cDIREoCTIONmFOR THE pass DEMOCRATIC LEFT

Breaking out of Britain’s

Neo-Liberal State January 2009

Gerry Hassan and Anthony Barnett 3 4

r Tr hink e b m m u N PIECES 3 4

Tr hink e b m u N PIECES

Breaking out of Britain’s Neo-Liberal State

Gerry Hassan and Anthony Barnett

“In the big-dipper of UK politics, the financial crisis suddenly re-reversed these terms. Gordon Brown excavated a belief in Keynesian solutions from his social democratic past and a solidity of purpose that was lacking from Blair’s lightness of being”

Compass publications are intended to create real debate and discussion around the key issues facing the democratic left - however the views expressed in this publication are not a statement of Compass policy. Breaking out of Britain’s Neo-Liberal State www.compassonline.org.uk PAGE 1

Breaking out of Britain’s reduced for so many, is under threat with The British Empire State Building Neo-Liberal State no state provisions in place for them. The political and even military consequences ’s “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 Gerry Hassan and Anthony Barnett could well be dire. created a framework of compromise between monarchy and Parliament. It was Nonetheless we should celebrate the followed by the union of England with possible defeat of one aspect of neo- Scotland of 1707, which joined two he world we have lived in, liberal domination. It cheered the different countries while preserving their created from the twin oil-price destruction of a communist world that distinct legal traditions. Since then the T shockwaves of 1973 and 1979 was oppressive and unfree. The freedom it narrative of British history has been the and validated in the eyes of many by the offered in its place, however, had its own adaptability and flexibility of its political events of 1989, is at last suffering its own form of authoritarianism. You can’t buck system. This provided a framework for the crash. The era of Thatcher and Reagan, the market, we were told. We had to be evolution of democracy without rupture inflated by their offspring Clinton, Bush fatalistic and grateful and our standard of or revolt at home, allowing the middle and Blair; the era of unfettered financial living would grow. Forces more powerful classes and then the working classes to be capitalism, unrestrained consumerism and and wise than you and I had already incorporated relatively peacefully into it, (1) a near mystical belief in the power of determined “the official future” . There markets; the neo-liberal epoch of was no alternative. corporate conceit and neo-con “Public discourse adventurism, is drawing to a close. The toxic mix of popular powerlessness, has to be market inevitability and the glorification of reclaimed from Despite the pain, the horrible losses to leadership vindicated by the ever-rising the neo-liberals, come, and the disturbing spectacle of a value of property, was pioneered in Britain whether first wave, by and deepened by left that had proved unable to oppose the second beast in any effective way or prepare for . Here indeed, it is sad to report, wave,instrumental, personal or its downfall now preening itself that it Britain “led the world” - in the direction of knew better all along, this is a time to uncritical subordination to Washington unwittingly. Government and celebrate as well as tremble. It’s good that DC. In the process, the public agencies need to we can now once again pose the became - perhaps more than anywhere fundamentally rethink how they questions about how we organise our outside some city-states and micro-nations conceive and think of policy, the - a neo-liberal state. economies and societies without being language and values in scorned or ignored. This essay is offered, therefore, at a documents, and whose voice At the same time the decades of talk moment of hope as well as danger. It and interest such processes are about “globalisation” are now been seeks to sketch roughly how the UK came serving” revealed as a panglossian deception. A to be a neo-liberal Kingdom and address boondoggle of vast fortunes was some of the issues posed for UK politics, unleashed, justified because benefits would while hoping they have a wider relevance while all enjoyed the material and psychic “trickle down”. Instead we seem to be internationally. And when we use the benefits of a violent empire. witnessing a fearful waterfall of cascading terms “social democracy” and misery, cutbacks, foreclosures and job “progressivism” at points in this essay, we In his new, pioneering study of democracy losses on the middle and working classes do so with a sense of reluctance, in Britain since 1918, David Marquand in the global north, whose elites recognising both that they are identifies the two dominant paternalisms meanwhile are bailed out by governments unsatisfactory and that a “call” unsure of that oversaw the final stages of this they hitherto pretended to despise. And its name is one without a sure sense of domestic process. Whig imperialism and before we turn to the fate of the British itself. While we are in a position to democratic collectivism together have state with which this essay is mainly criticise we are hardly in a position to “shaped and steered Britain through most concerned, we should spare a thought for lecture the world on the best way of the 20th century”. The first is those outside the European welfare forward. So while this essay primarily personified by Burkean gentlemen, the system. Recently a Chinese toy focuses on the possibilities of transforming second by Fabian technocrats. Marquand manufacturer employing 7,000 people shut the British state and space, it does so in also proposes that there are two other his factory in Dongguan overnight as the context of international politics and shaping “strands”: Tory nationalism and exports collapsed. The pride of now political economy undergoing a democratic republicanism. While all four globalisation, that rural misery was planetary confrontation with the fruits of strands may have “home” parties they deregulated capitalism. coexist in other parties too, as well as compass PAGE 2 www.compassonline.org.uk Breaking out of Britain’s Neo-Liberal State

within individual personalities. Thus the Brown and Peter Mandelson set about and Brown: the former less imbued with Labour leader Clement Attlee who seeking to save the public sector and the politics of the Labourist tribe and a oversaw the formative government of prevent a catastrophic social and true believer, in so far as he believed “democratic collectivism” after 1945, could educational disintegration. Despite the anything, in the hyperbole of the “new be flexibly Whiggish at home and imperial democratic reforms they inherited from dawn” of ’97. Brown was more a creation abroad; while his most original Tory their manifesto commitments including of the back-story of Labour, partial to successor the Whig imperialist Harold devolution and the Human Rights Act, understanding the world through the eyes Macmillan was a Labour-style collectivist in New Labour’s leaders, as Simon Jenkins of the faithful, and with a genuine concern his concerns for the working classes (2) . has documented in Thatcher and Sons, for ameliorating the plight of the losers in continued the core twin principles of society. This twin domination of the British Thatcher’s regime: the intensification of political system faced an apparently centralised executive authority and the The culmination of the triumph of the terminal crisis by the end of the 1970s. It cultivation of an elite order at ease with a neo-liberal state under New Labour was was an emergency that challenged the politics focused on winners, wealth and symbolised by Gordon Brown’s initial authority and legitimacy of the state itself, corporate logic - a neo-liberal regime. guest list to Chequers, the prime minister’s not just a party political difference over country house. When he gained the the direction government should take. It The godfather of this process whose premiership and could finally call the top was resolved by Margaret Thatcher who influence spans the entire three decades is job his own, two suitably distinguished assaulted “consensus politics”, a term Rupert Murdoch. Like Thatcher, in his men joined him there for the first post- which both identified and repudiated the British role he engaged in a two-front Blair weekend. They were Alan Greenspan mutually shaping collusion of Whigs and conflict with the post-war order of Whigs and Rupert Murdoch, the prime architect collectivists. In the decade that followed and Fabians. While his control of The Sun of the neo-liberal epoch and its ruthless she challenged and broke not only the gave him a cash cow to support his global media mogul. Neither was British or lived role of trade unions but also humiliated expansion, it blasted the values of trade- in the UK. the numerous institutions and attitudes of union solidarity and family respect, both the Labour state and high-Tory exploiting the weakness of a snobbish There is a European element to this as establishment. culture to advance the values of a well. Had Labour reversed Thatcherite consumerism without citizenship, scornful hostility and actively embraced Thatcher’s was a “Tory nationalism” in of the possibility of good government. This membership of the European Union, it Marquand’s terminology. She made powerful attack on traditional working would have joined a project of inter- popular a host of right-wing prejudices class allegiance to democratic collectivism dependent government. Instead it and homilies such as comparing was combined with his ownership of The continued to play the role of “reluctant government expenditure to household Times and Sunday Times, giving Murdoch a partner” to EU integration, while showing spending, and denying the logic of grip on the lucrative weekend purveyor of an obsessional commitment to the “special Keynesian economics, stating that middle-class property and lifestyle news. relationship”; the twin pillars of Euro- governments could not spend their way At the cost of a small subsidy, he also detachment and globo-Atlanticism form a out of recession (the way had been gained control over the one-time core part of its neo-liberal outlook. opened to her on this by Labour prime Thunderer, the voice of the old Whig minister Jim Callaghan in 1976). Across the establishment itself, which was broken in The old British state was an “empire state” Atlantic, Ronald Reagan used a similar, the process. which oiled its wheels and deals in simple language to mark a new era of tradition clubland venues and networks, government. Each sought to reconfigure New Labour and the Coming to and then adapted itself to the equally top- the state, getting out of welfare and Office of Gordon Brown down if more egalitarian norms of Labour macroeconomic management while collectivism (3) . As the empire folded and pouring public resources into defence, New Labour promised a commitment to its options narrowed, the “rational” way security and foreign affairs. a “New Labour, New Britain”, shaped by a forward for this polity after the 1970s “young country” and “new politics” that would have been to create the ‘missing- The result was the emergence of a state sought and gained Murdoch’s blessing. link’ in British politics a Whig Europeanism with a politics that pretended to “world Marquand is excellent on the astonishing that could have replaced Whig leadership” to sustain its legitimacy at shallowness and lack of any sense of imperialism. And in this way permitted the home, while selling off much of the history that allowed Blair to be UK to become a fully committed country’s industry, both manufacturing and mesmerisingly of the moment, until he participant in the EU. Instead, Thatcher’s service, and this accelerated with New backed Bush and American power. There response was to intensify a polarising Labour. Its leadership of Tony Blair, Gordon were degrees of difference between Blair adherence to the English national core and compass Breaking out of Britain’s Neo-Liberal State www.compassonline.org.uk PAGE 3

globalise the City of London that had elite believed it could carry all before it. internationalism in the fresh language of once been the engine of imperial wealth Both Thatcherism and New Labour fell for “globalisation”. In effect it drew the old and trade. their own hype, and never harboured self- state through the eye of the City to create doubt about the merits of their mission. a regime that became a servant to the New Labour then faced a choice. It could Much transparent rubbish has been world financial markets. have democratised the turn inwards, and written in praise of their farsightedness; for built on Thatcher’s demotic appeal by example the work of Brian Brivati, a The “Bitter Lemons” and “The British taking it in the direction of ‘democratic serious academic, who had the misfortune Fantasy Island Bubble” republicanism’. This was the route to pen a book just before the “British advocated by Charter 88 that had some economic miracle” proved to be nothing It seems that all this has come to a influence on Labour in the 1990s. It would of the sort, which argued that Blair and juddering halt, as Alan Greenspan is left have led to electoral reform and a Labour Brown had reversed “the decline” which spluttering before Congress, John Maynard alliance with the Liberal Democrats. It was had so dominated post-war British politics Keynes is retrieved from the lower circles also the necessary condition for (7). of hell, and Labour ministers once more Europeanising the UK by deepening and telephone Will Hutton to be their Virgil constitutionalising its own democracy as a A threefold process unfolded under New and interpret the great sage’s insights on counter-weight to the influence of Labour whose dimensions and trajectories finance capitalism and the economic cycle. Brussels. This would have been, to use are only now becoming clear. Millward’s terms, a classic “European saving Initially there was a near-complete of state” (4) • First, an irreversible dismantling of the consensus amongst the political classes historic “sovereignty of Parliament” and its and the media that Gordon Brown and Instead, New Labour concentrated yet empire state through: a cultural Alistair Darling, his Chancellor, managed more power in a joint executive destruction of the old “Establishment” the crisis in a masterful fashion. The premiership of Blair and Brown, clubland regime; a territorial break of its adaptation of their rescue plan from a eviscerated the Cabinet as well as the unitary form with devolution (to try and bailout to huge part-nationalisation of the Commons and the Lords and made secure Labour’s hold on Wales and Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS won Britain a bouncer for the Washington Scotland); a legal modernisation with the plaudits from across the political spectrum. Consensus. Human Rights Act. These were all far- In this view Numbers 10 and 11 Downing reaching commitments inherited from the Street have acted with lightning speed, To achieve this, back in London the battle against Thatcher’s authoritarianism. with little protest over the lack of scrutiny, autonomy and self-belief of the old civil- oversight or democratic debate, and the service establishment had to be broken, so • Second, New Labour exploited the absence of public forums where people as to seize the traditional delights of its vacuum this created. Instead of replacing can realise their anger and dismay at those formally unaccountable power while the old constitution it cultivated an even who got us into this mess. disgorging the restraints of its informal and more centralised system of executive- once tenacious gentlemanly codes. A new sovereignty that treated the House of This has contrasted with the US culture evolved, to replace the central Commons with unparalleled contempt. experience where the fag end of George processes of British government, with a Although progressive policies might be W Bush’s disastrous presidency witnessed different set of unelected advisers, drawn up and implemented by able Hank Paulson, his Treasury secretary, businesspeople and a new class of what advisors, the core of this reformed state having to fight tooth and nail to get his Colin Leys has called “entrepreneurs of machine was dedicated to the bailout plan through Congress. Part of this the state”, sitting in the fulcrum of power construction of a corporate populist was undoubtedly due to the death pains making decisions which were often regime under prime ministerial fiat of the Bush administration, as politicians without due process or proper expanding surveillance and state controls sought to persuade their voters that they consideration (5). This led to the rise of a to pioneer a new type of “database state”. had nothing to do it; but part was thanks new kind of person who made his to the institutions of American democracy reputation delivering access, contact and • Third, unable to appeal to the loyalty of finally exerting themselves, after years of influence, in the words of Peter Oborne, traditional institutions such as Parliament being over-ridden and humiliated at the who “would massage the links between and monarchy yet longing for unchecked hands of Bush and company. the wealthy and the political class” (6). executive power and dismissive of democracy, New Labour embraced In Britain, Alistair Darling’s pre-budget At the same time vast sums are being market populism selling itself as the report revealed the scale of indebtedness expended on the formation of a “joined- purveyor of choice, freedom and bust-free the country is likely to incur under up” database state also led by imports economic growth while dressing old optimistic projections. In order to ensure from the corporate world. The new state socialist talk of inevitability and the government could still borrow this compass PAGE 4 www.compassonline.org.uk Breaking out of Britain’s Neo-Liberal State

forced him to set out a commitment to “one-nation” Whig imperialism, seeking the but without the flair. Brown became the higher taxes as soon as the recession ends same framework of “consensus” politics unpresentable face of Blairism. His – its projected duration seemed highly with New Labour as his predecessors in popularity crashed and Cameron’s time optimistic. There are signs of interesting the 1950s and 1960s had with the welfare seemed to have arrived. differences between the two major approach of old Labour. parties. But what has really changed? There In the big-dipper of UK politics, the has been a switchback from near total At a time when his weaknesses are being financial crisis suddenly re-reversed these scorn for the state, to delight in the revealed it is important to stress the terms. Gordon Brown excavated a belief decisiveness of government bailouts. The positives as well as the limitations of in Keynesian solutions from his social logic of both has been presented in the Cameron's vision. He successfully dumped democratic past and a solidity of purpose same language of “There is no alternative”, Thatcher’s social divisiveness and that was lacking from Blair’s lightness of fertilised by conformist groupthink. moderated her hostility to government being. Meanwhile Cameron and his Ideologically neo-liberalism derided and the welfare state. Emphasising instead shadow Chancellor George Osborne look government. But it traded on the covert “wellbeing” and social responsibility, he closer to the old prime minister. In an support of state power, nationally and described “the overriding mission we have exceptionally fast-moving situation, the globally. Hence the ease with which it set ourselves” as, “to revive our society Tories’ clothes were exposed as, literally, could embrace its “necessity”. just as Margaret Thatcher revived our yesterday’s fashion. With newspaper economy; to reverse Britain’s social supplements asking what will be “the Today, all the political parties in the UK breakdown, just as she reversed our hemlines of recession” and the sale of now face questions that draw attention to economic breakdown” (8). In the process, sewing machines on the increase, the their allegiance to the prevailing political Cameron made the Tory party re- classless consumerism of the Cameron and economic orthodoxies of recent electable. Conservatives seems all too close to the times. shopping mall “social-ism” of Tony Blair, and His aim was to become the true “heir to it was accordingly once again their The opposition parties at Westminster Blair” (in contrast to the more dour popularity that plummeted. have had mixed fortunes. The Liberal Brown), in the mistaken view that Blair Democrats in the form of Vincent Cable, was attractive and successful. But Blair was The Evolving Scottish Dimension Treasury spokesman, have had a good an adaptation of Thatcher and her neo- and Alex Salmond’s Honeymoon economic record over the last year thanks liberal settlement that Cameron was also to their early warning of the excesses. But seeking to break away from. It must have Beside the Westminster parties there is Nick Clegg, its new leader, has moved the seemed like a perfect steal, to snatch back another shaper of UK politics, the Scottish party rightwards calling for a “smaller the inheritance. Instead it seems to have National Party. Most accounts of current state”, lower tax and more competition, become a poisoned chalice. And not just British power do not take account of the while backing away from wholehearted because Cameron’s “new Conservatism” fact that the UK has two first ministers campaigning in support of Europe. As so with its plutocratic opportunism is in and two shaping political dynamics (a often over the past twenty years, one can some ways even more neo-liberal than measure of which is that the Tories are a say that the Lib-Dems “have not done New Labour. major force in only one of them). This badly”. This seems to satisfy them. But it account will try to compensate by also confines them to the traditional The decisive vector of British politics is addressing Scottish politics and providing mores of Westminster and local politics not who will inherit the mantle of Tony some essential background. when there is a profound need for Blair, but who will be seen as furthest something genuinely different that they removed from being identified with the Recent events have proven just as could have provided. epoch of Blair (and Bush). For his first troublesome for Alex Salmond’s SNP. three months as PM this appeared to be Although the “broad tent” alliance of social David Cameron’s Conservatives have in Brown, as he governed with a very democracy and good business sense in a the past three years sought to square the different style and seeming integrity, his populist, national project is progressive for circles of their inheritance. The new leader ratings soared above those of both Scotland as a country, it also turns out to aims to put the in-fighting and doctrinaire Cameron and his predecessor. Then be building Scotland’s variant of the neo- obsession of Thatcherism behind him to Brown failed to deliver on his promise of liberal state. Salmond, a former economist create an inclusive Conservatism, at ease a democracy voters could trust; he at RBS, made befriending and being the with contemporary Britain, and the declined to call an autumn election that he ally of the Scottish financial sector one of achievements and limits of Blairism. In had blatantly prepared for while denying his political priorities, and in particular RBS Marquand’s terms he has sought to ditch he had looked at polls. This exposed him and HBOS; he used their strength and Tory nationalism for a flexible, inclusive as being just as spinning as his predecessor international power as one of the main compass Breaking out of Britain’s Neo-Liberal State www.compassonline.org.uk PAGE 5

pillars in the contemporary case for election victory in the underlying Cameron, have had their limitations independence as they in fact headed for weakness was revealed in the recent post- exposed as each appears to be a prisoner bankruptcy. crash by-election in Glenrothes. It is of the neo-liberal order whose logic was striking that a week before, thanks to previously embraced as offering voters These political difficulties should be Salmond’s intervention, Donald Trump was freedom and greater autonomy. understood in the context of the SNP’s given permission to go ahead and build a broad based alliance and catch-all nature billion-dollar golf course in the north-east So far – and these two words must be as a political party, and Salmond’s recent of Scotland, overriding the local planning. emphasised in a swiftly moving context – revealing remarks about Thatcherism: Although there is no evidence of any so far Gordon Brown has shown himself Scotland “didn’t mind the economic side direct influence on the voters, this decision to be more capable than both his main so much. But we didn’t like the social side imposed the interests of the global opponents. It may be unfair given his at all” – a striking echo of Cameron’s marketplace and Trump’s clientele over central role in creating the neo-liberal similar distinction (9). Scotland’s environment. The smallholder state for over a decade, but more than who still refuses to sell out to the any other party leader he has found a While Salmond’s formidable achievement American casino owner was disgusted. The coherent response to the crisis. It has in giving Scotland a government it can Guardian reported that he was once a played to his strengths: his seriousness, respect should not be gainsaid, the case voter but would inability to do micro-politics and love of for put by the never be one again. “I used to be proud to grandiose plans and managed nationalists will have to change be a Scotsman, but I'm going to take both internationalism. But this does not bode dramatically, and become much more of my kilts out and burn them after this” well for the democratic republican ambitious and radical. The narrow, (10). decorations in the form of his initial green technocratic, economic case for paper. Instead, the signs are that, in independence - for the building of a Fascinatingly, the coincidental timing of coalition with the arch neo-liberal and “Scotland plc” and a “new Celtic Tiger” Trumpland days before Glenrothes was fellow creator of the New Labour emphasising competitiveness, being then matched, after the surprising Labour “project” Peter Mandelson, Brown wants business friendly and having low victory, by the UK government to set about an even more complete corporation tax – now seems much less contributing its 126-page submission to fusion of the 1997 combination of plausible. Pre-crisis this had its rationale. It the Calman commission, set up by a vote Whitehall and corporate power. could be called the SNP “bank manager” of the to assess the case, personified by John Swinney and Jim need for more powers and responsibilities “Guilty Men” in the Age of the Mather, now both ministers in the for Scottish devolution (11). At great length, Bloviators nationalist administration, as they mounted the answer of the UK government was a “cocktail offensive” around the there was no need for major new powers, This is a moment of “reckoning”, with boardrooms of Scotland. while there was room for taking some similarities to that of Guilty Men at a time back, and a bit of back-slapping at the of crisis for the British state nearly seventy Their argument moved independence wonder of the Scotland Act 1998 years ago (12). Guilty Men was of course away from the emotional and romantic. internationally; shades here of the part of the story of “the people’s war” Instead, independence was presented as Westminster belief in the eternal with the associated mythology of “the Scotland becoming a tight, light, corporate- perfection of the British constitution. This Dunkirk spirit” and 1940-41 which friendly national project within the matters because even after the cause of became part of the creation of the all- framework of the EU, in which business independence received a major setback, encompassing “Churchillism” which would be more supported than in the the UK government continues to pose the legitimised Britain’s role as the junior remote and over-centralist UK. In many constitutional debate north of the border, partner in the American global project (13). respects this repositioning was a necessary as simply one of independence versus the Guilty Men with all its shortcomings still transition for the SNP to go through to status quo from which there is no helped define a crucial moment, and give become a modern, serious political party. constructive way forward. voice to the popular will that people did Its downside was twofold: first, it took the not want to return to the failures of the rich strain of the emotional resonance for The growing credit-crunch, and the crash 1930s. independence for granted, and second, it following Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy anchored the SNP into an economic and the gathering recession, have dealt David Cameron recently attempted to order complicit with neo-liberalism and powerful blows to the SNP and the find voice for the widespread anger which the prevailing economic orthodoxies. Conservatives. Both have failed to find has swept Britain at the antics of the convincing responses during the crisis. financial class and wider super-rich talking While this glided them to a stunning by- Their leaders, Alex Salmond and David of “a day of reckoning” (14) ; while his stance

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proved unconvincing he at least has Across British public life, in public the position of what the German Finance attempted to find a form of words which institutions and discourse, the last decade Minister Peer Steinbruck calls “crass has so far proven elusive to Labour of New Labour has been characterised by Keynesianism” (17). This is in the tradition of ministers. the bowdlerising and debasement of British-continental European values and meaning. To talk about the misunderstandings, and the growth of a Theodor Adorno once said, “the world future of our society we have been post-imperial British deluded sense of self- wants to be deceived” (15). The glorification obliged to walk through a linguistic importance. of globalisation appears to vindicate his supermarket where sterile, vacuum packed perception. But there is now a desire for in-words are provided by the supply-lines Can Gordon Brown make a break with all public truthfulness from politicians - not of the new elite. This has had many this and lead Britain towards a more disingenuous waffle and flannel from the casualties, as government white papers healthy normality? There has been the fellow-travellers of securitisation, who as and documents once renowned for their “Red Brown” of 1970s socialism, the pale credit-default swaps were transformed plain English have become inflated by pink Brown of Kinnockite supply-side into yachts declared that they had seen gobble-de-gook obesity. Economic socialism, and the Union Jack Brown of the future and it works. A political system development agencies have abandoned New Labour, New Britishness (18). Will the that once prides itself for its honour and talking seriously about political economy, new era witness the emergence of a decency has been humiliated. Public life and instead invoke “creativity”, fourth Brown that captures the political and standards have been debased, from “innovation” and “doing the step change”. moment? Little is impossible for a political the rise of “sofa government” to the Iraq class so adept at conjuring. But there war through the “cash for honours” Think-tanks evacuated any efforts at surely has to be some self-reflection on scandal, and now Corfu, where unsavoury considering political economy. University the policies that got us to where we are - Russian oligarchs with dreadful reputation departments scrambled for research a reckoning of what went wrong is surely like Oleg Deripaska mix with Mandelson, funding by peer assessing each other’s essential for the possibility of redemption. Osborne, Nathan Rothschild and two publications in journals of barely-read- generations of the Murdochs. studies. City-wide and regional bodies In which case the future of British politics stressed their aspirations to be “world across the United Kingdom may not be During the last twenty years a new class class cities” basing their growth forecasts shaped by the political parties as we of apologists for the economic, social and on shopping and tourism while discarding currently know them as there seems little political order has taken shape. This elite the solid revenues of manufacturing likelihood of their making such a has its own language, words and phrases provincialism. In all parts of the UK, from reckoning. David Marquand’s book calls for which are shaped by a torrent of buzz London to Liverpool, Glasgow to a democratic republican politics that words and jargon emanating from “Newcastle/Gateshead”, this has been an honestly embraces the territorial issues of management and consultancy mumbo- age of gloss and superficiality and financial the Union and frees the English question jumbo. Its leaders have filled the air with considerations based on “neverland”. from its integument. This is hardly a talk of “the knowledge economy”, “living plausible programme for Brown or on thin air” and “the rise of the creative This debasement of our language and Cameron - while Clegg calls for the class”, and encouraged the emergence of public discourse has been mirrored by the reinvention of politics but from within the a shameless group of self-promoting triumphalism of our political classes. The Westminster fastness. bloviators: Richard Florida and Malcolm belief in “the end of decline” in the Gladwell in the States, Anthony Giddens political elite has seen the shift from The United Kingdom itself has become (in his “third way” phase) and Charlie Britain being seen as “the sick man of part of the problem: a neo-liberal state, Leadbeater in the UK, being four of the Europe” to a country which from the mid- and its myriad mixture of territories and most obvious examples. This demeans the 1980s “put the great back into Britain”. lands have been used to create tax havens standards of public debate and intellectual Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and legal loopholes such as the Isle of standards; the Observer’s review section appropriated this Great Britishness for the Man, Jersey and Guernsey, sitting outside recently putting Gladwell on its front page continuation of the neo-liberal project, of the UK, as well as the EU as “Crown and asking, “Is this the world’s most shamelessly lecturing Europe and the Dependencies” (19), which have come to influential thinker?” about a figure whose world about the wonders of the the fore in the current financial crisis, and books, The Tipping Point, Blink and “economic miracle” here. There is are the “top tax havens” in the world (20). Outliers are at best descriptive, polemical something in the British political psyche, These entities have become the equivalent essays with little, if any originality in them which allows Brown to seamlessly shift of “black holes” in the world financial (16). from lecturing the Germans and French system – sucking into them monies, on the inflexibilities of the “European companies and their advisers in a vortex social model” to patronising them from of secrecy and lack of transparency. compass Breaking out of Britain’s Neo-Liberal State www.compassonline.org.uk PAGE 7

The decades of Thatcher, Blair and Brown, SEVEN INITIAL STEPS TO BEGIN TO 6. The nature of the British state is have witnessed the coalescing of the CHALLENGE NEO-LIBERALISM: fundamental to the current crisis and laid British state and the politics of neo- the basis for the acute nature of the liberalism, which are going to have to be 1. We need to identify “the official future” problems Britain faces in the global disentangled and defeated. This will require – the mantra of globalisation wherever it downturn. The British regime formed over the recognition that all of the mainstream is – nationally, internationally, in the public the thirty years of Thatcher to Brown has political traditions have been diminished and private realms, and critique it, defeat it seen an inter-twinning of the economic, and corrupted, and that all of them will and supplant it (23); social and political into a neo-liberal state have to address the need to reflect a and polity that commands the loyalty of all sense of “defiant humility” as Goran 2. The world view of the bloviators – the the main parties. An escape route has yet Therborn has stated, consisting of Floridas, Gladwells and others – who to be discovered given the closed nature “defiance before the forces of capital and have offered themselves as voices and of the British system; empire” and “humility before the coming apologists for the winners and the global new world and the learning and order, needs to be seen as part of the 7. Any such escape needs the people of unlearning that it will call for” (21). problem, along with the damage they have the United Kingdom to make their own done and their role in legitimising the claim upon public power with a modern Neo-liberalism bent and contorted all of “new conservatism”; form of citizenship which aids an Britain’s political parties, institutions and emancipatory state, culture and society. philosophies, while changing the notion of 3. Public discourse has to be reclaimed This will involve a political culture and “the self” as personal neo-liberalism from the neo-liberals, whether first wave, system which recognises the centrality of psychologised and individualised every second wave, instrumental, personal or fundamental human rights that protect issue and concern. It enforced what unwittingly. Government and public minorities as well as a modern that Norwegian sociologist Thomas Mathiesen agencies need to fundamentally rethink stops the development of an authoritarian, called “the creation of acquiescence” how they conceive and think of policy, the database state. All of which will require a through the process of “silently silencing”, language and values in documents, and way of retelling and reimagining the stories whereby public opinion and what was whose voice and interest such processes of the peoples and the nations of the UK. seen as legitimate areas of debate was are serving; managed and manufactured in the media and politics (22). These developments have 4. The British “public” overall does not see seen the slow, gradual entrenchment of itself in the language of “consumers” and the neo-liberal order across all British “customers” in relation to public service. public life, to the extent that people For the last thirty years, the public have advocate and voice its values often been force-fed a diet of New Public without realising it. Management, choice and privatisation, and still they don’t find it attractive or buy it. The current set of events, uncertainty and Sadly nor do people see themselves in the instability shows the failure of the world idea of “citizens”. We need to think, that neo-liberalism brought about. This is nurture and organise public services in an historic opportunity and challenge to new ways which are neither New Right all of us: whether we be progressives, nor the technical fixes of co-production (24); liberals, conservatives, nationalists, or just concerned about the future of Britain and 5. Policy literalism is increasingly the world. recognised as a problematic way of doing politics (25). There is a direct link between the micro-policy and management of the Blair-Brown years – legislation “overload” and command and control – and the suffocating consensus of the mainstream, which shuts down open discussion of the macro-questions about the economy and society;

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Notes 17. Will Hutton, ‘Spend or Save? Free-marketeers and the Keynesians row over the road to salvation’, The Observer, December 14th 2008, 1. Richard Eckersley, Well and Good: How We Feel http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/14/keyn and Why It Matters, Text Publishing Company 2004. esian-economic-recovery-brown-germany 2. David Marquand, Britain since 1918: The Strange 18. Gerry Hassan, ‘Reading Brown: Don’t Mess with Career of British Democracy, Weidenfeld and the Missionary Man: Brown, Moral Compasses and Nicolson 2008, p. 404. the Road to Britishness’, Political Quarterly, Special Issue on Britishness, forthcoming 2009. 3. Anthony Barnett, ‘Empire State’, in Anthony Barnett (ed.), Power and the Throne: Monarchy Debate, 19. One of the few UK Government documents Vintage 1994. which examines the Isle of Man and Channel Islands and their relationship to the UK is the Report of the 4. Alan S. Millward, The European Rescue of the Royal Commission on the Constitution: Volume One, Nation-State, Routledge 2nd edn. 1999. Cmnd. 5460, HMSO 1973. 5. Colin Leys, ‘The Cynical State’, in Leo Panitch and 20. George Monbiot, ‘Even in this crisis, the Colin Leys (eds), Socialist Register 2006: Telling the government still offers refuge to pinstriped pirates’, Truth, http://socialistregister.com/recent/leys , December 16th 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/1 6. Peter Oborne, ‘Lord Mandy, his murky friends and 6/tax-avoidance-regulators-havens the debasing of our democracy’, Daily Mail, October 25th 2008. 21. Goran Therborn, ‘After Dialectics: Radical Social Theory in a Post-Communist World’, New Left 7. Brian Brivati, The End of Decline: Blair and Brown Review 43, January-February 2007, p. 114. in Power, Politico’s Publishing 2007. 22. Thomas Mathiesen, Silently Silenced: Essays on the 8. Quoted in Richard Reeves ‘This Is Cameron’, Public Creation of Acquiescence in Modern Society, Policy Research, June-August 2008, p. 65. Waterside Press 2004, p. 9. 9. Gerry Hassan, ‘Thatcher’s Shadow Falls over 23. On critiquing and challenging “the official future” Scotland’, Open Democracy, August 26th 2008, see: Gerry Hassan, Eddie Gibb and Lydia Howland http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/ourkingdom- (eds), Scotland 2020: Hopeful Stories for a Northern theme/thatcher-s-shadow-over-salmond Nation, Demos 2005; Gerry Hassan, Melissa Mean This is a revised and rewritten version of and Charlie Tims, The Dreaming City: Glasgow 2020 10. an essay originally published on Open and the Power of Mass Imagination, Demos 2007. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/04/donald Democracy: -trump-scottish-golf-course 24. John Clarke, Janet Newman, Nick Smith, Elizabeth Vidler and Louise Westmarland, Creating Citizen- http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/em 11. HM Government Scotland Office, Government Consumers: Changing Publics and Changing Public Evidence to the Commission on Scottish Devolution, ail/britain-s-neo-liberal-state Services, Sage 2007. November 10th 2008, http://www.commissiononscottishdevolution.org.uk/ 25. Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, Gerry Hassan is a writer and Breakthrough: From the Death of Environmentalism commentator whose books include After 12. ‘Cato’, Guilty Men, Victor Gollancz 1940. to the Politics of Possibility, Houghton Mifflin 2007. Blair: Politics after the New Labour 13. Anthony Barnett, Iron Brittania: Why Parliament Decade. Anthony Barnett is the editor of Waged Its Falklands War, Allison and Busby 1982, Ch. OurKingdom and the Founder of 3, ‘Churchillism’; Gerry Hassan, ‘Labour, Britishness openDemocracy. He was the first and concepts of ‘nation’ and ‘state’’, in Gerry Hassan (ed.), After Blair: Politics after the New Labour Director of Charter 88. Decade, Lawrence and Wishart in association with Compass 2007. Gerry can be contacted on: [email protected] 14. David Cameron, ‘A day of reckoning for the banking industry’, December 15th 2008, http://www.conservatives.com/News/News_stories/2 Anthony at: 008/12/A_day_of_reckoning_for_the_banking_indust [email protected] ry.aspx

15. Theodor Adorno, quoted in Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Fear, Polity Press 2006, p. 170.

16. Tim Adams, ‘The man who can’t stop thinking’, The Observer, November 16th 2008, T: +44 (0) 207 463 0633 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/nov/16/malcol m-gladwell-interview-outliers www.compassonline.org.uk compass

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