By Richard Brenner
The narrow majority in the British referendum for leaving the European Union is a severe setback for the progressive, socialist and labour movements in Britain and across Europe.
First and foremost, this is a blow to the political awareness and class consciousness of millions of British workers, especially in the former industrial areas that were run down by Thatcher and her successors, both Tory and New Labour. The large majorities for Brexit there were plainly linked to the false belief that it was competition from foreign migrant workers that had led to insecure jobs and low wages for “native” workers, long waiting lists for council housing and pressure on hospitals and GP surgeries.
Although these lies had been well prepared over decades by the Daily Mail, The Sun and the Daily Express, their “validation” by a popular vote is a major step backwards. It has already led to outbursts of hate crime and public expressions of anti-migrant racism in the streets and in the workplaces. It opens the way to the development of UKIP’s racist populism and could revive violence by the tiny fascist groups. At the very least it could end their isolation.
The result opens the way to preventing workers from Europe seeking employment in Britain and British workers from working in other European countries, a historically progressive tendency which, in the long run, fosters international understanding and solidarity.
It also ensures an even more more right-wing prime minister by the time of the Conservative Party conference in October. A Tory government, implementing Brexit, will do all in its power to restrict immigration. This will affect not only workers from Eastern Europe but also refugees fleeing wars in the Middle East and Africa for which Britain shares enormous responsibility.
They will also attempt to remove rights won by British and EU workers that are enshrined in various EU laws and regulations. At the same time, they will try to speed up the effective privatisation of education and the health service.
At least two years of bruising negotiations with the European Commission and the member states will deter investment and exacerbate the risk of recession, catalysing underlying trends towards crisis and stagnation. This will hit workers and the poor who have scarcely recovered from the last one. Indeed, there is now a greater risk of the collapse of the EU and its dissolution into a fragmented landscape of competing and uncoordinated political and economic entities. A fragmented European economy with increased rivalry between its states would increase the possibility of conflict and eventually war.
Overall, Brexit is yet another factor disorganising efforts to integrate the European labour movement into a common framework for action. It is not just Europe that could face disintegration but the United Kingdom as well. It reopens the likelihood of a new independence referendum in Scotland and makes the fragmentation of the the British working class movement more likely. It threatens the re-erection of border controls between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, a blow to the large, oppressed nationalist minority that never wished to be included in Britain.
The referendum result is also a heavy blow to the young people of Britain. On top of temporary and low paid jobs, the lack of any serious possibility of buying a house and education fees that turn students into lifetime debtors, the result adds insult to injury by threatening the right of young people to travel and work freely in Europe, further reducing their prospects and impoverishing their culture.
The immediate impact of the vote exposed two key claims of the Vote Leave camp as outright lies. First, plunges in the stock exchanges, with $1.1 trillion dollars wiped off the value of shares worldwide and sterling plummeting to its lowest level since 1985, indicated that warnings of the economic impact of Brexit were not simply scaremongering, as Michael Gove and Boris Johnson claimed. The UK’s credit rating outlook was downgraded to negative; foreign-owned banks in the City of London have begun drawing up plans to move offices and operations out of London and into EU member states. This threatens the livelihoods of tens of thousands of back office, IT, secretarial, HR, marketing and cleaning staff. It ill behoves those on the left to rejoice over this, thinking it simply hits the bankers and financiers. As always, capital can move, but for workers this is far more difficult, especially if the free movement of labour is abolished.
There can be little doubt that this will have a powerful negative effect on government finances, or that a Tory government later this year will impose still more swingeing austerity and downsizing of public services.
In the longer run, the disruption of the international links of production and exchange, forged over forty years, by the re-erection of border controls and the imposition of tariffs will have profound effects in worsening capitalism’s crises and stagnation which, without workers’ international unity, will have grave consequences.
The second lie exposed is the illusion of sovereignty, or what the Vote Leave campaign bewitchingly called “taking back control”. In fact, late in the history of capitalism, no nation state is independent or sovereign; all are interdependent and intertwined. World economy is an independent and overarching global reality, as the turmoil after the result showed. The financial, share and bond markets can impose their will on any sovereign state, Britain included.
Some socialists who fought for “Lexit”, particularly the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party, claim that Britain’s exit and even the breaking up of the EU must be a good thing because the banks and the bosses are strongly against it. As Trotsky once said, just putting a minus where the capitalists put a plus would make every idiot a master of strategy. In fact, socialists do not demand that large companies be broken up into small ones, because this would be a step backward, losing jobs and access to goods and services, raising prices etc. Instead, we call for socialisation of the giant corporations, the merging of all of them so that there can be democratic planning for human need. If the capitalists have lowered or abolished borders, why should we seek to re-raise or strengthen them? This can lead only to economic regression, greater suffering for workers and the poor and more unemployment.
The breakup or disintegration of the EU into isolated capitalist states would be a step backwards for the international working class. The progressive impulse in the EU was not its political institutions but the underlying processes of economic integration that give rise to them. The expansion and integration of commerce and industry across borders, on a regional and global scale, raises humanity’s productivity, culture and, above all, the international awareness and coordination of the working class. The failure of international capital to free itself from and transcend the limits of the nation state is a crippling weakness of the bourgeois class.
Trotsky, commenting on the prospect of European unification even under German hegemony during the First World War wrote:
“Would [the slogan of the European working class] be the dissolution of the forced European coalition and the return of all peoples under the roof of isolated national states? Or the restoration of “autonomous” tariffs, “national” currencies, “national” social legislation, and so forth? Certainly not. The programme of the European revolutionary movement would then be: The destruction of the compulsory anti-democratic form of the coalition, with the preservation and furtherance of its foundations, in the form of compete annihilation of tariff barriers, the unification of legislation, above all of labour laws and so on.”
In other words, the answer to undemocratic institutions is not to welcome the breakup of integrated supranational economies, but to fight for the working class to come to the head of the process of political and economic unification via a European Constituent Assembly and a Socialist United States of Europe.
The political aftermath
The vote has thrown the United Kingdom itself, and both its principal political parties, into a profound crisis. David Cameron has resigned as leader of the Tory party, effective by October, by which time the Tories will have chosen a new prime minister, probably Michael Gove or Theresa May. Cameron has announced that he will not invoke Article 50 of the EU treaty, which would commence Britain’s exit from the EU. He is leaving that to the new prime minister. In this way, the alternative routes that Britain might take to exit from the EU, including its negotiating stance, are to be decided by the Tory party alone, not by the British people.
It is clear that hardcore Brexiteers will argue for a strategy that would help to break up the EU itself, possibly by refraining from serving notice under Article 50 altogether. Instead, they might advocate breaking EU laws, thus compelling the EU to expel Britain. This would exacerbate divisions between the member states and provide a rallying call to nationalist demagogues in other member states. The tabloids would daily ramp up the chauvinist hysteria against Germany or France and the populist UKIP and its fascist hangers on would doubtless call for the expulsion of all migrant workers and EU citizens.
Others, perhaps around George Osborne or Ruth Davidson, will argue that Britain go for the “Norwegian route”, retaining all of the obligations and most of the benefits of EU membership. The fact is that the EU leaders, despite the German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s softly softly approach, are preparing to play hard ball with the UK in the negotiations. All the key EU organisations are scheduled to meet to plan their reaction, without UK representation, within the next few weeks. They are calling for the Article 50 process to be invoked immediately and they want to make it clear there will be no renegotiation of treaty rights.
The reason for this is obvious: despite the deliberate spreading of complacent propaganda by Vote Leave, the fact is that the EU must act decisively to discourage other states from following Britain’s example. They want to create a united EU response, and, freed from British objections, proceed down the route of further European integration, before the populist forces can effect a Frexit, a Nexit, or an Ital-out. The idea, as repeated by Vote Leave representatives like the UKIP Welsh Assembly member Neil Hamilton, that Britain will simply negotiate a tariff-free deal with the EU is completely absurd.
Even as David Cameron was issuing his resignation speech, the Labour right launched their long prepared coup against Jeremy Corbyn. The Parliamentary Labour Party’s vote of no confidence, which has no constitutional status in party rules as a means of changing the leader, aimed to rally Labour MPs around the demand that he should resign so that a new leadership election could be held, probably without his name on the ballot paper. The whole labour movement must now rally in defence of Corbyn to defeat the rebellion which aims at stymieing any possibility of a revival of socialist or left reformist policies within the Labour Party.
Corbyn was clear that he supported a Remain vote from the outset. He rightly refused to go along with the Tory-led campaign and its pro-business arguments. Instead, he defended migration unconditionally and warned of the effect that a Brexit would have on jobs and employment rights. By contrast, his opponents in the Labour Party, like Harriet Harman and Sadiq Khan, appeared alongside Cameron, playing into Vote Leave’s hands by proving that they were, indeed, just another part of the political establishment. Worse still, Tom Watson and Ed Balls issued late appeals for Europe to reduce the rights of freedom of movement in a cack-handed and self defeating adaptation to the xenophobic propaganda of Vote Leave and UKIP. Unsurprisingly, this backfired; if you concede that immigration is a problem, then why should voters not vote for the outcome that will most severely limit it?
The Labour left now need to go onto the offensive, defeat the right-wing attempted coup, assert that the right of the members to elect the leader is sacrosanct and end the long delay since Corbyn’s election last September to launch a coordinated campaigned to change the policies and people representing Labour.
Scotland and Northern Ireland
The outcome of the referendum is an absolute gift to the Scottish National Party. Despite opposition to leaving the EU, they could not conceal their delight as one English region after another voted to leave. The overwhelming vote in Scotland to remain in the EU clearly poses, once again, the question of a referendum on Scottish independence.
The referendum result is a profound material change in the situation and, given the wishes of the Scottish people, they have a right to a fresh vote, unhindered in any way. In any vote, however, Labour should make no concessions to Scottish nationalism. Scottish withdrawal from the United Kingdom would be no more progressive than the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and for exactly the same reasons. The belief, peddled by some who consider themselves revolutionaries, that the Scots are more socialist and would settle with capitalism, or at least rebuild a welfare capitalism quicker, if they were free of the English and the Welsh, is just national vanity.
This time, however, Labour must eschew any pact with the Tories, any joint campaigning, and instead campaign not on the basis of British nationalism, but on the basis of a united all-Britain fight against austerity, against Trident, against the poison of nationalism, which divides one group of workers against another, for migrants’ rights and against the cynicism of the SNP, who pose to the left of centre whilst seeking to divide and break up working class organisations along national lines. Just as defence of the NHS has been a key issue of the EU referendum, it must become one in any fresh Scottish referendum: Labour must point out that the NHS exists across the UK and must be defended through all-Britain political and industrial action. This will create a clear differentiation with both the SNP and the resurgent Scottish Tories.
The Northern Ireland minister, Theresa Villiers, was a vocal supporter of Vote Leave. She repeatedly lied about the effect that a Brexit vote would have on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic and on the Good Friday agreement. Citizens of the Irish Republic have always been free to travel to the UK and this will continue; however, the border between the Republic and the Six Counties will now become Britain’s border with the EU. Given the reactionary focus on controlling migration, it is impossible to imagine that a post-Brexit British regime would allow Eastern European and other migrant workers to migrate freely into the UK through the land border with the Republic. Strict border controls will follow, in violation of the Good Friday Agreement.
A majority of the citizens of Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU. Sinn Fein is exploiting this fact by calling for an all-Ireland referendum on a united Ireland, hoping to divide the Unionist monolith and capture the support of pro-Remain Protestants. Socialists should support the call for an all-Ireland referendum and for a united Ireland, ending the undemocratic partition and the Unionist political veto on Irish national self-determination.
Defend migrants and free movement
The status of EU migrants currently living in the UK is unlikely to change anytime soon but, under a Brexit regime, there is a severe risk of much tighter immigration controls with all the misery that implies. More immediately, as enraged supporters of Vote Leave slowly realise that migration and the presence of foreign workers are not suddenly going to end, there is surely a risk that they will be inflamed by even more sinister forces who will argue for direct action. The building of a mass anti-racist movement, based on the labour movement, young people and the migrant communities is therefore a pressing necessity. In the event of violence, organised self-defence will have to be one component of the labour movement’s response. The anti-Corbyn plotters in the Labour Party will doubtless seek to utilise anti-migrant rhetoric, too. The defence of free movement and Jeremy Corbyn’s robust pro-migration stance will be central to defeating them.
Political challenges
There has been much talk of the referendum being a sign of a “post factual” politics, one in which outright lies and irrational slogans can secure mass support and be repeated a million times a day all across the country. There is nothing new about this phenomenon: it was common in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century and it can be seen in civil wars and national conflicts all over the world today. It is populist demagogy, the inflammation of base and irrational fears and the diversion of mass movements, via sometimes impossible to realise demands, towards a specific reactionary goal. The fact that a mass movement has been built in such a way in Britain today is a sign that we have moved into a new and dangerous period of politics in Europe and, as Donald Trump’s candidacy shows, around the world.
The centre cannot hold, when the centre has so manifestly failed. The crisis of 2008 led to a great recession; and the neoliberal globalist consensus utterly failed to overcome it or set the world on the road to a new and sustainable recovery. Therefore, new forces emerge: far rightists in Austria, Hungary and Sweden; right-wing demagogues in the Netherlands, Italy, France and now Britain. But there is also hope, as the decay of the centre also gives rise to new mass movements on the left, including in the British Labour Party and elsewhere.
In Mediterranean Europe, where the crisis was much sharper over the last five years, there have been attempts on the left of the political spectrum to build new political parties or coalitions pledged to rejecting austerity, notably Syriza in Greece, the Left Bloc in Portugal and Podemos in Spain. In Britain, the struggle to create an instrument for fighting austerity opened up last year around Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign. This is a struggle that now has to be repeated, given the right-wing attempt to unseat him.
In all these countries, it is plain that the new left-wing initiatives will run into severe problems if they stop half way, if they seek compromises with the old “social liberal” forces who took over the Socialist, Social Democratic and Labour parties in the 1990s and early 2000s. However, left populism, left Labourism and Neo-Keynesianism cannot find viable answers to the severity of the crisis afflicting global capitalism. At the same time, standing aside in sectarian isolation and waiting for such projects to fail will also prove completely useless. Instead, it is vital that revolutionary socialists join the struggle against the right, advocating a struggle to impose governments pledged to rejecting austerity and, at the same time, mobilising workers to defend themselves against the vicious resistance of the system.
Who can unite Europe?
Across Europe, the austerity continues. The resistance of the French workers over the past months, with millions on the street defying brutal attack by the police force armed by the Socialist president with a State of Emergency, shows what workers can do if they fight. They have already resisted the neoliberal deregulation policies long implemented in Britain and copied by the EU authorities. Greek workers too, between 2009 and 2015, waged repeated general strikes and mass demonstrations. In Spain and Portugal, youth occupied the squares. If these struggles were not so often isolated and left with no organised solidarity across the continent, there would be more victories and fewer brutal defeats like that in Greece.
For this, the socialist left needs to concentrate its forces, instead of fruitlessly and dangerously adapting to nationalist divisions as the Left Exit camp did. We need a union of working class parties around a consistent socialist programme, one that can open the fight for a Socialist United States of Europe, which can bring an end to economic decline, inequality, austerity, racism and the threat of a new Cold War turning into one that could incinerate Europe.
Such a state could open its borders wide to refugees and to all those who wish to work here. But it could also help fellow workers and poor farmers in Africa, the Middle East and beyond to massively improve their infrastructure, housing and modern workplaces so that they are not forced to risk losing their lives attempting to get into Europe.
The fact that a large majority of young people voted against the hatred of migrants and ignorant Europhobia should give us hope, as should the shock and dismay of many people at the result. The forces exist in large numbers for a fightback against a Brexit government and the misery it will try to impose. These struggles will wake up many who were duped by the tabloids and the populist demagogues, providing there is a serious socialist force, a socialist Labour Party, leading the working class on a programme for a political and economic revolution to enable ordinary people to exercise power over every area of social, political and economic life.
