WTF Series, #5 - Lexit-Brexit-Smeckzit

Left Confusion on Brexit

If you’ve been watching the slow-moving train wreck that is Brexit, you might be wondering?  What does a leftist advocate?  Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the British Labour Party, now seems to be a Euro-sceptic and won’t call for another vote.  Though in 2016 he wanted to “Remain and Reform” the EU.  I asked a member of Socialist Action in the U.S., perhaps a branch of the United Secretariat, what their position was.  I got crickets.  They didn’t know the position of their co-thinkers in the U.K. – or evidently have a position themselves.  I asked a young member of the Irish Socialist Party, affiliated with U.S. Socialist Alternative, about a hard border between the two Irelands, and she thought it was a ‘Sinn Fein’ issue.

Behind the Green Brexit Door

The British CP, SWP and SP all have a passive ‘Lexit’ position – to stand aside.  These people claim to be leaders...

Clearly, some have not thought out what the nationalist ‘Little England’ counter-revolution called Brexit actually means in broader terms.  Because many English workers voted for it in the mistaken belief that it will improve their lot, parts of the left have failed to lead.  Yet Corbyn wants to be prime minister after May.  Really?  It seems his strategy is:  Hard Brexit = Recession = Labour victory.

On the broadest level, it is a step back from a form of capitalist internationalism, the EU - to capitalist nationalism.  Workers will end up with an England again totally ruled by the Tory bastards in Westminster, the English working classes’ long time enemies.  After all, the British capitalists were the originators of ‘neo-liberalism’ under Thatcher … not Germany or France. Privatization was initiated in Whitehall, not Brussels.  Britain is actually part of the right-wing in the EU.  

Given the international dimensions of any economy, the U.S. imperialists will increase their weight in the U.K. after Brexit.  Meet your big, violent best friend again!  Yes, Brussels and specifically Germany has the greatest weight in this so-called international combine, the EU.  That domination by wealthy nations is inevitable in a bourgeois formation.  Now the ‘weight’ will come from somewhere else. An Atlanticist wing of the London ruling class favors an alliance with the U.S. over a bloc with Europe – that favored by the other wing, the Remainers.  The Trans-Atlantic imperialists in the U.S. also favor Brexit, as do right-wing U.S. ‘think tanks’ like the Heritage Foundation.  A ‘free trade’ deal between the U.S. and Britain will no doubt follow, along with closer military ties and more hostility to U.S. enemies such as Russia.

Marxists have always called for internationalism, and specifically, a United Socialist Europe.  To withdraw from a capitalist Europe is sort of like a workers’ state withdrawing from the U.N. – which incidentally has always been the slogan of the far right in the U.S.  Or the refusal to participate in the U.S. Congress by electing a socialist representative - because it is a bourgeois body.

Patriots Sink the Ship

The young Irish socialist thought that a ‘hard border’ in Northern Ireland was not an issue socialists should worry about – it was just ‘identity politics’ pushed by Sinn Fein.  Catholic workers and local farmers are certainly angry.  However, at this moment some Protestant workers in Northern Ireland are not happy about leaving the EU either, no matter the attitude of the leaders of the Protestant ‘Democratic’ Unionist Party (DUP).  The DUP is in league with the Tories.  This would be a chance to break these proletarians from the DUP (with more sure to change their mind) and also possibly and finally unite Ireland in an EU separate from England!  The sorry truth is that with Brexit a military conflict might return to Northern Ireland, as the national question remains unresolved.

The Scottish national question is also involved.  Labour failed to support the Scottish independence referendum in 2014.  Right now all the delegates of the Scottish National Party in the House of Commons oppose Brexit.  Brexit could again wreak havoc on what is left of England’s rule over Scotland, and perhaps push them out too.  We could see the beginning of the end of what is left of the English empire, King Albert’s dream, if Scotland leaves England to stay in the EU.

Specifically, many labor laws, food laws, privacy laws and environmental laws in the EU are superior to those in the U.K.  EU fishing laws aim at preventing terminal depletion of fishing stocks.  The English will have no such law.  Overtime and leave laws are better for workers under EU law than in British law. Part-time workers have the same rights as full timers in EU law.  Zero-hour contracts are banned by the EU.  Tax avoidance and off-shoring regulations are stricter.  In 2018 the EU passed a law that mandated employers could not give those from other EU states lower wages and benefits than local workers.  It was the British and The City that opposed a recent EU proposal for a ‘transaction tax’ on financial trades, for instance.   With the disappearance of EU laws, U.S. food companies are salivating at the idea of flooding the U.K. market with GMOs, hormone and chlorine saturated meat and factory-farmed food.  Monsanto can’t wait to sell the bee-killer, Round-Up©.  Every inferior U.S. product will be available in Britain, which is why some U.S. capitalists are cheering.

Brexit is already creating a recession in the U.K., with warehouses, offices and plants closing and average incomes declining.  EU funding for poorer areas in the U.K. will end with Brexit.  The pound sterling is dropping in value.  Truck drivers’ jobs will be made much more difficult, as they wait at hard borders.  Free movement to the rest of Europe will become more difficult.  Recession may even stalk Europe. The ramifications are endless. 

Socialists want a world without borders, with a unitary set of laws and compatible economies, with an international dimension.  This is the prelude to global socialist societies.  Brexit goes in the exact opposite direction, weakening ties with the working classes of Europe – even scape-goating them. This is British National Party nativism at work.  Any struggle in Europe will need increasing ties with workers in other countries, not less.  This is one thing the destruction of the Greek economy by the EU banking structure showed, as the isolated Greek working class could not stand up to the EU bankers.  Even after an imagined social revolution or re-nationalization in the U.K. wished for by some socialists, this whole structure would have to be resurrected again.  All-be-it in a different way, but still starting from scratch.  

P.S. - Additional Facts:  Varoufakis opposes Brexit, which is significant, given his role in the Greek issue.  NATO will continue, with or without the EU.  Iran just dropped the dollar for the Euro, and within a minute, the U.S. increased its military activities. It is not about 'nuclear,' it is about $$$.  Which country immediately lined up with the U.S. in their claims against Iran?  The U.K.!

Red Frog

April 12, 2019 
2^nd Brexit Day