Amps Amps Well obviously it’s not “just about sovereignty”.
It’s also true that, as he indicates, there are different degrees, or shades, of capitalism based on the extent to which it is controlled, socialised and regulated. However, it is still not clear how true it is that Brexit will enable or usher in a significantly new level of unregulated capitalism.
Monbiot claims that Boris Johnson was “put in to power by warlord capitalism, by the people who want to do away with the administrative state”, but so far in Johnson’s premiership he has shown little sign of wishing to reduce “the administrative state”, rather he has been using the covid crisis so far as an excuse to increase the administrative state and its level of control over its people and businesses.
There is also a strong possibility that Brexit will increase the level of red-tape and bureaucracy for businesses in Britain rather than allow for greater levels of unrestricted capitalism, due to it becoming more complicated to trade with different blocs. The administrative state will also have to increase to monitor the re-introduced trade borders between Britain and the EU and its newly managed trade deals- as the Guardian itself reported, it has been indicated that around 50,000 people will be needed to be employed by the government to “process Brexit paperwork” as part of “its border operations” ( https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/28/extra-50000-border-staff-needed-for-post-brexit-trade-says-gove ).
Monbiot tries to claim that when Boris Johnson said “fuck business” he was specifically “talking about house-trained business”, however there is zero evidence that BJ was making this distinction. Rather, the majority of businesses in the UK appear to be against Brexit - for instance, a poll in 2013 conducted by YouGov for the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the UK’s largest business organisation, found that 8 out of 10 British businesses wanted to stay in the EU ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_Leave ). Therefore, it seems puzzling to conclude that Brexit is largely happening for the benefit of big business and rampant capitalism either.
In addition, even if Brexit had been motivated by desires for more unrestrained capitalism, so what? Monbiot talks from a starting point of assuming that unfettered capitalism is an unworthy and worthless aim, in addition to it being somehow evil. He constantly conflates and swaps the term “unregulated capitalism” with “warlord capitalism”, which is underhand, unexplained, and deliberately misleading. It’s possible to have a reasonable debate about the pros and cons of different approaches to capitalism, but Monbiot’s stance of being against capitalism is a shit-show.
As for the other aspect of that video, which is the claim that Brexit was secretly driven by “dark money” from the US and Russia (with its seeming puppet-master oligarchs) I do agree that there seems to have been Russian and US interference with and encouragement of Brexit. It’s very difficult to tell though the extent to which these outside influences were the main driving factors behind Brexit, or rather more just giving help and assistance to an inclination which already existed amongst many in the UK. It is of course not surprising that both Russia and the US would from a strategic perspective consider it beneficial if the UK split from the EU and perhaps more closely aligned with themselves, and so would involve themselves if the chance arose.
I do still find it strange though that Monbiot gives absolutely zero details or evidence in his video for these claims about the behind-the-scenes external involvement in Brexit. There are plenty of things out there which could support this view to some degree, such as Arron Banks’ meetings with Russian officials, Cummings’ time spent in Russia, and Johnson’s friendship with the Lebedevs. So why leave things so vague and wishy-washy? Is it so he can exaggerate for dramatic effect? Is he unable to say anything more substantial because he knows he can’t properly back it up and so would risk being sued?
I also find it funny that you have tried to characterise me as a nonsensical, conspiracy-believing “flat earther” in the same post as you’ve presented a video which itself is claiming an evil conspiracy while containing zero evidence.
I also found it amusing when Monbiot claimed that “the Billionaire press don’t want us to see” what the behind the scenes motivations for Brexit are - despite Monbiot writing articles such as this one for the Guardian, whose ownership is still a money-driven organisation valued at £1bn which has used a number of offshore tax avoidance measures in the past (Scott Trust Ltd).
There are clearly a number of different motivations behind Brexit, and they all seem flawed in some way. Who knows which is the main one though? One thing’s for sure though, Monbiot is a farce.
