Post by Ghyl Tarvoke on Sept 3, 2017 23:57:25 GMT
I posted this elsewhere, including on Medium, but I'll be interested to see the reaction here. It will be a bit tl;dr for most but I like to think it's a piece that tries to decipher where the UK is at rn. It is more of an idle musing if anything else - I bring in very few stats, although most of what I have read backs me up afaik - and it is intentionally tongue-in-cheek by the end but this might be a good place to exchange some ideas on it. I don't even bother to try and disguise my partisanship here (because why would I?)
Some notes and a modest proposal towards the future UK politics and Brexit
(AKA perhaps it was the Remain campaign which was the populist revolt all along)
A lot has been written in the past few months about the so-called clash of generations in UK politics, with the elderly — especially those in retirement — strongly backing the Conservatives while the young, especially the youngest, even more strongly plumping with Labour despite/because of [this depends on who you read] their far left leader and endless faction fighting. This is regularly framed in the traditional way of the idealism of youth versus the sagacity of the elderly. That is, the young (an idiot), supposedly ignorant of history and full of hope, voted for the geriatric Marxist professional protester, while the old (wise), remembering fearfully the 1970s, decided to vote for the neo-Powellite Conservative party that talked non-stop about leaving the EEC- I mean, the EU — how immigrants are bad and how the IRA was bad. British connections with the UDA or the actions of British Troops in NI being strangely forgotten, as always is the case in the UK vis-a-vis NI, in this trip down 70s memory lane.
The problem with this narrative is its sheer lack of historic basis. Contrary to what is widely believed, there is no reason to think younger people are any more left-wing by nature than older-people. Indeed during the neo-liberal golden age of the 1980s the votes of the young tended to be little different from those of the old in returning Conservative landslides (as in the US Election of 1984 and the UK Election of 1983). What complicates this further is the tendency in UK punditry to see everything in terms of Brexit, a vote where the young mostly voted for the status quo and the old mostly for the radical option (yes, yes, I know this is gross stereotyping, #notallolds, etc). The desire of a lot of the pundrati has to been to see, in some foggy way, votes for Corbyn as somehow being votes for Remain. This is despite the obvious facts that lots of leave voters voting for Labour, that Corbyn pledged to only a slightly softer version of Brexit than that of Conservatives (and how many people really understand the technicalities here?), that MPs individual stance on Article 50 clearly did not matter in the election, and the utter failure of the Liberal Democrats to make traction even in many strongly Remain seats where they were the main challengers to the Conservatives. And then there’s the issue of Scottish results, without which the Hard Brexit government the UK still has would not have been returned. For all the hype and media speculation, evidence seems to point that the bulk of the UK electorate has stopped too much serious attention to Brexit since the day after the referendum. This seems to be especially true for Labour voters and the under 35s.
(As an aside, isn’t it interesting how the young choose the ‘NHS’ as their main issue in this poll? Odd given that they are the part of the population least likely to use it. Or, perhaps not, if you think of it as a a proxy for something else)
Rather it seems clear, at least to me, that the Remain-Labour tendency amongst the young and similarly the Leave-Tory amongst the old should be seen as mostly correlated and not in itself a cause, at least not fully. This makes sense especially in the context of the referendum which was about proxy issues (immigration, money to foreign governments, ‘sovereignty’) and not what it was actually about (leaving the world’s largest trading bloc). One possible connection is that of social liberalism. There is no doubt that the young are more liberal and less concerned about immigration than the old, and Corbyn has a good libertarian record on these things… except that none of this came up in the election campaign and this was one bit of Corbyn’s record that was downplayed, and not all the places Labour did well in are purely noted for their liberalism. This makes liberalism unlikely, but there is one another — and to my mind, much more plausible — connection between the two votes, not liberalism nor idealism, but rather asset ownership.
A large bulk of Leave/Conservative voters are, if not rich, protected by some of the current economy’s worst vicissitudes partly by the friendly pension policies of the government but also by home ownership. Rather the effect of Thatcher’s ‘popular capitalism (by selling council homes at below market place and encouraging investment in shares) has created a class of mini rentiers, whose assets constantly appreciate in value largely due to government policies that insist that they must. Obviously those who do extremely well out of this are a handful of (often very well connected) businessmen, but there is enough of a social class who don’t do that badly out of this to make it a strong electoral force. And simply, they have less to fear from the government, especially one of a free market and Tory bent, ‘taking back control’. The Tories, after all, favour this group and have shielded them more than most from Austerity. Add to this that immigration often has unpredictable and frequently negative effects on property values and that asset ownership is actually now more important than before 2008 due to declining economic growth (including declining real wages) and very low interest rates. All this perhaps should not surprise us, worship of a rentier class is a major root in traditional conservative thought.
Meanwhile those younger are more exposed to the global economy and have much less in collateral, as they tend not to own a home. They are also struggling in this economy towards security and ability to achieve traditional milestones (like starting a family), even if unemployment is very low, due in part to the aforementioned asset inflation. They also tend to be looked over by politicians, due to their disproportional tendency not to vote. This is despite a much greater level of education than enjoyed by their parents and grandparents, an education which makes them unsuitable for all the jobs immigrants currently do around the UK. For all the talk of the left behind white working class, it is probably the case that the average leave voter has more in wealth than the average remain one (although certainly that would not be the case in terms of income). So much for the Brexit narrative.
This scenario in which a supposedly populist government acting in the name of people is supported by a land-owning elite at the expense of the incipient middle class, many of who in its youngest generation turn as a result to hard-left politics, is very Latin America. That the numbers and wealth involved are very different does not make this less true. After all, why have a hacienda producing bananas for export with countless semi-enserfed campesinos under your protection on your payroll when you can have a buy-to-let apartment in Zone 2 that you let out on Airbnb? The latter, true, is shorn of anything like feudal obligations so it can be filed as yet another triumph of capitalism where the relationship between individuals other than of buyer and seller does not matter, but this is what makes it more lucrative, and thus growing and more worthy of investment. That it is pricing and will continue to price so many people of cities, especially the younger, less-capital rich, is as much a concern of the buy-to-let investor as the hacienda owner concerns himself about the young shabby would-be lawyers or teachers of Managua or Medellin.
All this suggests that a solution to the political tensions that the Brexit campaign unleashed will be a Latin American one. In this regard, the true populists in British politics are not UKIP but rather Momentum, with open fondness for state spending and near personality cult around its leader. What Momentum want is frequently unclear and complicated, apart from a more moral left-wing government, but the general theme running through their propaganda is that greater opportunities and supports for those struggling in society and especially the young who have been shafted by an indifferent older generation. What this means is they want jobs, good, well-paying jobs. Like everybody else (Don’t believe me? Note how much plans to reverse Tory welfare cuts were dropped from the manifesto without anyone — who wasn’t acting in bad faith — complaining).
And this is where Brexit comes in.
It is generally agreed that Brexit is a highly complicated undertaking. It is also agreed (by most) the Labour Party can’t be seen to be either too Remain-y or too Leave-y, and nor really can the Conservative party, at least in the long run. It is also agreed, again by most, that UK Civil service is understaffed especially as the amount of work they are going to have to engage in will increase due to Brexit. The solution therefore is obvious. Create loads of middle class jobs by expanding the Brexit department. Rather than have all those precariously employed graduates in call centres or in data entry jobs, have them assist in the operating of the new customs regime, have them involved in the day to day business of ‘taking back control’ over various bits of EU law and regulations, have them become the necessary clerks, researchers, administrations and all the other people that you rarely dream of becoming but exist in large numbers. If Britain wants Brexit to be a success (lol), it might need them. This would also have the advantage of making it easier for the youngest to accept Brexit, make them feel more integrated into the better off bits of the economy while ensuring that it still happened.
However, we must note where this might logically lead and keep in mind the law of bureaucracy as formulated by Robert Conquest: “The Behaviour of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies”. Keeping in mind another Conquest dictum, that bureaucracy tends to expand and expand beyond its domain, we can go forward and project the future a bit. In this universe, by 2030, one in ten British adults works for the Brexit department. Although the UK has long left the EU there are still so many regulations to replace, so many deals with the EU to be made about this and that and whatever, and so many other things bureaucracy has to do when it is doing nothing, that will always be jobs available; well paying (funded by Empire 2.0), secure, white collar, type jobs. This will help bring social peace by allowing millennials to advance economically and socially while ensuring that all the things Brexiteers want will happen… well, except for the elite Thatcherite Brexiteers who wanted an ‘open, free trade Britain’ (so about maybe 10 people in all) who will now see their tax bill go through the roof to pay for it all. The outcome they most truly deserve (including Robert Conquest, if he were still alive).
(ADDENDUM 1: And let us be clear there is clearly is a huge level of political dissatisfaction across the United Kingdom. Put all together it’s extremely likely that at least 50% + 1 for the total British electorate have voted for at least one of the following 1) Scottish Independence, 2) Brexit, 3) Corbyn for Prime Minister. Brexit alone is close to 38% of the total electorate and Corbyn 27.5%. We can’t be certain it is 50%+1 because of overlap — people who voted for more than one of those options — but it seems pretty likely. Although one has to wonder has anyone voted for all three? A left-wing old, possibly retired, working class man in Coatbridge or Springburn seems to be most plausible candidate for this type)
(ADDENDUM 2: If you haven’t noticed I find the idea that the politics of young people — even wealthy young people — as merely that of the desire to maintain their passport and travelling rights as obnoxious and offensive)
(ADDENDUM 3: Someone reading a draft has pointed out that this proposal is to make the whole of the UK into Northern Ireland. Just as well then the DUP are now close to the government, they are the experts in building up a bureaucracy to its advantage using other people’s money)
Some notes and a modest proposal towards the future UK politics and Brexit
(AKA perhaps it was the Remain campaign which was the populist revolt all along)
A lot has been written in the past few months about the so-called clash of generations in UK politics, with the elderly — especially those in retirement — strongly backing the Conservatives while the young, especially the youngest, even more strongly plumping with Labour despite/because of [this depends on who you read] their far left leader and endless faction fighting. This is regularly framed in the traditional way of the idealism of youth versus the sagacity of the elderly. That is, the young (an idiot), supposedly ignorant of history and full of hope, voted for the geriatric Marxist professional protester, while the old (wise), remembering fearfully the 1970s, decided to vote for the neo-Powellite Conservative party that talked non-stop about leaving the EEC- I mean, the EU — how immigrants are bad and how the IRA was bad. British connections with the UDA or the actions of British Troops in NI being strangely forgotten, as always is the case in the UK vis-a-vis NI, in this trip down 70s memory lane.
The problem with this narrative is its sheer lack of historic basis. Contrary to what is widely believed, there is no reason to think younger people are any more left-wing by nature than older-people. Indeed during the neo-liberal golden age of the 1980s the votes of the young tended to be little different from those of the old in returning Conservative landslides (as in the US Election of 1984 and the UK Election of 1983). What complicates this further is the tendency in UK punditry to see everything in terms of Brexit, a vote where the young mostly voted for the status quo and the old mostly for the radical option (yes, yes, I know this is gross stereotyping, #notallolds, etc). The desire of a lot of the pundrati has to been to see, in some foggy way, votes for Corbyn as somehow being votes for Remain. This is despite the obvious facts that lots of leave voters voting for Labour, that Corbyn pledged to only a slightly softer version of Brexit than that of Conservatives (and how many people really understand the technicalities here?), that MPs individual stance on Article 50 clearly did not matter in the election, and the utter failure of the Liberal Democrats to make traction even in many strongly Remain seats where they were the main challengers to the Conservatives. And then there’s the issue of Scottish results, without which the Hard Brexit government the UK still has would not have been returned. For all the hype and media speculation, evidence seems to point that the bulk of the UK electorate has stopped too much serious attention to Brexit since the day after the referendum. This seems to be especially true for Labour voters and the under 35s.
(As an aside, isn’t it interesting how the young choose the ‘NHS’ as their main issue in this poll? Odd given that they are the part of the population least likely to use it. Or, perhaps not, if you think of it as a a proxy for something else)
Rather it seems clear, at least to me, that the Remain-Labour tendency amongst the young and similarly the Leave-Tory amongst the old should be seen as mostly correlated and not in itself a cause, at least not fully. This makes sense especially in the context of the referendum which was about proxy issues (immigration, money to foreign governments, ‘sovereignty’) and not what it was actually about (leaving the world’s largest trading bloc). One possible connection is that of social liberalism. There is no doubt that the young are more liberal and less concerned about immigration than the old, and Corbyn has a good libertarian record on these things… except that none of this came up in the election campaign and this was one bit of Corbyn’s record that was downplayed, and not all the places Labour did well in are purely noted for their liberalism. This makes liberalism unlikely, but there is one another — and to my mind, much more plausible — connection between the two votes, not liberalism nor idealism, but rather asset ownership.
A large bulk of Leave/Conservative voters are, if not rich, protected by some of the current economy’s worst vicissitudes partly by the friendly pension policies of the government but also by home ownership. Rather the effect of Thatcher’s ‘popular capitalism (by selling council homes at below market place and encouraging investment in shares) has created a class of mini rentiers, whose assets constantly appreciate in value largely due to government policies that insist that they must. Obviously those who do extremely well out of this are a handful of (often very well connected) businessmen, but there is enough of a social class who don’t do that badly out of this to make it a strong electoral force. And simply, they have less to fear from the government, especially one of a free market and Tory bent, ‘taking back control’. The Tories, after all, favour this group and have shielded them more than most from Austerity. Add to this that immigration often has unpredictable and frequently negative effects on property values and that asset ownership is actually now more important than before 2008 due to declining economic growth (including declining real wages) and very low interest rates. All this perhaps should not surprise us, worship of a rentier class is a major root in traditional conservative thought.
Meanwhile those younger are more exposed to the global economy and have much less in collateral, as they tend not to own a home. They are also struggling in this economy towards security and ability to achieve traditional milestones (like starting a family), even if unemployment is very low, due in part to the aforementioned asset inflation. They also tend to be looked over by politicians, due to their disproportional tendency not to vote. This is despite a much greater level of education than enjoyed by their parents and grandparents, an education which makes them unsuitable for all the jobs immigrants currently do around the UK. For all the talk of the left behind white working class, it is probably the case that the average leave voter has more in wealth than the average remain one (although certainly that would not be the case in terms of income). So much for the Brexit narrative.
This scenario in which a supposedly populist government acting in the name of people is supported by a land-owning elite at the expense of the incipient middle class, many of who in its youngest generation turn as a result to hard-left politics, is very Latin America. That the numbers and wealth involved are very different does not make this less true. After all, why have a hacienda producing bananas for export with countless semi-enserfed campesinos under your protection on your payroll when you can have a buy-to-let apartment in Zone 2 that you let out on Airbnb? The latter, true, is shorn of anything like feudal obligations so it can be filed as yet another triumph of capitalism where the relationship between individuals other than of buyer and seller does not matter, but this is what makes it more lucrative, and thus growing and more worthy of investment. That it is pricing and will continue to price so many people of cities, especially the younger, less-capital rich, is as much a concern of the buy-to-let investor as the hacienda owner concerns himself about the young shabby would-be lawyers or teachers of Managua or Medellin.
All this suggests that a solution to the political tensions that the Brexit campaign unleashed will be a Latin American one. In this regard, the true populists in British politics are not UKIP but rather Momentum, with open fondness for state spending and near personality cult around its leader. What Momentum want is frequently unclear and complicated, apart from a more moral left-wing government, but the general theme running through their propaganda is that greater opportunities and supports for those struggling in society and especially the young who have been shafted by an indifferent older generation. What this means is they want jobs, good, well-paying jobs. Like everybody else (Don’t believe me? Note how much plans to reverse Tory welfare cuts were dropped from the manifesto without anyone — who wasn’t acting in bad faith — complaining).
And this is where Brexit comes in.
It is generally agreed that Brexit is a highly complicated undertaking. It is also agreed (by most) the Labour Party can’t be seen to be either too Remain-y or too Leave-y, and nor really can the Conservative party, at least in the long run. It is also agreed, again by most, that UK Civil service is understaffed especially as the amount of work they are going to have to engage in will increase due to Brexit. The solution therefore is obvious. Create loads of middle class jobs by expanding the Brexit department. Rather than have all those precariously employed graduates in call centres or in data entry jobs, have them assist in the operating of the new customs regime, have them involved in the day to day business of ‘taking back control’ over various bits of EU law and regulations, have them become the necessary clerks, researchers, administrations and all the other people that you rarely dream of becoming but exist in large numbers. If Britain wants Brexit to be a success (lol), it might need them. This would also have the advantage of making it easier for the youngest to accept Brexit, make them feel more integrated into the better off bits of the economy while ensuring that it still happened.
However, we must note where this might logically lead and keep in mind the law of bureaucracy as formulated by Robert Conquest: “The Behaviour of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies”. Keeping in mind another Conquest dictum, that bureaucracy tends to expand and expand beyond its domain, we can go forward and project the future a bit. In this universe, by 2030, one in ten British adults works for the Brexit department. Although the UK has long left the EU there are still so many regulations to replace, so many deals with the EU to be made about this and that and whatever, and so many other things bureaucracy has to do when it is doing nothing, that will always be jobs available; well paying (funded by Empire 2.0), secure, white collar, type jobs. This will help bring social peace by allowing millennials to advance economically and socially while ensuring that all the things Brexiteers want will happen… well, except for the elite Thatcherite Brexiteers who wanted an ‘open, free trade Britain’ (so about maybe 10 people in all) who will now see their tax bill go through the roof to pay for it all. The outcome they most truly deserve (including Robert Conquest, if he were still alive).
(ADDENDUM 1: And let us be clear there is clearly is a huge level of political dissatisfaction across the United Kingdom. Put all together it’s extremely likely that at least 50% + 1 for the total British electorate have voted for at least one of the following 1) Scottish Independence, 2) Brexit, 3) Corbyn for Prime Minister. Brexit alone is close to 38% of the total electorate and Corbyn 27.5%. We can’t be certain it is 50%+1 because of overlap — people who voted for more than one of those options — but it seems pretty likely. Although one has to wonder has anyone voted for all three? A left-wing old, possibly retired, working class man in Coatbridge or Springburn seems to be most plausible candidate for this type)
(ADDENDUM 2: If you haven’t noticed I find the idea that the politics of young people — even wealthy young people — as merely that of the desire to maintain their passport and travelling rights as obnoxious and offensive)
(ADDENDUM 3: Someone reading a draft has pointed out that this proposal is to make the whole of the UK into Northern Ireland. Just as well then the DUP are now close to the government, they are the experts in building up a bureaucracy to its advantage using other people’s money)
