UK Election Solves Nothing

We can only present a short comment on the recent UK election. We promise a proper discussion on what it means in terms of the “bread” rather than reviews of the “circus”.

Our attitude towards elections should be well known to our readers. As we said about the 2019 election in Italy: “That it is the electors who choose [government] is just a cock-and-bull story: the whole of the mass media, which easily shapes so‑called public opinion, is owned and controlled by big capital, who use it to spread their lies; and if they quarrel among themselves it is just for show or due to internal conflicts within its colossal interest groups”. In all bourgeois elections there are lies on all sides. But in this election, the lies and false promises were particularly egregious. And the biggest liar of all won the day. What is most striking is those who voted for the winner accepted that everything he said was a lie. Their attitude was “all politicians lie, so let’s vote for the biggest liar”.

The media has been on about the defection of Labour voters to the Conservatives in England’s North and Midlands. It would be too easy to write something trite, misleading and dangerous based on a relatively small number of votes cast. But there is a lie at the heart of this too, the lie that the historic decline of British industry is due to membership of the EU and that Brexit will change all that.

The demise of the Corbynist project should be seen as the last gasp of Stalinist popular frontism in the UK.

Moreover, the outcome of the election indicates further trouble ahead for British capitalism, which is taking a harder stance towards the EU, with the clear intention of sidestepping certain aspects of the bloc’s regulatory environment.

Finally, the huge majority vote for Scottish nationalism and the first ever nationalist majority in the North of Ireland mark the further political fracturing of the UK.