The Politics of Delusion

by Les May

I VOTE Labour. In the referendum I voted to remain in the EU, but accepted the result.   At no time have I felt it necessary to criticise Labour’s policy about Brexit. It has confounded the ‘scribblers’ in the media whose criticism has had to be limited to grumbling about its lack of clarity. How nice it would have been for them if Labour had declared its support for, or opposition to, a further referendum.  They would have been able to look forward to lots of ‘exclusive’ briefings from Labour MPs in favour of or against the policy, as the equivalent of open warfare gripped the party. It has not happened.

Credit for this not happening is not due to Corbyn alone.  Those seen as ‘big names’ in the party who do not entirely agree with his stance, John McDonnell, Emily Thornberry, Keir Starmer, plus those Labour MPs which some sections of the media would find more congenial as Labour leader, e.g. Yvette Cooper, Hillary Benn and Stephen Kinnock, have been muted in their criticism.

Criticism has tended to come from Labour MPs eager to convince us that if only it would adopt their preferred strategy of supporting a second referendum and campaigning to remain in the EU, the party’s poll ratings would magically improve.

What people who believe this forget is that Labour does not have a majority in Parliament. Labour is essentially a bystander with no power to influence the decisions of the next prime minister, who at this moment is being selected by 160,000 Tory party members in no way representative of the wider population and who seem happy to trash the economy, the union with Scotland and tear up the international treaty which gave guarantees to the people of Ireland in a single minded pursuit of leaving the EU.

If Labour did adopt such a strategy it would have the support of the Welsh and Scottish nationalists, LibDems, MPs who identify themselves as Independent and some Tories.   Even if collectively the different groupings could muster a majority, constitutionally there appears to be no mechanism by which Parliament can prevent a Johnson or Hunt led government forcing us to leave the EU without a deal. To believe that Labour declaring itself in favour of a second referendum and that it will campaign to remain in the EU will in some way influence what happens when a Johnson or Hunt led government takes over is the politics of delusion.

The people who believe this are not alone in being deluded. Corbyn, Hunt and Johnson all share their own delusions.  They believe that if they become Prime Minister they will be able to negotiate with the EU to produce something that is different from the deal that was rejected three times by Parliament.  Corbyn has already tried to sweet talk the Irish government to no avail. I doubt whether the other 27 countries of the EU are exactly quaking in the boots at the prospect of meeting Boris or Jeremy who both seem to think that threatening to leave with ‘no deal’ is going to wring some major concession from the EU.

Labour’s worst nightmare has to be that blame will be dumped on it for the chaos that will follow if Hunt or Johnson have to ‘put their money where their mouth is’ and the UK leaves the EU without a deal.  Labour will be accused of doing ‘too little, too late’ by people who don’t want to acknowledge that its ability to significantly affect whether the UK leaves the EU after the referendum was always limited. Labour’s best option now is probably to look to a damage limitation strategy. 

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BREXIT CONSIDERED by Vernon Bogdanor

ON June 23, 2016, British voters decided by a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent that the United Kingdom should leave the European Union.  Since then, British politics has been convulsed by the referendum’s repercussions. Some Remainers do not accept the finality of the vote.  The margin, they argue, was too narrow to provide a mandate for fundamental change, while some of the arguments that persuaded voters to support Leave were mendacious.  The hope that Britain could, in the words of then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, have its cake and eat it has proved misplaced.

The hope that Britain could, in the words of then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, have its cake and eat it has proved misplaced.

If, to alter the metaphor, one leaves a tennis club because one does not wish to pay the subscription and does not like the rules, one will not be able to continue to use the tennis courts on the same basis as the members. Therefore, some Remainers conclude, there should be a second referendum, to discover whether the British people still wish to leave the European Union.

The European issue is difficult for Parliament to resolve for two reasons. The first is that May’s government holds only a minority of seats—317 out of the 650—in the House of Commons, meaning it must rely for its narrow majority on the 10 members of parliament from the vehemently pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland. But, perhaps even more important, both the Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party are internally divided between Remainers and Brexiteers. That division reflects a geographical and cultural division in the country.

The large cities, together with Scotland and Northern Ireland, welcome globalization and are relaxed about the EU’s principle of freedom of movement. They voted to remain. But smaller towns and older manufacturing areas, in which many feel left behind, are hostile to globalization and freedom of movement, which, they argue, have kept wages down and put undue pressure on public services. These areas supported the Leave campaign.

Parliament has enacted that Britain will leave the EU on March 29. After long and tortuous negotiations, Prime Minister Theresa May in November 2018 secured a deal with the EU. That deal comprises a legally binding withdrawal agreement providing for a transition period until December 2020, during which Britain will remain bound by EU rules while negotiating the final relationship. The pattern of that relationship is outlined in a nonbinding political declaration that hints at an outcome in which Britain could negotiate independent trade agreements, while also providing it with some degree of frictionless trade with the EU.

May’s cabinet, despite internal tensions between Remainers and Brexiteers, accepted the deal. But the Tories’ DUP allies were fiercely opposed to it, as they claimed that it might separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom by preventing a hard border with the Irish Republic and potentially creating a customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. The deal was also opposed both by Brexiteers in the Conservative Party, who claimed that it tied Britain too closely to the EU, and by Remainers—primarily Labour, but also Liberal Democrats and Scottish Nationalists—who argued that it allowed for too many barriers to the export of goods and services to the EU. This coalition of incompatibles imposed a crushing defeat on the government motion to accept the deal on Jan. 15. Just 202 MPs supported it, while 432 rejected it.

A defeat of this magnitude is unparalleled in Britain’s parliamentary history. No fewer than 118 Conservatives, mostly hard Brexiteers, voted against the deal, with just 196 Conservatives supporting it. And many of those who voted for it had no choice.  (Because approximately 100 Conservative MPs are ministers or on the government payroll, they were duty-bound to support May or resign.  This means that a majority of Conservative backbenchers were opposed to the deal.) May’s defeat, in what was arguably the most important parliamentary vote in Britain since World War II, creates a moment of acute danger for the prime minister, the government, the Conservative Party, and the country.

A harder Brexit to placate Conservative rebels would alienate Conservative Remainers. Conversely, a softer Brexit to win support from the opposition parties would increase the number of Conservative rebels.

The hope was that the deal could unite Brexiteers and Remainers. Instead it has driven them further apart. A harder Brexit to placate Conservative rebels would alienate Conservative Remainers. Conversely, a softer Brexit to win support from the opposition parties would increase the number of Conservative rebels. Indeed, there may be no deal that could hold the Conservative Party together; an alternative could end the cabinet truce and possibly lead to the disintegration of the minority government, with a general election to follow.

It has happened before. In 1979, the Labour minority government led by James Callaghan disintegrated in this way, in part because Labour was internally divided on the issue of devolving power to Scotland. Then, in 1951, Clement Attlee’s Labour government, which enjoyed a majority of only five, disintegrated because the party was internally divided between left and right. In both cases, long periods in the opposition followed.

The vote also creates a moment of danger for the country. Since Parliament has already approved a bill stating Brexit will occur on March 29, that is the default position. The exit date can, admittedly, be extended with the agreement of the other 27 members of the European Union. But those countries may be unwilling to agree if the only reason for extension is that MPs, 30 months after the referendum, still cannot make up their minds. In any case, an extension would only postpone the dilemma. It would not resolve it.

Unless Parliament passes new legislation—and there are now fewer than 40 sitting days before March 29—Britain will leave the EU without a deal.  That is regarded by most commentators as disastrous, since it would mean that EU customs duties and, even more disadvantageously, an intimidating host of EU regulations would be imposed on British exports.  It would no longer be as easy to send goods from London to Paris or Frankfurt as it is to send goods from London to Edinburgh.

The Jan. 15 vote showed what MPs are against. But there seems to be little agreement on what they are for. Theresa May is now seeking consensus through all-party talks, although she has not yet budged on her so-called red lines, namely that Britain should leave both the European customs union (in order to pursue an independent trade policy) and the single market (to avoid allowing free movement of people and the jurisdiction of EU courts).   And the opposition parties see no reason to help her. Labour is unwilling to allow its deep internal divisions to be publicly exposed by articulating a clear alternative policy. It seeks not consensus but a general election to remove the Conservatives from power.   The Liberal Democrats seek a second referendum, while the Scottish nationalists seek to exploit the government’s difficulties to further the case for independence.
There is no obvious resolution of the problem that could secure majority support.

There is no obvious resolution of the problem that could secure majority support.  Were Britain to remain in the EU’s customs union, it would be unable to sign independent trade agreements.  Were it to remain in the EU’s internal market, it would have to accept freedom of movement.  Yet control of immigration from the European Union was one of the main motivations behind the Brexit vote.
At this point, there seem to be just three alternatives. The first is May’s deal, perhaps in a slightly modified form.  The second is for Britain to leave the EU without a deal; even though most MPs are against a no-deal Brexit, they find themselves unable to agree on an alternative.  The third is for Parliament throw the issue back to the people in a second referendum, even though the prime minister has so far opposed such a move, and its advocates cannot agree on the question to be asked.  Finally, given that the country remains almost evenly divided, a second referendum would not necessarily resolve the conflict.

The issue of Britain’s place in (or out of) Europe has arguably destroyed five of the last six Conservative prime ministers—Harold Macmillan, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, and David Cameron.  It may be about to bring down another.

Vernon Bogdanor is a professor of government at King’s College, London. His book Brexit and the Constitution will be published next year. In 2019, he will be giving the Stimson lecture at Yale University on the consequences of Brexit for Britain and the European Union.

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Reflections on Easter Rising 1916. Book Review.

Hidden Heroes of Easter Week – Memoirs of Volunteers from England who joined the Easter Rising.
By Robin Stocks

Review: by Derek Pattison

TO this day, the armed rebellion that took place during Easter Week of 1916 in Dublin, known as the ‘Easter Rising’, remains controversial.  Some see it as a courageous and brave act that led to the birth of the Irish Republic, whereas, others, see it as a reckless act of folly, an attempted revolt against Britain while we were at war with Germany.  British intelligence was certainly aware of the planned rising and the armed shipments from Germany, which also went to the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), formed in 1913.

Most of the people, who died during the six days of the rebellion, which was supported by Germany, were Irish, mostly civilians, and the poor of Dublin.  And they died for a cause that they hardly understood or supported.  Moreover, many Irish people were aware in 1916 that Irish Home Rule was on the cards and that partition was inevitable.   In January 1913, the Third Reading of the Home Rule Bill had been carried in Parliament and the Government of Ireland Act 1914, provide home rule for Ireland.

According to the author of this book, nearly a hundred Irish rebels travelled to Ireland from cities in England and Scotland during the early months of 1916 to participate in an armed uprising which they had heard about.  Those from England were frequently described as ‘London Irish’ despite being from other parts of England, such as the city of Liverpool.  Some of those who participated during Easter Week also came from the Manchester area and Stockport and this book, is largely about four of those Manchester volunteers.  Only two of the volunteers were born in Ireland. These are Liam Parr and Redmond Cox. Gilbert Lynch, was from Reddish in Stockport and Larry Ryan, was born in Salford. 

Liam Parr had left Dublin about 1910 when he was 19-years-old and had settled in West Didsbury, in South Manchester.  He left Manchester in February 1916 to travel to Dublin and undertook military and munitions training at Kimmage Mill, Larkfield, Dublin.  On Easter Monday 1916, Parr was in the Liberty Hall office, the headquarters of the Irish Transport & General Workers Union (ITGWU) and was one of the first to take over the GPO office on Sackville Street, on Monday afternoon.  After the surrender on Saturday afternoon, he was arrested and returned to England where he was interned in a camp in Frongoch, Wales. 

Redmond Cox was born in Boyle County, Roscommon, in 1893.  As a 22-year-old, he’d been living in Cheetham, Manchester, with his sister.  He travelled to Dublin in February 1916. Before surrendering, Cox had been in ‘Four Courts’ and he was later arrested and returned to England.  He was released from imprisonment after a fortnight. 

Gilbert Lynch had been born in Reddish, Stockport, in 1892.  A devout Catholic, he joined the National League of Young Liberals in 1908 and was involved with the Clarion in 1916.  He claimed to have been a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (Fenians) in 1913 and to have joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in 1917.  A member of Stockport Trades Council, he said that his political outlook had been influenced by reading “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist.”  A gun-runner, Lynch arrived in Dublin the week before Easter with 500 rounds of .303 ammunition and had been carrying small-arms.  During Easter week he had been based in Father Matthew Hall, which was being used as a first-aid station and to detain prisoners and spies.  Lynch escaped arrest because he had been in hospital having 'twisted his ankle getting over a barricade.'   He later made his way back to Stockport.

Laurence (Larry) Ryan was born in Salford in 1894. His mother lived in Seedley in Salford.  Unlike the others, it is not known when Ryan travelled to Dublin, but he did train at Kimmage Mill and was one of the first, to take up a position in the GPO building.  After the surrender, Ryan was arrested and returned to England. He was interned until Christmas in Frongoch camp in Wales.

On Easter Monday 1916, the rebel’s had planned to occupy the General Post Office building on Sackville Street, Dublin, and to use this building as their headquarters.  Many of the leaders including James Connolly, a socialist who had been born in Cowgate, Edinburgh, mistakenly believed that the English imperialists would not use artillery because they would not bomb their own property. Therefore, they expected an infantry attack on the GPO building and posted battalions in four main positions outside the city centre to command the routes that British soldiers would take to attack the GPO. The rebel plan also involved armed risings in the rest of the country.  Bolands Bakery, the Marrowbone Lane Distillery, the South Dublin Union Workhouse and the Jacobs factory, were all sites of revolt.  Some of the rebels did use Mauser rifles that had been provided by the Germans and brought to Ireland by Erskine and Molly Childers in their yacht ‘Asgard’ in July 1914.  The Easter Rising lasted six days before the rebels on the instructions of their leaders, surrendered on the Saturday.

On the third day of the rebellion, Patrick Pearse, a barrister, writer, schoolteacher and nationalist mystic with a martyr complex, had told the rebels in the GPO building that the country was steadily rising and that volunteers were marching from Dundalk on Dublin and that reinforcements would arrive and release them.  'They were later told by a visitor of the despondency in the city as well as the news that the country had not risen.'  Connolly was certainly aware, that after the surrender, all those who had signed the proclamation of the Irish Republic, would be shot by the British and that this was a cause he was happy to die for.  He told others that they were likely to be imprisoned and should keep quiet about what they had done. 

After the surrender, many volunteers recalled the hostility and abuse they had encountered from many Dubliners. Con Colbert, who was later shot in Kilmainham Gaol, said after the surrender: 'the people who we have tried to emancipate have demonstrated nothing but hate and contempt for us.'

Hidden Heroes of Easter Week is a book that is well worth reading.   Robin Stocks has done a great deal research on this book and many of the accounts given by the volunteers who took part during Easter Week in Dublin are based on witness statements, interviews with family members and research done in archives and libraries in England and Ireland.  Where I think this book is at its weakest, is in its lack of analysis of the rising itself and what effect it had on Irish society.

This book does not mention that 450 people were killed and 2,500 injured during the rising and nine reported missing.  Among the dead, were 117 soldiers, 41 of them Irish, plus 16 armed and unarmed policeman, all Irish. Some 64 volunteers out of a total of 1,500, who played some part in the rising, were also killed.  However, alongside 205 combatants who died, 245 wholly innocent civilians also died. The dead were mostly Irish civilians and Dublin’s poor, who died for a cause they barely understood or supported or were even hostile to.  Some saw it as an opportunity for looting.  Many of the civilians were killed by British forces using machine-gun fire, incendiary shells and artillery. 

As Robin Stocks makes clear, not all leading Republicans were in favour of the insurrection. Bulmer Hobson, a leading Fenian, considered it a reckless adventure.  Speaking after the rising, Hobson said that towards the end of 1915, Connolly (who had served in the British army in Ireland), had decided to have a 'little insurrection' with the citizen army. 

'His conversation was full of clichés derived from the earlier days of the socialist movement in Europe.  He told me that the working-class was always revolutionary, that Ireland was powder magazine and that what was necessary was for someone to apply the match.  I replied that if he must talk in metaphors, Ireland was a wet bog and the match would fall in the puddle.'

He described Patrick Pearse as a 'sentimental egoist, full of curious Old Testament theories about being the scapegoat of the people who had become convinced of the necessity for a periodic blood sacrifice to keep the national spirit alive.  There was a certain strain of abnormality in all this.'

Before leading his men out of Liberty Hall, the headquarters of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU), on Easter Monday, to start a rebellion, we are told that Connolly had said ‘smilingly’: 'Well girls, we start operations at noon today.  This is the proclamation of the republic.'  What we are not told in this book, is that on the way out of the building,  Connolly halted at the bottom of the stairs to speak with his friend and colleague William O’Brien. Connolly told him:

'Bill, we are going out to be slaughtered.  Is there any chance?', asked O’Brien.  'None whatsoever', said Connolly.  He then marched his men out of the building along with his fifteen year old son, Roderick (Roddy ) Connolly, who would survive the rising.

Although fifteen of the rebel leaders were executed, many of those who took part in the rising were treated with surprising leniency by the British authorities, including the four Manchester volunteers. Some 3,430 men and 79 women were arrested after the rising and 1,424 men and 73 women were subsequently released.  Of almost 2,000 men who were interned in England, over 1,200 were quickly released and most of the others were home by Christmas 1916.  All were freed under a general amnesty in July 1917.  Those who faced a court martial, included 170 men and one woman, Constance Markievicz.  Ninety death sentences were passed and fifteen carried out.  Those sentenced to life imprisonment, were released within 18-months.

Today, many Republican groups and trade unions in Ireland, have adopted James Connolly as their patron saint or founding father.  While it is true to say that the execution of the rebel leaders produced sympathy for the cause and turned the men into martyrs,  Connolly’s influence was marginalised after the rising – all of Connolly’s children took the anti-Treaty side. Ireland did not become the workers socialist republic that Connolly had wished for.  What emerged triumphant from the Easter Rising was Irish Catholic Nationalism and it was Pearse’s vision of Ireland, which was elevated.  There was little support for Marxism in Ireland before the rising and afterwards and many Sinn Fein and IRA members were fiercely anti-Communist.  Indeed, in the 1960s, communists were banned from the Republican movement. Ireland under Eamonn de Valera’s, Fianna Fail, was protectionist, isolationist, and obedient to the Catholic hierarchy.  Divorce, contraception and abortion, were all illegal.  It was a world of secrecy and obedience with its Magdalene laundries and the subordination of women. It survived by exporting its young, mainly to Britain, where they could earn a living.  The Irish Catholic Church supported Franco during the Spanish Civil War and some Irish Catholic’s, fought with the Blueshirt’s on the nationalist side under Eoin O’Duffy.  Others supported the Republican side. 

None of the Manchester volunteers fought in the civil war which broke out in Ireland in 1922 following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, which was supported by a majority of Irish people.  It had been estimated that six times more nationalists were killed in the war than had been killed by the British forces between 1916-1922. 

Tragically, we now know that Admiralty SIGINT Unit, Room 40, had been intercepting decrypted messages dealing with German support for the Irish nationalists between the outbreak of WW1 and the eve of the Easter Rising in 1916.  Under interrogation at Scotland Yard, Sir Roger Casement, asked to be allowed to call for the rising to be called off to avoid a blood bath, but this was refused. Sir Reginald (Blinker) Hall is reputed to have told Casement – 'It is better that a cankering sore like this should be cut out.'

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CNT / CGT union's statement on Catalonia

AS signatory organizations, unions at state level, we share our concern about the situation in Catalonia, the repression that the state has unleashed, including the diminution of rights and freedoms and the rise of a stale nationalism which is appearing again in much of the state.

We defend the emancipation of all the working people of Catalonia and the rest of the world.  Perhaps, in this context, it is necessary to remember that we do not understand the right to self-determination in a statist way, as nationalist parties and organizations proclaim, but as the right to self-organization of our class in a given territory.  Thus understood, self-determination passes more by control of production and consumption by workers and by direct democracy from the bottom up, organized according to federalist principles, than by the establishment of a new frontier or the creation of a new state.

As internationalists, we understand that solidarity among working people should not be limited to state borders, so we are not really concerned where these are drawn.  What we do find very disturbing is the reaction that is being experienced in many parts of the rest of the State, with the enthusiasm for a stale Spanish state, which is more reminiscent of past times, brewed by the media and in line with the authoritarian drift of the government, notable after the imprisonment of persons for summoning acts of disobedience or the application of article 155 of the Constitution.  We do not forget that this nationalist outbreak lays the groundwork for further cuts in rights and freedoms which we must be prevent. The shameful unity of so-called “democratic forces” in justifying repression shows a gloomy picture for all future dissents. It seems that the post-Franco regime that governs us for 40 years, close its ranks to ensure its continuity...

...The Catalan crisis may be the brink of a dying state model.  Whether this change is in one sense or another will depend on our ability, as a class, to take the process in the opposite direction of repression and the rise of nationalisms.  Let us hope that the final result will be more freedoms and rights and not the other way around.  We risk a lot.

CGT – Solidaridad Obrera – CNT, October 26, 2017. Original article in Spanish here. Translation made by and reposted from Enough is enough.

Patriotism versus Nationalism.

by John Wilkins

I THOUGHT there needed to be a discussion about how people interpreted nationalism as opposed to patriotism after campaigning in the referendum last year.  A member of the public did not agree with my views he called me a traitor.  This annoyed me as I could not see why I could not be both patriotic and still stay in Europe.  I told him that my father, who was shot down over France a month before I was born, could definitely be called a patriot.
The recent outburst on twitter by President Trump over the 'kneeling protests' by NFL players, seemed to echo the views and anger shown by the right wing extremist I had met.
I was impressed by the calm and eloquent way Osi Umenyiora, ex NFL star and tv pundit spoke on the subject prior to tv coverage of a game.  Osi is a Nigerian American who said he valued the opportunities given him in the USA and claimed he would be prepared to give his life for his adopted country.  Commenting on Trump's tweet when he referred to the protesters as 'sons of bitches', Osi said he did not remember Trump using such language about white supremacists, one of whom killed a woman and injured others by driving his car into the counter protesters at a fascist rally in Charlottesville.
NFL players knelt for the national anthem in a respectful manner to highlight the numbers of black lives that had been lost to police violence.
The sport's national association issued a statement saying 'Sports are a unifying influence in our society, bringing people of differing backgrounds and beliefs together.' and 'Our respect for the national anthem has always been a hallmark of our pre-match events.'
Osi claimed that Trump had behaved contrary to the values of the founding fathers of the country with regard to the First Amendment of the Constitution.  This states there should be no 'abridging the freedom of speech,.....or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.'  He therefore argues it is the President who is unpatriotic in not upholding citizen’s rights under the Constitution.
To help me distinguish between concepts of nationalism and patriotism I turned to dictionary definitions.
Nationalism. 'Extreme pride in the history, culture and successes of one's nation'. Chambers.
'Identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.  (Oxford.)
'Advocacy of, or support for the political independence of a particular nation or people'. Oxford.
Patriotism. 'Loyalty to one's nation'.  (Chambers.)
'The feeling of loving your country more than any others and being proud of it'.
(Cambridge.)
Groups like The English Defence League take the first two definitions of nationalism to an extreme. President Trump does also in pushing through protectionist legislation on the economy and in his attitude to refugees.
Much of the world seems currently to reject the third definition when we see current struggles for independence of Catalonians, Biafrans, Kurds and Palestinians.
Patriotism comes into play when a country experiences war, takes part in sporting events, or celebrating achievements.  It needs to be shown now in the UK as we move out of Europe, whether we voted to leave or not, it is important that we show loyalty to our nation.
Patriotism can soon turn into a tribal form of nationalism in sport though.  It is possible to be loyal and patriotic to country or club without insulting, or showing aggression towards the opposition.
It is worth pointing out that November 2nd. is the 100th. Anniversary of the Balfour Declaration which led later to the creation of Israel.  The UK soon lost sight of their promise in 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine'.  Here I struggle to define myself as a patriot except that it should, like a true friend, be possible to point out mistakes our country has made.
I will finish by looking at our National Anthem, some verses contain some of the worst examples of nationalism.  We usually only sing the first verse but I remember Billy Connolly pointing out the sixth verse which is an example the first of the Oxford Dictionary definitions of nationalism.
Lord grant that Marshall Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring
May he sedition hush
And like a torrent rush
Rebellious Scots to crush.
If we have to have this outdated anthem I prefer Verse 4 and would be happier if that was retained and Verse 6 taken out.
Verse 4.
Lord make the nations see
That men should brothers be
And form one family
The wide world over.
It is our duty as citizens to be patriotic to our country but curb the excesses of nationalism. The world is shrinking as travel becomes easier and as 'no man can be an island unto himself', no nation can survive without creating relations with other

Catalan situation stirring up Spain's troubled past

on NEWS EUROPE

by Mary Fitzgerald

October 7 2017 2:30 AM

NATIONALISM is such a prickly question in Spain that the country's national anthem is only one of a handful in the world to have no words, or at least no words that are acceptable to everyone.  The 'Marcha Real' (or 'Royal March') once had lyrics approved by General Francisco Franco, their fascistic overtones reflecting the nature of his dictatorship.  But the anthem has been played without words since 1978 when Spain embraced democracy three years after the general's death.

It is impossible to observe what is currently happening in Spain - with the clash between Madrid and Catalans seeking independence triggering its most serious political crisis in years - without seeing ghosts of the country's past, and particularly the long decades of the Franco era.

"Espana una, grande y libre" (Spain, one, great and free) was the slogan of the Franco regime as it sought to centralise the country through authoritarianism after it emerged from a civil war so bloody a large part of its history remains unexplored.

The post-Franco democratic transition saw Spain carved into 17 autonomous regions but the question of how autonomous they should be has been fraught ever since.

While the 1978 constitution gave control of services including education and health to regional governments, ultimate power was vested in Madrid.
Several parts of Spain chafed under this set-up, and some chafed more than others, particularly the Basque region and Catalonia where the sense of regional identity is particularly strong and rooted in distinctive languages as well as history.

Grievances from the Franco era play a key role in shaping narratives in both regions, the resentment towards Madrid is partly rooted in those historical experiences and can sometimes take a disturbing turn.
I remember one elderly man who helped found ETA, the armed group that transformed the Basque push for autonomy into a violent campaign, telling me they would never forget what Franco had done to their region. Among other things, he claimed Franco had tried to "dilute the blood purity of the Basques" by resettling people from other parts of Spain there.

For many Catalan separatists, similar memories of the Franco years are key to their antipathy towards Castillian nationalism.
But just like not every Catalan is in favour of independence, not every Spaniard troubled by the separatist push shares the worldview of the protesters in Madrid recently filmed making arm salutes while singing Franco-ist anthems.

Among the many who do not fit the lazy categorisations employed by too many on all sides of the current debacle is a Spaniard I know who was born in Extremadura near the Portuguese border - historically one of the country's poorest regions - grew up in Madrid and later lived for several years in Barcelona as an adult.  He is a filmmaker and his politics are of the left.  Having made his home in several countries over the years, if anything he would describe himself as citizen of the world. Several members of his family died fighting Franco's side during the civil war, others were among the war prisoners used to carve out the massive Valle de los Caidos (Valley of The Fallen) memorial near Madrid where the general was eventually buried.  I remember visiting the site with him some years ago and seeing how the monument is a place of pilgrimage for those still nostalgic for the Franco era while representing something very different and unsettling to others.

Nationalism leaves this Spaniard cold for all kinds of reasons, including his country's turbulent past, but what is happening in Catalonia also worries him.

The actions of police who used rubber bullets and batons to stop people voting in last Sunday's referendum shocked him, just as the Catalan insistence to hold the ballot despite Madrid banning it as unconstitutional concerned him.
'There is much politicking at play and few signs of politicians facing up to their responsibilities whether in Madrid or Barcelona,' he says.

He's been arguing with Catalan friends. "Emotions are running too high on all sides, it has fed the extremes."
What he dreams of is a Spain united in its diversity, one where the appeal of hard-line nationalists - whether Castillian or regional - would gradually wear away.

But the question of a singular national identity continues to elude Spain decades after Franco tried to impose one through a dictatorship entwined with Catholicism that sought to erase regional languages and cultural diversity.  Many argue it is an impossibility.
For now, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has offered all-party negotiations which raises the prospect of some kind of agreement that would give Catalonia more autonomy, but not independence.
The police violence of last weekend has fanned the hardline Catalan separatists, however, so a peaceful solution is not guaranteed.  And watching closely will be separatist movements elsewhere in Spain and far beyond its borders.

Libcom, Nationalism & the Cultural Dope!

  Cookbook Thinking on the Left

READING on the so-called 'anarchist' website libcom their recent analysis of the Manchester Arena Atrocity and an article on the rise  of  nationalistic popularism, I was impressed initially by the rapidity of their response to events.    But on closer examination we see the architecture of the arguments are built on sand.  Such exotic assertions as the pretentious Internationalist Communist Tendency [ICT] and its affiliate the CWO [Communist Workers Organisation]** presented on libcom can clearly be seen to be nonsense if we boil them down to their basic propositions:

The Brexit vote = [a] green light for bigots and racists everywhere. 

IMPERIALIST AGRESSION ABROAD =  INCREASED RACISM AT HOME.

The Turkish referendum = [a] green light for bigots and racists everywhere. 

Trump becoming President = [a] green light for bigots and racists everywhere. 

Our job = [to] undermine racism by stressing the fact that wage workers [world-wide] are in the same boat

The working class = a class of migrants and has been throughout capitalist history

 “Workers have no country”

Whatever other differences we have, we are united as a class by the fact that we are all the exploited victims

 'No war but the class war'.

Now read the orIginal piece entitled 'NATION or CLASS?' in full in all its drama:

'Imperialist aggression abroad means increased racism at home. The Brexit vote, like the victory of the AK party in the Turkish referendum, or Trump becoming President, have given the green light for bigots and racists everywhere. Attacks on people perceived to be outsiders have escalated dramatically. Some of this has been orchestrated by the state. Under the umbrella of “the war on terror” regimes around the world have a perfect excuse to lock up and murder anyone whose very existence might spoil the official picture of ‘the nation’.
'The working class is a class of migrants and has been throughout capitalist history. Let’s not fall for “nationalist” claptrap or defence of any country. When capitalists call on us to “defend the country” they are really calling on workers to die in defence of their property. “Workers have no country” as Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto. Whatever other differences we have, we are united as a class by the fact that we are all the exploited victims of capitalism. This makes the working class the international and internationalist class. Collectively it is the only force capable of putting an end to the infernal cycle of crisis and war. Today it’s not so much that we have a world to win – we have a world to save from a system which offers only social and environmental devastation.'

The basis of this so-called Marxist class analysis is that it treats working people as if they are cultural dopes and are constantly being tricked by events.    This can be understood by perusing the propositons they propound below:

Why should 'Imperialist aggression abroad = increased racism at home'?  
Why does 'The Brexit vote = [a] green light for bigots and racists everywhere'?
 Why does 'The Turkish referendum = [a] green light for bigots and racists everywhere'?
Why does 'Trump becoming President = [a] green light for bigots and racists everywhere'? 
Why is 'The working class = a class of migrants and has been throughout capitalist history'?
Why is there 'No war but the Class War'?  and if so how does it help us in our current situation?

Nothing is really explained for us in the text of either of the articles 'Nation or Class?' or 'The Manchester Arena Atrocity' account.

The problem with this kind of writing and analysis is that it is about using a formula or recipe to spin a tale so that the critique almost writes itself.  

Why is libcom, an anarchist website, publishing this kind of vulgar Marxism?  Why is it offering us this half-baked anarcho-marxism sometimes called anarcho-communism?

Simply because the anarchists around this website lack intellectual rigor.  Few of them seem to have served  a serious apprenticeship in practical anarchism or factory conditions.  Consequently, they have fallen under the influence of a kind of Sunday School League types like the former Manchester housing manager, Mike Ballard (revolutionary communist) from Chorlton or is it Didsbury?, and the former London librarian, Nick Heath of the Anarchist-Fed. These are both white-collar office staff creatures who promote the kind of clap-out thinking which prevails in the International Communist Tendency above, and which now dominates the libcom website. 

It makes no attempt to grasp why nationalism is so attactive to many working people, and why it represents something they are often prepared to die for in a way they are unwilling to throw down their lives in the class struggle. 

 *    The Internationalist Communist Tendency is a political international whose member organisations identify with the Italian left communist tradition. It was founded as the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party in 1983 as a result of a joint initiative by the Internationalist Communist Party (Battaglia Comunista) in Italy and the Communist Workers Organisation (CWO) in Britain. Its other affiliates are the Internationalist Workers Group / Groupe Internationaliste Ouvrier in the United States and Canada, the Gruppe Internationaler SozialistInnen (GIS) in Germany and a small French Section.
**   The Communist Workers Organisation (CWO) is a British left communist group and an affiliate of the Internationalist Communist Tendency, formerly the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party. It publishes a quarterly magazine, Revolutionary Perspectives and distributes an agitational broadsheet Aurora.

'Populism', Imagined Communities & Nations

by Brian Bamford

ROUTINE elections in European countries in 2016 have ushered in a mercurial quality to the political landscape.  Jon Bigger in a thoughtful article on the Freedom Blog about the recent by-election in Richmond wrote:   

'The recent Richmond by-election victory for the Lib Dems shows that the Brexit split can make a very real difference to British politics.  It isn't inconceivable to see the British public split along the lines of the referendum for years to come, with the conservatives and UKIP on one side and the Lib Dems, Greens, and SNP on the other.' 

Mr. Bigger then writes: 

'Note that as things stand there isn't any real role for the Labour Party in this scenario.' 

On the 'libertarian communist' website libcom, commenting on Brexit, someone wrote in what appeared to be an editorial: 

'In the UK context it was clearly a vote against foreign “others” and anybody who can be labeled as such...  Nigel Farage (former leader of UKIP and important leader of the Leave campaign) said on more than one occasion that he would be able to sacrifice economic growth to see less immigrants.'

This seems to have been the case and François Heisbourg, chairman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said:

' In Britain, one of the campaign slogans for Brexit was “Vote Leave, Take Control”.' and the idea seemed to be that being in 'the EU was preventing Britain from doing that.'

The feeling is that the motivation driving many voters in Britain, the USA and now in Italy's referendum over a week ago, is to impress upon the politicians that the status quo and the establishment elites are now unacceptable. 

The Italian electorate threw out a constitutional overhaul that would have increased the power of the prime minister by cutting the number of senators and decreasing their power.  This wouldn't have mattered so much, but for the fact that it gave a political opportunity to the Five Star movement to gain political prestige by opposing it. 

What makes things worse is the lasting consequences of the global recession in 2008 in both Europe and the USA, and the underlying frustration of the pain still being suffered in many European countries. 

In France, economic growth only reached 1% last year, and youth unemployment is still close to 25%.  In Italy, Spain and Greece it's higher. 

Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, the director of the Paris office of the German Marshall Plan, said recently:  'The Rust Belt isn't just in America – there's a Rust Belt in the north of France, ... they feel they are dispossessed, dispossessed of their countries sovereignty and their economy.' 

Ms. Scheffer added:

'The way Washington is perceived by many American people is the way many French or Germans or Italians perceive Brussels... they perceive Brussels as almost an illegitimate entity.'

Jon Bigger in his Freedom essay prudently argues that the 'changing [political] landscape may be something we don't fully understand for years and I don't think anyone has got the definitive vision yet (and you shouldn't expect to see it here either).'

And, he suggests:  'Think for a moment about how this anti-Establishment feeling has manifested around the world since it started:  the Arab Spring, Occupy, Brexit, Bernie Saunders, Donald Trump, Momentum and Corbyn...  The response to a disaster within global capitalism hasn't been one of simply global revolution.  Instead people have responded in ways that reject a simple left / right ideological perspective.  When things settle at home and abroad there will be a new alignment, a new politics which which may well conform to a clearer ideological split.'

Geert Wilders, the leader of the right-wing Freedom Party in the Netherlands and regularly rated as the most popular politician, also has said:  'Right verses left doesn't exist anymore'. 

Clearly politicians who look to nationalism and promote worries about disenfranchisement are in vogue. 

The lib-communist website editorial is at pains to stress that they are against nationalism and claim they are 'indifferent towards any national question'.  They stress that 'for us, all nations (small or big) are fake communities.' *

The dogmatic thinking of the 'communists' on their website tract seem in a bit of a muddle between what is the 'state' and what is the 'nation'.  They even finish off with an exit platitude taken from the 1848 'Communist Manifesto' by by Marx and Engels: 

'The working men (sic) have no country.  We cannot take from them what they have not got...' 

Yet then it goes on 'the proletariat must ... constitute itself the nation... though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.' 

What are 'fake communities'? *  Are nations and nationalisms invented?

Or would we be better-off embracing Benedict Anderson and his now his famous study entitled 'Imagined Communities'?**

Put crudely what seems to have happen according Mr. Anderson, is that when peasant face-to-face communities declined from the 18th Century onwards people have felt a psychological need to replace the everyday communities of the village with the 'imagined community' of the nation state in which though people can't possibly know all of the members of the nation they come to feel an affinity with the other citizens through the national media and other cultural forms of identity. 

The 'libcoms' or 'communist libertarians' of small organizations like the so-called 'anarchist federation' are inclined to use a cookbook approach in such a way that their analysis almost writes itself.  Unlike Jon Bigger on the Freedom Blog who modestly admits the 'changing [political] landscape may be something we don't fully understand for years...', while the libcom gang for their part have the dreary dogma of a party-line don't even try to get to grips with the anthropological emergence of nationalism.***  It is so much easier to simply dismiss the whole phenomena of 'popularism' and resurgent nationalism with a grim guffaw and a quote from the 19th century Communist Manifesto to give their statement gravitas. 

 

*    Ernest Gellner has written:  'Nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness: it invents nations where they do not exist'

**  An imagined community is different from an actual community in that it is not—and, for practical reasons, cannot be—based on everyday face-to-face interaction among its members. It is a concept coined by Benedict Anderson to analyze nationalism. Anderson depicts a nation as a socially constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group.

Anderson's book, Imagined Communities, in which he explains the concept in depth, was first published in 1983, and reissued with additional chapters in 1991 and a further revised version in 2006.

***  Benedict Anderson has explained his now influential concept thus:

'In an anthropological spirit, then, I propose the following definition of the nation:  it is an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign. 

It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.'