There have been a clutch of recent articles that have explained very plainly just how low and how rapidly Britain's moral standing and status has descended in the eyes of the outside world, thanks to Brexit.
An article by Richard Godwin made a sobering historical comparison between how Britain's masters have become consumed with irrationality, and events in Japan after the Great Depression. An equally sobering (and relevant) historic comparison could be made with the seizure of power by the "Young Turks" in Ottoman Turkey in the years prior to the First World War; another example of where a small number of ideologues took control of the levers of state for their own self-destructive ends.
Seen in a more detached light, events in Westminster after the referendum could even be seen as a kind of "quiet coup" by hard-right fanatics in the Conservative Party, where Theresa May's actions have all been about appeasing the wishes of the right-wing, Euro-sceptic ideologues, who really run events behind the scenes. At the very least, all May's key decisions have coincided with their wishes, which can hardly be a coincidence.
At every key decision-point, May has sided with the hard-right in her party, leaving Britain now on the cusp of leaving the EU without a deal, exactly as many of them wished from the very start. What else could explain May's "red lines", and her determination to stick to them, even at the risk of leaving the EU with "no deal"?
It is telling that such a small group of people have been able to control the narrative, given the nature of the political system; it demonstrates the innate weakness in what was thought to be a unbreakable parliamentary system - that a small group of ideological extremists can easily infect the larger parliamentary body once they are on the "inside", sowing chaos and surreptitiously seizing control of events.
In a similar vein to Godwin above, Matthew d'Ancona castigates the Conservative Party for turning in on itself over Brexit, and regressing to ugly nativist rhetoric, barely-repressed racism and prejudice. In this manner, the Conservative Party has effectively become the "Imperialist Party": ruling the country like a fiefdom, and seeing itself as innately superior. The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
More generally, Britain since Brexit has turned the mindset of some of its inhabitants into one close to sociopathy, happy to let the rest of society suffer just to make them feel better. Some are so blindly determined to get rid of immigrants that they are happy for the rest of Britain to be poorer as a result. To use a "Marvel Universe" reference, this is an almost "Thanos"-like level of mercilessness.
Turning back to Westminster, meanwhile, we see that the Conservative Party in parliament have simply descended into a second childhood: only being held together by shared self-delusion over a fantasy, as though there is literally no other life outside the Westminster "bubble".
It seems that Conservative MPs have now gone truly mad from "Cabin Fever", utterly detached from reality, seeming to believe that Brussels' pronouncements are nothing but figments of their imagination; that, or that their power as MPs is similar to that of "Thanos", in being able to manipulate space and time at will, and pretend that a signed legal document (the "Withdrawal Agreement") can become unsigned. There is no rational explanation for their actions.
Godwin's article mentioned at the top talked of how Japan after the Great Depression became taken over by irrational fanatics.
This author has talked before about this, and how UKIP was able to exploit the situation in Britain after 2010. There is also an argument that David Cameron, in an effort to distract from the government's "austerity" agenda, played to the lowest denominator by promising to lower immigration to the "tens of thousands". This cynical and dishonest political move simply pandered to fears of immigration, and this prejudice was further fueled by other policies such as the "Go Home" vans. There was also the agenda of the dominant right-wing press, which Cameron was ever-eager to play to, as a distraction from policies that were less popular.
These were the "populist" seeds that were allowed to grow, with little thought to the consequences.
In this way, Britain under Cameron pandered to the right-wing "fanatics" (both in his party and in the press), leaving the country open to manipulation. By the time he promised the EU referendum, the damage had long been done. After berating the EU for years in a craven act of political opportunism, it was hard to then argue that the EU was suddenly worth being involved in.
The result of the referendum was not certain either way, and it needed further clever manipulation to convince enough people to vote to leave. But the same strategy that Cameron had used before - playing on prejudice while making fantastical promises - was used by the "leavers" on him. It was a case of "head" versus "heart", and the heart won.
The referendum result was the first clear sign to the outside world that Britain - and England in particular - was no longer a rational country.
Since then, with Theresa May taking over the helm after Cameron, we have seen prejudice and irrationality become ever more widespread, within Westminster in particular.
David Cameron was guilty of pandering to prejudice; Theresa May at times seems to embody it. As a "dyed-in-the-wool" Conservative, like her husband, she embodies much of the petty prejudices and narrow-minded thinking that typifies provincial England.
As a devout supporter of the Conservative Party from a young age, it has now become clear that she will always put party before country, regardless of any protestations to the contrary. Again, May's supreme loyalty to party must be very deep-seated in order to explain her actions.
Her party loyalty is so deep it is now, quite evidently, irrational. For her pursuit of trying to mollify the hard-liners in the party (i.e. the "Brexiteers") to keep them on-board has led to her going back on the deal she had already signed with the EU.
The Withdrawal Agreement is a legal text, as the EU constantly reminds London. In other words, it has the same legal force as a treaty, if ratified. For this reason, its terms cannot be changed, in the same way that a contract cannot be changed after it has been agreed and signed. And Theresa May signed it. Therefore, it cannot be changed.
So, for Theresa May to say she now wants to change the agreement she had already signed simply tells the EU and everyone else in the outside world that Britain is an untrustworthy nation. In fact, it broadcasts this untrustworthy intent from the rooftops on loudspeakers. Theresa May is willing to damage her own reputation and the reputation of her country for the sake of her party. There can be little clearer sign that these are the actions of someone who has lost their sense of perspective, and their rationality.
That is not self-sacrifice, or "duty": it is irrationality.
There is then her blatant strategy of blaming the EU's "intransigence" if they refuse to change the already-agreed Withdrawal Agreement. Like the other irrational "Brexiteers" in her party, she sees it as the EU's duty to change the treaty to suit her; even though the treaty was already agreed to her terms: her "red lines"!
It's a wonder that the people in Brussels haven't already told her where to go, given that there is no reasoning with her, and there us nothing to keep her from repudiating the terms of the agreement again in the future, if enough in her party wish it. She now has form on this, so why would anyone choose to believe a word she says?
The signs are all there that the EU's patience with May's impossible demands has effectively come to an end. When you are talking to someone in hock to irrational thinking, there is nothing more to talk about.
This all explains how Britain has descended, its political class morally and intellectually bankrupt. All that is left is to await the consequences.
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Brexit "culture wars": the long legacy of the Civil War
A recent survey discovered that people in Britain are these days far more likely to identify as a "leaver" or "remainer" than as a firm supporter of a political party. This is just one clear indication of the seismic effects that the EU referendum and Brexit have had on the wider political and social culture of Britain.
Looking back through the various ideological "turns" that have happened in Britain since the creation of the "party" system following the Civil War (more on that in a moment), there have been only a few significant shifts in ideological allegiance since then.
The two-party system
The two-party system of "Tories" and "Whigs" that emerged from the aftermath of the Civil War was the established convention until the Labour Party emerged as a force in the early 20th century. Between the restoration of 1661 and the repeal of the Corn Laws and universal male suffrage around two hundred years later, there were long periods of either Tory or Whig rule, often lasting for decades. The Whigs changed their name to the Liberals, but the interests and ideology they represented did not; the same can largely be said for how Tories became "Conservatives".
Things only became truly "interesting" with significant reform of the electoral system, with the Labour Party only appearing as a genuine electoral force after the end of the First World War. Put in this light, it could be argued it took a disastrous continental war for any significant ideological and social change to occur; the same could be said of the election of the Attlee government in 1945.
That "shift" to the Labour Party occurred relatively quickly during the inter-war period, and the collapse of the Liberals.
This "shift" after the First World War is significant because it marks the period when the political system properly seemed to reflect the modern nature of British society as an industrial power. The Labour Party was formed precisely because it saw the Tories and the Liberals as not being representative of the interests of working people, especially those involved in industries. In this way, Britain was an industrial power, but its traditional political masters were not ideologically sympathetic to industry.
Since the Civil War, the Tories and the Whigs (now Conservatives and Liberals) have represented much the same ideological ground with the same natural interests and inclinations. On the one hand, the Tories were the standard-bearers of the interests of the landowning ruling class, while the Whigs were supporters of the merchant class.
These allegiances were formed from the divisions created by the Civil War, with the Tories the supporters of monarchy and the central power of the executive, and the Whigs the supporters of a restrained monarchy that gave more power to parliament and looser regulation of the economy. To complicate matters further, some Tories were also sympathetic to the Catholic cause even up to the Jacobite rebellion, while Whigs were consistently and fervently Protestant.
Old prejudices
This puts into perspective why many Tories, even today, are dismissive of industrial strategy and the wider concerns of business. Those prejudices go back centuries.
Following the "postwar consensus" that began with the Attlee government, the paranoia that seemed to grip the Tories about industry and the power of the unions by the 1970s led to Margaret Thatcher's ideological warfare on Britain's industrial base.
Using Libertarian ideology as a justification for destroying the power of the unions and - consequently - Britain's industrial base, Thatcher used ideas of free markets borrowed from Liberal thought to implement what was in reality a deeply-Tory aim: to change Britain from being an industrial power (which it had been for nearly two hundred years) to a post-industrial power.
But the term "post-industrial" is itself misleading, as what it really means is creating a modern-day version of a "pre-industrial" society: a society that has modern technology, but no significant industry. The only valued parts of the "economy" are those that can generate growth for the elite without significantly increasing the economic power of the masses, while relying on technology (such as through a complicit media) to keep people ignorant of the truth. The "service economy" that was created by Thatcher is the natural result of this strategy, where the elite use their in-built advantage (e.g. as landowners) to horde ever greater quantities of assets. This is the root of modern inequality in Britain. It is a "class war" by the rich against the poor; a "war" founded on historic prejudices and fear.
In other words, it is about creating an economy that is only interested in "self-sustenance" rather than genuine growth; an economy that just provides the bare essentials to keep the masses from revolt, but equally (through the "service economy") creates the social circumstances to keep them in a state of chronic insecurity; not knowing what the next month will bring, reliance on "the devil you know" is how the ruling class keep the masses in check. It is a modern spin on the psychological relationship between master and servant. How do you get a servant to keep on supporting his master?
The fact that the Conservative government today, in the midst of Brexit, seems to be doing its best to undermine industry, simply is the latest chapter to this story. The Tories' distrust of the EU stems from historic prejudice; the same kind of prejudice that makes them paranoid about industry. Anything that takes power away from the political centre is seen as instinctively dangerous to a Tory. Anything that promotes the rights of workers, anything that might put at risk their own assets or their money-making ability is seen as inherently threatening.
The Tories only supported the EU at first because they thought they could use it as a way to gain influence in Europe and make money themselves. When they realized that the former was based on an inflated sense of their own abilities, and that the latter involved a necessary trade-off of their own powers, their enthusiasm for Europe turned to a feeling of "betrayal". Thus Britain's media had nearly thirty years of negative headlines and criticism of the EU before the referendum happened. At the same time, the government often saw attacking the EU as a "win-win" scenario back home, which provided a convenient scapegoat. That long-stoked sense of the EU as the "bad guy" led to large segments of the British population having a natural antipathy towards Europe.
An ancient divide
The historic division of Tories and Whigs after the Civil War now translates as the division between "leavers" and "remainers".
The referendum, as the survey mentioned at the start explained, seems to have created another historic "shift" in party allegiances. In effect, Brexit has destroyed the two-party system that has existed since 1945. What we are now seeing is a realignment of historic divides, a "culture war" that first appeared at the time of Charles I.
Theresa May's efforts to hold the Conservative Party together are fruitless. As the saying goes "the centre cannot hold". Something has to give somewhere.
Historic comparisons are never exact, and Conservative thinking of the likes of the ERG is fundamentally different from those Tories that supported the monarchy during the Civil War. In many ways, the actions of the hard-right Libertarians within the Tories today mirror the puritanical motivations of the "Roundheads" (later "Whigs"). This is what makes the ideological comparison confusing and complicated.
But in reality, in spite of the ERG's "Roundhead" tactics, their aims are purely reactionary, and in that way, are historically-consistent with Tory ideology. They represent people who are descendants of the landed gentry. Their agenda is to "finish the project" in Britain that Thatcher began, and they can only do that with Britain outside the EU. Their motivations are about "taking back control", but not giving to parliament, but to a centralized government. They are indifferent to the fate of British industry, as they see it more as a threat to their own narrow interests.
Meanwhile, "remainers" represent a social outlook more in common with historic Whigs. As it was the merchant class that were the natural supporters of parliament after the Civil War, it is "remainers" today who see parliament as the voice of moderation. Those that see parliament today as remote and out-of-touch are the same people who see "remainers" as cosmopolitan rootless liberals; similar accusations would have been thrown at Whigs by Tories back in the day.
It is an old divide between an open and closed view of the world; change versus tradition.
Those who voted for "change" by voting to leave the EU are only fooling themselves about their motivations: all the evidence is that it was a vote of desperation, a vote to make things "how they used to be" - in other words, for traditional values.
The only thing for certain now is that the divide that was exposed by the referendum will be there for a long time to come, in one form or another.
Looking back through the various ideological "turns" that have happened in Britain since the creation of the "party" system following the Civil War (more on that in a moment), there have been only a few significant shifts in ideological allegiance since then.
The two-party system
The two-party system of "Tories" and "Whigs" that emerged from the aftermath of the Civil War was the established convention until the Labour Party emerged as a force in the early 20th century. Between the restoration of 1661 and the repeal of the Corn Laws and universal male suffrage around two hundred years later, there were long periods of either Tory or Whig rule, often lasting for decades. The Whigs changed their name to the Liberals, but the interests and ideology they represented did not; the same can largely be said for how Tories became "Conservatives".
Things only became truly "interesting" with significant reform of the electoral system, with the Labour Party only appearing as a genuine electoral force after the end of the First World War. Put in this light, it could be argued it took a disastrous continental war for any significant ideological and social change to occur; the same could be said of the election of the Attlee government in 1945.
That "shift" to the Labour Party occurred relatively quickly during the inter-war period, and the collapse of the Liberals.
This "shift" after the First World War is significant because it marks the period when the political system properly seemed to reflect the modern nature of British society as an industrial power. The Labour Party was formed precisely because it saw the Tories and the Liberals as not being representative of the interests of working people, especially those involved in industries. In this way, Britain was an industrial power, but its traditional political masters were not ideologically sympathetic to industry.
Since the Civil War, the Tories and the Whigs (now Conservatives and Liberals) have represented much the same ideological ground with the same natural interests and inclinations. On the one hand, the Tories were the standard-bearers of the interests of the landowning ruling class, while the Whigs were supporters of the merchant class.
These allegiances were formed from the divisions created by the Civil War, with the Tories the supporters of monarchy and the central power of the executive, and the Whigs the supporters of a restrained monarchy that gave more power to parliament and looser regulation of the economy. To complicate matters further, some Tories were also sympathetic to the Catholic cause even up to the Jacobite rebellion, while Whigs were consistently and fervently Protestant.
Old prejudices
This puts into perspective why many Tories, even today, are dismissive of industrial strategy and the wider concerns of business. Those prejudices go back centuries.
Following the "postwar consensus" that began with the Attlee government, the paranoia that seemed to grip the Tories about industry and the power of the unions by the 1970s led to Margaret Thatcher's ideological warfare on Britain's industrial base.
Using Libertarian ideology as a justification for destroying the power of the unions and - consequently - Britain's industrial base, Thatcher used ideas of free markets borrowed from Liberal thought to implement what was in reality a deeply-Tory aim: to change Britain from being an industrial power (which it had been for nearly two hundred years) to a post-industrial power.
But the term "post-industrial" is itself misleading, as what it really means is creating a modern-day version of a "pre-industrial" society: a society that has modern technology, but no significant industry. The only valued parts of the "economy" are those that can generate growth for the elite without significantly increasing the economic power of the masses, while relying on technology (such as through a complicit media) to keep people ignorant of the truth. The "service economy" that was created by Thatcher is the natural result of this strategy, where the elite use their in-built advantage (e.g. as landowners) to horde ever greater quantities of assets. This is the root of modern inequality in Britain. It is a "class war" by the rich against the poor; a "war" founded on historic prejudices and fear.
In other words, it is about creating an economy that is only interested in "self-sustenance" rather than genuine growth; an economy that just provides the bare essentials to keep the masses from revolt, but equally (through the "service economy") creates the social circumstances to keep them in a state of chronic insecurity; not knowing what the next month will bring, reliance on "the devil you know" is how the ruling class keep the masses in check. It is a modern spin on the psychological relationship between master and servant. How do you get a servant to keep on supporting his master?
The fact that the Conservative government today, in the midst of Brexit, seems to be doing its best to undermine industry, simply is the latest chapter to this story. The Tories' distrust of the EU stems from historic prejudice; the same kind of prejudice that makes them paranoid about industry. Anything that takes power away from the political centre is seen as instinctively dangerous to a Tory. Anything that promotes the rights of workers, anything that might put at risk their own assets or their money-making ability is seen as inherently threatening.
The Tories only supported the EU at first because they thought they could use it as a way to gain influence in Europe and make money themselves. When they realized that the former was based on an inflated sense of their own abilities, and that the latter involved a necessary trade-off of their own powers, their enthusiasm for Europe turned to a feeling of "betrayal". Thus Britain's media had nearly thirty years of negative headlines and criticism of the EU before the referendum happened. At the same time, the government often saw attacking the EU as a "win-win" scenario back home, which provided a convenient scapegoat. That long-stoked sense of the EU as the "bad guy" led to large segments of the British population having a natural antipathy towards Europe.
An ancient divide
The historic division of Tories and Whigs after the Civil War now translates as the division between "leavers" and "remainers".
The referendum, as the survey mentioned at the start explained, seems to have created another historic "shift" in party allegiances. In effect, Brexit has destroyed the two-party system that has existed since 1945. What we are now seeing is a realignment of historic divides, a "culture war" that first appeared at the time of Charles I.
Theresa May's efforts to hold the Conservative Party together are fruitless. As the saying goes "the centre cannot hold". Something has to give somewhere.
Historic comparisons are never exact, and Conservative thinking of the likes of the ERG is fundamentally different from those Tories that supported the monarchy during the Civil War. In many ways, the actions of the hard-right Libertarians within the Tories today mirror the puritanical motivations of the "Roundheads" (later "Whigs"). This is what makes the ideological comparison confusing and complicated.
But in reality, in spite of the ERG's "Roundhead" tactics, their aims are purely reactionary, and in that way, are historically-consistent with Tory ideology. They represent people who are descendants of the landed gentry. Their agenda is to "finish the project" in Britain that Thatcher began, and they can only do that with Britain outside the EU. Their motivations are about "taking back control", but not giving to parliament, but to a centralized government. They are indifferent to the fate of British industry, as they see it more as a threat to their own narrow interests.
Meanwhile, "remainers" represent a social outlook more in common with historic Whigs. As it was the merchant class that were the natural supporters of parliament after the Civil War, it is "remainers" today who see parliament as the voice of moderation. Those that see parliament today as remote and out-of-touch are the same people who see "remainers" as cosmopolitan rootless liberals; similar accusations would have been thrown at Whigs by Tories back in the day.
It is an old divide between an open and closed view of the world; change versus tradition.
Those who voted for "change" by voting to leave the EU are only fooling themselves about their motivations: all the evidence is that it was a vote of desperation, a vote to make things "how they used to be" - in other words, for traditional values.
The only thing for certain now is that the divide that was exposed by the referendum will be there for a long time to come, in one form or another.
Friday, January 18, 2019
Brexit: a constitutional crisis, "Civil War" comparisons and Theresa May's narcissism
The purpose of any government and any parliament is to make decisions and implement policy.
It is clear now that Britain's executive and legislative are in a complete constitutional stalemate on Brexit, where the executive cannot agree with the legislature, and the legislature cannot agree with the executive.
The executive - the government - is headed by Theresa May, who has effectively taken unilateral control of all decisions on Brexit since coming to power.
Her party lost full control of parliament - the legislature - eighteen months ago, but Theresa May seems never to have noticed, with her continuing to act as though having almost unlimited powers. In spite of the self-evident necessity to come to some kind of cross-party agreement when running a minority government, her approach has been divisive and autocratic from the start. She sees things only from the perspective of survival, through exploiting divisions in her enemies combined with the fear of the alternative: the classic approach of an autocrat.
The number of blows and setbacks she has received has become almost difficult to keep up with, but with parliament voting down her agreed deal with the EU by an unprecedented margin - yet her government still staying in power - the sense of constitutional crisis has become irrefutable.
By all historical precedents and conventions, any Prime Minister with a sense of decency and self-awareness would have stood down after such an enormous defeat, made possible only through masses of backbenchers on her own side turning against her. But Theresa May is someone whose character seems as immovable as granite when it comes to facing reality.
It is self-evident that the only way to resolve the impasse between the government and parliament is through a fresh election.
What is so cravenly-hypocritical about May's resistance to new elections now (which she saw as only "heightening divisions") is that only eighteen months ago she called for a new election when she already had a majority. Her justification then was that parliament was somehow "blocking" her government's strategy on Brexit (itself a disingenuous accusation), and that she needed a larger majority to ensure she got legislation through parliament. This was already the strategy of someone who clearly had little real sympathy for democratic principles, and only saw "democracy" as useful when it was useful to her.
Now though, when the chaos is worse than ever because parliament cannot decide and the government cannot pass legislation as a result, May claims that elections only "heighten divisions". So she has gone from wanting elections eighteen months ago because parliament was divided, to now claiming that elections only create divisions. She wanted elections eighteen months ago to make her more powerful; now she wants to prevent them (even though they are self-evidently needed more than ever) in order to cling on to power.
She bears all the hallmarks of a power-obsessed narcissist, who will twist logic into contortions in order to justify her own selfish actions.
May's evident obsession to cling to power appears to stem from a fundamental aspect of her character. She is deeply-traditional by temperament and, as a "dyed in the wool" conservative, sees her position as Prime Minister as one of "duty".
That sense of "duty" she appears to interpret into an almost sacrosanct sense of mission: that she was "chosen" to lead the country through Brexit, and in her role as Prime Minister she is uniquely endowed with the responsibility to decide on the right path of the country.
The problem, when one thinks about this mindset for more than a few seconds, is that same sense of "duty" is what any despot in history also has used to justify their actions.
"Duty" quickly can become corrupted into doing whatever one can to achieve your aims: it might start with dissemination, then using fear, dirty tricks and before long someone can become paranoid and will only listen to advice from those they trust. This is the slippery slope, and Theresa May has shown more than enough evidence of displaying these characteristics.
A "personal rule"?
There is a case to be made that this is the worst constitutional crisis since the Civil War of the mid 17th century.
Charles I got into problems with parliament because he began to act as a despot. At the time, monarchs had a great deal more power to do as they pleased. Charles I, typical of monarchs of the time, saw his right to rule as "God-given". It was his "duty" to rule as much as it was his God-given right, and if parliament were preventing him from doing so, then he saw it as his role to put them right. This was the basic reason for his attempt to arrest troublesome parliamentarians, which quickly escalated into outright war between the two factions.
Charles I was a deeply-proud man, and even after losing the war and under house arrest, he still refused to make serious compromises; instead, he stalled and dragged out time by exploiting the weaknesses and divisions within his opponents, flattering one faction in at attempt to win favour and isolate another, meanwhile blaming his opponents as the ones causing all the problems. While this was going on, he was still trying to organize supporters into a military counter-strike. Eventually, parliament's patience (and their gullibility) was exhausted.
Now that May's deal was voted down in parliament, May has claimed she is ready to listen. Given that this approach would have evidently made more sense after she lost her majority in parliament eighteen months ago, scepticism of her sincerity is not unwarranted.
She had already delayed the vote by a month since December, for the blatantly cynical motive to move the timing closer to the Brexit "cliff" at the end of March, and thus intimidate parliament into backing her deal. Her justifications to parliament before the vote amounted to same thing: intimidation, and threatening that the choice was her deal or the chaos of "no deal".
As parliament didn't buy this line, May's new tactic is for parliament to show the necessity to compromise, but also by highlighting the evident differences between the different factions. In this way, while she claims that her "red lines" (that were the reason for the unacceptable "deal" with the EU in the first place) are inviolate, it is others that must give ground.
She sees her "red lines" as part of her "duty" to implement the "will of the people", conflating what she wants into what she thinks the country wants. In this twisted rationale, if parliament is against her, then it is, by extension, against the people as well.
The cause of this constitutional crisis is clear: Theresa May.
Now that she has technically opened negotiations with parliament, her motives are as transparently-cynical as ever. The negotiations are not there to allow for genuine compromise; only to provide May with the narrative that she "tried" to work with a divided parliament, but because parliament refused her deal and couldn't agree on a compromise, a "no deal" Brexit became inevitable. Her primary aim is that it is not Theresa May who gets blamed for any "no deal" scenario, but someone else. She will happily deflect the blame onto the stubbornness of the opposition in parliament, or even better, the EU. Due to aspects of her personality, she seems to have little genuine ability to compromise, and just stall for as long as necessary, when the blame can be transferred from her to a convenient scapegoat. This is the same tactic used time and again by the autocrat.
We are now in a situation in Britain where the parliament is divided between May's supporters and her opponents, whose own allegiances are hazy and sometimes cross party lines. The parliamentary system is broken, and the country is ran by someone who is only interested in her own survival - for what purpose, it is unclear.
With the military reserves now on stand-by in the result of a "no deal" Brexit, with companies being gagged by Theresa May's government through NDAs, and with the very real threat of shortages and transport chaos, all the signs are that Britain has reached an institutional "tipping point". There seems no way back from the current crisis.
The question is: what on earth comes next?
It is clear now that Britain's executive and legislative are in a complete constitutional stalemate on Brexit, where the executive cannot agree with the legislature, and the legislature cannot agree with the executive.
The executive - the government - is headed by Theresa May, who has effectively taken unilateral control of all decisions on Brexit since coming to power.
Her party lost full control of parliament - the legislature - eighteen months ago, but Theresa May seems never to have noticed, with her continuing to act as though having almost unlimited powers. In spite of the self-evident necessity to come to some kind of cross-party agreement when running a minority government, her approach has been divisive and autocratic from the start. She sees things only from the perspective of survival, through exploiting divisions in her enemies combined with the fear of the alternative: the classic approach of an autocrat.
The number of blows and setbacks she has received has become almost difficult to keep up with, but with parliament voting down her agreed deal with the EU by an unprecedented margin - yet her government still staying in power - the sense of constitutional crisis has become irrefutable.
By all historical precedents and conventions, any Prime Minister with a sense of decency and self-awareness would have stood down after such an enormous defeat, made possible only through masses of backbenchers on her own side turning against her. But Theresa May is someone whose character seems as immovable as granite when it comes to facing reality.
It is self-evident that the only way to resolve the impasse between the government and parliament is through a fresh election.
What is so cravenly-hypocritical about May's resistance to new elections now (which she saw as only "heightening divisions") is that only eighteen months ago she called for a new election when she already had a majority. Her justification then was that parliament was somehow "blocking" her government's strategy on Brexit (itself a disingenuous accusation), and that she needed a larger majority to ensure she got legislation through parliament. This was already the strategy of someone who clearly had little real sympathy for democratic principles, and only saw "democracy" as useful when it was useful to her.
Now though, when the chaos is worse than ever because parliament cannot decide and the government cannot pass legislation as a result, May claims that elections only "heighten divisions". So she has gone from wanting elections eighteen months ago because parliament was divided, to now claiming that elections only create divisions. She wanted elections eighteen months ago to make her more powerful; now she wants to prevent them (even though they are self-evidently needed more than ever) in order to cling on to power.
She bears all the hallmarks of a power-obsessed narcissist, who will twist logic into contortions in order to justify her own selfish actions.
May's evident obsession to cling to power appears to stem from a fundamental aspect of her character. She is deeply-traditional by temperament and, as a "dyed in the wool" conservative, sees her position as Prime Minister as one of "duty".
That sense of "duty" she appears to interpret into an almost sacrosanct sense of mission: that she was "chosen" to lead the country through Brexit, and in her role as Prime Minister she is uniquely endowed with the responsibility to decide on the right path of the country.
The problem, when one thinks about this mindset for more than a few seconds, is that same sense of "duty" is what any despot in history also has used to justify their actions.
"Duty" quickly can become corrupted into doing whatever one can to achieve your aims: it might start with dissemination, then using fear, dirty tricks and before long someone can become paranoid and will only listen to advice from those they trust. This is the slippery slope, and Theresa May has shown more than enough evidence of displaying these characteristics.
A "personal rule"?
There is a case to be made that this is the worst constitutional crisis since the Civil War of the mid 17th century.
Charles I got into problems with parliament because he began to act as a despot. At the time, monarchs had a great deal more power to do as they pleased. Charles I, typical of monarchs of the time, saw his right to rule as "God-given". It was his "duty" to rule as much as it was his God-given right, and if parliament were preventing him from doing so, then he saw it as his role to put them right. This was the basic reason for his attempt to arrest troublesome parliamentarians, which quickly escalated into outright war between the two factions.
Charles I was a deeply-proud man, and even after losing the war and under house arrest, he still refused to make serious compromises; instead, he stalled and dragged out time by exploiting the weaknesses and divisions within his opponents, flattering one faction in at attempt to win favour and isolate another, meanwhile blaming his opponents as the ones causing all the problems. While this was going on, he was still trying to organize supporters into a military counter-strike. Eventually, parliament's patience (and their gullibility) was exhausted.
Now that May's deal was voted down in parliament, May has claimed she is ready to listen. Given that this approach would have evidently made more sense after she lost her majority in parliament eighteen months ago, scepticism of her sincerity is not unwarranted.
She had already delayed the vote by a month since December, for the blatantly cynical motive to move the timing closer to the Brexit "cliff" at the end of March, and thus intimidate parliament into backing her deal. Her justifications to parliament before the vote amounted to same thing: intimidation, and threatening that the choice was her deal or the chaos of "no deal".
As parliament didn't buy this line, May's new tactic is for parliament to show the necessity to compromise, but also by highlighting the evident differences between the different factions. In this way, while she claims that her "red lines" (that were the reason for the unacceptable "deal" with the EU in the first place) are inviolate, it is others that must give ground.
She sees her "red lines" as part of her "duty" to implement the "will of the people", conflating what she wants into what she thinks the country wants. In this twisted rationale, if parliament is against her, then it is, by extension, against the people as well.
The cause of this constitutional crisis is clear: Theresa May.
Now that she has technically opened negotiations with parliament, her motives are as transparently-cynical as ever. The negotiations are not there to allow for genuine compromise; only to provide May with the narrative that she "tried" to work with a divided parliament, but because parliament refused her deal and couldn't agree on a compromise, a "no deal" Brexit became inevitable. Her primary aim is that it is not Theresa May who gets blamed for any "no deal" scenario, but someone else. She will happily deflect the blame onto the stubbornness of the opposition in parliament, or even better, the EU. Due to aspects of her personality, she seems to have little genuine ability to compromise, and just stall for as long as necessary, when the blame can be transferred from her to a convenient scapegoat. This is the same tactic used time and again by the autocrat.
We are now in a situation in Britain where the parliament is divided between May's supporters and her opponents, whose own allegiances are hazy and sometimes cross party lines. The parliamentary system is broken, and the country is ran by someone who is only interested in her own survival - for what purpose, it is unclear.
With the military reserves now on stand-by in the result of a "no deal" Brexit, with companies being gagged by Theresa May's government through NDAs, and with the very real threat of shortages and transport chaos, all the signs are that Britain has reached an institutional "tipping point". There seems no way back from the current crisis.
The question is: what on earth comes next?
Sunday, January 13, 2019
"The Hunger Games", and how Britain is ran like an empire
The trilogy "The Hunger Games" tells the story, seen though teenage perspective, of how an exploitative empire operates.
The fictional world of "The Hunger Games" is based in the land of Panem: an essentially "imperial" structure where the various districts all function for the purpose of providing for the "capitol", whose own inhabitants largely live dissolute lives that are disconnected from the other districts, and whose understanding of life in the districts is similarly disconnected. It is a deeply-hierarchical and centralized structure, where even the communications between, and thus understanding of, one district to the next is limited. In this way, the capitol controls Panem through a combination of media control, fear and manipulation.
The story at its heart is a classic description of how tyrannical empires work, which is what makes it a universal tale. Its historical inspiration stems from Rome, but there are deliberately-unsettling parallels with some aspects of modern life in America, which is what makes the story also a warning.
The disconnect between the "Beltway" and the rest of America is a common complaint, but the parallels between the exploitative description of life in "Panem" and life in a real-world "empire" come closer to the mark if we look at a different example across the water from America: life in the UK.
Exploiting the "districts" to indulge the capital
While there are certainly valid complaints about how too much power is held inside the "Beltway", the USA is still one of the most highly decentralized administrations in the developed world, where the states have considerable legal powers, separate from the centre. By contrast, Britain (and England in particular), remains one of the most highly-centralized administrations in the developed world.
At a fundamental level, Whitehall and Westminster are loathe to cede power, jealously guarding it within their claws. Simply, they do not trust local government.
Trained to believe in their own infallibility and the innate incompetence (and malevolence) of those outside of the centre, they have only given out a few crumbs of autonomy to the devolved administrations when absolutely necessary, to maintain the fiction of accountability. The centre's instinct is to horde power relentlessly, jealously guarding information (as it doesn't trust the motives of "outsiders"), with decision-making done in secret. There is little real sense of government being in service of "the people", beyond how government needs the people to be compliant and/or ignorant.
Apart from the deeply-hierarchical administrative structure, the wider structure of the economy is aligned primarily with the interests of the capital in mind. Money raised by the government in taxes is disproportionately spent on the inhabitants of the capital and the neighbouring regions (i.e. London and the South-east), with little going on public works in other parts of the country by contrast. This is then "justified" by to the disproportionate amount of wealth the capital generates, in spite of the fact that this vicious circle of wealth-hoarding only makes the inequalities between the capital and the other regions all the starker. This is what then creates the impression of a capital inhabited by people socially and economically disconnected from the rest of the country, whose interests are simply in the exploitation of everyone else.
As in "Panem", the UK's resources are also designed with the needs of the capital in mind, with an economic model that makes the capital richer and richer while slowly starving the regions of both manpower and resources. This economic model also attracts people to the capital because life in the regions for some has become intolerable, adding yet more to the dissonance between the "rulers" and the "ruled".
In this way, the UK has become one of the most unequal societies in Europe.
The question is:why?
Public schools and "indoctrination" - educating a different class
Britain is still a society where its ruling class (i.e. its top percentile) send its children away from their parents for the large part of their formative years for the purpose of "education". In this very specific way, it marks Britain's (and particularly, England's) ruling class as being self-segregating from the rest of society, using boarding schools as a way to "educate" their offspring in an closed environment through their formative years; away from the opposite sex, away from their family, and away from the rest of society.
It is important to emphasize how much the boarding school system is designed to entrench the cultural separation of a "ruling class" from the wider population. While those who have been part of the system will extol its virtues ("never did me any harm"), it is important to emphasize how this attitude is simply the product of long-term indoctrination - in other words, a form of psychological conditioning and "normalizing".
The "establishment" is a product of the boarding school, and cannot be understood without recognizing this essential ingredient. Until relatively recently, it was debatable whether boarding schools actually gave any meaningful education to its boarders at all. Boarding school was much more about "moral" education than anything else; in other words, about turning children into adults. This was largely done through the "school of hard knocks" approach, and it seems that parents were more likely than not complicit in understanding this reality. They more often than not put it to the back of their minds and saw the boarding school experience as just "one of those things". Then again, there were also some wealthy parents who were simply glad to have their children out of the way for a few years.
One generation's trauma and indoctrination got passed on to the next as a matter of simple tradition, with what we would now call psychological "conditioning" the name of the game. In this way, any memories of psychological and physical abuse are repressed as "character-building"; indeed, building characters that will ideally have hearts of stone.
The wider indoctrination at boarding school was to instill an innate sense of superiority: that the boarding children were there because they were superior, the elite. This was necessary in order to maintain the belief that the "establishment" was in a position of power because it was also necessary; without it, it was implied, Britain would face collapse. This attitude is still ingrained in those in positions of power today.
That superiority is passed on in different ways: such as seeing British education as the best; seeing British traditions as the best ("fair play" etc. etc.); and instilling a general self-confidence that is evident whenever speaking to someone who is a product of the system - the ruling class often excel at sounding as they know exactly what they're talking about even when they haven't got the faintest clue in reality. That breezy self-confidence is then reinforced by those lower in the social order having the in-built assumption that their social superiors must be right in what they're saying to have such self-confidence.
On such ingrained attitudes of deference to the ruling class, an empire is built. The mystique of deference is essential to maintain the illusion.
To prevent the ruling class from being in danger, thus the illusion is fed to the rest of society that their social superiors are more intelligent, more competent and more morally-upright people, while the reality is often the exact opposite. The First World War was the first real evidence of this, and the establishment had to adapt to survive.
On the flip side of this implicit superiority, is fed an innate distrust and arrogance towards those lower down in the social order. If the children at boarding schools are there because they are special, it follows that those who are less fortunate (and less educated) are there through their own failings. This is the essential morality of inequality. Those at the top are there by their own individual merit; those at the bottom are there through their individual failings.
Those less fortunate are undeserving of pity because the moral code instilled in them at boarding school is about "stiff upper lip" and removing sentimentality. This explains such behaviour as burning a fifty-pound note in front of a beggar. Such twisted morals were thought necessary to create a cohort that would take over the reins of power, seamlessly passed on from one generation to the next without any thought to changing the system.
As we can see, the boarding school system is the primary method of indoctrinating a ruling class to perpetuate the established system of inequality.
Destroying hope - neutering the threat through Thatcherism
Apart from a highly-centralized, exploitative system and an indoctrinated ruling class, there are other methods used to ensure that the "lower orders" know their place.
The onset of industrialization created a skilled working class, necessary for the operation of complex machinery. The danger that this led to was that an educated working class might also become more demanding. This became increasingly apparent throughout the 20th century, with strikes becoming more and more frequent as workers demanded a more equitable share in the cake.
The mythology of the "winter of discontent" created a bugbear that the "establishment" could use to reshape society into a form more in fitting to their wishes.
The "establishment" envisaged a society where the capital grew rich not from the output of factories, but from the manipulation of money. Done right, this would benefit the "establishment" enormously; meanwhile, the country's workforce could be restructured to benefit the capital better.
Workers' rights were sharply curtailed. The industries that provided the skilled and reliable work for those that lived in some regions were destroyed. As a result, many towns across those regions lost their primary source of employment, with the only other work on offer being unreliable, low-skilled and low-paid. This has remained the situation ever since.
But those populations did not revolt against the centre. The thing that empires fear most is "hope", and the destruction of industries in those regions effectively killed their hope and self-respect, leaving in its place only a sense of defeat and self-loathing. Those "defeated" populations turned in on themselves, falling back on the dark solaces of alcohol and drugs, turning to crime and violence against each other.
This was how the "establishment" created an underclass and another scapegoat.
Divide and rule - demonizing the poor
After removing the self-respect that skilled employment offered those formerly-industrialized regions, the resulting underclass was the ideal scapegoat in the new "individualistic" morality that the "establishment" were keen to engender.
After being the threat to the "establishment" when they had self-respect, as a defeated underclass, their self-loathing and violence was seen as the ultimate moral evil. After removing their industries, they were further divided by the Thatcher government selling off vast tracts of social housing to those who could afford it. This left "social housing" as the preserve of the dregs of society, creating the implicit connection of social housing with moral failure.
Manipulation from the centre had thus created a sense that the de-industrialized regions, as places of the "feckless poor" were places where nothing good was to be expected; a self-perpetuating myth was created by the centre that the regions were thus incompetent and that only the centre, the capital, was where ideas could come from, where growth came from.
Thus we also had, over the last forty years, a "brain drain" as well as an economic hollowing-out of the regions. Those born in the regions were encouraged to leave and pursue life in the capital as the place where everything happened; thus the formerly troublesome regions became the exploited "slaves" to the capital, in one form or another. Those born into that background had become indoctrinated into associating it with failure, and the capital with success. Exactly as "the establishment" intended.
Creating a false idol - a fake "opposition"
But even people with no hope can only go so long before they look for something else.
As we have seen, the manipulation of the working class began in earnest during the Thatcher era with the reorienting of morality against the idea of social housing and collective workers' rights, in favour of a more individualistic outlook.
This manipulation towards an individualistic morality through the media in the 1980s also coincided with the rising Euroscepticism in the press. The anti-European mood was explained through the same individualist lens; against European regulations that were "stifling" British business.
While the capital grew rich from restructuring the economy in its favour, those regions that remained without any stable industries after the capital's "reforms" simply fell further behind. By the time the financial crisis hit ten years ago, those deprived regions were looking for a scapegoat of their own for their troubles.
As the media had manipulated them into believing that it was somehow the EU's fault that their industries had collapsed thirty years ago and that European migrants were taking their jobs, it suited "the establishment" to use the EU scapegoat for the further inequalities that the centre was inflicting on the rest of the country. Instead of blaming "austerity", it was better that they blame the EU.
In this way, the "hope" that the long-defeated underclass had after decades of economic suffering, was that leaving the EU would somehow make their lives better. The fact that the people spreading this narrative were figures of selfsame exploitative "establishment" themselves was something that the media helpfully glossed over.
The hideous irony over "Brexit" is that during the referendum "the establishment" was in reality acting as both government and opposition. The winning side, while painting themselves as "insurgents", were in reality "establishment" extremists; far worse than even the relative "moderates" who were in government at the time. The "establishment" extremists were exploiting the sense of "hope" that had been kindled from a manipulative media; that manufactured "hope" they would then be able to crush when the time was right.
In the empire of the establishment's creation, they would even have a monopoly on "hope" itself.
The "Brexit" vision that won over many in the deprived regions is one that would create yet more inequality, cement the domination of the capital over the country yet further, with an agenda that seeks to enrich the voracious hierarchy on the backs of others' poverty.
The cruelest form of "hope" is the one that delivers the precise opposite.
The fictional world of "The Hunger Games" is based in the land of Panem: an essentially "imperial" structure where the various districts all function for the purpose of providing for the "capitol", whose own inhabitants largely live dissolute lives that are disconnected from the other districts, and whose understanding of life in the districts is similarly disconnected. It is a deeply-hierarchical and centralized structure, where even the communications between, and thus understanding of, one district to the next is limited. In this way, the capitol controls Panem through a combination of media control, fear and manipulation.
The story at its heart is a classic description of how tyrannical empires work, which is what makes it a universal tale. Its historical inspiration stems from Rome, but there are deliberately-unsettling parallels with some aspects of modern life in America, which is what makes the story also a warning.
The disconnect between the "Beltway" and the rest of America is a common complaint, but the parallels between the exploitative description of life in "Panem" and life in a real-world "empire" come closer to the mark if we look at a different example across the water from America: life in the UK.
Exploiting the "districts" to indulge the capital
While there are certainly valid complaints about how too much power is held inside the "Beltway", the USA is still one of the most highly decentralized administrations in the developed world, where the states have considerable legal powers, separate from the centre. By contrast, Britain (and England in particular), remains one of the most highly-centralized administrations in the developed world.
At a fundamental level, Whitehall and Westminster are loathe to cede power, jealously guarding it within their claws. Simply, they do not trust local government.
Trained to believe in their own infallibility and the innate incompetence (and malevolence) of those outside of the centre, they have only given out a few crumbs of autonomy to the devolved administrations when absolutely necessary, to maintain the fiction of accountability. The centre's instinct is to horde power relentlessly, jealously guarding information (as it doesn't trust the motives of "outsiders"), with decision-making done in secret. There is little real sense of government being in service of "the people", beyond how government needs the people to be compliant and/or ignorant.
Apart from the deeply-hierarchical administrative structure, the wider structure of the economy is aligned primarily with the interests of the capital in mind. Money raised by the government in taxes is disproportionately spent on the inhabitants of the capital and the neighbouring regions (i.e. London and the South-east), with little going on public works in other parts of the country by contrast. This is then "justified" by to the disproportionate amount of wealth the capital generates, in spite of the fact that this vicious circle of wealth-hoarding only makes the inequalities between the capital and the other regions all the starker. This is what then creates the impression of a capital inhabited by people socially and economically disconnected from the rest of the country, whose interests are simply in the exploitation of everyone else.
As in "Panem", the UK's resources are also designed with the needs of the capital in mind, with an economic model that makes the capital richer and richer while slowly starving the regions of both manpower and resources. This economic model also attracts people to the capital because life in the regions for some has become intolerable, adding yet more to the dissonance between the "rulers" and the "ruled".
In this way, the UK has become one of the most unequal societies in Europe.
The question is:why?
Public schools and "indoctrination" - educating a different class
Britain is still a society where its ruling class (i.e. its top percentile) send its children away from their parents for the large part of their formative years for the purpose of "education". In this very specific way, it marks Britain's (and particularly, England's) ruling class as being self-segregating from the rest of society, using boarding schools as a way to "educate" their offspring in an closed environment through their formative years; away from the opposite sex, away from their family, and away from the rest of society.
It is important to emphasize how much the boarding school system is designed to entrench the cultural separation of a "ruling class" from the wider population. While those who have been part of the system will extol its virtues ("never did me any harm"), it is important to emphasize how this attitude is simply the product of long-term indoctrination - in other words, a form of psychological conditioning and "normalizing".
The "establishment" is a product of the boarding school, and cannot be understood without recognizing this essential ingredient. Until relatively recently, it was debatable whether boarding schools actually gave any meaningful education to its boarders at all. Boarding school was much more about "moral" education than anything else; in other words, about turning children into adults. This was largely done through the "school of hard knocks" approach, and it seems that parents were more likely than not complicit in understanding this reality. They more often than not put it to the back of their minds and saw the boarding school experience as just "one of those things". Then again, there were also some wealthy parents who were simply glad to have their children out of the way for a few years.
One generation's trauma and indoctrination got passed on to the next as a matter of simple tradition, with what we would now call psychological "conditioning" the name of the game. In this way, any memories of psychological and physical abuse are repressed as "character-building"; indeed, building characters that will ideally have hearts of stone.
The wider indoctrination at boarding school was to instill an innate sense of superiority: that the boarding children were there because they were superior, the elite. This was necessary in order to maintain the belief that the "establishment" was in a position of power because it was also necessary; without it, it was implied, Britain would face collapse. This attitude is still ingrained in those in positions of power today.
That superiority is passed on in different ways: such as seeing British education as the best; seeing British traditions as the best ("fair play" etc. etc.); and instilling a general self-confidence that is evident whenever speaking to someone who is a product of the system - the ruling class often excel at sounding as they know exactly what they're talking about even when they haven't got the faintest clue in reality. That breezy self-confidence is then reinforced by those lower in the social order having the in-built assumption that their social superiors must be right in what they're saying to have such self-confidence.
On such ingrained attitudes of deference to the ruling class, an empire is built. The mystique of deference is essential to maintain the illusion.
To prevent the ruling class from being in danger, thus the illusion is fed to the rest of society that their social superiors are more intelligent, more competent and more morally-upright people, while the reality is often the exact opposite. The First World War was the first real evidence of this, and the establishment had to adapt to survive.
On the flip side of this implicit superiority, is fed an innate distrust and arrogance towards those lower down in the social order. If the children at boarding schools are there because they are special, it follows that those who are less fortunate (and less educated) are there through their own failings. This is the essential morality of inequality. Those at the top are there by their own individual merit; those at the bottom are there through their individual failings.
Those less fortunate are undeserving of pity because the moral code instilled in them at boarding school is about "stiff upper lip" and removing sentimentality. This explains such behaviour as burning a fifty-pound note in front of a beggar. Such twisted morals were thought necessary to create a cohort that would take over the reins of power, seamlessly passed on from one generation to the next without any thought to changing the system.
As we can see, the boarding school system is the primary method of indoctrinating a ruling class to perpetuate the established system of inequality.
Destroying hope - neutering the threat through Thatcherism
Apart from a highly-centralized, exploitative system and an indoctrinated ruling class, there are other methods used to ensure that the "lower orders" know their place.
The onset of industrialization created a skilled working class, necessary for the operation of complex machinery. The danger that this led to was that an educated working class might also become more demanding. This became increasingly apparent throughout the 20th century, with strikes becoming more and more frequent as workers demanded a more equitable share in the cake.
The mythology of the "winter of discontent" created a bugbear that the "establishment" could use to reshape society into a form more in fitting to their wishes.
The "establishment" envisaged a society where the capital grew rich not from the output of factories, but from the manipulation of money. Done right, this would benefit the "establishment" enormously; meanwhile, the country's workforce could be restructured to benefit the capital better.
Workers' rights were sharply curtailed. The industries that provided the skilled and reliable work for those that lived in some regions were destroyed. As a result, many towns across those regions lost their primary source of employment, with the only other work on offer being unreliable, low-skilled and low-paid. This has remained the situation ever since.
But those populations did not revolt against the centre. The thing that empires fear most is "hope", and the destruction of industries in those regions effectively killed their hope and self-respect, leaving in its place only a sense of defeat and self-loathing. Those "defeated" populations turned in on themselves, falling back on the dark solaces of alcohol and drugs, turning to crime and violence against each other.
This was how the "establishment" created an underclass and another scapegoat.
Divide and rule - demonizing the poor
After removing the self-respect that skilled employment offered those formerly-industrialized regions, the resulting underclass was the ideal scapegoat in the new "individualistic" morality that the "establishment" were keen to engender.
After being the threat to the "establishment" when they had self-respect, as a defeated underclass, their self-loathing and violence was seen as the ultimate moral evil. After removing their industries, they were further divided by the Thatcher government selling off vast tracts of social housing to those who could afford it. This left "social housing" as the preserve of the dregs of society, creating the implicit connection of social housing with moral failure.
Manipulation from the centre had thus created a sense that the de-industrialized regions, as places of the "feckless poor" were places where nothing good was to be expected; a self-perpetuating myth was created by the centre that the regions were thus incompetent and that only the centre, the capital, was where ideas could come from, where growth came from.
Thus we also had, over the last forty years, a "brain drain" as well as an economic hollowing-out of the regions. Those born in the regions were encouraged to leave and pursue life in the capital as the place where everything happened; thus the formerly troublesome regions became the exploited "slaves" to the capital, in one form or another. Those born into that background had become indoctrinated into associating it with failure, and the capital with success. Exactly as "the establishment" intended.
Creating a false idol - a fake "opposition"
But even people with no hope can only go so long before they look for something else.
As we have seen, the manipulation of the working class began in earnest during the Thatcher era with the reorienting of morality against the idea of social housing and collective workers' rights, in favour of a more individualistic outlook.
This manipulation towards an individualistic morality through the media in the 1980s also coincided with the rising Euroscepticism in the press. The anti-European mood was explained through the same individualist lens; against European regulations that were "stifling" British business.
While the capital grew rich from restructuring the economy in its favour, those regions that remained without any stable industries after the capital's "reforms" simply fell further behind. By the time the financial crisis hit ten years ago, those deprived regions were looking for a scapegoat of their own for their troubles.
As the media had manipulated them into believing that it was somehow the EU's fault that their industries had collapsed thirty years ago and that European migrants were taking their jobs, it suited "the establishment" to use the EU scapegoat for the further inequalities that the centre was inflicting on the rest of the country. Instead of blaming "austerity", it was better that they blame the EU.
In this way, the "hope" that the long-defeated underclass had after decades of economic suffering, was that leaving the EU would somehow make their lives better. The fact that the people spreading this narrative were figures of selfsame exploitative "establishment" themselves was something that the media helpfully glossed over.
The hideous irony over "Brexit" is that during the referendum "the establishment" was in reality acting as both government and opposition. The winning side, while painting themselves as "insurgents", were in reality "establishment" extremists; far worse than even the relative "moderates" who were in government at the time. The "establishment" extremists were exploiting the sense of "hope" that had been kindled from a manipulative media; that manufactured "hope" they would then be able to crush when the time was right.
In the empire of the establishment's creation, they would even have a monopoly on "hope" itself.
The "Brexit" vision that won over many in the deprived regions is one that would create yet more inequality, cement the domination of the capital over the country yet further, with an agenda that seeks to enrich the voracious hierarchy on the backs of others' poverty.
The cruelest form of "hope" is the one that delivers the precise opposite.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)