The British State: A Warning w/ Chris Nineham

On this edition of Parallax Views, a founding member of the Stop the War Coalition and author of How the Establishment Lost Control (Zero Books, 2017), joins to discuss his new book The British State: A Warning (Zero Books, 2019). As the chaos of Brexit rages on, Chris and I discuss the mythology of the British state and its role in propping up the status quo. Chris begins by discussing how the mythology of the British state is underpinned by a belief in gradualism. This is to say that the state exists to slowly bring about progress towards liberal freedoms. Chris argues however that the British state, even viewed from a left wing perspective, has a darker history that has supported the Establishment by repressing dissidents, particularly the working class. From there we discuss a number of different topics from the Establishments maneuvers against the Labor government of Harold Wilson, the rise of neoliberalism under Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and New Labor, why the Left needs to consider the role of the State even if victories are made by figures like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders in the future, and much, much more.   THE BRITISH STATE: A WARNING AVAILABLE FROM ZERO BOOKS SUPPORT PARALLAX VIEWS ON PATREON! WHERE YOU CAN HEAR... PARALLAX VIEWS THE WEEK THAT WAS CURRENT EVENTS PROGRAM