In These New Times

Luke Manzarpour

PressTV

20th February, 2009

David Miliband has taken it upon himself to undermine the best of British politics and law in the name of the British people. 

Making an exception 

Whether we accept the mass-consumed conspiracy theory of the threat Islamic fundamentalism or the less popular conspiracy theories that propose the perceived threat is a fabrication of the Western-elite, the global state of emergency fostered following September 11th has undoubtedly been fertile ground for the curtailment of civil liberties and barely restrained deviations from legal formalism. 

As the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt made clear, those who wish to bolster their rule beyond that awarded through the liberal democratic process thrive on exceptionalism – the suspension of the rule of law for the ‘greater good’ in response an existential threat, real or fabricated, traditionally during extreme crises such as war or insurrection. Like postmodern thinkers Schmitt shunned the ideal of universal rules, dismissing “the bankruptcy of general ideas” and proposing an absolute relativism that ultimately only respects power. 

As such in formulating Nazi Germany’s legal system Schmitt sought to replace the Enlightenment rationalism of formal written law with purely situation-specific administrative decrees. Thus for Schmitt “the sovereignty of law only means the sovereignty of those men who draw up and administer the law,” that is, those with the power are the only ones who should determine what the law is, as opposed to it being democratically fought-out. This conflation of might with right in the name of unity through transcending social conflicts is where Nazism and New Labour converge. 

Take the latest Miliband disgrace where, reflecting Schmitt’s doctrine, he felt at liberty to conjure up a rule to be found on no Anglo-American agreement when he blocked the publication of secret papers allegedly including evidence of British secret service compliance in torture of British national Binyam Mohamed, held in Guantanamo since 2004, with the justification that “. Denied access to the legal norms intended to uphold the right to a fair trial, Mohamed is the latest victim of the exceptionalism Miliband deems necessary: 

“It was – and remains – my judgment that the disclosure of the intelligence documents at issue by order of our courts against the wishes of the US authorities would indeed cause real and significant damage to the national security and international relations of this country.” 

On matters of this weight, this overblown bureaucrat’s judgement should be of little consequence to those of us who see our leaders as the reflection of the public will – what matters is the actually existing legal norms the public (theoretically at least) sanction through the democratic process. This is not an instance of an empty area of law needing to be filled by an administrator pending legislation; it is the suspension of legislation on the whim of one individual and his hidden advisors. 

Again on how long a person can be held without trial administrative, discretion is favoured over clear rules: 

“There’s no magic in any number. What there should be is robustness and integrity in the processes. Individual liberties depend on strong checks and balances.” 

Individual liberties then depend on the self-regulation and good-will of the authorities, not on something as anachronistic as referable, enforceable legislation to guide behaviour. 

So it is that executive judgement on the security of the nation becomes the rule, while established legal instruments are suspended. For Miliband, as for Schmitt, ‘necessity knows no law’ is thus a central maxim of governance, and it is he who would determine what is necessary. 

Indeed exceptionalist thinking forms the basis of Miliband’s political posturing. In his speech to the Fabian Society entitled ‘Can Foreign Policy be a Labour Strength,” he asserts that the “promotion of our values [meaning interventionist foreign policy] are (sic) not a distraction from national interests, but the best way of securing them.” In non-spin talk, violently imposing Britain on other sovereign states in the name of our ‘values’ (by way of the government department of which he, incidentally, is in charge) is the major way that our lesser concerns should be addressed. Thus he can speak of the domestic “political battleground: the economy, immigration, crime, the NHS” as if these too are areas necessitating war-style leadership; the exception becomes the norm. 

His answer trickled through my head like water through a sieve. 

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass 

Back in the 1920’s Lev Bronstein condemned the long established Labour Party think-tank the Fabian Society, of which Miliband is an active member, as “the most reactionary grouping in Great Britain.” Sadly one would be hard pressed to top the Russian intellectual’s observations in relation to the Society today: “These pompous authorities, pedants and haughty, high-falutin’ cowards are systematically poisoning the labour movement, clouding the consciousness of the proletariat and paralysing its will. It is only thanks to them that Toryism, Liberalism, the Church, the monarchy, the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie continue to survive and even suppose themselves to be fairly in the saddle.” 

The great strength of New Labour reaction lies in its ability to maintain the pretence of leftist politics while implementing the policies of its purported rivals, thanks largely to the intellectual acrobatics of their think-tank bases at home and across the pond. This affords them a foreign policy which piously moralises on the crimes of others to justify far greater crimes of their own – a more ideological and therefore more insidious position than the barer aggression of their European fascist antecedents. 

An interview with the New Statesman last year shows Miliband smugly musing from the very zenith of New Labour ideological barbarity. Stock allusions to intellectualism befitting an enthusiastic but dim A-level philosophy student – “necessary but not sufficient” “it’s unreconciled at a philosophical level and an intellectual level, and that’s why you see it unreconciled at a political level” – litter what boils down to insipid justifications for mass death and extreme human suffering. On Iraq, the past war crimes and devastation should be brushed aside as we look forward to the bullet point politics of target-setting and auditing. Miliband believes the million plus deaths that resulted from the pillaging of Iraq, not to mention the enormous physical and psychological damage, were “done for the right reasons” and “progressive,” so let’s just “make sure Britain and the international community are more united about the next five years. There is a real opportunity … to say: ‘Where we are now, what does Iraq need?’ It needs political reconciliation, it needs economic reconstruction and it needs continued commitment to the security of the people there.” 

Showcasing his new (at the time) catchphrase ‘civilian surge,’ Miliband points to such US agenda-centric instances as people learning English in China, Iranian bloggers and Buddhist monks marching in Burma as ‘progressive’ movements in his vision of a ‘new world order,’ failing to note the far wider global civilian repulsion at his own government’s policies. This ‘idea’ came to him when David Petraeus disclosed the breathtaking profundity in Iraq that “You can’t kill your way out of this problem – you need politics as well as security.” More barbaric nothingness dressed up as devastating political insight. 

His solution to domestic conflict is again reconciliation of market forces with social welfare. He thus proves himself wilfully ignorant of the established vacuity of his mentor’s ‘trickle down effect’ theory, just the closest to home of endless examples of how profiteering is incompatible with social justice. 

Browsing his ‘FCO blog,’ through which he exercised his complete commitment “to the idea that diplomacy needs to engage the public as well as diplomatic elite and also to the notion that I need to lead that in the Foreign Office,” one is confronted with his endless assertions of opinion and very little more: “It is good news to see that the International Criminal Court…” “I deeply regret this move and raised it with Iranian Speaker Larijani when I met him in Munich on Saturday” “I was sorry that Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ivanov shifted from this session to a discussion on disarmament.” “This military campaign needs to lead to a serious political process to deliver rights and representation to all Sri Lanka’s citizens.” “President Obama’s formal announcement of the decision to close Guantanamo is welcome.” “The news of the arrest of General Laurent Nkunda in Rwanda is significant.” “Sir Alex Ferguson put on a completely star performance at Cedar Mount High school yesterday.” “The UN Security Council re-started its engagement with Zimbabwe on Monday – not a moment too soon…” This is the level of engaging with the public our foreign secretary deems progressive. 

Indeed he is so utterly imbued with think-tank spiel that one wonders whether he can technically be said to exist as a person at all and is not simply a mound of PR pulp moulded into flesh and bone. 

But perhaps we’re meant to see through the gibberish. It could be that this is the one-party state’s way of letting us know we’re so subordinate that they can even present us with such cardboard cut-out figures as David Miliband and all we can do is try to grasp at insubstantial, one-dimensional rhetoric. In fact I’m starting to wonder whether in contemplating this nonentity I haven’t just fallen for the trick