My Thoughts about Brexit

Brexit is in my view the successful use of democracy as defined by new liberalism. We hear a lot about democracy and the free market, both portrayed as the pinnacle of civilisation. But what does it really mean?

Noam Chomsky in “Profit over People” describes neoliberalism as “capitalism with the gloves off”. He continues that “neoliberalism functions best in a formal democracy where the population is diverted from the information and public forums necessary for meaningful participation in decision making”.

Chomsky further refers to Milton Friedman who stated in “Capitalism and Freedom”: “profit making is the essence of democracy. Any government that pursues anti-market policies is being anti-democratic no matter how much informed popular support they might enjoy. Therefore, it is best to restrict governments to the job of protecting private property and enforcing contracts and to limit political debate to minor issues, the important issues of resource production and distribution and social organisation should be determined by market forces.”

In my opinion the Brexit referendum was never about society in the U.K. but about the extension of the domination over the general population, over the 99%, by the upper echelons of society and big business, the 1%. There was no real debate about the advantages and problems associated with Brexit. There were many absurd false promises as for example millions of pounds per week extra for the NHS. This is not new, it also happened with the bombing of Libya with catastrophic consequences and the invasion of Iraq based on untruths with tragic consequences from a humanitarian point of view. From a neoliberal-democratic point of view these were successful interventions. This has been going on for years with tragic humanitarian consequences in many countries.

The political debates and news media dominate discourse with trivial issues and downright dishonesty by the politicians. The governments here have learned that having the people organise protest marches is quite useful in making people think that they are doing something useful and somehow feeling engaged in a meaningful debate. The record numbers that marched against the Iraq war did not prevent the labour government from going to war justified by false information. I can’t think of any example in recent years where a people’s march made those in power change the direction that they were pursuing.

I grew up in South Africa in the brutal apartheid era that ensured that a large section of the population was available as cheap labour. Verwoerd, one of the architects of apartheid said that the purpose of the Black Education Act was to ensure that black people would have only just enough education to work as unskilled labourers. The last apartheid president F W de Klerk apologised for apartheid at the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) hearings and then essentially negated his apology with his follow-up comments denying any knowledge of the atrocities of the apartheid government. Bishop Tutu became tearful about de Klerk’s response saying that he himself had told de Klerk about it. One of the youngest parliamentary members in de Klerk’s government acknowledged that he got caught up in debating against the accusations of atrocities that some opposition parties were accusing the government of. Basically, he got caught up in rhetoric and felt that he was negligent in not reflecting, not being truthful about the reality of the situation. He apologised unreservedly at the TRC. A major factor that caused the end of apartheid was the economy. Now although apartheid ended, from an economic point of view it’s business as usual with a relatively small number of people being very well off and the majority living in abject poverty.

With Brexit there was no informed debate in parliament, in fact I don’t think there is ever really informed debate. It is more about point scoring with heads bobbing up and down in agreement with the point scorer of their choice and heckling. It is mostly rhetoric and rhetoric is not about being truthful. It was clear after the Brexit vote that members of parliament did not really know what they were doing and could not agree on anything.

Cambridge Analytica, a UK firm was involved in influencing elections in about 16 countries, but we heard very little about that and now there is silence about Cambridge Analytica. I wonder how much this firm influenced the U.K. elections?

The U.K. is part of the unregulated free-market globalisation economic system that value profit over people. I feel that the Brexit vote showed that people were beginning to realise that there are major problems with the unregulated free-market globalisation and that something needs to change. What and how is not clear. Brexit is in my view a vote for a wider change than only leaving the EU.

All we needed was the Covid-19 to cause chaos and show the failure of the present global unregulated free market system. Coved-19 is not Ebola. The vast majority will survive a Covid-19 infection yet we have a mass contagion, a mass panic, and knee jerk responses from politicians and professionals that show in my view their disconnect with the real world. They are just kicking the can further down the road as usual. What it shows is that we’re living in a global market economic system that benefits the rich and the powerful and not the majority. It shows that the global free market system left the world unprepared to deal with a global viral pandemic that had been predicted for for years. The Covid-19 virus could lead to a reset of the globalised system that we have, and it may not be a bad thing but who will benefit remains to be seen.

We have Brexit and I have no idea how this will affect me personally. It could potentially affect the younger generations more. I prefer to be part of the EU, which I am, but I also enjoy the privilege of living in London. Hopefully it will turn out to be good enough in the end.

Vivian de Villiers
viviandev@aol.com