Rupert Murdoch prefers Marine Le Pen to Jeremy Corbyn as she is, like himself, a racist anti-EU campaigner.
But if you forget about race and look at international trade and financial markets — her views are much more like Corbyn’s than Murdoch’s.
She’s a protectionist.
This is the same direction opportunist Theresa May is now taking when she steals Labour policies.
But May is still a ruthless Tory – paying off her friends in the finance sector while saying she will protect the NHS and public services.
Populism
Nigel Farage was allowed to open the door to ‘populism’ in the UK and, having achieved his aim of getting Britain out of the EU, he is now openly supporting Marine Le Pen.
I wrote about his interview with Le Pen a few months ago which was remarkable because till Brexit he avoided being seen in her company for fear of being called a fascist.
The interview was also interesting because Le Pen referred to how much more similar Theresa May’s policies now are to the Front National’s — and not to Emmanuel Macron’s.
This was even more remarkable for Le Pen because Macron had just been invited to visit Downing Street and she hadn’t.
Downing Street failed to get friendly with Trump before November and now, yet again, they are slow to get to know Le Pen.
Financial Eyes
But either way, as alluded to in the previous post, Le Pen’s differences with Trump, Farage and Murdoch, and similarity with Corbyn can be summed up in one word: DEREGULATION
Murdoch
Today’s Murdoch-owned Times quotes Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean Marie Le Pen, who founded the Front National, as saying she must act like Murdoch’s friend — Donald Trump.
www.thetimes.co.uk
Mr Le Pen’s anti-semitism is not even mentioned till the eighth sentence.
The very idea that other racism might exist in France is not alluded to even once.
Murdochs and Trumps
Unlike the Blairs before them, we know the Murdochs and the Trumps still get on.
NPR.org
the Guardian
Many Brexiteers love Le Pen as she is anti-immigrant and anti-EU.
Here is Donald Trump Jr retweeting his dad’s friend Nigel Farage:
Here’s the actual video:
Deregulation – The Elephant in the Room
Like Murdoch and unlike Corbyn, Le Pen uses immigration to divide.
Lots of people in the UK are now sceptical about Globalisation – many vote UKIP, Labour, Green, and SNP.
By stealing Labour policies and rhetoric the Tories are picking up plenty of ex-UKIP votes.
With the media’s help they try to convince voters that Blair, Cameron and even Corbyn are far too metropolitan and somehow un-British, and that we should all get back in touch with our socially conservative inner-Tory.
Many of these voters are against excessive immigration and open borders.
Which Corbyn and Lib Dems are seen as soft on.
We’re constantly told that we want a strong leader. Like May, Trump, or Le Pen.
Now is Le Pen’s time because she goes one further than Corbyn, Sturgeon, Lucas and even Theresa May.
For Le Pen is both fully racist and fully anti-capitalist — wanting total protection of both borders and markets.
She needs to solve France’s unemployment and lack of productivity without acknowledging that the EU has historically protected its borders and markets (often to benefit France!)
Is Le Pen more scared of the Eastern Europeans who’ve used free movement since communism fell; the refugees from US / UK / Coalition operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria; or of immigrants who’ve moved to France not because of the EU but because of France’s own kleptocratic African, Asian and Caribbean adventures?
Deregulation
Unlike Trump, Farage and Murdoch — and very much like Corbyn — Le Pen is fervently anti-Deregulation.
Farage ran a very confused Brexit campaign that focused on Brussels’ authoritarianism and ignored the degree to which Brussels had been infiltrated and in many ways captured by the City of London’s lobby group.
For evidence of this lobbying just look at the EU -US trade agreement TTIP.
This policy was announced by Obama and Cameron in Northern Ireland at the G7 / G8 meeting in 2013 and would have harmonised food, labour and environmental regulation on both sides of the Atlantic.
It’s precisely that model of Anglo-Saxon style capitalism that Le Pen and Corbyn both reject.
Farage just pretended to hate it. He is actually a big fan of the financial services lobby. It’s where he gets his cash.
But still, lots of Brexit campaigners, including Farage, jumped on the momentum that had been generated by the Anti-TTIP movement to push for Brexit.
In France, Le Pen used TTIP to push for her own election.
This is the most irresponsible manner in the way the French election is being covered here in the UK.
There is not enough parallel context being drawn with the UK political scene..
Is Le Pen being praised by the British press simply because our newspaper owners think she is a bit like Theresa May?
EU debate
The way the European Central Bank is run is severely flawed but little discussion of its policies are permitted to take place at any level.
Therefore even though many people know there is a problem, our media and politicians don’t permit us the space to discuss it.
Many Labour and Lib Dems seemed to have swallowed deregulation whole and by aggressively campaigning to remain in the EU didn’t permit debate of its flaws.
Jeremy Corbyn was an exception to that as he said he was against TTIP and deregulation. But he wasn’t given the platform that he deserved.
He was co-opted by the Remain camp.
His biggest failing on Europe was that he didn’t take more of a stand in public over TTIP.
Despite letting people know his views on Trident and Bombing Syria Corbyn never engaged in a public debate with his party about TTIP and so the deregulation lobbyists captured the entire debate.
They’re doing the same with the NHS and PFI.
So despite having some great ideas about taking back control, Corbyn’s project is being treated as a joke while Le Pen’s is taken seriously.
Corbyn’s patriotism is being rejected by the tax-avoiding foreign-owned media in favour of Theresa May’s lies which are designed to mask the looting of the UK public sector by the financial services sector.
Will Labour come up with a plan to save the NHS by prosecuting bankers for fraudulent PFI?
I asked them that very question this week and have been told Labour’s PFI announcements are due later in the campaign.
I suggested that we need ideas circulating asap in order to persuade people to ignore the spin. But so far no reply.
It’s now or never. I’m still waiting.
I Am Incorrigible 
www.nytimes.com 
The Economist 
Women in the World in Association with The New York Times - WITW 
