On Wednesday 2nd April, Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, and Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, went head-to-head in the second of two debates on the question of the European Union. Alex Bollard of the Queen Mary’s Marxists looks at the arguments put forward by these two representatives of capitalism – two personalities who offer nothing to the working class.
On Wednesday 2nd April, Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, and Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, went head-to-head in the second of two debates on the question of the European Union. Alex Bollard of the Queen Mary’s Marxists looks at the arguments put forward by these two representatives of capitalism – two personalities who offer nothing to the working class.
[See here for a review of the first debate]
“Let’s topple the establishment who lead us into this mess”, was the way Nigel Farage chose to end his “fantastical” rhetoric – as Nick Clegg put it – at the second debate between the two leaders currently fighting it out for third place in the 2015 General Election.
Unsurprisingly, Farage was not arguing for a removal of the capitalist system at the heart of the crisis in Britain and Europe, but instead for a transfer of power from Brussels to Westminster – a demand that would not mean any significant change for the British working class, much less a toppling of the establishment.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics
The second clash of these two personalities was limited to just that: a debate based entirely on delivery as opposed to intellectual content. Throughout the debate the facts put forward by either leader were highly contested. Farage cited that the European Union has a £55 million per day membership fee – conveniently subtracting the benefits; Clegg, meanwhile, suggested that 3-4 million jobs depend on membership to the EU, when this is untrue.
As Marxists, however, the unreliability of these former Conservative Party members does not come as a shock. At the core of this debate is how it would be best to serve capitalism, to further the exploitation of the working class; no skewing of technicalities around the EU changes this.
Overpopulation or overproduction?
The most provocative question put to Clegg and Farage was, “Do you consider the social impact of unlimited EU immigration to be positive or has it caused a damaging element of cultural segregation?” In response, Farage claimed that the “white working class are the new underclass”, conveniently glossing over the existence of people of colour within the struggle to serve his divisive anti-immigration agenda.
The UKIP leader also mentioned that the government would have to build a house every seven minutes to home all the immigrants coming to the UK. However, Farage failed to mention the fact there are 845,000 empty homes in this country that are hoarded by the rich and left idle. Instead of addressing this question of class and ownership, we instead hear about the divisive myth of “overpopulation” – i.e. that infrastructure cannot support these foreign labourers (or spongers, whichever argument is being favoured that day).
There is not a crisis of overpopulation, but of capitalism. It is this – the capitalist system and the absence of a planned economy – that results in the contradiction of empty houses existing alongside the need for more homes. And it is capitalism that utilises division and competition between workers to drive down conditions in a race to the bottom. Open borders or not, workers will be forced to sell their labour for pittance in order to survive. Who would be to blame for diminishing living conditions under capitalism if the scapegoated immigrants were driven out of Britain? The white working class, perhaps?
Putin and Russia
Clegg’s jibe “if we are the party of in, Farage is the party of Putin” highlights a hot topic of the debate: Farage’s denied appreciation of President Putin. There is an undoubted feeling that Farage made these comments to appear shocking, or perhaps to convey that unlike other European leaders, whose relationship with the Russian President is strained at best, good old Farage is the man to sort out affairs in Ukraine.
Whatever his intention, Farage’s comments regarding Putin’s role in Ukraine – comments that were quickly followed by backpedalling – highlighted the weakness of the British Coalition in being able to impose their demands on Russia. Indeed, the British economy – and the Tory-Liberal government in turn – have become reliant on the support of the Russian oligarchs and other similar international plutocrats. As such, the Tory-led government in Britain is unable to implement any serious sanctions on Putin and Russia.
Imperialism today
Both Clegg and Farage emphasised their imperialist goals, although they disagree on how they can be achieved. Farage’s entire position reeks of an obsession with Britain’s Commonwealth history, claiming that by leaving the EU the UK can break the shackles of complex trading laws and restore herself to her former global prestige. Such a rose-tinted view of Britain’s position in the world – of a return to “Great” Britain – is at odds with reality. It is not the complex laws of the EU, but the parasitic and short-sighted nature of the British capitalists, who have failed to invest in real production for decades, that has led to the decline of British imperialism.
Farage also made the strange observation that “nowhere else in the world” requires political synchronisation in order for trade to occur, and that this is a singular phenomenon of the European Union. Whilst world trade does not always rely on overt economic unions, such as the EU, it is clear that one commonality is expected by the imperialist nations: acceptance of the capitalist system. Thus we see how international institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank are consistently used as tools of imperialism in order to exploit cheap labour in the ex-colonial nations of the so-called Third World, and – increasinlgy – to impose conditions upong the weaker capitalist nations – such as Greece – who are forced to borrow from them in times of crisis. As Marx and Engels pointed out in the Communist Manifesto, the capitalists have created a world market in their own image. And as the Bolsheviks found when they came to power, or as Cuba finds today, an isolated planned economy struggles with the burden of trading within a globalised world.
The question of class
Throughout the debate Farage reminded us that he is a businessman, whilst simultaneously attacking Clegg’s “big business backers”. With such hypocritical populism and demagoguery , Farage hopes to distance himself from the unpopular “Establishment” parties who have actively supported the capitalists up til now. Farage knows well that the working class – after years of crisis and corruption – distrust the bankers and bosses above all else, making Clegg’s more sober assessment and commentary on capitalism unpopular with the masses. Consistently, Clegg reiterated this point by assuring viewers that through “cooperation” and “reform” the situation may not be so bleak, so long as we remain in the EU and become a more dominant force within it.
Clearly, choices are limited for the working class in modern politics. It is no wonder that some workers may back Farage and a break from the EU; this path offers the illusion of vast change at a time when conditions are ever diminishing. It is the poisonous nature of capitalism that means there is a “race to the bottom” – a subject briefly touched upon by Farage, when he commented that British workers should be occupying the low-skilled jobs “taken” from them by cheap immigrant labour.
There is nobody, however, questioning why this race to the bottom is happening in the first place. It is the task of the Marxists to fight, neither for protectionist nationalism and racism, nor for the liberal capitalism espoused by Clegg, but for a socialist programme. Armed with such a revolutionary set of ideas, there is no force that can stop workers and youth from transforming society for the benefit of all humanity.
