I just watched this to see what all the noise is about. K-Punk is posting long class war screeds in defence of this verbose lothario all over Facebook and has started hanging out with Laura Oldfield Ford, so I figured something must be up.
A lot of nonsense. Sad, really. Symbolic or in reality, ultimately meaningless. Literally a tantrum.
The word revolution is probably abused; if not, then we are talking about anarchy and nihilism, revolutions of a limited and dangerous kind. The offshoot of this “event” amongst the far-left Theory community is a new (or freshly articulated) acceptance of destruction and criminality as method, tactic and strategy because protest has failed to perform adequately. The London Riots on a larger scale is the model, here. Fine, but that is just nihilism. Take this to its logical conclusion and you have to start thinking about civil war.
Being a mild republican, I occasionally ponder the meaning of this conviction and if it can ever really be acted upon. Members of Republic, the anti-monarchy organisation, are pleasant and sensible people and never explicitly contemplate the implications of what they want. The British Monarchy would not dissolve itself. It would not be without civilian allies if it was put in the position of being threatened or overthrown. Furthermore, the Armed Forces pledge allegiance to the Queen, not Parliament, and bear arms on behalf of the Kingdom, not the Commons or the people. A republican revolution would be a genuine democratic revolution with aims and principles and clearer outcomes, but would not be un-resisted. The question then, is: is it really worth it? Who would be prepared to pay the ultimate price, which would be civil war? What would it actually achieve and lead to? These are not necessarily questions from another century.
Or: massive taxation or penalisation of big business. Is this anti-monopoly, anti-globalisation, anti-free trade or anti-business? What about alternative models to, say, neo-liberal privatised utilities? Like local nationalised models in Scotland and Northern Ireland, or the alternative model embodied by Welsh Water, a private non-shareholder utility company that is able to drive its profits back into long-term infrastructure improvements and progressive tariffs and debt write-offs for low-income families and disabled people? Welsh Water thrives in a democratic system, working with regional government, local authorities and Third Sector organisations.
A problem with these rhetorical purveyors of revolutionary violence is their unwillingness to credit (or their lack of knowledge of) progressive drudge stuff, like social policy. I was at the dinner table of a millionaire accountant at the weekend who thinks that non-means tested disability benefits should be scrapped because she decided not to claim them for her Downs Syndrome daughter, and that the Minimum Wage should be abolished because it means she can’t afford to hire said daughter on her farm and is therefore, obviously, anti-business. There are some important arguments and battles to be had at the level of parliamentary legislation, lobbying and policy design (and at dinner tables) but this stuff is, unfortunately, a little dull for some of our revolutionary warriors with a taste for the Symbolic.
There is a difference, even a chasm, between Labour and Conservative welfare and health care reform which is this: the Tories want to reform these things because they want to minimise state intervention and taxation; Labour want to reform the welfare state and NHS to save it and extend it. The rest is electoral tactics: democratic politics. The argument is with those who have lost belief in democratic politics, but they should at least be clear and honest about what they are prepared to lose and potentially sanction.
If this posturing is not simply ill-thought out or conditional then it is as root a taste for chaos, an impulsive nihilism, and indirectly (in some cases directly) anti-democratic. As far as Brand’s answers are concerned, he promiscuously veers between anger at globalisation and disillusion with the way British political parties are funded. Ultimately, in the UK context, this zeros in on Labour, who can only exist on an unstable base of donations from Trade Unions (or affiliated members) and sympathetic businessmen like Lord Sainsbury. This has something serious to do with the collapse of mass membership, both for the Tories and Labour. But Brand does not address this thorny issue outside of an airy reference to general disillusionment, although he is not honest enough to mention that this has a lot to do with a hostility to mass immigration and the welfare state, as much as cronyism and city bankers. The agenda is driven by media distortions, here. Instead, outside of revolutionary upheaval, Brand appears to be advocating a global and unaccountable technocracy dedicated to saving the planet from ecological disaster and wealth inequality. The ends may be utopian but the means are decidedly sinister.
He compares the decoration of the House of Commons to Eton and so concludes that every MP must be ruling class or complicit in a class conspiracy, which slanders the majority of politicians who have nothing to do with such fantasies. I can merely think of a few of the ones that I like, such as Ann Clwyd, Dave Anderson and Frank Field, to refute this preposterous claim without going any further into it. Many people vote for an MP, AM or councillor because they realise that it can make a real difference on a local level, but also nationally (for example, the recent vote against military options in Syria). To junk this is to junk democracy as a viable political alternative and you are then sailing into dangerous waters and this is not something to be blithe or vague about.
