The neoliberal view of life is kept alive by birth. Everyone alive today below 37 years old has never known any other way beyond wealth inequality, corporate greed, deregulated employment, sluggish growth and social austerity. By contrast, one of the things that keeps the purist concept of socialism alive is death. Every thirty years or so, enough voters with traumatic memories of the last time it gained power have died, thus allowing a new generation of goggle-eyed ideologues to become the majority – alongside all those Yoof engaged in Gullible’s Travels and just gagging to believe in the socialist paradise.
They also, of course, believe in the United European paradise….with all its wonderful advantages like stupid ECB lending policies followed by stupider Eurogroupe austerity drivel and carpetbagging MEPs slithering all over Greece while telling the inocent citizens how wicked they are. Or regularly breaking the rule of law all the way up to the Lisbon treaty about the misuse of tax monies for QE, the bullying of a sovereign State by unelected Mario Draghi when the People elect leaders they don’t like, deliberately depressing citizen earnings through monetarism, and subordinating debt-bond holders when it suits them. Ask the peoples of Cyprus, Greece, Poland, Hungary and Italy what they think of the European paradise: they will tell you about subversion, dictation, robbery……and all the fake news you can handle.
They will also talk in an animated fashion about uncontrolled migration from Africa, the sinister power of George Soros’s drive to wipe out national identity, and the creeping growth of NATO influence upon the establishment of an EU Standing Army. The relationship between Federica Mogherini and NATO’s general staff is now so bestial as to be obvious to all but the most closed of minds.
But visions of the Promised Land never fail to work on a variously uninformed and misinformed electorate. After Big Bang, growth would be eternal and wealth would trickle down. After 1997, things could only get better. What happened between 1979 and 2010 was that corporate fascism came closer.
When Cameron and Miliband showed no signs of stopping that, in the context of growing EU fascism, we got Corbyn, Brexit and May in short order.
Corporate fascism is still too close for comfort. The only antidote on offer, as I write, is Left fascism. I’m not impressed with the choice.
Electoral reform is one of the most important ways to break the stranglehold of ideologies that torture us with Utopian lies. Despite their smooth insistence to the contrary, all senior politicians put donors, multinationals, banks and media owners before the citizens. That includes not just Thatcher, Blair, Brown and Cameron, but also Miliband….and yes, even Nigel Farage.
Reform is important in two areas: first, to stop Parties being able to wield power with money received via donations and lobbying – which are inextricably linked; and second, to replace the farcical remnant of 18th century thinking that masquerades as our electoral system. First Past the Post favours the monied Establishment and keeps out new “brands”. Properly installed with Parties funded by the State, proportional representation counters this imbalance.
Now I keep being told by the Left that Jeremy Corbyn is (and will continue to be, once in power) a political leader who cares nought for the powerful, and wants only the triumph of fair democratic process. Below, I demolish this fantasy via the medium of his own actions since becoming leader.
Starting with PR itself, Corbyn has been under pressure since his election as Labour leader to embrace PR without reservations. This he refuses to do. His position today is to keep the Commons as it is, but have the composition of the Lords based on a PR-elected system. However, the second chamber currently has almost no power, and Corbyn shows no interest at all in changing that. Donating democracy to the Lords is a bit like giving a gelding free access to the mares.
Based on the way way people voted earlier this year, Labour would’ve won the last election had the UK ditched FPTP. But Corbyn knows full well that – with notice of such a change – both the LibDem and UKIP votes would’ve been increased. So he is wary of PR.
The last public pronouncement on his position (August 21st 2017) confirmed what he said early in 2016: “in principle” he likes the idea. But a principle isn’t a principle until it costs you voters.
Establishments come in all the sizes and all the colours. Corbynocracy is based on a media savvy spin hospital called Momentum, gullible and under-employed youth, a Party opposed to Brexit, and a promise to Waspi women that they will have their pension heist “looked into”. But look at the shifty nature of Mr Corbyn on nuclear defence, the EU and all the many other policies to which his old and young constituencies are respectively committed.
If Corbyn was what he professes to be, there would be no doubt about moving to a more representative voting system. But just as the Tories have the City, the US and Big Business as their millstone, so too Corbynista Labour has the TUC, Momentum, and Marxist ideology. And those bedfellows do not want direct democracy that empowers the citizen community.
When the Mayflower crew finally sink beneath the waves, every voter needs to think about that reality.
But the UK electorate these days is hard of thinking.
The Slog 