[Marxism] The British Election

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I am not sure if I have posted the link to this video by ChunkyMark on the
"Magic Money tree" (performance artist Mark McGowan) but if you have not
watched it, do yourself a treat and open and enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxM0swbuxQo

If ever a video deserved viral status this is it.

So what happens now? There has been a tremendous surge into the Labour
Party since the election.  Membership is now up to 800,000 making it the
largest social Democratic Party in Europe (the world?).

The right wing inside the Labour party has had a serious rebuff. Some will
do a Vicar of Bray thing and become born again Corbynites.  Others will
bide their time to re-emerge and do a nasty bit of back stabbing. A Corbyn
government will be a crisis government - like Maduro's or even Allende's
and, in that context, eventually the Blairites will re-emerge.  Have no
doubts on that score. Capitalism will not be coaxed out of neo-liberalism
and appeals to democracy matter nothing to capitalists. Labour "moderates"
and Blairites will come again to sabotage the movement of the Left.,

But for the first time since the disastrous first months of the Harold
Wilson government, when as Roy Bhaskar pointed out a stubborn reluctance to
devalue the pound destroyed the momentum of the Left, we have hope.

One of the problems for the Capitalists is that they threw all they had at
Corbyn in their media and now their guns have fallen into a sullen silence.
Murdoch, Dacre and the ex KGB thug, who owns the Independent, have played
all their cards and it has not worked.  The social media was full
apparently of novel ways to burn the Sun.  But capitalists have other
weapons and they will be rolled out in due time.

Nonetheless, this is a time of hope and we should celebrate that, in a
serious and sober way of course as Young Seymour pointed out.

Comradely

Gary
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[Marxism] The British Election

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I think I will recall for the rest of my days, the morning I booted up the
computer and tuned into Novara Media's live streaming on the British
election.  It was about 5.30 here in Elcho Island. We had the solemn David
Dimblebly face look at Big Ben as it ticked towards when they could release
the exit poll result.  And there it was - a hung parliament.   All hell
broke loose on the Novara set. And I did a rather stiff jig myself around
the computer. Not too shabby for a 75 year old I like to think.
So what now?  Richard Seymour has an excellent piece on the TLS site and I
have nothing to add to that.

But I will say, that I think what happened in Britain will have a
radicalising effect on the Labor Party here in Australia.  It is just
beginning to dawn on the right wing of the social democratic parties that
they are the ones who are unelectable. They have not all got there yet, but
opportunists as they are they will tag along eventually for the salaries.
Blairism is Dead and Satan's Big Helper Lord Mandelsohn will now plot in a
vacuum.  Even the moderates will not be listening.

So it is the good news.   But Michael Roberts'  latest blog is a well timed
reminder. The struggle to get rid of capitalism (not only in its neoliberal
manifestations) will not be an easy one.

Bur for the moment rejoice. Neoliberalism is dying in the night. Ring out
will bells and let it die.

comradely

Gary


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Re: [Marxism] The British Election

[Nick Fredman via Marxism]

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This is my recent comment on Facebook regarding YouGov's seat-based
modelling https://yougov.co.uk/uk-general-election-2017/. Sinn Fein
staffer Duroyan Fertl replied "not going to happen, especially not in those
circumstances" to my last suggestion.

This is getting *very* interesting. In YouGov's new seat-based model the
Tory overall lead over Labour is down to 3 points (their latest
conventional poll gives the same), and their seat estimate gives the Tories
a minority (311, a majority being 326), while Labour+SNP+Greens+Plaid+Lib
Dems would be a (bare) majority, as probably would a much better combo of
Labour+SNP+Greens+Plaid+Sinn Fein (assuming the latter win at least 6 out
of 18 Irish seats, as the survey doesn't included occupied Ireland, and the
big assumption that they might give up their abstentionism to join a
relatively left UK government).


On Thu, Jun 1, 2017 at 11:51 AM, Gary MacLennan via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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> *
>
> It is foolish to believe the polls too much in a first past the post
> context such as the UK, but as the gap between the Labour Party and the
> Tories seems to narrow dramatically it is hard to resist the delirium.
>
> My sources are Aaron Bastani on twitter as listers would know and the group
> that he is linked to George Galloway, Richard Seymour, James Butler, & Owen
> Jones.  My absolute joy though is to tune into the Artist Taxi Driver
> youtube channel (Chunky Mark) and listen to his latest rant.
>
> The accent is strongly London and that might cause difficulties but stay
> with him and just go with the passion. The link is athttps://
> www.youtube.com/user/chunkymark.
>
> The big question now is can Corbyn do it?  Can he win?  Personally I doubt
> it but i am very aware that just a few weeks ago the question was "Can
> Corbyn prevent a Tory landslide that would wipe out Labour?"
>
> The Tories have campaigned badly, like really badly.  They also have a deep
> structural problem, that has been partly obscured by the Brexit from the
> EU. The Tory project is in trouble. "Neoliberalism is dying in the night.
> ring out wild bells and let it die" I say and millions are beginning to say
> the same thing.
>
> Also in trouble are the Labour Moderates - those 200 odd ass wipes who
> opposed Corbyn with maximum treachery.  They allowed Corbyn to have a left
> wing manifesto in order, I think, to exorcise finally the "poison" of
> leftism. *BUT* the manifesto proved popular.  And now there seems no way
> back to Blairism and New Labour.
>
> Delightful times
>
> comradely
>
> Gary
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[Marxism] The British Election

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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It is foolish to believe the polls too much in a first past the post
context such as the UK, but as the gap between the Labour Party and the
Tories seems to narrow dramatically it is hard to resist the delirium.

My sources are Aaron Bastani on twitter as listers would know and the group
that he is linked to George Galloway, Richard Seymour, James Butler, & Owen
Jones.  My absolute joy though is to tune into the Artist Taxi Driver
youtube channel (Chunky Mark) and listen to his latest rant.

The accent is strongly London and that might cause difficulties but stay
with him and just go with the passion. The link is athttps://
www.youtube.com/user/chunkymark.

The big question now is can Corbyn do it?  Can he win?  Personally I doubt
it but i am very aware that just a few weeks ago the question was "Can
Corbyn prevent a Tory landslide that would wipe out Labour?"

The Tories have campaigned badly, like really badly.  They also have a deep
structural problem, that has been partly obscured by the Brexit from the
EU. The Tory project is in trouble. "Neoliberalism is dying in the night.
ring out wild bells and let it die" I say and millions are beginning to say
the same thing.

Also in trouble are the Labour Moderates - those 200 odd ass wipes who
opposed Corbyn with maximum treachery.  They allowed Corbyn to have a left
wing manifesto in order, I think, to exorcise finally the "poison" of
leftism. *BUT* the manifesto proved popular.  And now there seems no way
back to Blairism and New Labour.

Delightful times

comradely

Gary
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[Marxism] the British Election

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Last week I did a talk on Corbynism for the local Socialist Alliance.  I
channeled Richard Seymour without the Lacan bit and the accompanying Dark
Side Dreaming.  My take on things is that we are far from being in danger
of excessive optimism. Rather we need to fight the absence of Utopian
Dreaming.

But the stark actualities of British politics are formidable obstacles to
hope.  Faced with the polls which showed Labour on 24% and the Tories on
49%,  I regressed to the age old Irish practice of whingeing about the
Sasanach.  I just cannot get my mind around how people could not vote for
Corbyn's offer. His endeavor to recreate a Keynesian Centre to replace the
Neoliberal Centre is just too good to refuse, given the crisis of
neoliberalism.

But now there is a poll which has Labour on 38% and the Tories on 43%.  The
Tory Manifesto was deeply unpopular especially the proposal to seize the
family home of those who had dementia after they died. Even the sickening
horror of the Manchester bombing seems not to have helped the Tories as
attention has been drawn to the fact they were responsible for cutting the
police force by 19,000.

Richard Seymour dissected this very well and managed to deflate my euphoria
which had me "muttering like a fool".

But he still says it is significant.  Corbynism might survive this election
even if Labour do not win.  By Corbynism I mean the attempt to move a large
social democratic party back to the Keynesian Centre.  The political editor
of the New Statesman even speculated in a tweet that Milliband would have
done better in 2015 with Corbyn's program.  The right wing splitter Polly
Toynbee also wrote in the Guardian that she loved the manifesto but thought
that the fact that  Corbyn was Labour Leader would prevent people from
voting for it.

Of course without Corbyn there would have been no Keynesian manifesto. That
is a point which the likes of Eaton and Toynbee would never admit.
Nonetheless, the fact that the manifesto was popular, shows that the
struggle to move Labour away from Blair's pro neoliberal stance is making
ground.

But I long for more than all this - absolutely. I want a world where to
slightest sign of neoliberalism dare not even raise its head.  Still, I
will take a Corbyn victory and the fact that throughout this campaign
Labour have been gaining steadily is rekindling my dreams of a better world.

comradely

Gary
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[Marxism] the British election - was Milliband on the Left?

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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The short answer to that is no, absolutely no. So this election was not a
defeat for Left wing ideas no matter what nonsense pours out of the
orifices of the Blairites.  Milliband explicitly appealed to Tory voters.
He attacked the SNP for being fiscally irresponsible. He was pro-Trident
etc etc.  But crucially he and his treasurer Balls refused to embrace even
the Keynesian alternative to neo-classical economics, never mind the
 possibility of a rationally planned socialist economy

So they had no solution to the de-industrialization of the UK.  Thus they
talked of guaranteeing apprenticeships for the young, when they should have
guaranteed jobs.

The political scientist David Mair wrote extensively about what Richard
Seymour calls post-democracy, where a mandarin political class governs in
the name of responsibility and refuses to respond to the wishes of those
who elected them.  That dialectic is at work all round the world. It
produces massive abstentionism at election time especially in the USA and
the UK. It also produces occasional and episodic vandalism and rioting, the
flips side of despair.

Now in Scotland the struggle to win a referendum on Independence totally
transformed the political scene.  The referendum was defeated largely by
the Scottish Labour Party's counter campaign. If ever there was a Pyrrhic
victory that was it.  By winning the referendum campaign the Scottish
Labour Party earned the undying hatred of 45% of the population. I would
swear before godandhisholymother, that  I could feel the anger down here in
Oz. In a first past the post context, if 45% of the electorate hate you,
then you are in trouble.

Allied to the hatred was the SNP's oh so clever move to the Left and to
embrace anti-austerity politics. That means that in Europe we now have four
main anti-austerity blocks - Syriza, Podemos, Sinn Fein and the SNP.
Whatever the doubts one has about the sincerity of the last two parties, it
is still significant that in this juncture if one raises the banner of
anti-austerity politics then the people flock to you.  In Mair's terms, if
one responds to one's political base rather than being Responsible, then
one will do well electorally. That is the truth which the Blairites have
rushed out to deny against all the empirical evidence, because it is a
dangerous truth.

There are as well curious elements to all this such as Rupert Murdoch's
sentimental approach to Scottish nationalism, probably because of his
ancestry. Also, Sinn Fein is anti austerity in the South of Ireland but
part of an austerity government in the North as Philip has pointed out.

So what will happen now?  Only a fool attempts to answer that sort of
question, so naturally I cannot resist having a go. The pragmatists, con
artists, opportunists in the leadership of the SNP will not be able to
climb down of the anti-austerity tiger they have ridden to victory. They
will try, I have no doubt. But the working class of Scotland have taken a
step towards socialist independence and I do not think they will be stopped.

In England the political rhythmic is set to a five year cycle. But we will
see another election before that.  It will emerge that the Tory party will
have victoried themselves to death by their win in 2015. To survive the
English working class will have to become ungovernable.  They have no
alternative now. They will link up with the struggles in Scotland and
Europe and then politics will become truly interesting.  But I begin to
rave...

comradely

Gary
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[Marxism] The British Election

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I suppose one should be immune from the vicissitudes of electoral politics,
but I reacted with dismay to the sight of another Tory victory.  Is there
ever going to be an end to them? there they are in their plummy voiced
splendor being voted into office by millions who will be their victims.

The other side is equally disgusting.  The spectacle now of the Blairites
emerging from under their rocks to say that the problem is that Milliband
took the party too far to the Left. What a sick joke!

There is comfort though in the role that the Scots, good on them, have
played.  They have put right wing Labour to the sword and I wish I had been
there to witness it. Hopefully Scotland will now build on this rejection
and become totally ungovernable until they are set from the from the Union.

The other source of comfort is the destruction of the Liberal-Democrats.
The smugness of Clegg was truly insufferable, but he is a good deal less
smug now.

Richard Seymour and Tariq Ali in their differing ways say the condition of
the Labor Party is terminal. One must be patient here of course, but
hopefully that demise will not be overly long delayed.

In the mean time our hopes shift to Podemos in Spain and Syriza's continued
attempt to hold out.

We shall see if the coming recession will be the final tipping point in
Europe.

comradely

Garyu
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