.

"More must be done about Britain's mental health crisis!" cries the media.

"We shall address the mental health crisis" declaims the Tory government.

Bah.

The Scottish administration is bucking the national British trend: in the last 7 years of the SNP-led Scottish administration, more than 34 000 social housing homes were built (19.5% more than during the preceding 7 years of the Labour-led administration).

And yet, between 2015 – 2016, according to the Scottish government, 28 000 people were assessed as homeless. In 2016, for example, 1 215 council houses were completed in Scotland.

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/HSfS/NewBuild

It is plain to be seen that the Scottish administration is not building council houses in the numbers needed, or anything like the numbers needed (indeed, only a huge rise in tax-take could begin to fund such a project), and homelessness, or the potential threat of homelessness at short notice that private tenants suffer from, afflicts many thousands of people in Scotland.

The ever-present threat of hunger and homelessness that burdens so many people in Britain and Scotland today is surely the major cause of the "mental health crisis".

Underlying these material causes of the growing mental health issue is the fundamental cause of widespread poverty in general in both Britain and Scotland: namely, an economic system horribly skewed in favour of Capital – an economic system prejudiced against the worker. A symptom of this unbalanced economy is to be seen in the employment market, wherein the number of part-time, temporary and zero hours jobs (in relation to the number of full-time jobs that earn the worker a genuine living) continues to rise.

Attempts to address the problems of poverty (of which hunger and homelessness are the major symptoms) will not succeed unless the economy is re-structured; the pro-Capital bias eradicated, along with the rise in numbers of jobs that cannot earn the worker a living. Truly draconian legislation to this end is required, but discussion of such legislation requires a good deal more time than I can afford here and now.

Suffice it for now for me to say: Britain’s (and Scotland’s) widespread and growing economic imbalances, and the poverty these imbalances cause (of which the end result is what the papers like to call the “mental health crisis”), cannot be addressed until we get genuine socialist governments in power.   

We know what to do, but until we get a socialist government in Britain, and a socialist government in an independent Scotland, we cannot do what must be done.

www.rabbiedeoir.com   

Stiffen The Sinews, Summon Up The Blood: There's More To Come from Corbyn Yet

Scottish Corbyn supporter and YES voter, Bruce Wallace, looks at the scale of Corbyn's achievement, argues that Brexit played a role, and sets the stage for battles still to some.

“In terms of share of the vote, Labour’s result in June will draw comparisons with Michael Foot’s disastrous campaign against Margaret Thatcher in 1983.” – Former Labour MP Tom Harris, Daily Telegraph, 19 April. (Labour’s share in 1983 was 27.6 percent).

“The Conservatives are likely to gain a series of key target seats in the general election, capitalising on their strong position in the polls. An analysis of the 2015 general election results by the Telegraph has shown that around 58 seats in Labour’s North and Midlands heartlands are under threat due to the Brexit effect in the upcoming snap election on June 8.” – Ashley Kirk and Patrick Scott, “data journalists”, Telegraph, 2 June

“We have to face up to the fact that Brexit, in its own way, was a revolutionary act and the trouble with revolutions is that they tend to breed further revolutionary acts as a consequence.” − Dominic Grieve MP, Anti-Brexit campaigner and member of the Tory cabinet 2010-14,  Daily Politics 13 June 

In Beyond Brexit published just after the June 2016 EU referendum I wrote:

“In Britain, amidst the crisis of the Parliamentary Labour Party, we are experiencing a historical realignment of workers and young people in a new mass movement that is crystallising within the grassroots of the party. The traditional far left, which remains outside of the Labour Party, has been sidelined. It’s very difficult to say what will happen next. But if Corbyn survives as leader of the Labour Party, it cannot be ruled out that a new General Election will sweep out the Blairites and bring a radical reformist government into power: a Syriza moment in the world’s fifth largest economy”.

This hypothetical trajectory was the object of some mirth at the time and I’m loathe to say I told you so.  However, we need to move on…as Jeremy Corbyn is now within sight of political power just one year after the Brexit result!

With her coronation as Tory leader following the Brexit result in the referendum in June 2016, May appeared unassailable. But her disastrous result in the UK General Election revealed to all the venal decay at the heart of the Tory government. May was exposed as having her own camarilla closeted with her special advisors. She decided policy initiatives without even consulting her cabinet, and it was her decision alone to call the General Election after publicly stating, time and again, that she had no intention of doing so. Her mind was made up on a walking holiday with her husband somewhere in Snowdonia. The result, she assumed, was preordained - as Corbyn was ‘unelectable’ according to all the pundits, polls and most of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).

The Tory election strategy was based on the simple idea that May should declare this the Brexit election and call for a national endorsement of her leadership as she began Article 50 negotiations with the EU later this month.  Far from it being the Brexit election it will be forever known as “May’s folly”.

The Tory plan was to target a selected group of voters in key Labour marginals where there was a significant Brexit vote. They doubled down on winning over the UKIP vote and Labour Brexiters, seeing themselves as the natural representatives of jingoistic nativism. It was a no brainer that, as UKIP weren’t standing in many constituencies, their voters would automatically shift over to May as she bathed in the aura of Brexit. Add on the 13 percent UKIP vote and win Labour supporters who had voted Leave then the Tories would win by a landslide as Labour languished up to 20 percent behind in the polls.

Hence May’s verbal diarrhoea about the Tories being the real party of the working class as the hapless PM was teleported into northern Labour constituencies, like Halifax, where she launched her now notorious Dementia Tax U-turn manifesto only to become a national laughing stock.

It might not have been the Brexit election that May had hoped for, but it was Brexit that shaped the political dynamic…as it now mutated into almost everything but Brexit. Brexit was revolutionary in the sense that it was a revolt against the elites and the status quo where a majority in the UK voted against the position of every major political party save UKIP. It forced a major breech in the dam of the Blairite consensus that had dominated British politics for the last twenty years and, as I argued, opened up a significant opportunity for the left to pose an alternative. It had forced one Tory PM to resign and has now thrown a weak government into political and constitutional crisis after their reversal at the polls. The natural party of government can no longer govern as a majority and needs to rely on the DUP just to survive. What a nightmare (for everybody). 

Batley Women's Guild re-enact "The Strong and Stable Leadership of Theresa May"

The Tories completely misunderstood the meaning of Brexit. Rather than being the natural standard bearer for Brexit May was regarded as a typical representative of the political elite and even presented herself as the Strong and Stable continuity candidate of the status quo that Brexit had defied. Her real motivation for calling the election was to bolster support within her own party against Europhile MPs lukewarm about Brexit. It had absolutely no basis in terms of strengthening her position in the negotiations with the EU as Article 50 had triggered the process of leaving by the deadline of 2019, a full year before the end of the government term.

A welcome outcome for the elites would be the crushing of Corbyn and his resurgent Labour Party. If, as was widely predicted, Labour had an electoral wipe out like 1983 Corbyn would either be deposed by another internal coup or the LP would split. A Blairite plot for a split and the formation of a new centre left party was in process. In any case May was assured an easy win. It was just a question of how big?

An extraordinary achievement.

The effect of Brexit on UKIP was predictable and it quickly began to disintegrate after the referendum.  It was never an ideological political grouping but had built up a populist base of support made up mainly of both ex Tory and Labour voters opposed to EU membership. With Brexit decided upon UKIP supporters were bound to examine what was being offered by the other main parties in this election. And this time there was a distinctive choice on offer where many of UKIP’s policies, which are more to the left than most people think - apart from on immigration - cohered far closer to Labour’s electoral programme than the Tories. The result was a split in the UKIP vote along class lines.  So while the Tories benefited to some extent from the UKIP  collapse, so did Labour, especially in  traditional working class areas.

Take the constituency of Hartlepool for instance. In the 2016 referendum this was one of the most hardened Leave areas with 69.57 percent for Leave and only 30.43 percent for Remain. Ideal territory for a Tory coup you would think if the main issue was Brexit?  In 2015 there was a Labour majority of only 3,024 over UKIP who had gained 30.2 percent of the vote and the Tories on only 22.6 percent in third place. Hartlepool was held by Labour in 2017 with an increased majority of 7.650 against the Tories who came second. UKIP’s vote had practically halved. Labour was up to 52.5 percent with an increase of 16.9 percent. The Tories were up by 13.3 percent.

Portsmouth South was a Labour gain in solid Brexit territory, but the size of the surge to Labour was a staggering   21.5 percent with a 9.4 percent swing from the Tories to Labour. The UKIP vote had collapsed and obviously most of it went to Labour who had come third behind the Lib Dems in 2015. A detailed analysis of the election results is needed but they appear to support the point I made in Beyond Brexit that the working class, using the referendum as a conduit, had found a way to give the people it didn’t like (the Tory government and the political elites) a kicking . In the election the working class returned to Labour in droves to deny the Tories an outright victory. Rather than Labour being annihilated it emerged strengthened, while the Tory government has been plunged into another crisis.

40 percent of the vote usually automatically wins a majority but nevertheless it was still the biggest vote for Labour since Attlee’s historic victory in 1945 with Corbyn adding 3 million votes.

True Labour didn’t win a majority of seats and the Tory government continues, but under a zombie caretaker PM with a Tory party riven with division over Europe amidst rumours of an impending civil war. Politically, the result far outweighs the fact that the numbers were slightly against a Labour victory. It didn’t diminish the scale of Corbyn’s political triumph. Len McCluskey, General Secretary of Unite, rightly described the result as “an earthquake”.

 Policies Decisive

The leak of Labour’s manifesto a few days before the official launch, depicted by the MSM as showing that the Labour campaign was a shambles and that Corbyn planned to take Britain back to the 1970’s, actually had an electrifying effect. The BBC headlined the key policies such as nationalisation of the railways, post office, the national electricity grid, build 1,000,000 homes, £10 minimum wage, increased taxes on the rich, increases in corporation tax, the abolition of student tuition fees in England and Wales, a fully funded and non-privatised NHS, fully funded social care and the ending of the public sector pay freeze.

Far from damaging Labour it was their manifesto, usually just a footnote in the election process since Blair, that ignited the campaign for Labour. Not only were the electorate presented with a manifesto that attacked Tory austerity directly it also tore neo-liberal economic orthodoxy to shreds. It announced that class politics and socialism were back centre stage in British politics.

The manifesto contained policies that had significant majority public support but, more importantly, was in stark contrast to the Scrooge-like thin gruel of more austerity offered by the Tories; of vicious attacks on the disabled, pensioners, children and just about everybody who wasn’t a billionaire . This programme inspired the youth, workers and layers of the lower middle class expected to share the burden of a disintegrating health and education system. True, the manifesto was relatively modest in many ways - but commentators noted that it meant that it had not just buried Blairism, but that Thatcherism was dead too!

No longer did we have a Tory and Labour Party offering either austerity or austerity -lite. Now we had a struggle between the Tory hereditary foe of the working class in the form of May’s government and a Labour Party that had recovered its soul (except for the leadership in Scotland and Wales for specific reasons).

Corbyn was prepared to indulge in some realpolitik on nuclear weapons. It was a compromise with the Blairite right  to support the £167 billion cost of replacing Trident. Everybody knows Corbyn is opposed to Trident and he had voted against renewing the (non)independent nuclear deterrent in Parliament on a free vote, but it was LP policy to support it. Corbyn was standing as a Labour leader and throughout the campaign he presented party policy not his personal position. Although Labour’s defence policy will come under greater internal party scrutiny in the future, I’m sure.

And then there was the campaign itself.

Labour’s clear left anti-austerity programme created genuine enthusiasm, even fervour, amongst the working class. As the polls started to narrow, it became clear that people had at last seen hope that this brutal Tory government could be beaten. Tory campaign headquarters was warned via focus groups that Labour’s policies were proving very popular but this was ignored, along with critical polls that Labour was dramatically reducing the Tory lead.

Leon Trotsky wrote in 1938, of capitalists "tobogganing towards disaster with their eyes closed". Here the Tories totally underestimated what the movement for Corbyn, and the man himself, represented. Described by the MSM as “preaching to the   converted” Corbyn’s campaign in June energised a mass movement on the political plane in opposition to the Tories. Mass rallies, sometimes only at a day’s notice, had turnouts in the tens of thousands. Captain Ska’s  “Liar Liar” remix (you can’t trust her. Tories Out!) went to number two in the independent music charts (the BBC banned it) as the Tories tobogganed with their eyes closed towards an electoral disaster. They received the biggest shock in the history of British politics. All the better that it was completely unexpected.

Corbyn has now emerged as a Labour leader of profound historic significance, in the tradition of Thomas  Paine, John Bright, George Lansbury and Keir Hardie; a very British phenomena of the outsider, anti-establishment troublemaker who just won’t go away, no matter what’s thrown at him.

What about Scotland?

Alex Salmond was a victim of the Tory recovery − I would hardly call it a resurgence − in Scotland. I was a wee bit sorry to see this SNP big beast go, especially to a Tory, not least because he had some insight into the obstacles that Corbyn needs to overcome. He thought it wasn’t what lay before Corbyn that was the problem but what was “behind him”. In other words the Blairites of various hues within the PLP and the Labour apparatus generally. In England there was evidence of the party HQ funneling resources to anti-Corbyn candidates while Welsh Labour excluded pushing Corbyn in an autonomous campaign. Other Blairite candidates excluded any mention of Corbyn in their own campaigns only to be flabbergasted that their majorities had ballooned. A wave of faux contrition followed.

In Scotland, Kezia Dugdale distanced herself from Corbyn’s campaign and didn’t even attend his election rally in Glasgow. Labour in Scotland was not doing well in the early stages of the campaign. Then the Corbyn effect, based on the manifesto, took hold in Scotland, bypassing the bankrupt policy of Dugdale, which was to place the defence of the Union above all else. Instead of Labour getting 18 percent as polls had initially predicted they got 27 percent of the vote with big shifts in support back towards them from the SNP in the West of Scotland and Fife. They won seven seats but could have done much better, coming very close in a number of other constituencies.

There were many independence Yessers who gave their votes to Labour on the 8 June. They didn’t endorse Dugdale, but Corbyn and the manifesto. Imagine if Labour had campaigned recognizing the right of Scotland to be independent, and to be prepared to enter discussions with the Scottish government to examine our demand for greater devolution and independence? It could have transformed the political map of Scotland.

It still could transform the political map of Scotland.

Corbyn has a far more nuanced position on self-determination than the Unionist/Blairite cabal leading Scottish Labour. Yes, the manifesto opposed independence but that is still national Labour policy given that Scottish Labour is only an “accounting entity”: not an independent party of the Scottish working class but an extension of British Labour.  Conversely, the rabidly Unionist Dugdale leadership actively unites with the Scottish Tories in blocking the democratic demand of the Scottish nation for self- determination. 

The SNP suffered major reverses, mainly due to polarisation over the national question, which benefited the Tories in their traditional rural areas and that more than cancelled out the limited Labour recovery.

The SNP suffered partly because they were bound to lose ground after the freak result of 2015 where they nearly swept the board save for three seats but their policy of tying a second referendum to the question of Scotland’s membership of the EU has been a disaster.

Like the Tories they have put party before country and played with the possibility of an indyref2 when there is neither a majority in favor of it, nor a proven majority – as yet - in favor of independence. They are being exposed as endangering Scotland’s path to independence and showed themselves up as just another establishment party. Were Sturgeon to attempt to call a premature indyref2 successfully, which I now doubt she will achieve, it would be a major strategic blunder, putting back the chance of independence for decades. The Brexit decision is NOT the decisive issue on which a referendum should be called.

In my view socialists in Scotland have everything to gain from a Tory defeat in the next General Election and I do believe that Corbyn’s Labour Party can win it.  Only a 3 percent swing to Labour nationally could mean a Labour government, and for me that is a mouth watering prospect. Socialists in Scotland should reflect on what they can do to help him achieve it.

We await the next act of this enthralling political drama, whether it be on the parliamentary or extra-parliamentary plane, but burning questions remain. When will May be deposed? Who in the Tory party has the gravitas to take on Corbyn? What are the possibilities of another UK general election?

The Tories will attempt to cling on with RoboMay for as long as possible. They fear, rightly, that in another election, defeat is a real possibility.

All I can say is bring it on.

Tories Out! Viva Corbyn!

 

 

Grenfell: Courage and Grief, and the Desire for Justice

Regular Point contributor and Editorial Board member Graeme McIver visited the scene of the Grenfell tragedy today to show solidarity with the victims, their families, and the working class people of the borough and of London. This is what he found.

 

Saturday, June 17th 2017 - The acrid smell of smoke has largely dissipated - but it is still there. It catches you unawares with a sudden change of direction of the wind or when you turn a corner or pass a road end.

There are other smells too. Sweeter scents of candles and flowers.

There is a reverential hush as you walk the streets from Latimer Road Tube Station towards the Westway and the walls of remembrance that have sprung up all around.

 Everywhere there are posters of the missing. On lampposts, trees, taped to walls and shop windows. Their smiling faces staring back at you as the sun beats down on Bramley Road.

 Jessica Urbano aged 12. Mr Raymond "Moses" Bernard. Morjorie and Ernie Vital. Desperate family members and friends have covered the area in these posters. Heartfelt pleas for news. Any news.

"It's too much", says one women being comforted by friends. "It's just too much."

Messages of condolence and remembrance are everywhere. We are used to these appearing on our streets during times of tragedy. Football tops, candles and flowers. But there is something different about the messages on the streets of this part of West London. There is a rage and demand for justice.

Tory politicians and their lackeys in parts of the media have criticised the politicisation of the tragedy at Grenfell.

But the blackened tower stands as a monument to politics. And this community knows it and it won't be silenced.

"People's Lives Don't Matter Under Capitalism" screams a sign attached to the railings. "Theresa May has blood on her hands...She is Responsible."

"The Wealth of the Rich in Kensington will never match the love in Ladbroke Grove."

"The crowds will pass but we will continue to fight for justice!"

The quiet reverence of streets surrounding the tower stand in stark contrast to the anger that has erupted in other parts of this borough, areas of which are amongst the richest in the developed world.

Yesterday protesters stormed the council building demanding answers whilst protests erupted across London. There are plans for bigger demonstrations tonight and in the future. The flames in Grenfell have at last been extinguished but the burning anger in this community and others across the country is rising.

I watch as a man pins a series of demands aimed at Kensington and Chelsea Council to a wall. "Be prepared for a period of buck passing" he states. "Did they have regular checks on the subcontractors on their ability to manage and safely implement these improvements? Did they have regular meetings to discuss fire prevention, access to all floors and include the wishes of the tenants? Did they audit the suitability of the materials used carry out proper fire inspections once the work was completed? Did they endorse the advice for tenants to stay in their flats during a fire?"

These questions and many others should be put to politicians at an inquest, not a public enquiry and messages stating that are everywhere.

"Tenants die when landlords don't listen - full funding for fire safety".

"Cuts Cost Lives".

"Murderers"

If the council and the government are held in contempt then there is a genuine respect and affection for the fire fighters who risked their lives to save others in Grenfell. Years of cuts have impacted on the service but the fire fighters who attended did everything they could...and more.

A red London Fire Brigade t-shirt attached to the railings contains a message from the crews in attendance. "We did our best...", it states. Everyone here knows that to be true. 

The community response to the fire has been astounding. Notices abound thanking those who have contributed for donations and stating that local centres can no longer accept any more food or clothes as they have been overwhelmed with generosity from ordinary people in West London and beyond.

I do not seek to interview those looking at the tributes or staring at the tower. It seems crass and intrusive at this time. The mainstream media is everywhere, and you sense growing numbers are resentful to their presence.

My friend Stewart and I make our way back to the tube station and travel back towards the city on the Hammersmith line. As we pass under the tower a woman with tears and anger in her eyes looks at us both.

"I watched it burn from my own block. At first a small fire. I left to make a cup of tea and came back to the whole building ablaze...all of it. I couldn't believe it."

"I tell you, if we have to wait as long for justice as those poor people at Hillsborough then this community will go mad."

"I hear the contractor was a Tory donor. I wish the election was this week...not last. She'd be out...they'd all be out."

She leaves the train at Ladbroke Grove, too upset and unable to say any more.

But this is a community that has much more to say.

 

 

For more articles by Graeme McIver in The Point please click here 

 

 

Grenfell is a monument to Tory Britain

by John Wight

Neither oversight, negligence, nor malfeasance lies at the root of the Grenfell Tower fire in West London. Strip away the sickening obfuscation and platitudes, peddled by the usual parade of confected politicians, and the roots of this disaster lie in the virulent disdain, bordering on hatred, of poor and working class people by the rich in a society which in 2017 is a utopia for the few and a dystopia for far too many.

What will future historians say about a culture in which there is more than enough money to pay for nuclear weapons, to finance the bombing of other countries, to fund tax cuts for the rich, but not enough to provide decent housing for people whose only crime is that they happen to be poor and on low incomes? Given the scathing nature of the evidence, it’s a fair bet that the verdict issued will be a scathing one —and rightly so.

If this mind numbingly awful event does not mark the end of 7 long years of callous cruelty that describes the previous and current Tory government—unleashed in obeisance to the god of austerity—then nothing will and we deserve to end up in the abyss where, make no mistake, we are headed unless we rise up with a collective and resounding cry of “No more!”

No more living in a country in which cruelty has been raised to the level of a virtue and compassion relegated to the status of a vice, in which foodbanks, benefit sanctions, zero hours contracts, homelessness, and crumbling public services are justified on the basis of moral rectitude and fiscal responsibility, when in truth they are symptoms of the class war unleashed by the Tories on working people and which up to now working people have been losing.

The hollowing out of the state, deregulation, the near free rein accorded to property developers and private landlords, all at the expense of people’s wellbeing and safety, is tantamount to a crime committed by the rich people who govern us in the interests of other rich people.

Don’t politicise the Grenfell Fire, they tell us. Are they serious? Are they having a laugh? This event is verily dripping in politics. Indeed it could not be any more political, coming as it does as the logical conclusion of decades of under investment in social housing that is a badge of shame and refutes any claim by Brexit Britain to the status of a civilised country.

The one hope we can cling onto is that despite the inordinate and sustained efforts by the Tories and their rancid media cohort to pit working and poor people against one another in recent years—Muslim against non-Muslim, low waged against unwaged, migrant against non-migrant, refugee against native—it has failed. Out of Grenfell, along with the recent terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, has come incontrovertible evidence of the innate solidarity of people of every background, ethnicity, faith, and creed when the chips are down. The outpouring of kindness, support, and humanity in response stands as a rebuke to those who want us to believe there is no such thing as society, that we are not connected by a common humanity but instead are merely a vast agglomeration of individuals, just like so many atoms spinning in the air.

Then, too, as a further rebuke to these rotten Tory values we have our emergency services. Made up of men and women who have no hesitation in risking their lives when tragedy strikes, they deserve better than a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich—and so do we. They stand in sharp contrast to a Prime Minister who cannot even summon the decency to face angry and traumatised residents during her recent visit to the scene of what bears all the hallmarks not of a disaster or a tragedy but a crime.

The survivors of this crime are traumatised, angry, and broken with grief. They will carry with them forever the scars of what has not only been a physical, emotional, and psychological ordeal, but the knowledge that they were casualties of a system that considered them less than human, mere flotsam in the eyes of a Tory establishment that wages war not on poverty but on the poor, not on hunger but on the hungry, and not on injustice but on the victims of injustice.

In memory of those who perished and whose deaths are indistinguishable from the fact they were poor and working class, let Grenfell be the line over which Tory greed and mendacity does not pass.

Yes, Theresa May you are right: enough is enough.

Is Britain about to have its own October 'Revolution'?

Green Party Activist Adrian Cruden celebrates and analyses the tumultous events of the General Election...and sounds a small note of caution.

 

OCTOBER COUNTRY

“October is the fallen leaf, but it is also a wider horizon more clearly seen. It is the distant hills once more in sight, and the enduring constellations above them once again.”

 -  Hal Borland 

I was driving home from the station after working with the Green Party in Sheffield Central, hard fought by our former leader Natalie Bennett, fatigued from the day and apprehensive of the night ahead, when the somehow ever-calming tones of Jim Naughtie announced the BBC/Sky Exit Poll. “The Conservatives will be the largest party, but will not have a majority…”

I whooped aloud. Yet, although the Corbyn surge had been palpable on the doorsteps and streets for at least the last fortnight, I still didn’t dare to assume anything. But later, at the Kirklees Met count in Huddersfield, the glum faces of the Tory workers cemented the fact that Mrs May’s great gamble to become the British Erdogan had failed and failed badly. In a borough where a few weeks earlier there had been talk of going from 3 Labour MPs and 1 Tory MP to 3 Tories and 1 Labour, the outcome ended up with a clean sweep for Corbyn: the stone faced Tory MP who lost and the would-bes who went home empty-handed lighting up at first-hand the unexpected outcomes that were popping up across the UK.

   Tories lose Colne Valley

Unexpected? Certainly at the start of the campaign, with the Blairites still sounding off and the Tories’ hubristically planning an electoral coup, the outcome we ended up with seemed fantastical. So the euphoria of a Tory Government denied its seemingly inevitable victory is both understandable and deserved. The blow to the Establishment, delivered by a coalition of young and old, reversing the divide-and-rule strategy propagated by the Tories post-Brexit, is substantial and to read of tearful Theresa anxiously awaiting the blessing of the Red Hand is a joyfully terrifying mix of farce and tragedy.

And yet, in the midst of left-wing celebration and a chipper Corbyn popping up everywhere to announce the end of the ancient regime, a note of caution which may surprise some of the more vocal celebrants.

Labour did not win the election. Labour remain a long way from reaching the level of support it needs to win outright. And if the Tories cling on long enough to implement the boundary changes, Labour will by default be even further away from the winning-post.

No problem, some will say, pointing to post-election polls showing Corbyn equal to May finally in popularity stakes and his party now six points ahead. Yet this ignores the long-established pattern of a short-lived swing in favour the outperformers in elections – just look back at the temporary rises in Lib Dem showings after by-election successes in the 1980s and 1990s, or UKIP’s after Euro-election advances through the 2000s. Whether in six weeks, six months or two years, there is little left for Labour to squeeze on the figures of last week, and arguably a further advance in Scotland could in fact propel the Tories back to an outright majority.

The headlines suggest that this election has seen the British electorate in England and Wales and even partially in Scotland, re-embrace the two-party politics of 1945 to 2010. The SNP shed 19 seats, UKIP evaporated, the Greens stalled on the Brighton ring-road and the #Libdemfightback didn’t get out of the paper bag. The 82% Tory/Labour showing was the highest since 1970.

            Were you still up for Clegg?

And yet, there can be little doubt of that electoral volatility has never been greater. Quite aside from the polls themselves, graphically outlining first the UKIP collapse into the arms of the Tories, followed by the rise of Labour, anyone on the ground could sense the swirling, changing instincts of many voters. From Ukippers in the former BNP strongholds in North Kirklees switching to strong and stable Brexiteer May before finally delivering near record majorities to Labour MPs; to Green switchers on polling day telling us in Labour-held Sheffield Central that they were “voting for Jeremy” (when in truth they were helping re-elect a profoundly anti-Corbynite MP), the absence of the tribalism beloved of political activists was decisively absent from many electors. While Labour had rebuffed Green and Nationalist offers of a progressive alliance against the Tories, it seemed many voters had decided to make their own. Ironically though in a slew of Scottish seats this handed SNP constituencies to the Tories, yet another cruel twist of our lottery of a voting system.

And this is where, now, the Left need to take stock. We may rightly ridicule the spectacle of the Coalition of Bigots for a few days or weeks yet. We may wonder if the DUP-sponsored regime will make it past the start of the Brexit negotiations; we may furiously fulminate at any return to Direct Rule in Northern Ireland as the Good Friday process unravels; and we may continue to try to will PM Corbyn into reality. But in truth, the Tories are as resilient as cockroaches at survival and it will likely take far more than “one more heave” to dislodge them in favour of a genuinely progressive government.

The greatest risk now is that Labour continue on a tribalist path which excludes all others. In Scotland, Dugdale’s proxy approval of tactical voting against the SNP rather than the Tories, as well as the backwash of the Corbyn surge itself, clearly boosted Conservative numbers in Westminster by as many as five or six of the seats lost by the Nationalists. There needs to be a recognition that Corbyn will need the SNP if he is indeed to ever walk into Number Ten.

In England, Labour’s refusal to even discuss a pact with the Greens may have cost them half a dozen new MPs by one analysis of seats where the Green vote exceeded the Tory majority over Labour. By contrast, the Greens’ decision to stand down unilaterally in Labour’s favour on nearly three dozen seats, and perhaps more controversially in a few for the Lib Dems, seems to have swung nine Tory seats to the opposition, decisively depriving the Theresa May of her majority.

 

                   Caroline Lucas campaigns

The time for a formal progressive alliance is almost certainly gone, as indeed it was as soon as Corbyn denounced the SNP and insisted Labour would try to unseat Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion. The tragedy could yet be that by doing this, he has blunted the anti-Tory tide and buttressed his own detractors within his party, who remain largely in place and who will in due course re-emerge, while freezing out potential political soulmates. In any case Labour’s invocation of their constitutional requirement to always fight every election everywhere is a troubling sign of bureaucracy trumping the generosity of spirit that should be at the heart of a genuinely pluralist movement for social change.

Yet it would be pathetically sour grapes for those of us outside Labour to not welcome and celebrate the successes of last Thursday. The surge in the final fortnight was breath-taking and Jeremy Corbyn played every card right, his genuine radicalism shining through and striking a chord even with those Brexiteer ex-BNPers in Batley who hopefully all along were more raging against the effects of liberal capitalism than embracing the racism of Griffin and Farage. Just as the juxtaposition of Trump and Sanders’ voters in last year’s US elections showed that rightist populism is only effectively neutered by a socialist antidote, Corbyn’s rise, finally winning back a big chunk of the Kipper vote, shows we are on a journey leftwards. Still, it is one with a far from straight path and with the destination as yet unknown.

For underpinning the election outcome, the same concerns continue. The same shifting tectonic plates that threw up Cleggmania, Occupy St Paul’s, the BNP bounce, the IndyRef revolution and the SNP Westminster tsunami, the Green surge, the march of the EDL, the rise and fall of Ukip, Brexit and now Corbyn – all these remain in place, grinding up against each other to produce ever more unpredictable outcomes. And in this context the real danger is that, as quickly as the Corbynista tide surged forward, so it might ebb to who knows where. To paraphrase Marx, himself channelling his inner Shakespeare, all that is solid melts into the political air and Labour are no less vulnerable to that than any of the previous beneficiaries of the collapse of all that was once holy and profane.

Corbyn understandably wants another election by October; but we need a path not for the next four or five months or years – we need one that will take us on for four or five decades, creating a new socialist consensus for an equitable and sustainable society. As we face a world sliding into deeper and deeper crises around climate catastrophe, resource scarcity and millenarian violence, a party still with Blair, (Hilary) Benn, Dugdale and Tom Watson in its ranks is not yet the transformative answer to Rosa Luxemburg’s eternal question of socialism or barbarism.

Genuine change doesn’t come in a night nor in a fortnight, and the forces of reaction are already marshalling, and not only behind a row of Orange banners and badly tuned flutes. We need to urgently adopt a clear programme to engage and embed the genuine majority of progressive, if not yet radical, left voters in Britain. While the NHS and welfare may be urgent social concerns, absolute political priorities must be electoral reform, heavy regulation of campaign finance, state funding of political parties and democratisation of the mass media.

Only this way can we ensure that, once dislodged under our current system of pretend polls, the Tories and their ilk are driven permanently from power through genuine elections founded on the principle of equal votes and proportional representation. With all votes having the same value, the progressive majority will be able to turn once and for all to the dismantling of the power structures of crony capitalism with no drift to the antiseptic centre nor fear of a Tory regime re-installed by less than a quarter of the electorate. If such a democratic voting system was in place now, Jeremy Corbyn would have just announced his new Cabinet of Socialists, Greens and (temporarily, perhaps) Nationalists. Who knows, he might even have been clutching the repossession notice for the Palace as he kissed the Queen’s hand.

Let’s enjoy the Tories in trouble for a few days yet. We are privileged not only to be witnessing the lingering death of neoliberal capitalism, but to have the chance to participate in its final rites. The old certainties are gone indeed and the choices facing us are growing ever sharper, ever clearer. But euphoria can fade too easily into complacency and in the end deliver only defeat. Perhaps the biggest risk in the internet age is of faddism logging off in the absence of instant gratification. If we want our own October revolution, there’s still a lot of work to do.

So be ready, comrades, but persevere too - it might not be this October.