Opinião |Francisco Dominguez

JORNALISMO E CIDADANIA | 20 Opinião

Conservatives deploy Brexit to score electoral victory in the UK Por Francisco Dominguez T he Conservatives (Tories) managed a landslide in the UK general election on 12th December 2019 by obtaining 365 seats and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Labour Party that got only 203 seats. The Tories’ parliamentary majority would be 80 against all the other parties combined.

The result was a shocking surprise, especially since Labour’s politics were dominated by the phenomenon of Jeremy Corbyn, whose popularity among Labour supporters was very high. The party membership increased to around 480,000 (the largest socialist party in Europe – the German SPD has 426,000 –, and almost as large as the combined membership of all the other British political parties. [1]

Furthermore, most British trade unions that are formally affiliated to the Labour Party were politically aligned with Corbyn, who they supported solidly since his election as Labour leader in 2015, defeating attempts by Labour’s Blairite right wing to replace him.

In 2017 Labour’s electoral performance had denied the Tory government a parliamentary majority leading it to bribe the Northern Irish right wing Democratic Unionist Party by increasing spending in that region by £1bn. [2] Up to the 2019 election, Labour’s vote had been going up:VER GRÁFICO 1 In 2017 Labour increased by 30 MPs and 3 million more votes. Under Corbyn Labour had to wage an electoral campaign not only against all other parties but against its own Blair-led right wing that systematically sabotaged the party, to the point of openly calling to vote against Labour. An insidious campaign of media demonization aimed at discrediting Corbyn’s Labour, supplemented this.

The background to this was the 2016 referendum on the UK’s European Union (EU) membership which shook all parties, particularly the Tories, to their foundations: 52% (17,410,742 votes) voted to leave, those for remaining obtained 48% (16,141,241 votes). The turnout was 72%, higher than normal.

Most parties (except UKIP) campaigned to stay in the EU, including Conservative PM, Theresa May, Corbyn’s Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Scottish and Welsh Nationalists, and Greens. Both major parties, Labour and Conservatives however, have active pro-Brexit factions. They were substantially stronger among Conservatives, with ministers even resigning in protest against May’s Anti-Brexit stance. They deployed the infamous NHS Bus falsely publicising that upon leaving the EU Britain’s public health service would receive £350 million per week, amount they argued, Britain was sending in various payments to the EU. [3]

Those who today dominate the Tories, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Jacob Ress-Mogg, Liam Fox, and the like, deeply oppose the welfare state, are extreme pro-market libertarians, and almost irrationally anti-EU. Some champion extreme ‘Christian’ values on sexual diversity, same-sex marriage and abortion. Their views have a strong resonance in their party whose membership is 71% male and 97% white. [4]

Boris Johnson is a ruthless operator and quite an unscrupulous politician. He would make outrageously inappropriate and deplorable statements on race, women, the poor, etc., coming across as an insensitive upper-class clown. This low-level intellectual quality has characterised the Tory Party’s leadership ever since John Major’s Premiership (1992-1997). The politics of this, ever more dominant extreme current, oozes racism, misogyny, and bigotry.

Corbyn’s Labour radical anti-neoliberal programme hugely resonated with the electorate with some policies polling well above 70% approval. Of the 2017 manifesto 79% supported that electricity and energy came from low-carbon or renewable sources, 74% the capping of rent prices at the rate of inflation, 68% to increase income tax for top 5% of earners, 63% agreed with requiring business to reserve a proportion of seats on their boards for their workers, 60% supported railways to be owned and run by the state, 57% agree with energy and water companies being owned by the state, 55% supported free university tuition fees for all students, and 52% oppose the UK taking part in military interventions in other countries. [5]

Corbyn added that all expansion of health services under Blair, which allowed the priva-

te sector to run growing sections of the NHS, including newly built hospitals, would be fully nationalised. This elicited enthusiastic support because Tory austerity had so underfunded the NHS to the point of creating a massive crisis in health provision, about which Corbyn said: “… patients being treated in hospital corridors, people dying in the back of ambulances, hospitals in dire need of repair- they are refusing to give our NHS the money it needs and needs now. The NHS will only survive if we fight for it. [6]

On Labour’s 2017 Manifesto Bloomberg commented, Corbyn’s Labour Party will offer voters one of the most radical economic agendas anywhere in the democratic world. [7] Another Bloomberg piece reported with alarm that to Labour’s 2017 programme at the September 2019 Labour conference more was added • Integration of private schools into the state system; • Green New Deal setting 2030 as target for net zero carbon emissions. (A Labour government would nationalize the big energy firms, ban fracking, and take public transport into state ownership); • Restoration of full trade union rights and workplace rights, rolling out collective wage bargaining; • 10 pound ($12.36) hourly minimum wage; • 50,000 pound lump-sum payment to veterans of British nuclear tests for help with medical problems; • Scrappage scheme for polluting vehicles and £2.5 million interest free loans for the purchase of electronic vehicles. [8]

On a snap poll after the 6th December 2019 TV debate with Johnson, Corbyn had a 10 point lead on trustworthiness; on the NHS he won 55% to 38%; whilst Johnson won 62% to 29% on Brexit. [9] In other words, if the election were fought on Brexit, the Tories would have the edge, but if it was the NHS, austerity and the gross inequalities it had generated, Labour was likely to carry the day.

Thus the Establishment deployed all its resources to exert pressure on Labour aimed at making Brexit the election’s crucial issue. The pressure influenced even Corbyn’s inner circle. This distracted from Labour radical manifesto and exacerbated Labour’s internal divisions. The decisive lever were the anti-Corbyn Labour MPs. Since Corbyn election right-wing Labour MPs had sought to oust him, even going for a parliamentary coup in 2016, which involved even Labour’s Deputy Leader, Tom Watson (172 MPs vo- ted for a no-confidence motion against Corbyn, whilst only 40 supported him). [10] They blamed Corbyn for the Brexit vote. This triggered a leadership election that saw a larger majority for Corbyn.

This breed of Labour MPs resulted from 10 years of Blair control that shifted Labour drastically to the right (as witnessed by the Iraq War) and launched severe attacks on party democracy, including favouring candidates of a right wing, Blairite, persuasion. Thus on the renewal of the Trident submarine nuclear military system, Labour’s formal position was in support but Corbyn sought a compromise of retaining the submarines but without nuclear weapons: 140 Labour MPs voted with the Tories to renew it, 47 with Corbyn against, and 43 abstained.

Further, 8 right wing Labour MPs, headed by Black MP, Chuka Umunna, broke with the party because of Corbyn’s supposed inability to stop Brexit and, for failing to deal with Labour being supposedly anti-Semitic. Three MPs also broke with the Tories on Brexit, who, with the 8 Labour MPs, set up an independent parliamentary group. [11]

Right wing Labour MPs persuaded some progressive MPs, some unions, and sections of the membership, for Labour to go for a second referendum, and managed to saddle Corbyn with it. He went into the 2019 election with the formal position of a second referendum. On a national TV programme on 22nd November 2019, he announced

This will be a trade deal with Europe or remaining in the EU – that will be the choice that will be put before the British people within 6 months. […] I will adopt, if I am Prime Minister at the time, a neutral stance so I can credibly carry out the result of that to bring our communities and country together rather than continuing endless debate about the EU and Brexit.

Thus Brexit became the central election issue. Paradoxically, in order to unite the party, Corbyn ended up alienating a crucial part of his electoral base. The Tories, Johnson and the media quickly capitalised on it.

On the relentless and vicious media campaign against Corbyn scholars in the LSE conducted a study, which concluded that the media vilified him, he was never quoted but misrepresented, sources used were overwhelmingly anti-Corbyn, he was ridiculed, and they sought to associate him with terrorism and as a friend of enemies of the UK. [12]

On the BBC’s anti-Corbyn role, in a study the Media Reform Coalition and Birbeck concluded

“imbalanced reporting has become so grave that it poses a serious threat to the democratic process.” [13]

The Archbishop of Canterbury, UK’s maximum religious authority, on 26th November 2019, publicly supported UK’s Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, that Jews were “gripped with anxiety” at the prospect of Corbyn becoming Prime Minister.

The Media Reform Coalition (MRC) also conducted a study on how anti-Semitism was also used by the media to demonise Corbyn and Labour

“…we identified myriad inaccuracies and distortions in online and television news including marked skews in sourcing, omission of essential context or right of reply, misquotation, and false assertions made either by journalists themselves or sources whose contentious claims were neither challenged nor countered.” [14]

In the 2019 election of the 60 seats Labour lost, 52 had voted Brexit in the referendum. [15] Labour lost seats it had held since 1919, 1922, 1932, 1935, 1945 and 1970, making it highly unlikely these Labour working class bastions had suddenly converted to Boris Johnson’s Conservatism. Many people in these areas favoured Brexit and found Labour’s position of another referendum unacceptable since it made their vote for the first, worthless.

For many, poverty, destitution, unemployment, homelessness and other social ills in these Labour heartlands were closely associated to open immigration resulting from Britain’s EU membership. The Tories since Thatcher have argued that unless immigration is severely curbed, the UK would continue to suffer these ills. They even linked immigration to terrorism. The pro Brexit referendum campaign intensified racism, bigotry and xenophobia: official figures recorded that between 2014-15 and 2016-17, hate crime rose by 57%, 87% motivated by racial hatred. [16]

At the 2019 election Labour lost 2 million votes to anti-Brexit parties: VER GRÁFICO 2 So, which way forward for Labour after the crashing defeat of Corbyn, the most radical and most progressive political leadership to emerge in the UK? Is it all over for Corbynism? Conclusion Two post-election coalitions are emerging: a broad anti-Corbyn front that goes from openly fascist currents, the Establishment, the Tories, UKIP, Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalists, the media, Labour’s right wing and sections of Labour left moderates; and Corbynism, which includes Labour’s grassroots, most of the trade unions and working people it organises, women, the poor and marginalised, pensioners, the disabled, ethnic communities, and the LGBT community. Their interests and aspirations are incorporated in Corbyn’s radical manifesto. [17] On Labour’s Right Tony Blair has vigorously campaigned against Corbyn and his politics. On 25th November 2019, at a Reuters-hosted conference Blair said, “the Labour party has been taken over by left wing populism”; he passionately appealed to Labour to drastically change course, abandon its radical left wing ideology, and take the party to the “centre”. For him if the far left are in charge “the Labour party is finished.” [18] To Blair Corbynism is a “brand of quasi-revolutionary socialism, mixing far-left economic policy with deep hostility to Western foreign policy, which never has appealed traditional Labour voters”. [19] Blair’s Press Secretary, Alastair Campbell, called on ‘disgruntled and disillusioned’ Labour supporters to re-join the part in a “charge of 100,000 moderates in bid to crush Team Corbyn.” [20] The shift to the “centre’ is predicated on the fallacy of Corbyn’s policies’ “unelectability”. In the 2015, 2017 and 2019 elections, the Liberal Democrats, the “centrist” party par excellence, performed very poorly, confirming this fallacy.

Labour membership, even many who may have voted for Brexit, are unlikely to support a shift to the right, nor will they support a Blairite to replace Jeremy. The Shadow Business Secretary and MP, 40 year-old Rebecca Long-Bailey, a strong Corbynista, is standing as a potential Corbyn’s successor. She is likely to be supported by the powerful grassroots Corbynista movement, drawing strength from Labour Manifesto’s popularity. Of the 25 new elected Labour MPs in 2019, 20 are women, 16 are solidly left wing, and 12 are Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Labour, thus weakening Labour’s right. Furthermore, “Labour now has a majority female parliamentary party.” [21]

Perhaps, the biggest threat may come from a soft-left candidate behind whom Labour’s right will unite. The defence of Corbyn’s policies will be the essential platform to organise resistance against Johnson’s nasty neoliberal offensive, since shifting Labour to the right would make its implementation substantially easier.

Johnson represents a breed of hard-right Conservatism that has a lot in common with Trump. A special report (The Guardian’s ‘Long Read’) shows the long-standing connection between key ministers, Conservative politicians,

including Johnson himself, and extreme right wing US thinktanks such as the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and the Heritage Foundation. Fourteen of the 20+ Johnson’s July cabinet ministers were “alumni of IEA initiatives”.

Enjoying multimillionaire funding, think tanks played a crucial role in securing Brexit. In a “collaboration between the US and UK radical right are partners in a global coalition of more than 450 thinktanks and campaign groups called the Atlas Network.” [22] A post-Brexit Free Trade Agreement with the US, and “opening up the NHS to foreign competition” are their policy flagships. Furthermore, Johnson will slavishly support US military adventures anywhere in the world.

Only Labour has the strength, the social base, the policies, and the capacity to build a political and social coalition to mount mass resistance to Johnson’s hard neoliberal programme, an urgent task for which there is huge potential. Polls showed majority support for Labour’s policies, and at the 2019 election Labour got 57% of the votes among the 18-24, 55% among the 25-34, and 45% among the 35-44. [23]

These developments are not unique to Britain. There is a powerful transatlantic juggernaut, endowed with infinite resources, a vast media to influence politicians, intellectuals, academics and the public, that can be unleashed just about anywhere in the planet. The defense of Corbyn’s legacy is no only a British task.

NOTAS: [1] UK Parliament (https://researchbriefings. parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN05125 - visited 19/12/2019). [2] BBC News, 26/06/2018, https://www.bbc.co.uk/ news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-44397110 (visited 23/12/2019). [3] FullFact, 19/09/2017 (https://fullfact.org/ europe/350-million-week-boris-johnson-statisticsauthority-misuse/– visited 20/12/2019). [4] The Guardian, 23/07/2019. [5] YouGov, 9/01/2019 (https://yougov.co.uk/topics/ politics/articles-reports/2019/01/09/eurotrackcorbyns-policies-popular-europe-and-uk– visited 20/12/2019). [6] The Huffington Post, 3/02/2018. [7] Bloomberg, 1/10/ 2019. [8] Bloomberg, 27/09/2019. [9] PoliticsHome, 6/12/2019 (https://www.politicshome. com/news/uk/political-parties/conservative-party/ boris-johnson/news/108431/boris-johnson-edges-winfinal– visited 20/12/2019) [10] BBC News, 28/06/ 2016, (https://www.bbc.co.uk/ news/uk-politics-36647458 - visited 21/12/2019). [11] Every one of these defectors lost their seats. [12] LSE, 1/07/2016 (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/67211/1/ CAmmaerts_Journalistic%20representations%20 of%20Jeremy%20Corbyn_Author_2016.pdf– visited 19/12/ 2019) [13] Jonathan Cook Blog, 29/07/2016 (https://www. jonathan-cook.net/blog/2016-07-29/study-exposesbbcs-deep-anti-corbyn-bias/– visited 21/12/ 2019). [14] https://www.mediareform.org.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2018/09/Labour-anti-semitism-and-thenews-EXEC-SUM-FINAL-PROOFED.pdf– visited 21/12/ 2019. [15] Labour List, 13/12/2019 (https://labourlist. org/2019/12/the-60-seats-labour-lost-in-the-2019- general-election/– visited 21/12/2019). [16] The Huffington Post, 14/12/2019 (https:// www.theredcard.org/blog/2019/1/14/brexitand-rising-racism-in-britain-showed-we-mustchallenge-misconceptions-about-immigration-andmulticulturalism– visited 21/12/2019). [17] It’s time for Real Change, https://labour.org.uk/ manifesto/ (visited 22/12/2019); Campbell was expelled from Labour for publicly calling to vote against his own party in the May 2019 municipal elections. [18] The Guardian, 18/12/2019, (https://www. theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/18/tony-blairurges-labour-to-ditch-jeremy-corbyn-misguidedideology– visited 22/12/2019). [19] The Sun, 18/12/2019, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=yqdaGBHlRE4 (visited 22/12/2019) [20] Express, 15/12/2019 (https://www.express. co.uk/news/politics/1217526/labour-party-AlastairCampbell-election-result-jeremy-corbyn-leftwing-tony-blair?int_source=traffic.outbrain&int_ medium=traffic.outbrain&int_term=traffic. outbrain&int_content=traffic.outbrain&int_ campaign=traffic.outbrain– visited 22/12/2019). [21] Labour List, 16/12/2019 (https://labourlist. org/2019/12/labour-gained-just-one-seat-but-manymore-fresh-faces/– visited 23/12/2019). [22] The Guardian, 29/11/2019, (https://www. theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/29/rightwingthinktank-conservative-boris-johnson-brexit-atlasnetwork– visited 23/12/2019); this report ought to be widely circulated and translated into every European language. [23] Lord Ashcroft Polls, 13/12/2019 (https:// lordashcroftpolls.com/2019/12/how-britain-votedand-why-my-2019-general-election-post-vote-poll/?fb clid=IwAR0ogQafdFbtoYB5BG7UdHZbq9FhSLPMT MsaF2h4fHsHZcVb1oTriG_vnck (visited 23/12/2019). A more extensive article on the elections was published by Global Research: https://www.globalresearch.ca/ how-brexit-produced-largest-conservative-majoritysince-thatcher/5699664

Francisco Dominguez é Professor da Universidade de Middlesex / Inglaterra.

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