III

Of a paranoid disposition—which, Macdara might add, has served him well—the present writer has been considering the likely near-future of Ireland’s nearest neighbour (so near in fact that they are still Occupying part of the House). It is important for people to understand the scale of the collapse of the Kingdom over recent years. More alarming even than the crisis in every single public service is the general air of malaise referred to in Part I. A Government that might be described as demoralised if it wasn’t so straightforwardly immoral has maintained power without facing any sustained criticism from its Loyal Opposition. The public is resigned to the English Labour Party assuming power, in the full knowledge that the party offers no hope, no ideas, no resolution to the problem of a low-productivity economy wherein only massive levels of debt allow the post-imperial state to style itself as a leading force in the world.  

Since the ELP has promised that it will work within the constraints imposed by its Conservative twin, it has already signalled that the future will be as hopeless as the present. The natural result of this collusion will be a continuing radicalisation of the English polity: those who want change, some or any kind of change, will look for a destructive Act to perpetrate, as they did with Brexit. This will presumably take a violent, fascist form. And if we restrict ourselves to thinking of the ELP in Power in the near future, we can expect that the party, unwilling to challenge the Right in economic or cultural engagements, will be left with the oldest fight in English politics on its hands: the struggle to subjugate the Celtic Colonies.  

What alternative will it have? It will not fight on behalf of Labour in the dialectical struggle with Capital. The ELP will boast of its instinctive hostility to asylum seekers—linguistically displaced onto an opposition to small boats, rather than admitting the people in the boats into the sentence, for who would want to think of the desperation and bravery of those who have already made their way across a strange continent, only to get into fragile vessels to cross the sea to a hostile State?—but the Conservatives, with their insane Rwanda plan, have shown the irrational extent of their hatred of migrants, with which the ELP cannot compete. What other internal enemies can be found? The Celts!

To hear any English political leader swear their undying commitment to keeping the non-English bits of the London-based state stuck in England’s embrace is always a strange affair. Starmer’s extraordinary voice further undermines the supposed seriousness of this commitment. Macdara has previously wondered whether the north-east of Ireland might be dumped by the London government, and this seems plausible if a certain faction of the Right holds power and comes to lose any interest in the Occupation Administration. However the Labour branch of the English Establishment Party will not be permitted the leeway to perform this act of Abandonment and must hang on to the six counties lest they appear weak. Permitting the inevitable Liberation of Scotland is out of the question. And in Wales the intriguing rise in support for independence is a heartwarming reminder that even the longest occupations can come to an end; not a complete surprise, given the strength of Welsh language and culture (a strength that should shame and galvanise the other Celtic peoples).

We can expect more embarrassing performances of the ELP’s love for areas of their notional Kingdom that they know and care nothing about. In the absence of a mass party of the Left, let us hope that the Scots can continue to support the useless SNP over the genocidal and imperialist ELP, to prevent the unbearable smugness of the latter in seeing Scotland return to its natural state as a vote-farm for one of the branches of the English Establishment.

IV

Can you imagine the English Labour Party if the Westminster parliament were debating the Abolition of Slavery today? They would send out an MP who would say in her most pained and serious voice that it is really important on such an important issue to listen to the good points made by people on both sides, and isn’t it evidence of what a great country England is that this really important debate can be had with respectful contributions by all? 

In looking at the party that looks likely to fall into Power in London next time round, one must keep in mind that in one part of the UK, the Occupied Territories of Ireland, the party does not stand. And that in another, the future Republic of Scotland, the party trades votes with other unionist parties as the shoneen part of the electorate tries to decide which faction to promote against the overwhelming popularity of the SNP. 

The Welsh Labour party maintains an identity as Welsh Labour in a way that is anathema to the English Labour Party in Scotland, which rejected the name Scottish Labour as sounding too nationalist. Not only does the ELP see Scots as an adjunct to the English, but the ELP(S) is a party of people who see themselves as adjuncts to England. The SNP is a cross-class anticolonial coalition familiar from other struggles, but it is not a party of the Left, so Macdara does not support it. Nevertheless he admired Sturgeon’s communicative abilities, including the evident impatience with which she listened to a few seconds of a fascist activist in a recent election before shutting her down, utterly unafraid that her blunt treatment would put off the important fascist vote: it is unthinkable that a representative of the ELP in England or Scotland would do the same. Macdara recalls a Cambridge acquaintance wondering which of the twin parties of the English Establishment they should join, adding that the Labour option would work best with their career plan, as Labour would surely be due a spell in office around the time this person would be old enough for Power. It seems the party was happy to take on and promote someone of such…conviction. Sturgeon, in contrast, joined a fringe party and worked for years to be elected; had she wanted power, she would have joined the ELP(S), but she did not. Again, that is something to admire. See, Macdara is not unreasonable.

It is not often that one reads a sentence to the effect that Stalin got something right, and Macdara isn’t about to scandalise his readers in such a tawdry way. However it is evidently true that the parties of Social Democracy have collapsed into parties of the Right, preparing the way for the Far Right. In this sense, Social Democrats can be described, with an acceptable measure of exaggeration, as Social Fascists. And the ELP is about as disgraceful an example of this as one could ever hope not to see.

The present writer has long had the impression that in Late Capitalism those of the Left have to articulate positions that should be taken up by those of the so-called Centre Left; Macdara, whose preferred mode is revolutionary politics, and who would like to disdain parliamentarianism, nevertheless feels that he should point out things that you might expect parties apparently committed to democratic principles to be saying themselves: that the method of election to England’s parliament is undemocratic in the extreme; that it is an urgent priority to introduce some means of Proportional Representation. In fact the ELP membership are in favour of this elementary commitment to democracy (as of 2022), but doubtless they will cheerfully vote for a party leadership exactly opposed to such a sensible policy. 

On further consideration, Macdara withdraws part of the above claim: specifically the idea that anyone connected with the ELP might cheerfully do anything. In keeping with the sombre lifestyle horror promoted by the ELP house paper, the English Guardian, these people maintain a dreary solemnity at all times. In fact they have taken to warning that it is better to have no hope than false hope: an attempt to close off the Left, the one source of hope, cheer, joy even, in politics. In this way they are signalling that they will occupy the same Fiscal Space as their Conservative friends, but be sure to turn up to vote for them as it is their Turn. There is every reason to believe that this catastrophic lack of substance will have the direst effect on all but the richest people of England, and most especially upon those citizens of the Celtic Colonies, though not, in the case of Scotland and the north-east of Ireland, Macdara suggests, for very much longer…