[A-List] UK state: punk Thatcherism

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

William Palfreman writes:

> While attracting some unreconstructed national Keynesians within the
Labour
> Party and elsewhere on the left, the most enthusiastic participants are
the
> usual punk Thatcherite suspects.

Maybe then.  I don't think people like that even exist today.

<snip>

Again, I don't believe such people are around anymore - not within my
lifetime.  I'd say the last time that represented a significant point of
view was 1975.

-----

Firstly, thanks to William for climbing aboard the list to clarify certain
points. We are both agreed that the article in question is a farrago of
supposition, misquotation and conspiratorialism.

With respect to the presumed death of punk Thatcherism, I would preach
caution here. The issue of Northern Ireland is something that we follow
here, and recent events show just how difficult it is for certain elements
within the British state and their allies/mouthpieces in "civil society" to
let go. That MI5 and Special Branch are implicated in the leaking of
telephone conversations involving Mo Mowlam and Martin McGuinness, aimed
ultimately at preventing the enactment of the GFA, tells us a lot about the
resilience of these elements. That they are in decline is true -- that they
are effectively dead is not.

Ever since the mid-1970s there has been a growing current, incorporating
parts of MI6, that has promoted a policy of gradual disengagement by the
British state from Northern Ireland. The vast majority of MI5 was against
this from the get-go. Not surprising, given MI5's history as the security
service for the colonies. Having lost most of these, all they had left to
worry over (apart from Harold Wilson, the "KGB agent") was Northern Ireland,
which they proceeded to turn into an organised bloodbath once they had been
given the authority to take over security operations there. One of the best
sources on this is "Who Framed Colin Wallace?" by Paul Foot, published in
1990. Also worth checking is "The Wilson Plot" by David Leigh (Heinemann,
1988) and "Smear! Wilson and the Secret State" by Stephen Dorril and Robin
Ramsay (Grafton, 1991). Also, if you can find a copy, try out Robert Fisk,
"The Point of No Return", published in 1975 about the Ulster Workers'
Council strike. Meanwhile, the recent work of BBC journalist Peter Taylor,
particularly "Brits", makes it clear that MI6 took various peace initiatives
throughout the times of the Troubles. While Taylor himself is not the most
spotless source (see his treatment of the Stalker affair), there is little
doubting this particular aspect of his narrative.

The people involved in this promotion of state terrorism (the McWhirter
brothers, George Kennedy Young, Airey Neave, Michael Hanley, "Lord" Ralph
Harris of High Cross, William Rees Mogg etc.) were also responsible for the
rise of Thatcher in the first place, and while certain empire loyalists were
unhappy about what they considered to be an overly diluted approach to
"correcting" the problems of Britain (e.g. Gerald James, whose "In the
National Interest", published in 1995, contains a good account of this), the
vast majority were happy to be aligned with Thatcher as she set about
attacking organised labour via orchestrated state violence and economic
vandalism. In so doing she created a new more powerful stratum of petty
bourgeois types, encompassing entrepreneurs and office workers, all
supported by an increasingly sophisticated ideological apparatus (hence the
high profile war of attrition against the BBC, involving Rees-Mogg, Norman
Tebbit, "Sir" James Goldsmith, Neil Hamilton and Gerald Howarth, among
others). This altered the political complexion of Britain irrevocably.

The irony of all this is that Thatcher herself outlived her usefulness, as
in her rampant europhobia, which alienated key constituents of her support
base, hence the in-house putsch that toppled her in 1990. The Major
governments of 1990-97 are the story of a messy transition, as one state
party declined to be overtaken by a completely new one, New Labour, whose
time had well and truly come. Major began many of the things which Blair et
al. are now implementing with even greater speed. Not only intensified
privatisation, but also with respect to the European re-orientation that key
sections of British capital demanded, but which Major was unable to
accomplish because his political base would simply not allow it. Blair's
did, hence his usefulness to the hegemonic bloc now in the ascendant.

The implosion of the Conservative Party is as a result of a lingering
attachment to punk Thatcherism -- despite his best efforts, William Hague
was forced to turn right because, in "democratising" his party, he had made
himself more vulnerable to the demands of the partisan bigots that form the
hard core of that party. Thus the succession of IDS, and the continuing
hero-worship of Thatcher. But they remain important because of their command
of parts of the ideological apparatus, not least the Telegraph newspapers
and the Murdoch media empire. And linked to this is the support that they
get from those in the US with strong links to the Bush administration. A
check of the archives here will highlight some of these links, including
Thatcher arranging for IDS to meet Donald Rumsfeld before the actual defence
secretary, Geoff Hoon.

One way to understand Blair's frenzied approach to foreign policy is to
accept the blackmail hypothesis but to steer it away from the lurid to the
more straightforward -- he knows that the current administration could cause
a lot of trouble for New Labour if he does not play ball, so, within certain
limits, he can afford to advocate alternative policies and stake out a
"British" position, but the price of that is unwavering support of the main
elements of US imperialism. The alternative is a manufactured balance of
payments crisis of the kind precipitated in 1974 and resulting in the
intervention of the IMF in 1976, sealing Britain's Thatcherite fate.

The euro tendency within the British state, of which Blair is the
figurehead, is merely the continuation of one of the two main strands of
Thatcherism, whose main accomplishments were the destruction of the British
working class, the restoration of British state authority (contrary to
"rolling back" its frontiers) and the further incorporation into the
anti-Soviet bulwark that was the European Economic Community. With the end
of the Cold War, Europe's political functionality has ceased to exist from a
US strategic perspective, whilst its potential as a strategic rival has
grown. The other strand of Thatcherism ("punk") sees its future as part of
an Anglified white world bloc, led by the US but with a special place for
John Bull British nationalism and devoted to a miserably misunderstood
conception of "free trade". Thus the irony of Blair -- the most
euro-enthusiast PM since Edward Heath, poised to seal Britain's future by
leading it into the eurozone, now forced to manage as best he can the
difficulties of a hostile Bush administration and a bizarre domestic
coalition of petty bourgeois nationalist bigots and labour aristocracy
relics, reinforced by powerful media interests controlled by Conrad Black
and Rupert Murdoch, whose links to the Bush administration are very close
indeed.

Most of this is a rehashing of stuff written earlier, and which can be found
in the archives. What is new is that this history, it is becoming clearer
day by day, is far from past, and that there remains an intense struggle
within the British state over its future trajectory. That punk Thatcherism
cannot be regarded as a serious political alternative to New Labour is less
important than the recognition that it can be used to cause severe domestic
difficulty for Blair should he step out of line.

Michael Keaney