Is Britain beginning to experience the kind of “culture war” that divides the political elite in the US?
Until recently, the tops of both Democrat and Republican parties were broadly agreed in supporting neoliberalism and maintaining a global empire enforced by the Pentagon.
But back in September 1992, Pat Buchanan proclaimed on behalf of the Republican right a “cultural war”. He denounced Bill and Hillary Clinton for pursuing an agenda on issues such as abortion and LGBT+ rights that was “not the kind of change we can tolerate in a nation that we still call God’s country”.
The anger generated over these so-called “social issues” has gradually migrated from the margins to the very centre of Republican politics. It now powers Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Brexit has created what is beginning to look like a similar kind of polarisation in Britain. The political establishment and its allies in the corporate media share broadly the same outlook. That is support for neoliberalism and austerity, and for Nato and the alliance with the US. Hence their shared distaste for Jeremy Corbyn.
But they are divided over the European Union (EU). The Leavers among them have been cock-a-hoop since 24 June. They celebrate the bright although largely indeterminate future the vote to leave the EU has opened.
The Remainers, meanwhile, are seething with rage at what they regard as the theft of their future. But they talked quite as much nonsense during the referendum campaign as the likes of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove did.
The High Court ruling that the government can’t activate Article 50 to leave the EU without parliamentary approval has brought the mutual loathing to white heat.
Comparing the coverage in the media is like watching different ideological apparatuses of the British state at war with one another. Meanwhile, to gauge the attitude of the capitalist class itself one has only to look at the pound. This has had its best week in the currency markets since March.
The bosses want either no Brexit or as soft a Brexit as possible. What Karl Marx called the economic base and the ideological and political superstructure of British society are out of alignment with one another.
The High Court judgement concludes that the executive cannot use the royal prerogative to extinguish rights created by the European treaties. This seems perfectly reasonable on democratic grounds. Left wing Labour MP Tony Benn often denounced the way governments hid behind the prerogative.
But even if the Supreme Court upholds this judgement, this won’t stop Brexit, despite the urgings of some Remainers. For example, Polly Toynbee writes in the Guardian newspaper, “It’s not anti-democratic to try to stop what so many other countries see as an incomprehensible act of economic suicide”.
Most MPs – 74 percent – may have voted to remain. But – among the voters – only 39 percent of constituencies voted remain. That makes a parliamentary vote to reject the results of the referendum suicidal as well as undemocratic.
But the High Court judgement does underline two things. First, negotiating Brexit is going to be very difficult indeed for Theresa May.
She will have to balance the interests of big business, the demands of the Tory Brexiteers, and the hardball tactics that the rest of the EU will use. Steering Article 50 through both houses of parliament will make this that much harder.
Secondly, the content of Brexit remains a largely open question. May’s mantra “Brexit means Brexit” has become a laughing stock. She has allowed the Tory right to impose its own meaning – an ultra-neoliberal, xenophobic Britain that probably doesn’t fully correspond to her own objective.
But there’s no reason to accept the Brexiteers’ definition of life outside the EU. Corbyn has made a stab at defining an economic alternative, but he hasn’t had much support from the rest of the left.
Too many are still mourning their lost fantasy object of the EU, or engaging in Toynbee-like daydreams. It’s time to develop and fight for an anti-capitalist alternative that can break out of the establishment culture war.

Alex Callinicos

British ruling class in open warfare after court Brexit ruling

Russia’s seizure of military control over Crimea has brought Ukraine to the brink of war. This crisis represents the coming together of three distinct conflicts. First, there is the struggle that has been going on for more than a decade among the corrupt and thuggish bunch of oligarchs who have dominated Ukraine since independence in 1991.
Secondly, there has been a genuine popular movement against the now exiled president, Viktor Yanukovych. This has expressed anger at the corruption of the entire political elite in Ukraine.
Unfortunately, this movement harbours illusions in the European Union (EU). Moreover, thanks to the historic weakness of the left in Ukraine, the far right has played a significant role in the “Euromaidan” occupation in Kiev.
Nevertheless, those who claim Yanukovych’s overthrow was a “fascist coup” are parroting Moscow propaganda. He fell because the section of the oligarchy who had previously backed him withdrew their support.
Third, and now most important, is the inter-imperialist rivalry between Russia and the West over Ukraine. In this conflict, Ukraine matters much more to Russia than it does to the United States or the EU.
A Ukraine that was fully integrated into the EU and Nato would be a step towards Moscow’s worst nightmare of being encircled by the West. President Vladimir Putin went to war with Georgia in 2008 to prevent this nightmare being realised.
Seizing Crimea is a counter-move to Ukraine’s tilt westwards as a result of the overthrow of Yanukovych. The peninsula is of crucial strategic importance to Moscow. It has served as the base of Russia’s Black Sea fleet since the 18th century.
Putin claims to be acting in defence of Ukraine’s Russian speakers—a majority in Crimea and widespread in southern and eastern Ukraine. But beyond a parliamentary vote in Kiev to strip Russian of its status as an official language, there is little evidence of any real threat to Russian speakers.
Power
Putin is engaging in an inter-imperialist power play. He is betting on the weakness of his rivals. He’s probably right about this. The EU boasts of being a “normative power” and throws its weight around on its eastern and southern peripheries. But crises like this underline the EU’s dependence on US military capabilities.
And American eyes are turned towards the Pacific. When Barack Obama backed down from his threat to mount missile attacks on Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime last autumn he underlined that US has no appetite for any more land wars in Eurasia.
His administration is shifting its military assets towards East Asia to meet the major challenge represented by China. Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel has just announced plans to cut the US army from 566,000 to 440-450,000.
Washington is undoubtedly keen to see Ukraine integrated in the Western alliance system. But the idea put around by some on the left that behind the Ukraine crisis lies a drive by American neoconservatives for war with Russia is the purest nonsense.
US secretary of state John Kerry is threatening Putin with economic sanctions. But the latter may remember that these were also threatened over Georgia in 2008 but never happened. Then as now, Russia’s strongest card is the EU’s dependence on Russia for 40 percent of its natural gas imports.
The biggest danger to Putin comes from himself. He may overreach himself by trying to turn effective control over Crimea into the partition of Ukraine. Occupying the eastern part of the country could turn into Russia’s Iraq. In western Ukraine there are long nationalist traditions nurtured by memories of the bloody independence struggles during both world wars. These could be reactivated now.
Socialists in the West must of course oppose any military intervention by the US or NATO in Ukraine. But the crisis reminds us that imperialism can’t be reduced to American domination. It is a system of economic and geopolitical competition among the leading capitalist powers.
Rather than tail any of these powers, we must fight this entire system. This means opposing Russian intervention in Ukraine. Never has the slogan “Neither Washington nor Moscow but international socialism” been more relevant.
[Previously published at <a href="http://www.socialistworker.org.uk/">socialistworker.org.uk</a>.]

British ruling class in open warfare after court Brexit ruling

Putin raises the stakes in imperialist Crimea crisis

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