The 2016 British referendum whether to leave the European Union seems to have been a great misstep. British Prime Minister David Cameron (a Conservative thoroughly disliked by all except the most affluent and the most chauvinistic of Brits) suggested the referendum, in response to a general wave of xenophobia among certain sectors of the population. Neither David Cameron, nor Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party (a Left-er of center party, which was dragged pretty far to the Right in the time of Tony Blair, of Invade Iraq fame) were in favor of leaving the European Union. They obviously never expected the Brexit referendum to turn out in favor of Leaving.
Britain in the European Union, as far as us casual observers in the rest of the world can see, was in almost every way a good thing: it gave the entire Mediterranean region a sort of stability (stability here means that small external --or even internal-- influences did not upset the EU very much). It permitted freer flow of people of various national origins and ethnicities throughout the region, encouraging a gradual lessening of the insularity that holds back a lot of the cultural development in any country.
What we are seeing is that, while the upper and middle classes were to some extent comfortable with ethnic diversity increasing in Britain, the poorer sectors of society (encouraged by political troublemakers) were acutely uncomfortable with it. The same is happening in the USA, where in addition, as some social-historical observers have pointed out, there has been deliberate suspicion created by wealthy landowners about a century and a half ago. It was convenient for landowners in the mid-1800s and earlier to prevent poor whites and poor blacks joining together against their masters and employers. This highly successful effort has borne fruit today, in certain working-class whites being deeply suspicious of everyone else.
In Britain, the Labour Party being divided into Pro-Brexit and Anti-Brexit camps, one of the few sane voices in the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, has lost his base of support, which has to be seen as a tragedy from the point of view of liberals in the USA and elsewhere. For decades, it was the British Labour Party that was the model for any socialists that wanted to hold positions that did not cross the line into Communism. The British welfare state made life admirably good for the British working class, out of which arose numerous gifted voices, artists, writers and poets. The upper classes, however, were dissatisfied with the taxes they had to pay. George Harrison, of the Beatles, complained of having to pay too much tax in his famous song Taxman, where he claimed that he was only permitted to keep 5% of his earnings. The tax structure that enabled his family to maintain a certain lifestyle while in poverty, was perceived as oppressive when he earned enough to be put in a much higher tax bracket! So the Labour Party finds itself in a leaderless position. In a recent blog by Thomas G. Clark, the blogger says:
Jeremy Corbyn was one of the only ones who spoke to the public as if we're adults. He didn't speak in simplistic black and white terms, because things are never black and white. Agree with him or not about the EU, he was one of the only ones who spoke to the public as if we're adults, rather than simple-minded idiots who can be swayed one way or another with fearmongering threats or by a load of spectacularly unrealistic spending pledges.
What people are saying when they criticize Jeremy Corbyn for "not campaigning passionately enough" is that in modern British politics, honesty and rational considerations are rubbish debating tactics. That Jeremy Corbyn was politically naive to try to speak to the electorate like we're adults, and that he should have assumed that we're all a bunch of intellectually lazy halfwits and pushed some crude absolutist propaganda at us.
Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party which represents the Scots --who, incidentally, voted to Remain in the EU-- is the largest party outside the government that has remained largely intact. They now have demanded to be the official leaders of the Opposition, which brings them certain benefits. They have considered creating a coalition with the remnants of the Pro-EU Labour Party, and the Green Party (an aggressively pro-Environmental group), which just possibly may become the nucleus of a more vigorous, and philosophically robust, socialist party.
Amusingly, stock brokers and money managers and other Wall Street types, know little beyond investing in good times. They do not fully understand the implications of political activity anywhere; they only know to panic. It is laughable that so many hand their financial resources to these jokers, whose real understanding of economic forces is rudimentary, if anything. After an initial dive, stocks throughout the world sort of settled down. Every new thing that happens will initially result in a dive of stocks from now on, after which they will crawl back up. The thing to do is to get your money out of externally managed funds, and just settle on any old stocks you have, and slap away the hands of anyone who tries to "help" your investing. In an environment where most stocks are falling and rising together, there's nothing really clever you can do that won't make the stocks fall even more.
At the moment, the only political leaders in Britain who are feeling their oats are the least intelligent, ultra-populist, chauvinist troublemakers. I hear names like Nigel Farage, and Hilary somebody, and of course, the redoubtable Boris Johnson. I heard rumors that Johnson had resigned. British politics will be in disarray for a time; the nature of the Parliamentary System is complex, and it takes some time for things to settle down, and they can settle down in surprising ways. However, the day to day government is managed by a supposedly apolitical civil service (the bureaucracy), in which political interference is somewhat less than in most countries.
We can only wait until things become clearer. You can read the CNN take on matters here.
Arch
No comments:
Post a Comment