The death of a monarch who had reigned for 70 years, and the early defenestration of a prime minister less than three years after winning a landslide election victory, both mark a significant turning point in British history. The following extract from a recent editorial in our journal ON THE BRINK (published by the Workers’ International Network) is relevant… * * * *
What we are witnessing is the chronic decline and death agony of British capitalism. Where once it was the “workshop of the world”, today it is losing its last remnants of productive industry, most of them by now just assembly plants owned by Japanese, Indian and other foreign companies, which had only nested here because it was a springboard into the EU, and which are now on the point of leaving.
Where once it ruled “an empire on which the sun never sets”, following the collapse of the British Empire has come the disintegration of the United Kingdom itself. It is just one referendum away from losing Scotland. And the current convulsions over the status of Northern Ireland following Brexit mean that before long Northern Ireland could easily conclude some kind of accommodation, if not a straight reunification deal, with the Irish Republic; despite the prejudices of the Unionists, a majority of both communities in Northern Ireland opposed Brexit.
“Great Britain” could soon no longer exist, let alone constitute a “United Kingdom”: instead just England and (perhaps) Wales would remain. England could sink to the status of an offshore island off the European mainland, a tourist spot for sightseers visiting such ancient relics as the Tower of London and Shakespeare’s birthplace, perhaps also taking in the whisky stills of its neighbouring country Scotland in a double bill.
The scandals of the British monarchy too are not, as some argue, irrelevant side shows. It is wrong to dismiss the monarchy as a trivial diversionary soap-opera. The disgrace of Prince Andrew, the distaste for Charles and Camilla, and the abdication of Harry are precursors to the demise of the dynasty itself. Where the current sovereign is still held in some reverence, once her reign comes to an end the surviving members of the dynasty will hold no such charisma or appeal.
Along with Britain’s decay, a new faction has displaced the old establishment. Over the centuries since the end of the English civil war, behind a permanent royal façade political power had shifted from the aristocracy to industry to finance. Johnson ruthlessly squashed the remnants of the old patrician establishment, the captains of industry and the banks. The party which ruled England for 350 years has fallen into the clutches of a bunch of property speculators and hedge fund managers. This explains the spasms currently convulsing the Tory Party.
There is a brilliant history of the years preceding the First World War called The Strange Death of Liberal England. In it, the author ascribes the demise of the Liberal Party to the rise of the suffragette movement, the Irish independence struggle, and the growth of trade unionism. The ruling party today is the new face of UKIP and the Brexit Party. They have split the oldest and most stable political party in Europe to bring about what we might call “the strange death of Conservative England”.
Today both the two main parties are facing existential crises. The Labour Party is in the throes of a historic and long-overdue split, inflicted with ruthless determination by one side and throwing the other temporarily into a state of confusion, with unremitting pressure building up for a delayed explosion. It is up to now a one-sided split, but none the less systematic and deadly for all that. Inevitably, irrevocably, a new explosion of resistance and revolution is coming.