Brexit Reveals Corbyn to be the True Moderate
September 17, 2019
The crisis has brought into sharp focus the fanaticism that dominates almost
the entire British political class, writes Jonathan Cook.
(Christoph Scholz, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
By JonathanCook
Jonathan-Cook.net
If there is an upside to Brexit, it is this: it has made it increasingly
hard to present Jeremy Corbyn, contrary to everything the corporate media
has been telling us for the past four years, as anything but a political
moderate. In truth, he is one of the few moderates left in British - or
maybe that should read English - politics right now. The fact that still
isn't obvious to many in Britain is a sign of their - not his - extremism.
Brexit has brought into sharp focus, at least for those prepared to look,
the fanaticism that dominates almost the entire British political class.
Their zealotry has been increasingly on show since the U.K. staged a
referendum in 2016 on leaving Europe that was won by the pro-Brexit camp
with a wafer-thin majority. The extremism has only intensified as Britain
approaches the exit deadline, due at the end of October.
The feud has usually been portrayed this way: The U.K. has split into two
camps, polarizing popular opinion between those who feel Britain's place is
in Europe (Remainers) and those who prefer that Britain makes its own way in
the world (Brexiters). But it has actually divided the British political
class into three camps, with the largest two at the political extremes.
On the one side - variously represented by the new prime minister, Boris
Johnson, and many in his Conservative party, as well as Nigel Farage and his
supporters - are those who want Britain to break from Europe and rush into
the embrace of the United States, stripping away the last constraints on
free-market, ecocidal capitalism. They aren't just Brexiters, they are
no-deal Brexiters, who want to turn their back on Europe entirely.
Corbyn: A lonely moderate.
The other side - variously supported by many Labour MPs, including the
party's deputy leader Tom Watson, and the Liberal Democrats - are those who
wish to stay in the secure embrace of a European bureacracy that is nearly
as committed to suicidal capitalism as the U.S. but, given the social
democratic traditions of some of its member states, has mitigated the worst
excesses of free-market fundamentalism. These U.K. politicians aren't just
Remainers, they are Remainists, who not only refuse to contemplate any
weakening of the bonds between the U.K. and Europe but actually want those
bonds to tighten.
Suspending Parliament
And as the divide has deepened, it has become clear that neither side is
prepared to pay more than lip service to democracy.
On the Brexit side, Johnson has suspended parliament, an institution
representing the people, that is supposed to be sovereign. Like his
predecessor, Theresa May, he has repeatedly found there is no legislative
majority for a hard or no-deal Brexit. He has faced an unprecedented and
humiliating series of defeats in parliament in the few days he has been
prime minister. So now he has swept parliament out of the way in a bid to
run down the clock on a no-deal Brexit without legislative interference.
Watson and the Remainists have been trying a counter-move, arguing that the
referendum is no longer valid. They believe that new voters, youngsters more
likely to support Remain, have come of age in the three years since 2016,
and that more information about the true costs of Brexit have lately swung
support to their side. They want to ignore the original referendum result
and run the ballot again in the hope that this time the tide will turn in
their favor.
The reality is that, if Johnson drives through a no-deal Brexit by ignoring
parliament, or if Watson gets to quash the first referendum result to
engineer a second, it is likely to trigger civil war in the U.K.
The first option will drive Scotland out of the union, could very well
reignite the sectarian "Troubles" of Northern Ireland, and will have English
urban elites in open revolt. The second option will ensure that large
sections of the English public who voted for Brexit because they feel
marginalized and ignored are up in arms too. Their trust in politics and
politicians will sink even further, and there is the danger that they will
turn in droves to a crowd-pleasing autocrat like Johnson, Farage or worse.
Zealotry vs Compromise
In these circumstances, anyone responsible would be looking to find common
ground, to understand that political compromise is absolutely necessary to
stop Britain breaking apart. And that is exactly what Corbyn and the largely
ignored and maligned third camp have been trying to do.
They want to honor the spirit of the vote by leaving the EU but hope to do
so in a way that doesn't cut the U.K. adrift from Europe, doesn't prevent
the continuation of relatively free trade and movement, and doesn't leave
the U.K. exposed and vulnerable to serfdom under a new U.S. master.
For many months Corbyn has been calling for a general election as a way for
the majority of the public, having chosen in the referendum what they want
to do, to now decide who they want to negotiate how Britain departs from
Europe. But even that realistic compromise has not satisfied the fanatics
within his own party.
Because the zealots of the right and the immoderate center dominate the
political and media landscape, this approach has barely registered in public
debates. Corbyn's efforts have been misrepresented as evidence of muddled
thinking, ambivalence, or his covert opposition to Europe. It is none of
those things.
(ChiralJon/CC BY 2.0)
Spider's Web
The common argument that Corbyn is a Brexit wolf in sheep's clothing draws
on the fact that, like many democratic socialists, such as the late Tony
Benn, Corbyn has never been enamored of the unelected European technocratic
class that is misleadingly termed simply "Europe" or the "European Union."
Rightly, socialists understood long ago that the more Britain was locked
into Europe's embrace, the more it would become caught like a fly in the
spider's web. At some level, most people have started to recognize this, if
only because finding a way to leave Europe, even for Brexiters, has proved
so inordinately difficult.
Just like banks were too big to fail in 2008 so they had to be bailed out
with our, public money to save them from their private malfeasance, the
publics of Europe have incrementally had their sovereignty transferred to an
unelected and centralized bureacracy all in the name of pursuing freedom -
of movement and trade, chiefly for global corporations.
We haven't noticed, it is true, because for decades our own, domestic
politics has come in one flavor only - support for our little corner of the
global neoliberal empire. Till recently the consensus of Britain's ruling
elite, whether of the right or of New Labour centrists, was that being a
player in Europe was the best way to protect their - though not necessarily
our - interests on that global battlefield. Now, as the neoliberal empire
enters a period of terminal decline, this same elite are bitterly divided
over whether the U.S. or Europe is the best guarantor of their wealth and
influence continuing a little longer.
Iron Fist in Velvet Glove
Ireland and the United Kingdom on May 26, 2012, during a heat wave. (NASA)
But Britain and the world's problems - whether in the shape of impending
economic meltdown or environmental collapse - cannot be solved from within
the neoliberal paradigm, as becomes clearer by the day. New political
structures are desperately needed: at the local level to foster new, more
decentralized economic models, free of corporate influence,
resource-stripping and unnecessary consumption; and at the global level to
ensure that such models reverse rather than perpetuate the ecocidal policies
that have dominated under neoliberal capitalism.
To start on that path will require the democratization of Britain. The fear
of Benn and others was that even if a truly socialist government was
elected, its ability to make real, profound changes to the political and
economic order - by bringing much of the economy back into public or
cooperative ownership, for example - would be made impossible within the
larger framework of European corporate managerialism.
We have been given glimpses of the iron fist Europe's technocrats wield
beneath the velvet glove in the treatment of Greece over its financial
troubles and the Catalan independence movement in Spain.
The attitude of Corbyn and other democratic socialists to Brexit, however,
has been wildly misrepresented by the other two camps of zealots.
In Benn's time, it was still possible to imagine a world in which
neoliberalism might be prevented from gaining a tyrannical grip on our
political imaginations and on national economies. But things have changed
since then. Now the issue is not whether Britain can stop being locked into
a European neoliberal order. It is that the U.K., like everyone else, is
already in the stranglehold of a global neoliberal order.
Not just that, but Britain has willingly submitted to that order. As the
zealotry of most of the political class demonstrates, few can imagine or
want a life outside the neoliberal cage. The debate is about which corner of
that suicidal, ecocidal global order we prefer to be located in. The Brexit
row is chiefly about which slave master, America or Europe, will be kinder
to us.
In this context, there is no real escape. The best that can be done, as the
moderates in both the Brexit and Remain camps realize, is loosen our chains
enough so that we have room once again to contemplate new political
possibilities. We can then breathe deeply, clear our heads and start to
imagine how Britain and the world might operate differently, how we might
free ourselves of the tyranny of the corporations and heal our planet of the
deep scars we have inflicted on it.
These are big matters that cannot be solved either by binding ourselves more
tightly to European technocrats or by cutting loose from Europe only to
chain ourselves to the U.S. The Brexit feud is an endless theatrical
distraction from the real questions we need to face. That is one reason why
it drags on, one reason why our political class revel in it, John
Bercow-style.
Strangely, it is the Remainists of the immoderate centre - typified by
commentary in corporate "liberal" media like the Guardian - who so often
claim to lament the fact that the left has failed to offer a vision, a
political future, that might serve as an alternative to neoliberalism. But
how can such a vision emerge from deep inside the leviathan's dark belly?
Ideological Life-Rafts
It goes without saying that the Atlanticists cheerleading Brexit are up to
no good when they speak of "taking back control" and "reclaiming our
sovereignty." They demand those powers only so they can immediately
surrender them to a U.S. master.
But the much-maligned leftwing, soft Brexit - a version that wishes to
distance Britain from Europe without pretending that the U.K. can stand
alone on the global neoliberal battlefield - also has use for such language.
This version of taking back control isn't about spitting in the face of
Europe, blocking the entry of immigrants, or reinventing the imagined
halcyon days of empire. It is about recognizing that we, like the rest of
humankind, are responsible for the crimes we have been, and still are,
committing against the planet, against other species, against fellow human
beings.
Chaining ourselves to an unelected, distant European technocratic class that
simply follows orders - implementing the requirements of an economic system
that must end in the destruction of the planet - is cowardice. We can more
easily shelter from that truth when we cede our political and economic
powers to those compelled to carry out the (il)logic of neoliberalism.
Standing a little outside Europe is probably the best we can hope to manage
in current circumstances. But it might give us the political space - and,
more importantly, burden us with the political responsibility - to imagine
the deep changes that are urgently needed.
Change has to happen if we as a species are to survive, and it has to happen
soon and it has to happen somewhere. We cannot force others to change, but
we can recognize our own need to change and offer a vision of change for
others to follow. That can begin only when we stop shielding ourselves from
the consequences of our decisions, stop hiding in someone else's ideological
life-raft in the forlorn hope that it will weather the coming, real-world
storms.
It is time to stop acting like zealots for neoliberalism, squabbling over
which brand of turbo-charged capitalism we prefer, and face up to our
collective responsibility to change our and our children's future.
Jonathan Cook is a freelance journalist based in Nazareth.
