[ALB]

Since it's confession time, here's an email I received from a member:

Quote:

I agree with the Party' s stand on the EU Referendum but I have decided to vote remain simply because I cannot stand the xenophobia of the Leave Campaign.

I also received a phone call from a long-time sympathiser and Socialist Standard subscriber who said he had voted Remain because he felt workers had something to lose by Brexit.

[ALB]

One consequence of the Brexit vote is that one section of the electorate has voted to disenfranchise another, i.e. workers in this country who are EU citizens, who will no longer be able to vote in local and regional elections. This is workers losing the right to vote.How does this fit in with the democratic nature of the Brexit vote?

[ALB]

To tell the truth, I'm surprised that 40 Labour MPs supported him. As 172 voted against, that's about 19%, one in 5. So old-fashioned leftwing reformism, as opposed to blatant greasy pole careerism, still exists in the Labour Party.The excuse they gave for stabbing him in the back, that he wasn't active enough in campaigning for Remain, doesn't stand up. In fact, his views on the EU probably coincided more with Labour voters than those of his critics. They probably would only give the EU 7-7.5 points and would not liked him to appear on the same platform as Cameron and other Establishment (or Elite, as they are also being called now) figures.I wonder what will happen next.  The Labour Party could split. It's certainly what some Trotsktists are hoping. Here's Peter Taafe, the SPEW Leader:

Quote:

Therefore it is necessary to face down and confront the blackmail and sabotage of the right by adopting decisive measures. If it is accurate, then a report in the Financial Times is welcome, which indicated a new determination of Corbyn to fight the right wing. He was asked by a delegation of Labour MPs: "Are you prepared to split the party over this?" He replied that he did not want to but then added, "But if necessary…" [Financial Times 28/6/16]If he follows through on this, it would mean a welcome, positive development for the labour movement. It would represent a complete break with the discredited right wing and the formation of a new radical workers' party, which would in turn act like a magnet for workers and youth looking for a serious struggle against capitalism and for socialism.

He's probably fantasising but you never know.The SWP are also sniffing around:https://www.swp.org.uk/video/keep-corbyn-rally-diane-abbott-john-mcdonnell-dennis-skinner-jeremy-corbyn

[ALB]

No

[ALB]

Another book review here, that brings out our difference with and criticism of the position Marx and Engels took towards nationalism and where it led them:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1991/no-1046-october-1991/book-review-marxism-and-nationalism

[ALB]

Thanks. I see. So the vote in the Midlands will have been pure anti-immigrant, not a protest against economic decline or the effects of globalisation — and not just East Europeans but an earlier generation from Asia.  Still, 40% or so voted Remain as did a majority in Leicester but then the earlier generation of immigrants are the majority there.

[ALB]

Meel, I don't think the people you are describing would have made up most or even (m)any of those who voted Leave.  Most of them probably didn't vote — some 28% of the electorate didn't. Statistically too it's not possible. The really poor and destitute only make up between 10 and 15% of the population and 37% of the electorate (52% of 72% turnout) voted Leave. Most of these will have been workers in employment or retired from employment (quite a lot of these) who owned their own car and went on overseas holidays, i.e not the poorest of the poor.  The evidence, unfortunately, is that what swayed most of them was "immigration", aka xenophobia. The only good news is that nearly half the working class who voted rejected this.PS I can't understand YMS's map. What is it supposed to be showing?

[ALB]

So Paul Mason has joined the growing (capitalist) chorus that the only way forward now for British capitalism plc is to negotiate continued free access to the single European market on whatever terms they can get. But I don't see how Britain moving from the EU to the EEA represents a dent in "nei-liberalism". It's rather maintaining its logic.In fact, aren't the Tory leaders of the Leave campaign now openly admitting that they are "liberal Leavers" and not protectionists and isolationists, i.e. believe that the market, including the world market, should decide what is produced, where and when? The real end of "neo-liberalism" would be a return to "national Statism" where the state tried to isolate itself and its subjects from the pressures of the world market, a return to the "reformism in one country" of the 40s, 50s and 60s or even to the beggar (or is it bugger?)-my-neighbour policies of the 30s. I don't see anybody advocating that but, if things go wrong, and a trade war breaks out between Britain and the EU or if the EU breaks up then this could happen but I don't think that's likely.

[ALB]

Yes, it really is the beginning of the end for "Great" Britain. Another Brexit, England just beaten 2-1 by  EEA member Iceland in which minor league they may end up playing.

[ALB]

I don't know about "calls for" (that suggests that he always did). It was something he wrote in 1849 in the context of the failure of the European revolutions of 1848 when certain language groups supported the reactionary Austrian government against the Hungarian democrats. And he didn't envisage their physical extermination but rather their assimilation into Hungarian-speaking or German-speaking  "nations".The background is explained here:https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/backiss/vol3/no2/rosdolsk.htmlNo really an acceptable position but it wasn't his permanent position, just a passing reaction to what had happened in 1848. He didn't support later discrimination inside the Austro-Hungarian Empire  by German-speakers against Czech-speakers nor by Hungarian-speakers against Slovak-speakers. He was of course opposed to Panslavism. But saying that amounts to being against Slavs is like saying that being opposed to Zionism is anti-semitic.If we are going to criticise Engels (and why not?) let's do it on the basis of what he meant.

[ALB]

Sympo wrote:

If I say something like "I wish to establish a classless, stateless society. As long as there aren't any black people there!" am I really a Socialist?

No, but Engels never said that or anything like that.

[ALB]

From yesterday's Sunday Telegraph:

Quote:

Remainers and "liberal Leavers" – to use a loose term – are suddenly on the same side. They both seek a safe settlement that protects Northern Ireland and Scotland, and the economy.Boris Johnson, Dan Hannan, and others in the sovereignty camp are signalling that they could live with a Brexit compromise that accepts EU migrant flows,  but going back to pre-Maastricht rules that guaranteed only the right to work, before the concept of EU citizenship. This would be a modified variant of the Norwegian Model, or European Economic Area (EEA).A "soft-Brexit" would be accepted by the vast majority of Parliament, which has a duty in these unique circumstances to act on behalf of citizens who voted for Remain and as well as for Leave. This is not an event where the winner takes all.(….)An EEA-style compromise may be the only safe way to reconcile a divided country and ensure a safe withdrawal from the EU in managed stages.

[ALB]

It looks as if those who voted for Brexit believing the talk about "using for the NHS the  £350 million a week the UK pays to Brussels" and "ending immigration" have been well and truly conned by the cynical vote-catchers who led the Leave campaign. Now they are talking differently. Here's what the objectionable Tory MEP Daniel Hannan is now saying, according to Today's Times:

Quote:

Another prominent member of Vote Leave, the MEP Daniel Hannan, came under fire for saying that a post-Brexit Britain could still join the single market with its free movement of labour rules …. Mr Hannan told the BBC that the Vote Leave campaign was about removing "legal entitlement to live in other countries, to vote in other countries and to claim welfare and to have some university tuition."

Reference has already been made in this thread to his clash with Evan Davies where he said:

Quote:

Mr Hannan infuriated BBC Newsnight host Evan Davis with his claims last night, hours after the result revealed a sensational win for Leave.Mr Hannan insisted shifting Britain to a Norway-style relationship with the EU that frees the UK from political integration but maintains access to the single market was 'feasible'.And the MEP said this would mean 'free movement of labour' but not the right for EU citizens to gain other benefits.

They have yet to concede that they will only be able to get free access to the single market if they continue to pay something to the EU for this as Norway does. Wait for that come as no doubt it will (have to). I can see how they're going to spin this one: "we've got to compromise with the 48% who voted to Remain" ….

[ALB]

Here's Boris Johnson in today's Daily Torygraph which the Independent reports under the headline 'Boris Johnson says UK will 'still have access to single market’ despite Brexit'.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-eu-referendum-single-market-brexit-a7104846.htmlA bit ambiguous as of course Britain will have access to the single market but the question is will it have free access?

Quote:

In his column for The Telegraph, Mr Johnson said: “I cannot stress too much that Britain is part of Europe, and always will be.“EU citizens living in this country will have their rights fully protected, and the same goes for British citizens living in the EU.“British people will still be able to go and work in the EU; to live; to travel; to study; to buy homes and to settle down. As the German equivalent of the CBI – the BDI – has very sensibly reminded us, there will continue to be free trade, and access to the single market.

The other side of British people being still"able to go and work in the EU" is that EU people would still be able to "go and work" in the UK. The two would have to go together but of course he doesn't emphasise that.Here's what the German CBI said (before the vote for Brexit):

Quote:

A German industry boss has said it would be "very, very foolish" to impose tariffs on UK goods if Britain votes to leave the EU.Markus Kerber, the head of BDI, or federation of German industries, is urging Germany and the EU to create a free-trade regime that could be imposed in the event of Brexit."Imposing trade barriers, imposing protectionist measures between our two countries – or between the two political centres, the European Union on the one hand and the UK on the other – would be a very, very foolish thing in the 21st century," Mr Kerber told the BBC's World Service."The BDI would urge politicians on both sides to come up with a trade regime that enables us to uphold and maintain the levels of trade we have, although it will become more difficult."

[ALB]

I don't that the politicians governing on behalf of the capitalist ruling class are ever again going to put an issue of vital importance to their masters to a vote of the working class. They won't make that mistake again.

[Author]

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