What is clear from much of the shallow, self-centred
and oblivious commentary of antagonists to Brexit is their failure to
understand the sweep of history from the turn of the 20th century. Society in the 50s is a useful reference point
for optimised governance because it was perforce well-managed following the Great Depression and the Second World
War. Global ideology was limited to Sino-Soviet communism. Keynesianism was an application of theory,
and anti-communism was merely maintenance of the status-quo in the face of
contrarian doctrines. Notwithstanding
the fears of the time, this too, passed.
All changed in the late 1970s with a neo-liberal
philosophy which became an inviolable right-wing doctrine that left-wing
parties adopted to the detriment of their constituents. Gramsci’s Marxism, via Dutschke’s ‘long march’
through the education system, and its consequent adoption into the West’s
Weltanschauung after the fall of the Soviet Empire, is forcing on post-colonial
society contrived obligations to failing states in Asia and Africa. This uses anachronistic moralising in an
attempt to create a borderless planet and Europe as “a great big melting-pot”
in refutation of human nature, the denial of the advantages of the Westphalian
nation-state model, and to counter capitalist cultural hegemony. Once again, left-wing parties promote this ideology
to the detriment of their constituents while the clerisy responsible for it are
wealthy enough to isolate themselves from the social mess it creates.
Independent of these ideologies, Islam found
itself resurgent when petro-dollar funding met the Saudi government’s intent to
spread the Wahhabi version of Islam, and the maturing plans of Egypt’s fundamentalist
group The Muslim Brotherhood, found themselves with a ready audience in Europe. With Islam less hierarchical than
Christianity so more amenable to Marxist appropriation, immigration policies favoured
Muslims over the real victims of Islamic violence, Christians and minority
sects. As Trevor Phillips, Britain’s former
Equalities and Human Rights chairman, has noted to his chagrin, Muslims are
creating “nations within nations” (I said this in 2009 with my essay on Islamic
Microstates) and refusing to integrate, assimilate, or adopt British values. For those who raise an eyebrow at “British
values”, these include ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’ ‘turn
the other cheek,’ ‘love thy neighbour as thyself,’ mercy, democracy, rule of
law, mutual respect, and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. These are emphatically NOT Islamic values. Those
are being slowly and steadily introduced into Britain and the rest of Western Europe,
disaffecting long-time residents who form part of the Brexit bloc.
So, with neo-liberals, neo-Marxists and
Muslims intent on removing national identity, eroding borders, and giving free
rein to increasing the population regardless of cultural and financial cost, it’s
hardly surprising that those least rewarded and most put-upon by the system
will take this opportunity for legitimate revenge.
The reason the young voted predominantly ‘Remain’
comes down to hope over experience. Few
people educated after the late 70s will have the insight to understand the role
of these ideologies because the education system forestalled the wider
understanding necessary. I spoke to an
intelligent youngster educated in history and with knowledge of Islam in London
as he handed out Remain leaflets. He
thought Islam was equivalent to Christianity, and failed to realise the
importance of tribalism in Middle Eastern society – he said that it was never
mentioned in any of his university courses implying it thus didn’t exist. This is what neo-Marxism produces - education
shaped to promote a deterministic doctrine.
The Brexit vote was a proxy for Britain’s
failure to care about its citizens. At
some point, its dispossessed will revolt.
I think it extremely unlikely that the vote will result in Britain recovering
the sense of social responsibility it had in the 1950s, or acquire Norway’s wisdom
in the disposal of its assets. The
contempt for Brexit voters shown by sore-loser Remain voters would be better
directed at those principally responsible for this snafu, neo-liberals and
neo-Marxists, and to try to reverse the decline of the Welfare State that Britain
has endured since the days of Thatcher.
But that won’t happen. And the
Remain voters think Brexiters are thick!
Let me finish with a quote by sociology professor
David Garland, in a London School of Economics lecture, ‘What is the Welfare State?’
“Profitable capitalist action requires a
supportive social environment and an enabling material infrastructure. It needs a socialised educated healthy
workforce and it needs the functioning families and schools and health-care
systems that produces that; it needs a dependable supply of raw materials and
resources, a transport infrastructure and population of consumers, and a stable
political environment. Left to its own
devices capitalism tends to destroy these essential social supports. Its tendency is to commodify, consume, to
expand and to destroy all the obstacles that stand in the way of
accumulation. These processes produce
disastrous side-effects, such as threats to climate, natural resources, family
life, the physical and economic health of the populations. Market capitalism is an inherently
self-destructive social formation which is protected from these self-inflicted
dangers by the operation of anti-market and market-moderating processes. The paradoxical dialectic consequence is that
capitalism vitally depends on the presence of effective opposition to it. It needs a set of countervailing forces and the
name we give to this is the Welfare State.
The Welfare State is an essential means of sustaining the vitality of
capitalism.”
