I sometimes consider giving up the expression of political opinion. I am not generally in normal, everyday contact with people. I am older now. More isolated here in France. I make no contribution to politics except through social media and yet I am angry at the state of things and find funny political posts hilarious. It is a dilemma. 

The world has changed so much during my lifetime. The nuclear threat has been ever-present and seems more real now than since the Cuban missile crisis, when nuclear war could be avoided by a phone call between JFK and Nikita Kruschev. The weapons are far more sophisticated, infinitely more powerful more numerous and held by more nations. The bunkers are deeper. The physics still applies though. We are milliseconds to midnight. But I suppose as individuals we always are.

The US empire sometimes seems to be weakening even if militarily more advanced and probably more secure than ever. Biden seemed like a well-meaning, romantic Democrat trying to act “responsibly” but under his successor we can expect the Empire to strike back spectacularly in several areas of the world. Bombs and proxies not boots on the ground.

The UK is an island colony with business and property overwhelmingly owned by US capital. The Colonial Power is happy for us natives to argue among ourselves over the raising of taxes and any expenditure from within the tax take as long as it doesn’t impact them. The more the inequality and poverty they thrive on grows the less money there is available to tax. Seen on a graph it is a new – different – scissors crisis.

Borrowing to invest in better services that could guarantee to cut poverty in the short to medium term might be allowed up to a certain limited point but pressing a button to increase the money supply available to government – to “print” money – is still seen as a cardinal sin as it would worry the “markets” and threaten the ownership of the house.

Change is possible only within the Capitalist rules of the colonial power. There is plenty of room to move the furniture but don’t knock any walls down and don’t attempt to take ownership. Don’t upset the bond market. Truss did that and they brought her down and punished the population. 

For me this was a seminal and revelatory moment. Truss and Boateng had hit “Reality”. Reality is the rules of the game; the outside Frame of the Sandbox., beyond which it is impossible to go. There was much celebration of that event but they’d do the same to any left wing government. And that government would come up against it.

Comply or be crushed. Resistance is futile. 

I hadn’t appreciated that reality. I had assumed there would be a British Road to Socialism through ever-expanding democratic control that went through and beyond the “democratic” parliamentary rituals of an election every four years into the economic, financial and business fields. 

Strong – and properly participatory trade unions and community organisations – could build up cultural and political commitment to challenge and overcome capitalist power to bring real change that released the creative and compassionate energy of all the people. The people themselves could colonise capital instead of capital colonising the people. 

Fundamental stuff.

I was romantic and naive. The Holy Bond Markets wouldn’t stand for it. Revolution is not allowed.

How would that government react? It would be a real challenge to the myths of sovereignty and democracy. Outrageous but the government would lose. 

You can go back to the country in a “Who Rules Britain?” Election but even if you won (doubtful) the Sandbox rules will still apply. The steel fist of the Bond Market will crush the economy, pensions, mortgages, services and politics. 

The UK will be in Coup country. The government will be removed and replaced by an interim “Civil Stability Administration” which would commit to another election at the earliest opportunity so that a stern no-nonsense (and vengeful) government of the Right can be installed. All the suffering and impoverishment and violence that followed would be blamed on the Left government that came before. 

The Left could resist in outrage against the injustice and the theft of democracy but its weapons are few. It is disunited, infiltrated, misled, spied upon, fragmented and manipulated by home and overseas security services. 

They know where we work, where we live and what we think. They know our social media profiles, what we buy, where we bank, who we live with, where we live and where we are at this moment.  They have their bunkers and weapons. They are undermined by a fear of civil instability. Once faced with it they will overcome that fear and come for us.

A Left Government would anyway be subverted and handed only rubber levers of control long before any Truss-like crisis. So…

Revolution is impossible. What now?