THURSDAY’S Brexit vote has precipitated a civil war in the British Labour Party. This is likely to end in an organisational split and possibly a general realignment in UK politics. I’ve already heard anti-Corbyn Labour MPs speculate about joining up with the remains of the LibDems to create a new centre-left party, shades of the old SDP of David Owen. Equally, with Ukip enjoying a new lease of life on the English populist right, it is not without the bounds of possibility the Tories could see their own schism.

We should not be surprised. The UK and its state institutions have been in crisis for quite some time. Brexit is not the cause but one of the symptoms of this process. So is the demand for Scottish independence. Deep down there is a need to reform the economically ramshackle, bureaucratically over-centralised, and constitutionally undemocratic dinosaur that is the (disunited) United Kingdom. If we all keep our heads, something better can emerge for everyone in these islands. Unfortunately, keeping the heid is not what is happening inside Labour, as the right launch a coup against Jeremy Corbyn.

Beware the way the Labour right-wing rebels are now echoing the false narrative of the Brexiteers regarding the Leave vote in England. We are being told it was an anti-establishment vote and two fingers to the political and banker elites in London. The Corbyn faction, despite having been swept to power by 200,000 new Labour members on an anti-austerity ticket, can thus be presented as part of the trendy metropolitan elite. Above all, the decision by the majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party not to oppose George Osborne’s welfare cap can be safely edited out of history.

But wait a minute. We need to examine the real dynamics of the Leave vote. Certainly it was concentrated disproportionately among the white poor, the elderly, among frustrated Labour working-class voters outside London, and among those who have lost most during the Tory austerity years. But this legitimate frustration has been hijacked by the populist right in England. That hijacking is the fault not of Jeremy Corbyn but the Labour right, including Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, who ceded millions of working class votes to Ukip at the General Election by accepting austerity and pandering to the anti-immigration lobby.

England’s poorest and most disenfranchised were beguiled into supporting Brexit through a semi-racist and overtly misleading campaign by the populist right. It was not Jeremy Corbyn who lost Labour voters to Brexit, it was the Labour right-wing who capitulated to the “Britain can be great again” chauvinism of the Little Englander Brexit campaign.

As for Leave being a grass roots, anti-establishment movement, think again. Brexit was led by Old Etonian Boris Johnson and former stockbroker Nigel Farage. Their publicity campaign was funded by hedge fund millionaires like Crispin Odey and Sir Michael Hintze. Surprise, surprise: Odey’s $10 billion flagship fund gained more than 15 per cent on Friday, by gambling on the market mayhem caused by the Brexit result. According to Bloomberg, the business news service, Odey made the killing from short selling ie betting that share prices and the pound would lose value. How truly patriotic!

The main cheerleaders of Brexit were in the right-wing press which is situated in…London! Rupert Murdoch’s papers whipped up support for Leave because the American-domiciled media billionaire favours US geo-political interests and neoliberalism over namby-pamby European social democracy. The owner of The Mail, another Brexit champion, is a non-dom in order to minimise his tax bill, while The Mail’s pugnacious editor, Paul Dacre, has benefited from large EU agricultural grants for his Sussex and Scottish properties.

As for immigration, the Labour right have sown the wind and will reap the whirlwind. According to the 2011 census, 16.7 per cent of the Scottish population were born elsewhere. In England, slightly fewer (16.5 per cent of residents) were born elsewhere. The difference between the two countries is that north of the border the SNP – and to be fair the leaders of the other main parties – have resolutely refused to let immigrants become the scapegoat for social ills caused by capitalism.

The flat-lining of working class wages began long before the recent surge in immigrant numbers and is due to low productivity. The inability of British folk to get on the housing ladder is a function of banks not lending and local authorities not building. It’s not because too many refugees are arriving in leaky rubber boats with fat cheque books to snap up local houses. Rather than tell it like it is, the Labour right are hinting they will support tougher immigration rules. But it won’t save their electoral bacon, if they dump Corbyn. At the next election – which I expect sooner than 2020 – Labour will certainly lose seats to Ukip in the north of England and the Midlands. How can you beat Ukip if you accept their views on immigrants being the cause of white working class ills?

If Labour splits, the Corbynistas are far from dead, even if few in number at Westminster. The strong showing for Remain in London was not because there are enough bankers to swing the result. It was because London is where Corbyn’s base is and because left Labour and the unions got out and fought a positive campaign to stay in Europe. Lesson: if Labour divides, there is every prospect in England that a new mass party of the anti-austerity left could emerge, similar to Podemos in Spain, and with financial backing from key trades unions.

My advice to Jeremy Corbyn is not to dissipate his energies by trying to hold on to Scotland, where the centre left, social democratic SNP is in government and already leading the fight against austerity and the Brexit Scots do not want. Labour’s rump in Scotland is now only the third party in the Scottish Parliament. It is also significant that the party’s sole MP at Westminster, Ian Murray, abandoned his post yesterday as shadow scottish secretary. Rather than use his shadow cabinet role to defend Scotland’s interests in the post-Brexit negotiations, Ian seems more interested in causing problems for his elected leader. Corbyn should draw the obvious conclusion and be prepared to form an anti-austerity alliance with the SNP.

Faced with Brexit, the crisis of the British economy can only get worse. That provides common ground for the SNP and a Corbyn Labour Party in England to collaborate on an alternative economic strategy for growth. The UK has a 30-point productivity gap with Ireland, a 34-point gap with Belgium and a 45-point gap with the Netherlands. And the Brexit fibbers pretend the UK outside the EU will trade its way to instant riches!

However, if the Tories take England out of the EU, plunging the British economy into even deeper problems, it is paramount for Scotland to protect its own interests. That implies a second independence referendum. But a second independence referendum is not a rerun of 2014. Rather, it is an emergency escape handle to protect our economy, our NHS, our young, our elderly and our entire future.

Those remaining in Scottish Labour might pause to reflect on that and join us.


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