by Les May
IN five weeks
time I am going to be asked to vote in a referendum which I did not want and
have about as much enthusiasm for as a medieval peasant must have had for the
Wars of the Roses. But on this occasion
it isn't the Plantagenets that have fallen out but another bunch who reckon
they have a God given right to run the country for their own benefit, the Tory
party. It's not Yorkist and Lancastrian
branches of the Plantagenets, but the Nasty and the Very Nasty wings of the
Tory party.
Just as the
battle of Bosworth was the end of the line for the Plantagenets, June 23rd
could prove to be the end of the line for the Tory party as we know it. UKIP has already suggested that if the result
is in favour of staying in the EU, but not decisively so, we should be made to
carry on voting until UKIP gets the 'leave' result it wants.
I am one of the
33% of people who voted to leave the European Economic Community (EEC) in the
1975 referendum. So why have I changed
my mind and joined the 'Remain' camp?
I am a
Socialist. That means I want to see a
more equitable, less hierarchical, society and I want less income inequality. I
don't want to see things like health and education monetised and traded as
commodities. I'm 'Green' enough to know
that the pursuit of never ending economic growth is a futile quest and we have
got to find a different way.
But whichever
way I vote, when I wake up on the 24th of June I am not going to see
any of those things. I am not going to
see even the tiniest step on the way to these things. Voting for Brexit on the
grounds that the EU is a 'capitalist conspiracy' is just gesture politics or as
I am inclined to call it, 'Resolutionary Socialism'. It might make me feel better, but it will
change nothing of consequence.
So far as I am
concerned you'd struggle to insert a fag paper between the Cameron camp and the
Boris camp in terms of their overall politics. But that fag paper of difference
is the EU.
The Brexit camp
go on about, 'setting Britain free' and 'getting rid of Red Tape'. But my 'Red
Tape' is your protection against an excessively long working week. It's your protection against your nearest
river being polluted because it's cheaper to dump stuff in the nearest
watercourse, rather than treat it properly before disposal.
Because in the
end that is what the EU is about. It's
about creating a 'level playing field' and making sure that no country can gain
an advantage by 'a race to the bottom'.
You may not like the game that is being played in the EU, but if it
offers a bit of protection from rapacious employers why not take it?
In spite of
their liberal pretensions the printed media like to stereotype old folk like me
as being particularly ill at ease with immigration and so more likely to be in
the Brexit camp. Whilst the Brexit
people have not actually promised an end to immigration they have done little
or nothing to dispel the notion that such a scenario is on the cards.
But just because
we are old doesn't mean we can't see through this particular ruse. We were having our kids in the sixties when
the birth rate was high averaging about 17 per 1000 for the ten years after
1960. In the 1980s it was about 13.3 per 1000 and since 1994 it has been about
12.3 per 1000. Our kids will become
pensioners themselves in the years after 2030.
There will be a lot of pensioners being supported by a smaller
proportion of workers who were born here.
Raising the pension age still further may offset some of the problems
but would not be popular or practicable.
It's fine if you are an office worker but not much good if you work on a
building site.
So how to square
that particular circle? By immigration
of course. Let in lots of young able
bodied workers and let their taxes pay the pensions bill.
In other words
if you are thinking of voting for Brexit because you don't like all these
foreigners taking 'our' jobs, forget it.
All governments are committed to immigration to make sure the sums add
up, even if they don't want to tell you so.
Posts
4 comments:
Les, what are you wittering on about? Is this the same EU we are talking about or just some fantasy fairy-godmother entity of your imagination?
Instead of responding to my argued and evidenced denunciation of the EU you have simply conjured up some international social welfare federation that doesn't exist! You claim the EU protects us from rapacious employers. The EU IS rapacious employers incorporated - did you not google-in "ERT VISION" and read it for yourself?
"A level playing field" yes, but you failed to realise the game is FREE TRADE FOR CORPORATIONS. If there was a level playing field for workers why do you think over a million Polish workers left their homes to seek employment in Britain. The EU wants workers on wheels moved around as easily as capital.
You claim to be GREEN yet fail to appreciate that means self-sustaining communities producing for need not for commodification and free trade.
You say you don't want social services treated as commodities, have you actually read any of the documents of EU policy? Why do you think the EU is signing us up to TTIP?
You claim you want equality and oppose hierarchy and yet support yet another layer of [politicians and bureaucrats on top of our national parasites. READ the published salaries and expenses of the 28 unelected Commissioners at the top of the EU heap and explain how that promotes equality (to save readers the trouble; it's around £400,000 a year each).
Sadly Les litters his piece with utterly spurious names (Boris, Cameron, UKIP etc) to divert attention from the paucity of his argument. When disinterested observers actually interrogate the evidence it is not difficult to identify what's driving the EU project, Unfortunately it's easier to rely on prejudice and supposition.
Tragically, Les attempts to associate LEAVE with racism although post-war European cooperation began not with the EU but with with European Council. The European Council promotes international cooperation without compulsion and again a little research would enlighten anyone who thinks its either the EU or International conflict. As I pointed out elsewhere, the EU bankers' imposition of the single currency is itself stoking up racist reaction to the perceived power of "German Bankers".
Think globally, act locally. I support the right and importance of all people's everywhere to build and control their own economies and to resist the commodification of their lives. The EU is designed to batter down all local resistance to international free trade by big corporations. If Les and Co can't see that he'd better get himself a new pair of NHS specs before it's sold off to AMAZON, courtesy of the new EU-TTIP trade agreement.
Peace & Love
Christopher Draper, Llandudno
So,to pay for the pensions of the British elderly we import foreign labour. What if they want to stay at the end of their working lives and draw the pension as well? And what is the difference between importing foreign labour to work cheaply and colonialism where foreign labour overseas is low paid?
I have no intention of responding to Chris Draper. When people find it necessary to introduce terms like 'racism' (or nazi, sexist, mysoginist, homophobic, bi-phobic, trans-phobic, ageist, ableist, etc, etc) I take it to mean that by expressing their opinion about something that has been said or written using a pejorative term like this, which by its nature cannot be refuted, they are trying to close down any further discussion and emerge the winner.
I will respond to 'Tameside' in another article at a later date.
It is a complete myth that the EU protects workers rights or the environment. Just look at the state of the working class throughout the EU and the high levels of unemployment and low wages. It might help those who already have some clout because they are in unions, in which case it is the unions who are the key not a paternaistic super-state. As for the environment - look what the CAP has done, look at the over fishing, the shooting of migratory birds. Directives to protect the environment don't compensate for the damage that the EUs drive to promote global capitalism has done and is doing to the planet.
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