Born and raised in Doncaster, England, I was pulled from school when I was aged 11 and taught at home by my mother, who battled education authorities to do so. This anti-establishment education meant I was barely able to scrape by through further education and into higher education, with supporting statements from Doncaster College media tutors who felt I had a fairly unique understanding of their subject, leading me to be accepted onto a three-year media degree at Barnsley College, dropping out with just a few months left in order to go travelling a bit, work for Rotherham Council as a youth and community worker, and eventually set up my own not-for-profit media projects, and I ended up screening my guerrilla documentaries in different countries, and delivering talks about the related issues.

One such speaking engagement was at the University of Huddersfield, where Bruce Hanlin, lecturer in journalism and media, invited me to give a talk to his students because, he told me, “Your ‘alternative’ and varied way into the media might look more realistic at a time when the established media are in retreat and job opportunities at a virtual standstill.” In the talk, I touched on topics such as journalistic integrity in an era of elitism in journalism, and how the BBC’s cloak of “impartiality” protects it in suppressing voices of dissent – after all, as Desmond Tutu said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” But importantly, it was interesting to me that, for this talk, I was seen as part of the “alternative” media, but very telling that Hanlin also used the term “established” media. I think this can be useful.

As part of my development of SilenceBreaker Media, I have worked with numerous volunteers, often students, and one I recently met talked about her media research looking at both the weaponisation of the media and the victimisation of the media – as a reflection of the current climate. I found this interesting.

Another talk I gave was as a brand-new Fellow of the School for Social Entrepreneurs, where rather than discuss what SilenceBreaker Media would be as a not-for-profit entity, I instead told two stories from my area as examples of the need for “alternative” media: the BBC’s manipulation of footage that falsely portrayed striking coal miners in a negative light in 1985, and The Sun’s coverage of the Hillsborough disaster that told lies about the Liverpool FC fans, 96 of whom died. Both of these examples of deliberately misleading media narratives demonstrate acts of propaganda for authoritarian brutality. Noam Chomsky once stated that “Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.” With The Sun newspaper essentially banned from the city of Liverpool and readership in decline nationally, trust in the BBC has decreased as well.

And so the research of that student I met with becomes particularly pertinent, because the weaponisation of the media and the victimisation of the media have become linked. As faith in “established” media has fallen, authoritarian world leaders like U.S. President Donald Trump and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson have exploited this and in turn complained about “fake” news – calling an exposè or a story “fake” because they just happened to disagree with it, or because it challenges their authority itself. This gaslighting has left the public confused, and more vulnerable to further misinformation – for example, the supposed saviour of social media itself for dissemination of information has been controlled by Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, on which, in the run-up to the recent U.K. general election, a staggering 88% of Conservative Party posts were “misleading.” (Facebook did ban one of their ads, but only because it infringed the BBC’s intellectual property rights.)

Aside from the data-mining, advertising revenue-raising, private corporate social media models of the likes of Facebook and Twitter, the mass media in general is in the hands of very exclusive interests: just 5 companies dominate around 80% of British news media – Guardian Media Group, Telegraph Media Group, Reach, Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, and the Rothermeres’ Daily Mail and General Trust, the latter three of which dominate more than 80% of the newspaper market specifically, and the latter two of which have been notoriously right-wing historically (though none of the above, by any stretch, are even remotely left-wing in any way, shape, or form); Murdoch was an ardent supporter of Bush, Blair, and the invasion of Iraq, for example, while the Rothermere family had their newspapers back the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s, and their editorial narrative hasn’t shifted much at all since.

It’s wrong, then, to refer to this elite group of establishment interests as “mainstream” since they aren’t accountable to the general public and don’t represent them or even their views. Taxing the rich; increased workers’ rights; rent controls; free university tuition; universal healthcare; a Green New Deal; de-privatisation of key industries…too often – in polls too numerous to cite in their entirety here – such policies have proven popular with the general population in both the U.K. and the U.S. while the mass media messaging suggested the exact opposite. In 2016, polls showed that the British public were actually quite keen on socialism, and this was reflected by the 2017 U.K. general election results, which saw the biggest swing to the Labour Party since just after the Second World War and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s policies themselves remained incredibly popular.

This is why David Edwards and David Cromwell of Media Lens have often questioned the term “mainstream” when referring to this mass media. As Bruce Hanlin suggested in what might well have been an off-the-cuff remark to me, “establishment” media might be a more fitting tag. Because it isn’t just the corporations in control of much of the media that have retained a right-wing stance – as I suggested in my speech at the School for Social Entrepreneurs, the BBC have been just as guilty as The Sun, if more high-brow and fact-checked. But as we’ve seen from Orgreave, these facts can be cherry-picked, with plenty more omitted, to serve an establishment agenda – and when the job of a journalist is so immensely class-exclusive, it becomes inevitable that the voice of the working class mass majority in the country go unheard.

Both state-controlled and corporate-controlled media, then, are part of the establishment. They are the “establishment” media. So this suggests that, rather than accepting a counter to this as merely “alternative” and quirky – destined to be on the fringe – we instead need to represent the mainstream of the working class mass majority and become “anti-establishment” media. But how do we do this? What should anti-establishment media look like? And how would we define it?

First, we have to start by analysing the inherent traits of establishment media that lead it to failing us today.

These mass media institutions are either led by the state, or by corporations (or, arguably, both). A counter to this must feature a quality of public ownership. As seen with the union movement clashing with Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks – a “progressive” media company funded by advertising and venture capitalists in addition to donations and subscriptions – a private media model is immediately at odds with the anti-capitalist cause. A good anti-establishment media model would be free from the profit motive as well as state funding or ownership. A not-for-profit co-operative model would be an ideal way of ensuring this, with a commitment to such ownership encoded within its articles of association.

A related issue here is that even with a co-operative model, there is a risk that relying on traditional journalists from similar backgrounds will offer similar narratives as found in establishment media anyway – and, as seen with, for example, Novara Media’s Ash Sarkar laughing along with jokes about Jeremy Corbyn on TV shows and writing for The Guardian (a leading thorn in Corbyn’s side), there is a risk that journalists will still see such a co-op as a stepping stone to seeking opportunities with establishment media anyway. This is, of course, difficult to avoid, apart from perhaps offering a public declaration of intent to the contrary of such careerist manoeuvrings – contributing to a genuine culture of anti-establishment media that, at best, deters the careerist in the first place, and at worst, scuppers their quest for success in establishment media through association.

In addition to the journalists providing the work, though, there is also the issue that a co-operative model still does not protect the journalism itself from being co-opted by capitalist interests that could realign editorial narratives. If there’s one thing you can say about capitalism, it’s that it is highly adaptable: capitalism actually quite likes co-ops, and has co-opted many of them to still exist within the capitalist economy. And the survival of our planet as we know it, and the people who live on it, depends entirely on the unquestionable, unashamed, unequivocal commitment to ending capitalism. Time is running out. We must be “mainstream.” We must capture the zeitgeist that is the desire for a post-capitalist world.

This is what we’re trying to take on board as we move SilenceBreaker Media forward. What began as a not-for-profit limited company ten years ago – only to understandably take a backseat to the immensely successful FreeTech Project – is free once again to offer the above-mentioned solutions on offer in combating establishment media. The idea is to develop quality content committed to anti-capitalism, with a building pool of writers, and SilenceBreaker Media remaining donation-led to cover costs as a not-for-profit organisation until such a time as the writers’ pool is large enough and successful enough to enable it to formally become a media co-op.

I hope you will support us on this journey, mapped out in a way that sets us apart from almost every other media group out there – whether it be “mainstream” or “alternative.” We are committed to bringing you anti-establishment (and, yes, anti-capitalist) media in the weeks, months, and hopefully years, to come.

A community educator and lifelong anti-capitalist activist, Jay Baker (he/him) is the founder of SilenceBreaker Media and has written, produced, and directed documentaries in addition to writing for numerous newspapers, magazines, zines, and websites. His own website is at dukeofhardrock.com.

While in its formative months, SilenceBreaker Media produced a guerrilla documentary that I worked on called Escape from Doncatraz, about the threat of rising racism and fascism on British Isles of controlled borders under a growing surveillance state in the post-9/11 era.

In the film, it was argued that part of the appeal of emerging extremists to communities battered by neoliberalism was the fact that these characters usually weren’t professional politicians. It was the beginning of a rejection of the careerists in Westminster. The film served as a warning that unless progressive, authentic, credible candidates were put forward, fascists could become a dangerously regular by-product of public apathy. Indeed, fascist BNP leader Nick Griffin made an historic appearance on BBC Question Time – long known for its prominent platform for a majority right-wing and centre-right views – and made the monumental achievement of evoking sympathy for him when he was juxtaposed against their usual political guests, who attempted to outgun each other on abusing him, since they couldn’t convincingly beat him on policy when it came to bread-and-butter issues like the postal service, for example. (We’ll return to the forbidden media topic of policies later.)

The apathy towards traditional party politics in Britain was only exacerbated with a scandal about MP’s expenses that dominated television and print media for months due to its often meaty, sometimes seedy, and at times utterly shocking revelations. It was initially exposed by an American: born in Pennsylvania but growing up in Washington state, Heather Brooke worked as a crime reporter for various newspapers before moving to Britain, where she was taken aback by the unapproachable and aloof nature of British bureaucrats and politicians.

After working on Your Right to Know: A Citizen’s Guide to Freedom of Information for Pluto Press in 2004, Heather Brooke began to request the details of MP’s expenses from the House of Commons Freedom of Information Officer, Bob Castle, but all she received were bulk stats and summaries rather than individual break-downs of expenditures. Fortunately for her, by 2005 the Freedom of Information Act 2000 came into force, giving more power to her requests for specific data. However, her requests for details of salaries were rejected, information on second homes was denied, and even evidence of travel expenses was refused.

These attempts to procure such information were turned away time and time again throughout 2005 and into 2006, with such excuses as it supposedly being too expensive to provide the data. Unperturbed, Brooke continued to make requests and battled back and forth with the system throughout 2007, as it became apparent that there were concerns in the corridors of power. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s expenses were suddenly shredded ‘by mistake’ (and later, as Leader of the House of Commons, Harriet Harman tabled a motion to exempt MP’s expenses from being subjected to exposure through the Freedom of Information Act).

While I was working on Escape from Doncatraz at this time, I interviewed human rights expert Shami Chakrabarti about state surveillance and invasion of privacy, which she stated was used by politicians under the terrible slogan of “(if you have) nothing to hide, (you have) nothing to fear.” Ironically, the politicians themselves were by this point having a really hard time applying their own slogan back onto themselves.

But of course, Brooke succeeded, and the expenses were eventually exposed:

Derek Conway had been using public money to pay his son for work that was never carried out; Caroline Spelman paid her nanny out of it; Eric Pickles got a nice second home paid for even though it was near his actual home; Douglas Hogg got his country estate’s moat cleared on taxpayer’s money; Sir Peter Viggers had a lovely little ‘duck island’ made for his garden pond; Jacqui Smith had the public pick up the tab for her husband’s pornography. This is just a few, but the greatest gem was probably this:

Anthony Steen spent nearly £90,000 of taxpayers’ money on his second home. If that’s not enough, he then said the scandal was simply due to the public’s “jealousy” of his “very, very large house.” He added: “What right does the public have to interfere with my private life? None.”

Heather Brooke returned to Washington, receiving a “Key Award” from the Washington Coalition for Open Government, in addition to further praise and recognition for blowing off the lid and shedding light on the proverbial viper’s nest. She has gone on to write several more successful books and articles.

The British press certainly dedicated a lot of time and effort to the scandal. It had great ingredients, from corruption, to hypocrisy and arrogance, to even pornography without it being on Page 3 of the daily paper. It not only dished dirt on powerful people as they so relished, but this time was also undoubtedly in the public interest.

Outspoken activist, actor and television personality Stephen Fry said, “Anybody can talk about snouts in troughs and go on about it, but for journalists to do so is almost beyond belief…I know lots of journalists…I’ve never met a more venal and disgusting crowd of people when it comes to expenses and allowances.” He added: “Let’s not confuse what politicians get really wrong – things like wars, things where people die.”

One anti-war activist and politician also happened to submit the lowest expenses claim in the country: £8.70, for an ink cartridge. He was almost unheard of at the time. His name? Jeremy Corbyn.

But the press lost interest in the subject when it became of little use to their big business owners any further. And in fairness, another, even bigger scandal, was emerging.

Along came the global economic crisis of 2008. Years of financial deregulation by neoliberal governments had led to a kind of casino capitalism, with bankers running amok. In Britain, money that couldn’t be found for the people was suddenly printed, and used to bail out the banks. What followed was what activist and author Naomi Klein calls “shock therapy” – the opportunity to inflict upon a confused people in crisis a series of financial measures designed to actually benefit the rich and powerful (often those who caused the crisis itself). Austerity was a perfect example of this: In Britain, with few alternative ideas having been found, encouraged, nurtured, or presented in political spheres, the Conservative government used this tumultuous time of uncertainty to sell off public services into private hands and remove social programmes, with a stunned population – still reeling in the wake of the crisis – largely accepting of these measures (at least, for the first few years until the “shock” wore off and alternatives were finally heard).

With all the news of the exciting financial markets of London and Washington, DC, what many of us forget was that it wasn’t just English-speaking nations that were affected, many different countries were – and some suffered, in many ways, far more devastating consequences.

Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis summed up his experience:

The over-indebted Greek state was finding it impossible to roll over its debt. Had it declared its bankruptcy, Italy, Ireland, Spain and Portugal would follow suit, with the result that Berlin and Paris would have faced a fresh bailout of their banks greater than €1tn. At that point, it was decided that the Greek government could not be allowed to tell the truth, that is, confess to its bankruptcy.

To maintain the lie, insolvent Athens was given, under the smokescreen of “solidarity with the Greeks”, the largest loan in human history, to be passed on immediately to the German and French banks. To pacify angry German parliamentarians, that gargantuan loan was given on condition of brutal austerity for the Greek people, placing them in a permanent great depression.

Referring to this time negotiating with European Union officials, he added: “I was locked in a confrontation with some of the most powerful organisations and institutions in the world, and yet the individuals making the decisions were, for the most part, caught up in a machine over which they had no control.”

This is why Yanis Varoufakis – like Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – has since that time campaigned for a ‘remain-and-reform’ approach to the EU: Both stated it was best to remain within the European Union, but it had to be reformed. This is why they pleaded with people to reject ‘Brexit.’ As touched on by our own Jane Watkinson in her recent piece on the EU, such a massive neoliberal institution cannot be countered easily by countries unless they’re part of it and can change it from within. As a bloc, it is absolutely gigantic.

So why did Britain choose ‘Brexit’?

The lost faith in politicians and their institutions – due to examples such as the expenses scandal and the bank bail-out – is self-evident; for years politicians told communities there was no money for their youth centres, libraries, and leisure facilities, no money for jobs creation, or social security, or free education or healthcare. And at the same time, they were finding money at the Treasury to help them clear their mansion moats and carry out gardening at Balmoral-like homes, they were finding money to drop bombs in the Middle East, and they were finding money to give to bankers who were giving themselves bonuses for crashing the economy. It was essentially – as tax justice expert Prem Sikka told me in Escape from Doncatraz – “reverse socialism…where the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer.”

But further than that, we can go back to the 1970’s and 80’s and the rise of both neoliberalism and the EU: as it turns out, a lethal cocktail – here in Britain, for example, the rise of inequality was matched only by the rise in EU integration, and with so many UK communities hit so hard economically, this – alongside the rise in xenophobic narratives from successive governments (both Conservative and New Labour) – meant the EU was an ideal place to direct anger when EU membership was put to the people via a referendum. Of course, as this was developing, corporate media only reflected the above-mentioned xenophobic narratives, rather than challenged them; they were more interested in immigrants, less interested in bankers – even less interested in the few honest politicians such as Jeremy Corbyn, because there was no scandal in that.

Ironically, a referendum on the EU was something promised by David Cameron as part of his Conservative campaign running up to the 2015 general election – a proposal backed not by Labour leader Ed Miliband, but Cameron’s coalition friends the Liberal Democrats, as well as the Green Party.

Lib Dem and Green enthusiasm for a referendum on the EU is particularly surprising upon realising that neither party then accepted the result of that referendum – indeed, the Lib Dems and the Greens now call for a re-run of the vote (in the seemingly futile hope of getting a different result). And yet the Lib Dems call themselves both ‘liberal’ and ‘democrats’ with no irony whatsoever, while the Greens said they only wanted a referendum at the time to “respect democracy.”

But ultimately it is the responsibility of Cameron’s Conservatives in government, and while in the run-up to the referendum so many of them promised the British people that they’d benefit from Brexit, after the referendum they then turned around and told them that, in fact, under every single scenario, ordinary people will suffer after Britain leaves the EU. This turnaround is staggering, even by contemporary political expectations, and it reveals that the Conservatives – funded as they have been historically by big private interests – may well be quite happy with the divisive chaos of Brexit, because it’s another way of reinforcing the message that ordinary people must inevitably suffer (while at the same time billionaires increase their wealth).

Amongst the Brexit battles, there has been much talk of ‘protectionism’ – but all this shows that it’s starting to become clear what is truly being protected by the whole process: financial elitism and the inevitable inequalities that come with it.

Yes, here we are. Few people remember the expenses scandal any more, and even fewer people talk about it. It served its purpose; it may have even successfully buried bad news. The press very rarely mention Jeremy Corbyn’s impressive track record – on expenses, or apartheid, or war, or the EU. They focus not on those things, but on personality, on leadership credentials – anything but policy. After all, his policies would mean a redistribution of wealth and power to the people. The entire system could be shaken: renationalisation of key public services, investment for communities, education, healthcare, and fewer military interventions. Incredibly, says historian Mark Curtis, “Corbyn would be the first anti-imperialist to win power in a major Western country.”

So even in Westminster, alongside the press corps, politicians have tried to manoeuvre in a manner ensuring that this current system is kept in place, and Corbyn is kept out, since his entry into Downing Street would mark an end to ‘business as usual’ for the press, the politicians, and the bankers. Part of the Brexit “shambles” that the press talk about (and even blame Corbyn himself for in his role as Leader of the Opposition) is actually partially a result of the machinations from across the parties to stand firm, immovable, and keep Corbyn out at all costs.

The Conservative government itself just suffered the greatest defeat in British history, with an incredible amount of Conservative MP’s voting to reject their leader’s Brexit deal. Normally, this would result in resignation(s) or even a complete collapse of government, but in another typical turnaround, the following day these same MP’s declared their confidence in her to govern – a perfect example of their dogged determination to do whatever it takes, even inflict further chaos and damage to the country, in order to keep Corbyn out. (It has even emerged that those in power may have also used government money on a campaign to discredit Corbyn.) The press barons, the big banks, and country club circuit expect nothing less – and they are confident they will survive, whatever disorder ensues. After all, they survived the expenses scandal and the bailout’s transfer of trillions of pounds of public money into private hands. They’re still here.

But that could all change, and it may even be certain now. Regardless of what happens next, the struggle remains one for a more democratic media, a more democratic system, and a more democratic society, something the mass majority seem to be in agreement on. The economic elites, as we can see, fear a redistribution of power and wealth across a wider population desperate for empowerment; the rich and powerful fear democracy itself, and with neoliberalism on its last legs, understandably so. They may well be simply staving off the inevitable.

A community educator and lifelong anti-capitalist activist, Jay Baker (he/him) is the founder of SilenceBreaker Media and has written, produced, and directed documentaries in addition to writing for numerous newspapers, magazines, zines, and websites. His own website is at dukeofhardrock.com.

In normal times, such a crushing defeat on a key piece of government legislation would be expected to be followed by a prime ministerial resignation.

But what do they mean by ‘normal’?

Previously, May called a General Election in 2017 after triggering Article 50, confident she was going to increase her MPs to ensure a smoother Brexit process. May and the Tories learnt through their damaging election campaign that there is a popular movement that supports and backs Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour led project. This project saw the Tories 21-point lead in the opinion polls dramatically reduce, with the Tories losing 13 seats and Labour gaining 30 seats. This relates to the radical transformation of what is considered politically possible, aided by the bursting of a political bubble surrounding Westminster.

Re-reading my blog post in 2015 regarding the General Election, where I used my own experiences of voting for the Liberal Democrats in 2010 to argue that people should vote for Labour in 2015, gave me chance to reflect on how radically different the political discourse is, and related opportunities are now, because of the election of Jeremy Corbyn as the Labour party leader in 2015.

Whilst I still stand by my 2015 election argument, given the context of that election and the devastation of 5 years of Tory rule at the time, it is also clear how different political discourse is now and how it is quite easy to separate most politics into two categories: the politics of fear (e.g. Tories, the far right etc.) and the politics of hope (as shown by the rise of Corbyn’s Labour and the concept of democratic socialism across the left). This new radical politics of hope looks at tackling the root causes of social, economic and political inequality and therefore has helped us reimagine what is possible in a broader sense. My blog post in 2015 was very pessimistic, it was an argument based on reasons why someone shouldn’t vote for the Conservatives rather than reasons for why someone should vote for Labour.

Corbyn was an accidental leader, placed onto the ballot by a Parliamentary Labour Party for a laugh as they didn’t imagine Corbyn would connect with the members the way he has (they wouldn’t have allowed him on the ballot if they had thought that was the case!). In August 2018, the FT reported on how Corbyn has been central to the Labour party becoming more financially sustainable through membership-led income rather than corporate backing, with Labour raising around £10m more than the Tories in 2017 (Labour had also raised more than the Tories in 2016), with a 150% increase in Labour party members under Corbyn’s leadership, increasing subs from £6m in 2014 to £16m in 2017. Donations are mostly made up by trade unions, bringing in around £18m. This is important to compare to the Conservatives who only received £835,000 in 2017 from subs, illustrating the differences in interests that these parties represent (people who’ve died and left the Tories their money contribute more [£1.7m] than living members!). Corporate and individual donations – mainly representing capital – was around £34m, again illustrating the interests that the parties are representing.

This widespread popularity for Corbyn’s Labour Party is reflected in a recent YouGov polling analysis, as displayed in the chart above, which compares people’s opinions regarding 9 Labour policies in the UK, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway and USA. YouGov summarise their findings, stating:

In none of the European countries surveyed are any of Corbyn’s policies opposed by more people than supported. In fact, most of the time they’re supported by the majority. Labour’s pledge to make university tuition free for all students garners majority support in every country listed, as does their proposal to generate 60% of electricity and heat from low carbon or renewable sources by 2030. In the UK this energy pledge is the most popular of all, being supported by 79% of people, followed by capping rents (74%) and raising taxes for the richest 5% of earners (68%).

YouGov reflect on why it is that this broad support for Labour’s policies do not translate even more in leader polling, but do not scratch under the surface of that clichéd ‘leadership’ discussion.

For instance, there are problems regarding media reporting and bias, relating to vested interests, with the Media Reform Coalition reporting that:

Just two companies, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp UK and Lord Rothermere’s Daily Mail Group, control nearly 60% of national newspaper circulation. If you include online and mobile readers, the situation isn’t that much better with five companies accounting for 80% of all consumption, online and offline.

The LSE did a study into the media representations of Jeremy Corbyn, finding that:

Our systematic content analysis of a representative sample of newspaper articles published in 8 national newspapers between 1 September and 1 November 2015, however, shows that the press reacted in a highly transgressive manner to the new leader of the opposition, hence our reference to the attackdog metaphor. Our analysis shows that Corbyn was thoroughly delegitimised as a political actor from the moment he became a prominent candidate and even more so after he was elected as party leader, with a strong mandate. This process of delegitimisation occurred in several ways: 1) through lack of or distortion of voice; 2) through ridicule, scorn and personal attacks; and 3) through association, mainly with terrorism. All this raises, in our view, a number of pressing ethical questions regarding the role of the media in a democracy. Certainly, democracies need their media to challenge power and offer robust debate, but when this transgresses into an antagonism that undermines legitimate political voices that dare to contest the current status quo, then it is not democracy that is served.

Whilst not as bad as the right wing media, ‘left wing’ media such as The Guardian and The Independent were also criticised in the LSE’s research for their imbalanced negative reporting of Corbyn. Media Lens are useful for critical analysis of The Guardian and the problems created by the ‘liberal left’ newspaper’s not so popular take on Corbyn. Our own Jay Baker will be exploring these issues in his regular SilenceBreaker Media podcast that will be coming soon, so watch this space!

Furthermore, it is important to reflect back on the income streams of the two parties discussed above and how this connects with vested interests, especially where financial liberalisation, capital mobility and the market is promoted within a neoliberal system as being more important than ensuring a system of equality and fairness. For instance, our obsession with GDP is a good example of this, despite Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson demonstrating in their The Spirit Level book that it is inequality, not GDP, that has a correlation with social problems: the higher the inequality the more social problems there are.

Corbyn is a democratic socialist, which is a philosophy and political approach that has become more popular across the country and also in other countries such as the US through Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Democratic socialism in summary focusses on political democracy and also advocates for social ownership of the means of production – essentially meaning that workers have a meaningful control and say in how their work place is organised and run and also in how the surplus created is utilised and distributed. People are put at the centre of a democratic socialist philosophy, and after so many years of being told that the markets and financial capital cannot be controlled, people are finding hope in a philosophy and related policies that says different.

So what is this normal the BBC referred to?

Rather than a pessimist vote for the lesser of two evils, for the first time in a very long time people are given a choice to vote for something they believe in, to vote for hope and the potential for things to be different. There is an increasingly new way of doing things, with membership – i.e. ordinary people – driving the Labour party, and independent media becoming more and more diverse (something we are hoping to increasingly contribute to here at SilenceBreaker Media), tapping into a new political paradigm linked to hope, and framed by democratic socialist ideas. The political landscape and acceptable discourse has radically transformed challenging what the construction of normal is…

Jane Watkinson (she/her) is an anti-capitalist, intersectional feminist and vegan interested in Marxism, social ecology, sociology, revolutionary humanism, and studying radical social, economic, and political theory and how this can be applied in practice. She is a freelance researcher working in the community sector. Her LinkTree is here.

Britain’s household debt mountain has reached a new peak, with UK homes now owing an average of £15,385 to credit card firms, banks and other lenders, according to the TUC… The level of unsecured debt as a share of household income is now 30.4%, the highest level it has ever been at. It is well above the £286bn peak in 2008 before the financial crisis, the TUC said.

Related to 10 years of Conservative-led austerity, household debt has increased as a way to respond to the pressures of being able to afford basic necessities. David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology & Geography at The Graduate Center, CUNY, discussed in his latest podcast the concept of necessities and its relation with the concept of freedom. It is often argued that freedom is an exclusive capitalist neoliberal offering, and that a socialist system would remove individual freedoms from people (this argument mostly relies upon comparisons with ‘communist’ regimes such as Soviet Russia, which are criticised by many socialists and would certainly have been criticised by Karl Marx). Whilst this may be true if your individual freedoms include being able to be very, very rich at the expense of the majority, socialism via the public domain, rather than the market, would provide more people more individual freedom by providing everyone with access to basic necessities. Harvey cites Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party policies as a good example of how this can work in practice.

The level of household debt reported by the TUC, which also as a note doesn’t include outstanding mortgage debts, also relates to the rise of insecure, low paid work. The household debt figure reported on included “the total amount lent in bank overdrafts, personal loans, store cards, payday loans and outstanding credit card debts. It also included student loans, which added a substantial amount to the figures.” The research also doesn’t include Christmas debts, which as I discussed in a previous article, takes on average 5 months to pay off!

The centrality of debt is not a surprise. David Harvey argues in his book Rebel Cities: From The Right to the City to the Urban Revolution that understanding the credit system needs to be central to a critical conception of how the system works and the increasing crises and instability it faces:

Internalizing the credit system and the relation between the rate of interest and the rate of profit within the general laws of production, circulation, and realization of capital is likewise a disruptive necessity if we are to bring Marx’s theoretical apparatus more acutely to bear on actual events.

The rise of fictitious capital has been central to sustaining the capitalist system but also creating pressures and demands upon it that resulted in the 2007/8 crisis (The Big Short is a fantastic film illustrating this very well). However, private debt was transferred into public debt, with well organised and designed campaigns blaming everyone and anyone, whether that be refugees, benefit claimants, ethnic minorities etc. to take attention away from the role of capital and especially fictitious capital in creating the crisis (it’s a lot harder to quickly explain what a Collateralized Debt Obligation is!). Related to this blame game is the political programme of austerity, which attracted condemnation from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, which I wrote about in a recent article, and has created an economy that the TUC report shows is more reliant on unsecure debt than ever before.

We have created a system where we ‘value’ the ‘rights’ of fictitious capital over ordinary people, where the failures of the market are protected by the state whilst the same state unleashes a political programme that creates record levels of household debt, insecurity and low wages, as local services are closed or cut. This relates to the contradictions of capitalism and neoliberalism, which David Harvey has written and spoke a lot about and which I touched on in my previous article regarding the contradictions created by demand side economics and supply side economics, with the former relating to Marx’s arguments in Volume 2 of Capital regarding the need for capitalism to be careful when depressing worker and labour power, as there is an awareness that workers need to be able to consume and spend to keep the system going and the latter relating to the issues Marx talks about in Volume 1 of Capital, especially regarding the need to destroy labour power in order to maximise the surplus value and profit relating to capital mobility and also the creation of fictitious capital.

These contradictions create instability and systemic problems, as shown by how there are concerns regarding another crisis happening in 2020 (see here and here for instance). The system isn’t sustainable nor does it work for the majority of people.

Jane Watkinson (she/her) is an anti-capitalist, intersectional feminist and vegan interested in Marxism, social ecology, sociology, revolutionary humanism, and studying radical social, economic, and political theory and how this can be applied in practice. She is a freelance researcher working in the community sector. Her LinkTree is here.

It was something I explored in my Politics with Research Methods MA, researching into the social enterprise sector in Sheffield, UK and Pittsburgh, US to compare and contrast the sector in the context of changes in political, social and economic relations alongside related ideas/ideology since the 1970/80s. Once the news broke of David Cameron, the previous Prime Minister and former Leader of the Conservative Party, promising an EU referendum, I wrote an article that illustrates my then limited critical analysis of the EU as a structural and ideologically institution. I naively argued there was a simple conflation of the EU and the Eurozone and this was to further the right’s cause of leaving the EU; whilst there are obviously concerns regarding the sometimes merging of these issues, there are clear concerns for the left that liberalisation and capital mobility are core to the EU as a political and economic project – this is just intensified and easier to enforce when a country is also a member of the Eurozone (e.g. via structural adjustment programmes). My argument at the time therefore ignored this wider debate key to anti-capitalist and more progressive, alternative visions of economics, politics and society. For instance, in the article I argued:

It isn’t Europe as an institution, it is specifically the Eurozone with the related Stability and Growth Pact and the Fiscal Compact affecting countries such as Greece, which this referendum will have nothing to do with given we are not a part of the Eurozone or these related conditions.

But, in fact, as I will argue in this article there are real concerns regarding Europe as an institution that we have to understand and analyse. I will also argue that the distinction between a social democratic and democratic socialist position is very important when considering the left debates around Brexit and especially when considering discussions regarding the Labour party’s approach to it.

In recent weeks, there has been an increase in the bashing of Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, and Labour’s approach to Brexit. When looking at the background of many of those doing the attacking i.e. namely centrist, pro-status quo figures and also the misrepresentation of Labour members’ views (see here and an analysis of this misrepresentation here) – it encouraged me to do more reading into the arguments of Lexit (left wing vision for leaving the EU). This approach wasn’t given much coverage during the EU referendum – mostly only visible from the stickers put up – including amongst the left (I hold my hands up here too, just look at my article cited above!). Furthermore, the right wing perspectives – focused on immigration – was the hegemonic discourse shaping the debate and covered by the corporate media. This links into this argument from prominent Lexit advocate Grace Blakeley:

The left was right to campaign against leaving the EU in 2016. Based on the tenor of the campaign, it was clear the Leave campaign would embolden the xenophobes and nationalists that exist across the class spectrum in the UK.

The election of Jeremy Corbyn as the Labour leader (twice!) has fundamentally changed politics. One of the most crucial changes has been to reshape and reconstruct the boundaries of what is considered ‘acceptable’ debate and political discussion. Corbyn has given power to the notion of radically new ideas of how society, the economy and politics can work.

Dawn Foster wrote a perfect article on the EU referendum and Labour’s position and how dangerous it would be to go against the results and promote a People’s Vote. We had a vote – something the Greens and Liberal Democrats supported, and Labour didn’t – and we have to respect the democratic mandate of that vote or risk potentially isolating many people from politics for a long time – something Corbyn has done a great job in addressing through his different, authentic and relatable approach to politics. We also have to look at the reasons for why people voted to leave, which links into arguments around Lexit and the left critique of the EU – namely relating to the effects of liberalisation and capital mobility and what is perceived to be a lack of control in a lot of people’s lives.

David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology & Geography at The Graduate Center, CUNY, has studied Karl Marx’s Capital for many years, raising awareness of Marx’s work regarding the general nature and contradictions of capital, especially its need to expand and grow to create more and more profit, relating to the hegemonic capitalist obsession with endless growth. Harvey refers to how a crisis in capitalism is when there is surplus labour and surplus capital side-by-side and to resolve the crisis the two have to be put back together. Harvey cites US suburbanization post-1945 as a good example of this but that it also resulted in urban uprisings given the process mainly benefited the white working class. Harvey refers to how in the 1970s there was a movement away from demand side economics, which had dominated the 1945-1960 period. For Harvey, demand side economics relates to Marx’s arguments in Volume 2 of Capital regarding the need for capitalism to be careful when depressing worker and labour power, as there is an awareness that workers need to be able to consume and spend to keep the system going.

The 1970s was instead dominated by supply side economics, which relates to the issues Marx talks about in Volume 1 of Capital, especially regarding the need to destroy labour power in order to maximise the surplus value and profit. Key to this is capital mobility, and thus the concept of liberating finance capital and removing controls on capital flows. This is why Article 58 and Articles 63-66 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) regarding the need for capital liberalisation and the freedom of capital movement fundamental to The Single Market brought into Treaty discussion in the 1960s, are crucial components of how the EU is structured and therefore critically important to understand and recognise.

It is important to note, given Corbyn was roundly criticised during the EU referendum, that Corbyn was campaigning to remain but reform given the issues many on the left have with the EU in terms of capital mobility, competition and the potential problems Labour will have from the EU when implementing their radical political strategy if Corbyn is elected Prime Minister. These concerns are key to why the Labour party will look to renegotiate a Customs Union agreement, by trying to block Theresa May’s current deal, making sure there isn’t a ‘no-deal’ and encouraging a general election to win and enable them to negotiate with the EU (see here, here and here).

Grace Blakeley, who has written about the problems of financial capital mobility and its connection with “unproductive speculation and trading” and reasons for why the Leave vote won, summaries the concerns regarding the limitations placed upon radical policy from the EU, arguing:

Any attempt by a socialist government to limit capital flows into or out of the UK, or to direct capital into strategic investments a way that extended far beyond ‘correcting market failure’, would be resisted far more strongly than an attempt to limit free movement. This was made abundantly clear recently, when EU officials told the Times they were far more worried about Corbyn’s post-Brexit plans for state subsidies and a return to public ownership than the Tories’ plans for further deregulation and privatisation. They merely highlighted the latter ‘because it is better public relations’ – as though the EU was a multinational corporation looking to clean up its public image.

Blakeley discusses concerns the EU have re Labour’s policies and the EU’s desire for a ‘level playing field’ to be key to negotiations given this. The concept of a ‘level playing field’ is central to the EU’s discussions and actions around capital mobility.

There is increasing attention being paid to arguments from the left that are critical of the EU. For instance, in a New Statesman article, Joe Guinan and Thomas M Hanna argue, “ceding Brexit to the right was very nearly the most serious strategic mistake by the British left since the ‘70s.” Similarly, Costas Lapavitsas argues that:

EU rules would place severe restrictions on a future Corbyn government: State Aid, public procurement and nationalization…These are not minor issues. They lie at the heart of any attempt to transform Britain’s economy in a socialist direction, especially when it comes to industrial policy. As the debate over Brexit rumbles on it is clear that the EU would place unique barriers to a Corbyn-led Labour government—making even a reversal to WTO rules more advantageous than either EU or Single Market membership in these respects.

With regards to public ownership, Guinan and Hanna argue this has been “discouraged and disadvantaged” by EU law, encouraging privatisation (they cite Article 59 of the TFEU, for instance). Lapavitsas agrees, arguing:

There are likely to be challenges on introducing public ownership, if publicly owned firms received support that aimed to replace private provision and pursue wider policy goals…While the European Union includes many member states with nationalized industries and utilities, its rules are set up to steer a course towards privatization, and to make renationalization ineffective at best and impossible at worst…In practice, the EU rule of forbidding public monopolies means that the state could only own a provider of a service in a market, not abolish that market altogether. State providers would be forced to compete with other providers, who would often not be subject to the same constraints. The history of such arrangements across Europe and elsewhere shows how easily state providers are undercut in terms of cost by rivals willing to pay lower wages, or cut corners on health and safety, or even provide services only where they make money.

This relates to discussions regarding the EU’s fourth railway package and what potential consequences it could have on a Labour government’s policies for rail renationalisation. The fourth railway package refers to opening “up each country’s rail network to competition and ultimately create a single European market in rail services.” Jonathan Cowie argues “the only thing that the new system will almost certainly rule out is state monopolies that do not have to compete with rivals to win franchises, renationalised or otherwise.” Furthermore, critically reviewing Cowie’s argument, Nicole Badstuber argues “the EU package may not strictly require privatisation but it is definitely designed to create an environment conducive to this.” Moreover, Alex Gordon and Jonathan White state that the “EU single market membership frustrates any ability to create coherent, integrated, nationalised industries and utilities based on democratically agreed national needs” when discussing the incompatibility of Labour’s manifesto with the EU’s single market, citing how British Rail would not be allowed under these conditions whilst also mentioning the problems Labour would have in creating a national investment bank. There are also concerns that renationalisation of the NHS would be difficult for Corbyn under EU law, with healthcare now seen as an ‘economic activity’ meaning “EU rules on the internal market (free movement of goods, persons, capital and services), public procurement and state aid, in principle apply to healthcare services.”

In reference to industrial strategy, Guinan and Hanna argue that “Britain’s industrial production has been virtually flat since the late 1990s, with a yawning trade deficit in industrial goods” and for this to be fundamentally addressed there will need to be state aid. State aid refers to “the nurturing of a next generation of companies through grants, interest and tax relief, guarantees, government holdings, and the provision of goods and services on a preferential basis.” The EU will not allow state aid if they don’t see it as being compatible with the internal market and if there are worries it will undermine competition. Guinan and Hanna argue: “Whether or not state aid meets these criteria is at the sole discretion of the Commission – and courts in member states are obligated to enforce the commission’s decisions.” Lapavitsas even argues that in terms of State Aid, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules would actually be better, saying “the World Trade Organization rules — only brings into sharper focus how restrictive and neoliberal EU state aid policy is.” However, there are serious concerns with a no-deal Brexit where WTO rules would become the default. Recent polling shows that there is popular public support for removing the constraints of state aid even if this means sacrificing a close trade relationship with the EU.

Given these concerns, Laurie Macfarlane has written a very useful article looking at the options Labour have when it comes to the EU and Brexit, utilising a handy theoretical framework:

A helpful framework for untangling these issues is Dani Rodrik’s impossibility trilemma. This states that democracy, national sovereignty and cross border economic integration are mutually incompatible: we can combine any two of the three, but never have all three simultaneously and in full. In the context of Brexit, it means that we can do any two of the following:
a) Retain the benefits of economic integration that come via membership of the EU’s single market and customs union;
b) Reclaim national sovereignty by returning powers to the British parliament that currently lie with the European institutions;
c) Uphold democratic principles by ensuring that we have a say over all the laws we are subjected to.

Given this, Macfarlane argues that Labour have two clear options:

This leaves two possible options which, on the face of it at least, do not involve a significant loss of democracy and sovereignty. Firstly, Labour could favour a harder Brexit which seeks to reclaim national sovereignty and take back control of our rules and laws, while sacrificing economic integration with the EU – and incurring whatever economic cost that might carry (hereafter referred to as the ‘Lexit’ option). This effectively combines options b) and c) in the list above, while sacrificing a). Secondly, Labour could favour a second referendum and campaign to remain in the EU, and seek to transform it from within – and incur whatever political cost this might carry (hereafter referred to as the ‘Remain’ option). This effectively combines options a) and c) in the list above, while sacrificing b).

However, whether it can be argued democratic principles would be ensured and C) met by having a second referendum and discounting those who voted to leave in the 2016 referendum is very dubious and contentious.

Macfarlane also argues that in terms of state aid and its impact upon Labour’s policies implementation, it will depend upon Labour’s policy details. This links into a crucial point regarding the left Brexit debate: the difference between social democracy and democratic socialism. Macfarlane explains:

Whether or not these rules are a barrier to Labour’s economic agenda depends on the scope of the Party’s aspirations. Labour’s 2017 manifesto was very much in the vein of moderate European social democracy. Nearly all of the flagship policies already exist in other northern European countries such as Germany and the Nordic countries, and it would be possible to implement most of these within the EU’s State Aid and competition regimes. The reason these policies have not been implemented in the UK so far is not because of any EU rules – it is because successive UK governments, including Labour governments, have been ideologically opposed to them… the UK has consistently spent significantly less on State Aid expenditure relative to other Northern European economies. However, while the EU’s State Aid and competition regime is relatively accommodating of social democracy, it is less accommodating of democratic socialism. At a basic level, the EU’s State Aid and competition regime is fundamentally rooted in the idea that goods and services are most efficiently produced by private firms operating in a competitive market, and that the state should only intervene in markets to ‘level the playing field’ or to correct certain identifiable market failures. If Labour plans to mount a serious challenge to this logic, and move beyond the moderate social democracy implied by its 2017 manifesto, then it is likely that this would place a Labour government on a collision course with the EU’s State Aid and competition authorities.

This is crucial and links into arguments made for a Green New Deal via EU State Aid (see here) for instance, and how EU State Aid helps stop corporate welfare (contra to what happened with Amazon in the US). However, this ignores democratic socialist arguments regarding radically restructuring the way society, politics and economics works and the different perspectives of democratic socialists and social democrats when it comes to capitalism and if it should be controlled or replaced. Replacing capitalism also links into the threat of environmental crisis and the incompatibility of capitalism with environmental justice (especially given its obsession with endless compound growth at huge costs to the environment). This difference between social democracy and democratic socialism is worth bearing in mind when reading any article about how the left should approach the EU.

Summing up Lexit, Macfarlane says:

Lexit therefore demands a hard form of Brexit, where post-Brexit arrangements with the EU are kept to a bare minimum. Any softer form of Brexit would mean that the UK government would not have control over the various policy levers that the case for Lexit relies on. Under such a scenario, the UK would have more flexibility over areas such as State Aid, although it would still be bound by WTO rules, which are narrower in scope compared with EU state aid rules. It would also be able to introduce capital controls if an elected government so wished…Even in a Lexit scenario, the UK would have to comply with European regulations and standards if it wants to maintain and expand its global production chains, but will have no say over these rules. For the same reasons, after Brexit the UK will be less able to hold multinational corporations to account compared with being inside the EU. An independent UK is simply not a large enough economic power to exert influence on large foreign-owned corporations…An independent UK – socialist or not – cannot fully insulate itself from the forces of global capital.

There are important points of discussion here and why many argued – including Corbyn – our best position would have been staying in the EU and focusing on reforming within (see here for suggestions on how to reform the EU), especially given the economic and political consequences of leaving the EU including the negative effect on trade, our service sector, jobs and possibilities for the far right alongside the problems with a hard border in Northern Ireland. On this basis, Macfarlane makes a convincing argument for a second referendum:

Although it would need careful planning, such a strategy could involve painting the Brexit impasse as a crisis engineered by the Tories, highlighting that the only way out of the deadlock is to have another referendum, and then campaigning in the referendum on a radical platform of ‘remain and reform’. With the Tories weakened by internal division and political crises, and Labour’s grass roots membership firmly in favour of Remain, the party would be in a strong position to win the referendum – and ultimately the next general election.

However, Dawn Foster’s article on the problems of another referendum are worth referring to again here; I don’t share the optimism that Remain would win and that it would be easy to disassociate the Remain campaign from the liberal elites who oppose Corbyn and see no need to reform the EU. I also don’t believe it is a democratic thing to do, and would risk inspiring the far right even more as they feel the establishment has ignored them again – something Corbyn has been trying to address with his authentic leadership.

Some, looking for an alternative, argue for a similar model to Norway. Ellen Engelstad, writing in Tribune’s first issue since its relaunch, argues that despite many looking towards Norway’s European Economic Area (EEA) agreement as something the UK should follow, there are many problems with this including the acceptance of the single market – and thus capital mobility – without much say in the laws and rules made and implemented by the EU. Engelstad argues that Norway’s membership with the EEA has been key to members of the public being opposed to membership of the EU, and citing many of the problems discussed above in terms of nationalisation, public procurement and state aid alongside the opposition to the fourth railway package and the undermining of workers’ rights and power under the EEA, sums up Norway’s relationship with the EU as: “not only has it meant more than two decades of neoliberal laws that undermine the welfare state and the workers’ movement, it has also in practice been undemocratic.”

In sum, it is important to acknowledge the complexity of this debate and the challenges this country faces and also the left faces in navigating the reality of a decision created by David Cameron, who promised a vote on membership for his own indulgence as he tried to be friends to all in the Conservative Party with no care for the consequences. Things to consider when discussing the best possible way for the left to move forward involve acknowledging concerns regarding the EU’s structural and ideological obsession with liberalisation and the markets – linking with the promotion of capital mobility – and how much this impacts upon left policies that Corbyn’s Labour wants to implement, relating to discussions regarding the differences between social democracy and democratic socialism. Social Democrats don’t see any issues with remaining in the EU (they might advocate some reform, but nothing too radical), arguing we can increase state aid within EU acceptable levels, encourage (part)nationalisation within a mixed economy and rely upon the EU to curb corporate power (namely through state aid). Democratic Socialists are critical of remaining in a political and economic union that has liberalisation and capital mobility at its core, as shown by agreements such as the fourth railway package and the concerns over how much change Corbyn would be able to do under such neoliberal framing. If Corbyn was able to transform the UK through democratic socialist ideas, the country could become a beacon for other countries to look towards and follow. There are obviously issues and concerns regarding adjustments to WTO regulations and the fact there is global financial capital flows with vested interests intent on stopping Corbyn’s revolution in whatever way possible. However, when we look at the predictions regarding climate change, time is running out. Can we really afford to be content with just reforming capitalism? There is serious potential for supplanting capitalism with democratic socialist ideas, it wouldn’t be easy, but it has to be considered when we think about navigating our way through Brexit.

Jane Watkinson (she/her) is an anti-capitalist, intersectional feminist and vegan interested in Marxism, social ecology, sociology, revolutionary humanism, and studying radical social, economic, and political theory and how this can be applied in practice. She is a freelance researcher working in the community sector. Her LinkTree is here.

“In the area of poverty-related policy, the evidence points to the conclusion that the driving force has not been economic but rather a commitment to achieving radical social re-engineering…Universal Credit and the other far-reaching changes to the role of government in supporting people in distress are almost always ‘sold’ as being part of an unavoidable program of fiscal ‘austerity’, needed to save the country from bankruptcy. In fact, however, the reforms have almost certainly cost the country far more than their proponents will admit.”

In this article, I will however argue that this is also economically driven and part of a class political project: neoliberalism. You only have to look at the fact that “eight men own the same wealth as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity” to see how economic and political power, relating to class, interrelate. Also, consider “Britain’s billionaires have seen their net worth more than double since the recession, with the richest 1,000 families now controlling a total of £547bn” as another example of the continued expansion of the super rich.

David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology & Geography at The Graduate Center, CUNY, has written a lot on neoliberalism, which he defines as the following:

“I’ve always treated neoliberalism as a political project carried out by the corporate capitalist class as they felt intensely threatened both politically and economically towards the end of the 1960s into the 1970s. They desperately wanted to launch a political project that would curb the power of labour.”

Harvey talks about how Reagan and Thatcher were crucial to the transition towards this new system, leading a class assault to further their own interests with institutions and think tanks set up and funded to help promote this project. This related to the reduced role of the state providing public services, the emphasis on the freedom of the market alongside a rise in privatisation – especially of public services – and also the emphasis upon personal responsibility and individual liberty and expression (over genuine social justice organisation) while the state provides subsidies and assistance to capital and corporations. This has led to extreme levels of debt, especially personal, relating to contradictions in capitalism as people borrow to be able to deal with a crisis of living standards and stagnating wages and benefits, and reduction in important social programmes. Harvey refers to how capital doesn’t get blamed, it is protected. This happened so obviously in the 2007/2008 financial crisis, with banks bailed out and the rest of us taking the hit.

Importantly, Harvey argues that neoliberalism heavily relies upon legitimacy for it to continue to be a successful class project:

“The big problem for the neoliberal project is getting popular legitimacy. When it started out there was a lot of popular legitimacy. By the time you get to the 1990s and you are into the Clinton years of neoliberalism people start to realise…they are being had. So they went into alliance with the neoconservatives and so you get the neoconservatives and the neoliberals in alliance. Now you are beginning to see the movement towards neoliberalism and the connection to the neofascists/neo right wing, alternative right wing. So this is something that is really, really bothersome.”

In another article, Harvey explains the same problem:

“The neoliberal argument had a lot of legitimacy in the 1980s and 1990s as being liberatory in some way. But nobody believes that any more. Everybody realises it’s a con job in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. But we’re beginning to see the possible emergence of an ethno-nationalist protectionism-autarky, which is a different model. That doesn’t sit very well with neoliberal ideals. We could be headed into something which is much less pleasant than neoliberalism, the division of the world into warring and protectionist factions who are fighting each other over trade and everything else.”

Harvey, talking at the relaunch of Tribune event at The World Transformed, refers to the power of the Koch brothers and how important they are for helping create this new version of legitimacy, after they funded the Tea Party to “create chaos in Washington” helping further apathy towards politics and establishment politicians, relating to the election of Donald Trump as President who has “done everything that is in the neoliberal playbook”. Harvey explains that the Koch brothers disagree with Trump on free trade and on immigration, but Trump has been key to further neoliberalism as a political project.

A similar thing can be said of the UK, with the rise of the far right – linking in with Brexit arguments of our little island succeeding on its own like the good old days of the Empire. With this, things such as immigration are blamed for the problems caused by capital and the increasing expansion of speculative finance and related crisis and inequality.

Alston’s report draws clear connections between Brexit and the implications this will have on people in poverty and inequality:

“In my meetings with the government, it was clear to me that the impact of Brexit on people in poverty is an afterthought, to be dealt with through manipulations of fiscal policy after the event, if at all. But Brexit will have serious consequences in this domain and the challenges need to be dealt with head on. A lack of clarity is preventing families at risk of poverty from planning for its impact. People feel their homes, jobs, and communities are at risk. Ironically, it was these very fears and insecurity that contributed significantly to the Brexit vote…The UK stands to lose billions of pounds in EU funds that will disproportionately affect the poorer areas that have most benefited from them, including almost £9 billion in poverty reduction funding between 2014 and 2020. Although the government has announced a “shared prosperity fund” to replace this funding, local and devolved governments told me they had no information about the fund or how it would operate—just five months before Brexit. Time is running out.”

This relates to concerns from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has written to Theresa May to ask her and the government to not ignore Alston’s report, that Tory Brexit will result in a “bargain basement Brexit” ushering in lower taxes for corporations whilst attacking labour power alongside human rights.

Alston’s report also focuses heavily on Universal Credit, providing a damning assessment of the hardship and pain this is causing to so many people:

“The Universal Credit system is designed with a five week delay between when people successfully file a claim and when they receive benefits. Research suggests that this “waiting period,” which actually often takes up to 12 weeks, pushes many who may already be in crisis into debt, rent arrears, and serious hardship, requiring them to sacrifice food or heat…One of the key features of Universal Credit involves the imposition of draconian sanctions, even for infringements that seem minor. Endless anecdotal evidence was presented to the Special Rapporteur to illustrate the harsh and arbitrary nature of some of the sanctions, as well as the devastating effects that resulted from being completely shut out of the benefits system for weeks or months at a time. As the system grows older, some penalties will soon be measured in years.”

Central to David Harvey’s work is analysing Marx’s theory of commodities and how key they are to capitalism. As part of neoliberalism, we have seen the commodification of essential public services that should not be commodities, including healthcare, housing, transport and education. This could be argued about the internet too, which Harvey uses as an example for how fast moving capital is and how efficient it is at co-opting things:

“we have the internet, which everyone thought of initially as a great liberatory technology that would allow for a great deal of human freedom. But now look what’s happened to it. It’s dominated by a few monopolies that collect our data and give it to all kinds of seedy characters who use it for political purposes.”

Rather than seeing access to the internet as a human right, something the creator of the internet argues it is, access and usage to and of the internet has become again part of the neoliberal project where lots of people don’t have the resources or skills to do so. However, as part of the government’s 2017 Government Transformation Strategy, Alston refers to the ambition for “government services [to] become ‘digital by default’” and “the inner workings of government itself will be transformed in a push for automation aided by data science and artificial intelligence.” Alston links this into the discussion around Universal Credit, which is “the first major government service that is ‘digital by default.’” As Alston states, “One wonders why some of the most vulnerable and those with poor digital literacy had to go first in what amounts to a nationwide digital experiment.”

Alston refers to several other political programmes and policies that this government and the Coalition government before have brought in, which disproportionately punish poorer people, including the benefit cap and reductions, cuts to legal aid, local authority cuts significantly impacting upon the community, public and statutory services and importantly argues that “poverty is a political choice”.

Despite all this evidence of growing inequality, poverty and hardship, the argument that the neoliberal free market is the best way to operate is one that our current Prime Minster and the Bank of England are readily willing to accept and promote, with Theresa May arguing in a Bank of England speech in September 2017:

“A free market economy, operating under the right rules and regulations, is the greatest agent of collective human progress ever created… [it is] unquestionably the best, and indeed the only sustainable, means of increasing the living standards of everyone in a country.”

As Harvey argues, “Value is fixed by whatever price is realised in the market”, which puts the blame on the individual for not making it and training themselves to succeed in the current system rather than questioning what this value and price really means and the social impact this actually creates. On benefits? Your fault. Lost your home? Your fault. Can’t find a job? Your fault. The system is protected.

The response to Alston’s report from Amber Rudd, the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions? To attack it as “extraordinarily political” whilst denying the real stories and lives affected by this government’s cruel policies. But neoliberalism isn’t about about moralism, it’s about furthering the corporate, capital and financial interests of a few over the rest. And here again we can see what Harvey is talking about when discussing the increasing crisis of legitimately of neoliberalsm. However, the rise of ethno-nationalist protectionism, found in the arguments supporting Brexit for instance, show how this class project can adapt. These policies are forms of social control, repression, creating division and alienation whilst the media and political discourse help whip up the fear of the ‘other’ whether that be migrants or benefit claimants (as shown with Universal Credit) etc. But as Trump shows in the U.S, and Bolsonaro in Brazil with his inner circle stuffed of Chicago school economic thinkers, there are cracks and contradictions in neoliberalism, and people are mobilising against this political project.

Jane Watkinson (she/her) is an anti-capitalist, intersectional feminist and vegan interested in Marxism, social ecology, sociology, revolutionary humanism, and studying radical social, economic, and political theory and how this can be applied in practice. She is a freelance researcher working in the community sector. Her LinkTree is here.