The Left & Brexit: Is Corbyn Trying?

by Les May

LAST Saturday's edition of the 'i' newspaper had a column by Andrew Grice, headed 'Corbyn could decide the EU vote – so why isn't he trying?' 
Now both the 'i' and Grice 'have form' in being negative about Corbyn and this piece was no exception.  So it was hinted that Corbyn is making a half-hearted attempt to persuade Labour voters to back 'Remain' and that he is an instinctive 'Outer' who voted to leave in 1975, and only 'went with the flow' of his party when he became leader.

On the letters page was this:
'On Thursday I was privileged to be in a packed audience in Bristol to hear him (ed. Corbyn) make an impassioned and forceful case for Remain.  Not the modified Tory leadership race but a positive case for the good that has been done for the environment, the right of workers to fair treatment, and care and concern for the disadvantaged.' 
The writer went on to point out that there was no mention on the TV news and local BBC news had something low down in the running order.

So obsessed has the press become with the Tory infighting over the EU that the notion that there might be a distinctive case to be made from a left-wing perspective both for remaining in the EU and for leaving it, is never aired.  This reflects the fact that since the 1970s the whole locus of political debate in Britain has shifted so far to the right to such an extent that anything else is inconceivable.  Grice and the 'i' are manifestations of this phenomenon.

The Guardian's economics editor Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson the economics editor of the Mail on Sunday have been commissioned to write from a left of centre perspective a book on the Euro in the wake of last summer's crisis about the possibility that Greece would exit the single currency.  The book 'Europe isn't working' will be published by Yale University Press in the autumn, but Elliot gave us a flavour of the contents in last Friday's Guardian.

Elliot reports, seemingly with approval:
'Tony Benn's warning at the time of the 1975 referendum that Britain was signing up for something that was 'undemocratic, deflationary and run in the interests of big business' and 'I can think of no body of men outside of the Kremlin who have so much power without a shred of accountability for what they do'.

Is it surprising then that, like me, Corbyn and about one in three of the population voted against continued membership?

But having stated so well the left-of-centre case for leaving in 1975 Elliot weakens his case for leaving now by resorting to a 'catch all' argument when he goes on:
 'The left-of-centre case for divorces is that Europe doesn't work, is not remotely progressive and is heading for an existential crisis anyway.  Last year's crisis was Grexit.  This year's threat is Brexit.  Next years threat will be something else; Italy leaving the single currency, perhaps, or Marie Le Pen's tilt at the French presidency.'

If Elliott thinks this is a 'left-of-centre' case for Brexit he is fooling himself.  Anyone in the Brexit camp could have made it and probably has already.

But in fairness to Elliott he states the case for continued membership of the EU succinctly. 'One left-of-centre argument against Brexit is that it it would result in the break up of the Euro and set of a chain reaction that would lead to the next global crisis; a perfectly fair point.  Those who fear that another recession and even higher levels of joblessness would threaten a return to the totalitarian politics of the 1930s are right to highlight the risks.'

What Tony Benn said in 1975 still applies.  But in my judgement leaving now risks all the above and ignores the fact that we in Britain have our own pretty good record of governments letting the interests of big business override questions of accountability and avoiding democratic decision
making when it suits them.

Here are two recently reported examples.  Last Thursday speaking at a CBI bash Alastair Darling recounted how in May 2008 Fred, 'The Shred', Goodwin had phoned him to say:
'RBS is haemorrhaging money. We can only survive another two or three hours.  What are YOU going to do about it?'  I'll repeat that, 'What are YOU going to do about it?'

A month after Goodwin took early retirement RBS announced the largest corporate annual loss in UK history of £24.1 billion.  This didn't stop the pro-Brexit Daily Telegraph saying, 'his grasp of finance is in the Alpha class' and that he was 'unlikely to be in the growing queue of jobless bankers' for long'.

Had Darling let RBS go bust Goodwin would have been entitled to a pension of £28,000 a year at starting at age 65.  Because the state, (a.k.a. you and me), stepped in Goodwin was able to retire early with a tax free £2.7 million lump sum and now gets a 'reduced' annual pension of £342,500.  

At a conference on 'fracking' last week with reference to planning delays Francis Egan, the Chief Executive of Cuadrilla told energy minister Andrea Leadsom, 'the words are good, the intent is good but the delivery is not. Investors have patience but it's not limitless.'  He was complaining that the government had not yet implemented its promise last August to intervene if councils failed to meet the deadline of 16 weeks to approve or reject fracking applications.  Leadson replied 'The new measures we've introduced will help to make this happen.  We are addressing a problem that causes unnecessary delays.'

That's right four months to decide on something that could affect very large areas of the country for years to come and may bring about irreversible changes to ground water.

Incidentally Cuadrilla is privately owned which means very little about its activities will find its way into the public domain.  How's that for accountability?

Voting for Brexit won't change things like this.  But I'm sure it will make some people feel better.  I'd rather they felt angry that things like this are happening in our country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Goodwin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuadrilla_Resources

'Vote Leaves' Campaign Director tells select committee, "Accuracy is for snake-oil pussies."

Vote Leave silly Ass - Dominic Cummings

IT's been a pretty bad couple of weeks  for the pro-leave 'Brexit' campaigners, with U.S. President, Barack Obama, telling the British public that Britain would be in the back of the queue in trade negotiations with the U.S. if it votes to leave the E.U. In addition, pro-leave Justice Minister, Dominic Raab, recently announced that if Britain leaves the EU, Brits may have to apply for visas when travelling or holidaying in other EU countries. If this wasn't bad enough, 'Vote Leave's' campaign director, Dominic Cummings, made an ass of himself when he appeared before a Treasury select committee last week. When asked about the accuracy of 'Vote Leave's' figures on it website, he told the committee - "Accuracy is for snake-oil pussies... And besides, I've got a really bad memory." To top it all, some of the pro-leave camp, such as the the Labour MP, Gisela Stuart - born and raised in Bavaria Germany - are now calling on the Home Secretary to ban Front National leader, Marine Le Pen, from entering Britain to support the Brexit campaign. 

Some pundits take the view that the EU referendum is a bit of a sideshow offered to get the Tories re-elected at the last election and that Obama's recent trip to Europe, was basically to finalise negotiations on the neo-liberal'Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership'(TTIP) the U.S. / E.U. trade deal, that is being pushed by Britain's Conservative government. The trade deal which was dreamt up by corporate lobbyists, involves a radical agenda for further deregulation and privatization across Europe. If TTIP is adopted, businesses would be able to sue national government's under the 'Investor-State Dispute Settlement' (ISDS), if they felt laws, such as social and environmental protections, were 'unfair'. Although other European countries have expressed concern about TTIP's corporate court system, David Cameron's Tory government, have secretly written to the European Commission, demanding that it be retained.

The following analysis is taken from the 'Monday Briefing', a personal view by Deloitte chief economist, Ian Stewart:-

* Last week was a good one for the 'remain' camp in the UK's EU referendum campaign. The Treasury published an analysis of the economics of leaving the UK which concluded that a Brexit would involve significant net costs for the UK. Later in the week US President Barack Obama warned that outside the EU the UK would be "at the back of the queue" for a trade deal with the US.

* But where does public opinion stand?

* No opinion polls had, as of Sunday evening, been released which covered the period following President Obama's comments on the risks of Brexit. But even before the President's comments the lead for the remain camp had widened.

* Taking an average of the six major polls published up to 19th April, adjusted for the removal of the 'don't knows', the remain vote stood at 54% and the 'leaves' at 46%. This is the widest lead for remain since 23rd February.

* This is a snapshot of public opinion. But taking a longer perspective on the opinion polls what lessons emerge?

* First, polls carried out by different pollsters frequently give different results. Thus ComRes and ICM both conducted polls between the 8th and 10th April. ComRes gave remain a seven percentage point lead; ICM put leave three percentage points ahead. This difference reflects a wider conundrum. On-line polls tend to show a stronger showing for the leaves than telephone polls. Unfortunately we don't know which approach is right, something that introduces a further uncertainty into gauging public opinion.

* Second, public opinion is changeable. Last summer, a poll by IPSOS Mori, one of the most longstanding pollsters on the EU issue, showed that 66% of UK voters support EU membership, the highest reading in more than 35 years. Since then there has been a reduction in the lead for remain, probably partly in response to the migration crisis. Our calculations show that, on average, remain had a three percentage point lead over leave in April's polls so far, down from 14 percentage points in June of last year. More recently, in the space of just over four weeks, between 10th January and 14th February, the lead for the remain camp using a smoothed, six-poll average, went from 10 percentage points to zero.

* Third, UK public opinion often shifts in tandem with the relative economic fortunes of the UK and of its major EU partners. In 1975, at the time of the last UK referendum on membership of what was then the European Economic Community, the UK was the "sick man of Europe", wracked by high inflation and low growth. To a troubled UK Germany offered a model of prosperity and stability. In 1975 the electorate voted by 67% to 33% to stay in, a level of support which, as far as we can tell, has never been repeated. UK public support for the EU also surged in the early 1990s as the UK fell into recession and Germany boomed in the wake of reunification. Conversely the euro crisis of 2011-13 saw UK public opinion turn cooler on membership of the EU.

* Fourth, support for the EU is lowest among less affluent voters. Currently support for remaining in the EU is running at just 32% among skilled and unskilled manual labourers and the unemployed. More educated, affluent voters tend to be strongly pro-EU.

* Fifth, young voters, those aged 18 to 24, tend to support EU membership, with April's polls showing support running at around 60%. Older voters, those aged 60 and above, are more sceptical, with support for remaining currently at 32%.

* Sixth, unsurprisingly, views on Europe vary by political affiliation. A majority of Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters favour remaining in the EU. Only 37% of Conservative supporters polled in April would vote to remain in the EU. Puzzlingly, an average of 6% of UKIP supporters polled so far this month say they would vote to remain in the EU. Voters in Scotland and London tend to show higher levels of support for the EU than other regions. The former is in marked contrast to the referendum in 1975 when Scotland was resolutely Eurosceptic and the Scottish National Party campaigned to leave the EEC. 

* What is clear, and last year's General Election result demonstrated this, is that political polling is not a precise science. BBC's analysis of data from 92 opinion polls carried out in the run up to the election showed 56% had predicted a Labour lead rather than a Conservative majority.

* There are, of course, other measures that can be used to assess the likely outcome of the referendum.

* As of Friday, the odds offered by bookmaker Paddy Power implied a 33% chance of Brexit. It seems probable that betting markets are focussed on the significant number of don't know voters, averaging at 15% in April's polls so far, and expect a repeat of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, where the don't knows tended to go with the status quo.

* In its April issue of economic forecasts, Consensus Economics polled economists on the likely outcome of the EU referendum. Both UK and euro area economists assign the same probability to Brexit at 41%, a rather higher figure than betting markets.

* Turnout will be key. Older people are more likely to vote than the young. In both the Scottish referendum and the General Election, older voters strongly favoured the 'no' campaign and the Conservatives respectively. Given younger voters are more likely to vote for remaining in the EU, a low turnout will favour the leave camp while a high turnout should favour the remain camp. But, as post-summer and recent moves in polls suggest, public opinion is volatile and susceptible to outside events.

* To keep abreast of the latest polling trends we have the found the following websites useful:
The National Centre for Social Research - http://whatukthinks.org/eu/ and its poll of polls - http://whatukthinks.org/eu/opinion-polls/poll-of-polls/ 
The IPSOS Mori polling data - https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/2435/European-Union-membership-trends.aspx
The Economist's poll tracker - http://www.economist.com/Brexit