Russell Brand is a figure who has a habit of throwing cats amongst pigeons. As Britain goes to the polls, the latest stir up has been his change of opinion on the importance of voting. Having previously abstained, the comedian-turned-activitst has now supported a Labour vote. Is Brand right to change his position?
Russell Brand is a figure who has a habit of throwing cats amongst pigeons. The latest stir up has been his change of opinion on the importance of voting, which appears to have altered over the past week or so. This follows his interviews for The Trews with the Greens Caroline Lucas and Natalie Bennett as well as, and most significantly, Labour leader Ed Miliband. The end result is that Brand has called for a Labour vote (in England and Wales) on May 7th, whilst endorsing the Greens in Brighton and leaving it up to Scottish voters to decide for themselves.
Scaring the right
If nothing else, it’s been amusing to watch the reaction of the right-wing politicians and media, who have long been waging a vitriolic campaign against Russell Brand. This has been chiefly characterised by personal attacks. But the main political point against Brand that they have clung to and shouted about the most is that he has said several times that there is no point in voting. Being the natural champions of democracy, the Establishment has derided Brand on this point, only for him to turn round and say “vote Labour”.
The look on Rupert Murdoch’s face must have been priceless. ‘Milibrand’ is surely an amalgamation of everything he hates. The amount of sulking from the Sun’s ‘political’ website SunNation on the matter, accusing Brand of U-Turning and being a hypocrite, shows their frustration with the situation. In a way you can’t blame them. The Sun newspaper’s readership continues to rapidly decrease – it’s weekly figures currently standing somewhere near 5 million readers. Contrast this with Brand’s nigh on 10 million Twitter followers and we begin to see the issue. Ed Miliband’s point in his Trews interview about the declining influence of Murdoch is not entirely without foundation.
Brand has the ear of many young, angry and disenfranchised people. This comes into conflict with the right-wing media’s loathing of Ed Miliband, as demonstrated not only in the Tory press, but also in pretty vulgar forms in other media. Most revolting was the case of Sky News anchor Kay Burley’s blatant Tory bias during the leader’s interviews.
“They don’t represent us”
So where has this emergency call for a vote for Labour come from? Is Russell Brand correct in doing so, or was he nearer the mark by pointing out the supposed futility of voting?
To understand these questions we have to analyse Brand’s reasons for not voting in the first place. In his own words this was down to “absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery and deceit of the political class that has been going on for generations”. His perspective on bourgeois parliaments has been that they are irrelevant and don’t represent us, therefore not worth engaging with. He has argued that we need to think outside of these structures and create a new fairer system to replace them with. This essentially gets to the heart of what his idea of a revolution is.
It has to be said that Russell Brand has, or rather had, a point. Bourgeois democracy is no real democracy. Ultimately it is not the politicians who are in control, rather it is capital. The real decisions are not taken in Westminster, but in The City, Canary Wharf, and Fleet Street.
Brand argues that real democracy happens everyday through grassroots movements. It is correct that the real revolution will not happen simply through the ballot box, but through the class struggle.
An infantile disorder
This doesn’t mean that there aren’t flaws in Brand’s argument. Just because the form of democracy we have is seemingly irrelevant and outdated, doesn’t mean we can just ignore it. Lenin deals with this question in Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder:
“Parliamentarianism has become ‘historically obsolete’. That is true in the propaganda sense. However, everybody knows that this is still a far cry from overcoming it in practice. Capitalism could have been declared—and with full justice—to be “historically obsolete” many decades ago, but that does not at all remove the need for a very long and very persistent struggle on the basis of capitalism.”
We can not simply abstain from capitalism and the institutions within it, as they are a material reality that ordinary people have to face and live in on a day-to-day basis. We have to work within society and its structures in order to achieve its overthrow. This means working in organisations such as trade unions and political parties to argue for revolutionary policies, even if the organisations themselves are not revolutionary.
Contradictory statements
The fact of the matter is that the Tories, the traditional party of the capitalist class in Britain, needs to be kicked out. So perhaps it could be said that Russell Brand has made a step forward in consciousness, as he is moving away from an entirely spiritual perspective and realising that the real world can not simply be ignored – hence his call for people to vote Labour in order to keep the Tories out. But moving from a “don’t vote” stance to a “vote Labour” position is not the end of the question. At this point it is appropriate to address the elephant in the room, which in this case is Ed Miliband and his programme.
Miliband is a man that inspires confidence like a well cooked steak inspires vegetarianism. Recently however, he has come to life more, proposing some progressive reforms such as preventing ‘non-doms’ from not paying taxes, freezing energy bills, ending zero-hours contracts and scrapping the bedroom tax.
Unfortunately these demands have been contradicted by his simultaneous assurances to bankers and bosses that he is ‘responsible’ – i.e. willing to continue Tory austerity. There is also the fact these proposals are just too little too late. During his five years as leader, Ed Miliband has failed to support strike action, got in bed with the Tories in Scotland, called the police on Unite the Union, pandered to UKIP on immigration, gone off on bizarre tangents such as One Nation Labour, and of course voted with the Coalition on spending cuts. The fact that Labour in opposition are still neck-and-neck in the polls with the Conservatives is testament to Miliband and co.’s abysmal performances, policies, and programme as Labour leaders.
Crisis of reformism
Miliband’s supporters and sympathisers often point towards the previously mentioned vitriol from the media against him as the sole reason for his unpopularity, as if the working class would be supporting him if only it weren’t for that bacon sandwich. The reality is that Miliband has consistently pandered to the bankers and bosses and has taken the working-class vote for granted.
At a time when capitalism is dying on its feet, why are the Labour leaders so keen to defend this rotten system? The reality is that there are only two options facing reformist leaders at the current time: either carry out the cuts; or fight for a bold socialist alternative.
This reality is demonstrated by looking across the Channel to the social democratic parties in Europe. In 2012 François Hollande was elected as the President of France on an anti-austerity, tax-the-rich programme. Now he has the lowest support of any president since the war following his capitulation to European bourgeoisie and carrying out the austerity measures he promised to fight against. It is the same story with the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Party) and PASOK (Greek social democracy), who have carried out cuts when in government. Tsipras and his radical-left party, Syriza, are currently at the same crossroads in Greece.
The Labour leadership are perhaps not blind to these facts. Capitalism is in crisis and it is demanding austerity. Both conservative and social democratic governments are being forced to carry out cuts. One of Miliband’s most intriguing recent quotes was, “I want to be the first Prime Minister that under-promises and over-delivers”. The former he has certainly achieved; and it’s not unrealistic to believe that this is down to the realisation that he will have to carry out cuts if in government. If this was the plan though, it may have backfired. A Labour majority has long since seemed unrealistic in any sense, and now it’s not even entirely certain that they will get more seats than the Tories.
Managing expectations
In his Trews interview, Ed Miliband tries to create the impression that he will respond to demands from below. Traditionally, these demands have come from the labour and trade union movement, which is a link he has tried to weaken in the past – so right off the bat the claim doesn’t add up.
Even in the safety of Russell Brand’s kitchen, Miliband feels the need to send the right message to the bosses. You can actually see the point where he gets worried, as Brand begins to agree with him, and so he throws in an ‘I’m not my dad!’ comment for good measure. Already, there’s a lot of excuses from Miliband: we need a banking system so Labour were right to bail out the banks; the influence of figures such as Rupert Murdoch is decreasing, so therefore there is no need to break up monopolies, etc., etc. To repeat an earlier comment, it doesn’t inspire confidence.
So with all this mind it has to be questioned as to whether Brand is making the right call. As has previously been stated, the priority of the 2015 election is getting rid of the Tories. Labour is currently the only party that has the power to do so, and therefore there is nothing incorrect in calling for a Labour vote. In fact, it is consistent with the mood amongst many workers in general, with the major trade unions backing a Labour Party vote, and with many ordinary people voting Labour – despite all its faults, limitations, and past performance – in order to kick out the Tories.
What would be incorrect would be to sow any illusions in the leadership of Ed Miliband, or indeed any illusions in reformism – that is, in the ability for there to be any solution to the problems of working people within the limits of capitalism. As we have stated on many occasions: the Marxists support all of the progressive demands put forward by Miliband, the trade union leaders, and the other parties of the Left; the point is that none of these reforms can be granted by a capitalist system that is in a state of permanent crisis.
Nice guys finish last
Russell Brand has since stated that the decision to endorse Labour had been made before the interview had taken place. This is apparent when watching the Milibrand interview, as Miliband is let off the hook many times when you might have expected Brand to criticise him further. Miliband is sugar-coated and given an easy ride.
Some of Brand’s reasoning for the call to vote Labour displays an individualistic outlook that indicates a failure to fully understand the class nature of society. Whether Ed Miliband is “genuine” and a “nice guy” or not is irrelevant. If he comes to power he too will be subject to the dictates of capital. He will have to make a decision as to whose interests he defends – the workers’ or the capitalists’. The fact is this: if we have a Labour government committed to capitalism, these “genuine” leaders too will be carrying out austerity.
Brand states that what really matters is the fight and movement following the election. This is an important point, as we can not expect any revolutionary change through this election, whoever wins. He calls for community lead activism to continue as a means of change. This is correct – but only as part of the broader class struggle, in Britain and internationally, to overthrow capitalism.
Kick out the Tories; kick out Capitalism!
So, from don’t vote to vote Labour. Ever swinging in the right direction, but just missing the target, Russell Brand is both right and wrong in both cases. He is correct to say that the real demands are made by capital and that the real decisions are made by The City and not by Westminster. However, it is wrong to state that, because of this, we should simply ignore elections and the existing political parties. If it is the bankers and bosses who have all the power in society under capitalism, then we need a political organisation that is willing to provide economic democracy and take the main levers of the economy – the banks and major monopolies – into public ownership as part of a rational plan of production.
Brand is correct that the Conservatives need to be kicked out of government and that. in England and Wales, the only way to achieve that in this election is to vote Labour. But we must tell the truth to workers: reformism is bankrupt in this epoch, and a Labour government committed to capitalism would carry out austerity; meanwhile we have to be prepared for a militant struggle against the Tories, on the basis of a socialist alternative, should they form a government.
Whoever forms the next government, the task remains the same: to agitate, educate, and organise; to build a revolutionary Marxist tendency, in Britain and internationally; to argue and fight for a bold socialist programme across the working class – in every trade union, in every school and workplace, and on every protest and demonstration. This is the task that supporters of Socialist Appeal and the International Marxist Tendency are undertaking – and we invite our readers to join us.
