International League of People’s Struggles – International Coordinating Committee (ILPS-ICC) founding chairman and noted international affairs expert Jose Maria Sison had just recently engaged in a fruitful discussion with me on the so-called ‘Brexit’ or what was shortly traded for the British people’s electoral decision to take the UK (United Kingdom out of the EU (European Union) in a concluding referendum for any just or lame reason. It has triggered shockwaves across the global mainstream media as the British people endure a possible public opinion backlash for their decision. Sensational media coverage of this issue suggested that the decision to leave the EU was triggered by the tide of right-wing nationalism and ‘xenophobic populism’.
He also discussed its impact on the geo-political and socio-economic landscape of other countries such as the Philippines. This issue has been generating diverse viewpoints and reactions that push many people wonder about the future of the UK in the ushering of a possibly post-EU era. In the Philippines, the outgoing Aquino government continues to whitewash the issue’s possible repercussions on the flow of foreign remittances and foreign investments.
I curiously observed that many Filipinos treat the ‘Brexit’ trivially as if it would easily obscure its root causes and repercussions. However, I would only hope at this time that this timely write-up would enlighten them on the implications of the ‘Brexit’ fiasco.
Prof. Sison pointed out that Britain had always been a hesitant or reluctant member of the EU. According to him, “The British financial oligarchy has maintained fiscal and financial sovereignty and has zealously done everything to keep London as a major financial center of global capitalism and pivot point of Anglo-American collaboration, even as the US has used NATO and its postwar control of Germany as the lever of control over Western Europe.”
“Britain has exited from EU mainly because of the national sentiment of the majority of voters that the EU bureaucracy has been over-privileged and culpable for economic stagnation and austerity measures at the expense of the people and secondarily because of rightist agitation that the EU is promoting the inflow of refugees to the EU and the UK,” he said.
“The British Left has not been effective in explaining in revolutionary terms to the people that the worsening economic and financial crisis is rooted in the basic laws of capitalism and aggravated at an accelerated rate by neoliberal economic policy, which has been promoted by the US and UK, and that the massive inflow of refugees into the EU has been the result of US and NATO wars of aggression, whipped up mainly by the US and UK, in the Middle East and Africa,” Sison lamented.
“At any rate, the Brexit is a manifestation of the decomposition of British monopoly capitalism and EU monopoly capitalism. It can be the beginning of further exits by other countries from the EU,” he said in explaining the significance of the ‘Brexit’ fiasco.
“From a proletarian revolutionary viewpoint, it can be said that the tendency of the EU to decompose will result in the eventual weakening of EU and its national components as bulwarks of counterrevolution and aggression,” he elaborated.
Prof. Sison generally explained to me that the basic grounds for Brexit have been laid both by the ever worsening crisis of British monopoly capitalism as well as of EU-wide monopoly capitalism under the auspices of the neoliberal economic policy propagated in Europe by the US and UK since Reagan and Thatcher.
“The majority of the British voters believe that the stagnation, unemployment and austerity measures have been generated by the EU,” he said.
“The right-wing nationalists, populists and xenophobes spread hatred and anger against refugees and immigrants in the wake of the inflow of millions of refugees to the EU. They obscure the fact that the US and UK have been the most vile and violent in unleashing wars of aggression by the US and NATO and that these have caused the phenomenon of refugees in tens of millions,” he said in reference to British right-wing political parties that hijacked the mass disillusionment with the failure of pro-establishment politics and neoliberal economic policies by generating anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiments.
Prof. Sison reiterated that there was always class politics and class struggle in major events like the British referendum that has resulted in ‘Brexit’.
“When revolutionaries fail to wage a successful class struggle, it is the monopoly bourgeoisie that succeeds in its class struggle against the proletariat and the entire ‘precariat’ (including unemployed and underemployed among the white collars from the so-called middle class),” he explained on the possible consequences of the failure to analyze class politics and to wage class struggle.
He candidly said that the American and British mainstream media were instruments of monopoly capitalism, especially of the financial oligarchy. He also said that they obscured the root causes of the worsening economic and financial crisis and concentrated only on the advantages and disadvantages for British monopoly capitalism whether it leaves or stays in the EU.
“In fact, the proletarian and the rest of the people are suffering class oppression and exploitation, whether there is Brexit or not,” he added.
According to Prof. Sison, “There is yet no proletarian revolutionary party effectively leading the education, organization and mass mobilization of the people on the road of revolution. Thus, rightwing parties and groups have stood out far more than the Left at the moment.”
“There are, however, left formations which can strive to take advantage of the crisis conditions that continue to worsen and incite the people to rebel,” he optimistically added.
“Brexit will inspire more nationalist and anti-immigrant parties and groups to press for exit from the EU in the still relatively more prosperous countries of Europe, like the Netherlands, Germany and France,” he explained on the possibly domino impact of the issue on the European geo-political and socio-economic landscape.
He elaborated that people in countries hard pressed by higher rates of unemployment, stagnation, austerity measures and foreign debt obligations, like Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy could be led by the Left parties and movements against impositions by their local rulers, monopolies and foreign creditors.
Prof. Sison generally said that the Brexit have emerged as major symptom of the worsening economic and financial crisis of European and global capitalism.
“What can most easily affect the Philippines adversely is a possible reduction of Filipino migrant workers in EU and UK due to the inflow of refugees from the Middle East, Africa and South Asia and migrant workers from Eastern Europe, “ he pointed out on the issue’s repercussion on the Philippine socio-economic landscape.
He added that any major reduction in the remittance of overseas Filipino workers could aggravate the chronic economic crisis of the Philippines.
“Brexit is an indication of the worsening crisis of global capitalism and the unraveling of the neoliberal economic policy,” he generally said.
“In the Philippines, portfolio investments have started to flow out in 2014. Foreign investments and credit for public and private construction, extractive industries, semi-manufacturing and commercial operations as well as remittances of overseas Filipino workers can fall drastically,” he stated on the issue’s impact on foreign investments in the Philippines.
He pointed out that the Aquino regime had gone into a nonproductive spending spree, incurring a huge public debt in the process.
Prof. Sison explained that the Duterte government was facing a worse economic and financial crisis in the Philippines and the world. He also said that it might still attract foreign investments but these will grab the land and resources and take away super-profits from the sale of consumer products.
“If the Duterte government is willing, the Left movement can provide an immediately doable program of running and developing the Philippine economy on a self-reliant basis, with the assurance of sufficient food production and rapid growth of national industry and with a non-dominating amount of investments and technology from a wide range of sources abroad.”
