Chris Draper's Answer to 'What did the EU do for Manchester?'

WONDERFUL!

Let's have more examples of how governments are really good for us on this allegedly anarchist website!

Or perhaps readers might instead consider a few facts, for example this list illustrating how the EU helps corporations transfer production to where the workers come cheapest!

Cadbury moved factory to Poland 2011 with EU grant.  Ford Transit moved to Turkey 2013 with EU grant.  Jaguar Land Rover has recently agreed to build a new plant in Slovakia with

EU grant, owned by Tata, the same company who have trashed our steel works and emptied the workers pension funds. Peugeot closed its Ryton (was Rootes Group) plant and moved production to

Slovakia with EU grant.

British Army's new Ajax fighting vehicles to be built in SPAIN using SWEDISH steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with EU grant, rather than Wales.

Dyson gone to Malaysia, with an EU loan.  Crown Closures, Bournemouth (Was METAL BOX), gone to Poland with EU grant, once employed 1,200.  M&S manufacturing gone to Far East with EU loan.  Hornby models gone. In fact all toys and models now gone from UK along with

the patents all with with EU grants.

Gillette gone to eastern Europe with EU grant.  Texas Instruments Greenock gone to Germany with EU grant.  Indesit at Bodelwyddan Wales gone with EU grant.  Sekisui Alveo said production at its Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park foam  plant will relocate production to Roermond in the Netherlands, with EU funding.

Hoover Merthyr factory moved out of UK to Czech Republic and the Far East by Italian company Candy with EU backing.  ICI integration into Holland’s AkzoNobel with EU bank loan and within days of the merger, several factories in the UK, were closed, eliminating 3,500 jobs Boots sold to Italians Stefano Pessina who have based their HQ in Switzerland to avoid tax to the tune of £80 million a year, using an EU loan for the purchase.

JDS Uniphase run by two Dutch men, bought up companies in the UK with £20 million in EU 'regeneration' grants, created a pollution nightmare and just closed it all down leaving 1,200 out of work and an environmental clean-up paid for by the UK tax-payer. They also raided the pension fund and drained it dry.

UK airports are owned by a Spanish company.  Scottish Power is owned by a Spanish company.

Most London buses are run by Spanish and German companies.  The Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to be built by French company EDF, part owned by the French government, using cheap Chinese steel that has catastrophically failed in other nuclear installations. Now EDF say the

costs will be double or more and it will be very late even if it does come online. 

Swindon was once our producer of rail locomotives and rolling stock. Not any more, it's Bombardier in Derby and due to their losses in the aviation market, that could see the end of the British railways manufacturing altogether even though Bombardier had EU grants to keep Derby going which

they diverted to their loss-making aviation side in Canada.  39% of British invention patents have been passed to foreign companies, many of them in the EU The Mini cars that Cameron stood in front of as an example of British engineering, are built by BMW mostly in Holland and Austria. His campaign bus was made in Germany even though we have Plaxton, Optare, Bluebird, Dennis etc., in the UK. The bicycle for the Greens was made in the far east, not by Raleigh UK but then they are probably going to move to the Netherlands too as they have said recently.

The EU was designed and exists to coordinate STATE legal power to compel with the predatory power of corporations to exploit. The varied court-jesters (Union Bosses, Labour Politicians, Green Apologists etc) who take money from the EU and see a good career in toadying are predicatbly lining up to sing the praises of their erstwhile masters.  I would expect anarchists to look beneath such exhortations and examine the underlying power relationships. The EU is fundamentally designed to oil the wheels of globalisation, why on earth do you think it is so keen to covertly tie up TTIP?

Of course there is a window dressing of concern for the environment, workers rights etc but if you were mugged and your assailant handed you back a tanner for a cup of tea would you be grateful?

Don't vote for any politicians ever and for anarchy's sake don't endorse the EURO SUPER STATE but DO VOTE "LEAVE"!

On The Stump with Tim Martin, the Eurosceptic Chairman of Wetherspoon!

Tim Martin (pictured), Chairman of J D Wetherspoon PLC, stopped off in Oldham last Wednesday, while on a visit to some of his pubs in Greater Manchester.

Born in Belfast and brought-up in New Zealand, Mr Martin has recently attracted a great deal of media attention for the way in which he has used his in-house corporate magazine, ‘Wetherspoon News’, and even 200,000 beer mats, to persuade his army of customers to vote ‘out’ in the forthcoming EU referendum on 23 June.

As the Chairman and sole founder of JD Wetherspoon, it cannot be said that the mullet-haired, Mr. Martin, hides his light under a bushel. Although a Daily Mail reader for 40-years and an ardent ‘Brexiteer’, - like the Mail - he used his “Tim’s Viewpoint” column in Autumn 2015, to attack Jonathan Harmsworth, alias ViscountRothermere, the influential proprietor of the Mail, for “breath-taking hypocrisy” after he wrote that Rothermere lived as a tax exile in France.

The spat between Martin and the Mail occurred after he became irked by an article written by Mail City editor, Alex Brummer, who wrote:

“Tim Martin of JD Wetherspoon is throwing down the gauntlet to rivals with the 99p coffee to be sold at each of his 880 pubs with free refills. The price of breakfasts is also being slashed by 20 per cent. Coffee served with the fine aroma of stale beer and urine by workers on zero hour contracts. Such  fun.”

No doubt this criticism is a little unfair and as a Wetherspoon customer myself, this is not a picture that I recognise. But the point about zero hour contracts is fair comment and it went unchallenged. To be sure, many of the staff who work for Wetherspoon, are on zero hour contracts and have been paid the minimum wage. It is also a fact, that if the multi-millionaire Mr Martin, would have had his way, staff working for Wetherspoon, would not have had the ‘National Living Wage’ pay increases in April. The Chairman of JD Wetherspoon PLC has been one of the most vocal and vociferous opponents of the National Living Wage and it is rumoured that in order to cut costs, staff are already having their hours cut. According to ‘This is Money.Co.Uk’, in September 2015, Wetherspoon’s pre-tax profits fell 25.1% to £58.7m for 52 weeks to July 26, down from £79.4m the previous year. Wetherspoon also announced they were putting 34 pubs up for sale.

The latest issue of Wetherspoon News, Summer 2016, (“READ BY 2 MILLION CUSTOMERS”), is an EU Referendum Special and Mr Martin’s rant against Britain’s membership of the EU. Mr Martin clearly thinks that something called the ‘UK’, would be better off out of the European Union, which presupposes that all of us, who live and work in the UK, have the same identical interests, both socially and economically. Martin wheels out and quotes various businessmen such as Michael O’Leary of Ryanair and Willy Walsh of British Airways, to support the economic case for opting out of the EU, when he must surely know, as he almost concedes himself, that nobody can be really certain how leaving the EU would affect the British economy. Carolyn McCall, CEO of ‘EasyJet’, is on record as saying that a Brexit would raise the cost of foreign travel and that Britain’s influence inside Brussels, was essential to minimise disruption and administration between countries. However, Mr Martin’s chief crib against the EU is that he believes that it is fundamentally undemocratic (so is the British House of Lords and many other bodies) and that by voting ‘Leave’, we can take back control and be as “Mega-successful” as America. He also believes that democracy is the biggest protection against war and that “democracy, prosperity and freedom, are inextricably linked.”

While Martin believes that democracy is deeply enshrined in the American constitution, he overlooks the fact that the U.S. in order to further its own imperialist aims and objectives, instigated a CIA backed coup in 1973 to topple Dr Salvador Allende, the democratically elected leader of Chile, and has waged wars, against numerous countries, since then and before, in order to install US puppet regimes. Indeed, in spite of all the talk of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘taking back control’, many people look on countries in Europe, such as England, as mere vassal states of the US - a place where the US flies its B52 bombers from to invade countries like Grenada. It also seems to escape Mr Martin’s attention that one country, China, which is now one of the most powerful economies in the world, is neither democratic or free, even though, it may be prosperous for some people. Incidentally, forty-six million people in the US live below the poverty line and more than a quarter, earn what are officially classified as “poverty-level wages.” Last year, the OECD, also said that the share of UK economic growth enjoyed by workers, was now at its lowest level since the second world war.

In his rant against the EU, Martin refers to the visit by US President Barack Obama who wants Britain to stay in Europe because he thinks it serves American interests to have the British, playing the role of a fifth column, against a more social market orientated Europe, instead of a more neoliberal Europe. One of the purposes of Obama’s recent visit to England, was to talk about TTIP – which Martin does not refer to in his article - the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Under TTIP, there is what is called the ‘Investor State Dispute Settlement’ (ISDS), that would allow corporations to sue national governments if their policies cause a loss of profits. TTIP did not originate within the EU but is the invention of corporate lobbyists, as the ‘Euro’, is said to have been the brain-child of the secretive ‘Bilderberg Group', and if it were adopted, it would mean that un-elected transnational corporations could dictate the policies of democratically elected governments. Although some European countries have expressed disquiet about the ISDS, the British Tory government have written to the EU commission demanding that it stay in as part of TTIP. So much for sovereignty and retaining control! And leaving the EU, would mean many more TTIP type agreements being negotiated by the British government who are fully behind TTIP.

I suppose it is a truism to say that whatever way you vote, whether it is in a General Election or a referendum for staying in the EU, the capitalists always get in. Never the less, I favour the ‘REMAIN’ camp because I don’t care for the alternative of a more insular, nationalistic, xenophobic, pull-up-your-drawbridge, conservative little England. I think it is reasonably certain that a BREXIT would be bad for the British economy and would lead to a further independence vote in Scotland, as the Scots – who want to remain in the EU – would not want to be saddled with an England out of the EU. A Brexit could also have a domino effect that could have serious consequences. Already, we are seeing the rise of right-wing nationalist populism across Europe – Jobbik, in Hungry, PiS, in Poland, Front National, in France, Slovakia’s, far-right ‘People’s Party’, and the ‘Attack Movement’ in Bulgaria. It is also known that Russian money is being loaned to many anti-EU parties as Vladimir Putin, would like to see the break-up of the EU and NATO alliance. A vote for BREXIT will almost certainly lead to Cameron losing the leadership of the Conservative Party and being replaced by another leader, possibly, the half-witted public school boy, Boris Johnson, and the likelihood of even more Conservative governments in Britain.

Of course, this is not how Mr. Martin sees it. He would do well to read Adam Smith’s, ‘The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations’, written in 1776. He is often quoted highly selectively, because much of what he says in his book, makes uncomfortable reading for some. In the book Smith says:

“Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or those who have some property against those who have none at all.” And,


“Any proposal of law or regulation that comes from manufacturers ought always to be listened to with great suspicion. They have an interest in deceiving the publick and even to oppress the publick.”

Trade Unionists Against EU

Another Europe inside the EU is impossible. There are two strange arguments in the pro EU Labour Movement campaign. Both hold no water. In one we are told that all of the EU workers' rights as well possibly as some of our own, will disappear as soon as we leave. We have dealt with this in a previous Newsletter and will return to it again. The other is that in order to prevent World War Three the 'Left' must follow capitalist scion Yannis Varoufakis with his long track record of helping to impose misery on the Greek people on behalf of the EU and IMF and instantly transform the EU into a socialist paradise. This might sound a nice idea, but it is actually impossible, a delusion fostered by pro EU fanatics. Forget the lurch to the right in most European countries, forget the dominance of the unelected Commission and ECB by right wingers and forget even the dominance of the toothless EU Parliament by the right wing parties, as Tony Benn consistently pointed out the EU constitution is unique in the world in that it enshrines a commitment to capitalist politics and economics. To change this constitution the simultaneous approval of 28 member states is required. Some hope! Not even Varoufakis could write a book and give such an after dinner speech that 28 governments would agree with him and put the EU's 23 million back to work and restore collective bargaining and workers' rights. For some the idea provides book sales and the press limelight they crave. Professor Danny Nichol, a constitutional specialist, is much closer to the truth when he writes: "Even the dogs on the streets know that David Cameron’s EU “reforms” are pitiful.  Indeed, even he no longer mentions them.  So why assume that reforming the EU into a “real Social Europe” is any more feasible?   It’s when one examines the constitutional obstacles to reform that one realises that the whole idea just doesn’t stack up. A Social Europe should exclude the TTIP. It is hardly necessary to repeat the arguments against the TTIP and how it will accord companies the right to sue governments to invalidate measures which harm their profitability.  Let us assume TTIP is ratified before we secure a Labour government.  The EU Treaties contain no provision for denouncing the EU’s agreements with non-EU countries. How, if at all, TTIP may be terminated will depend on TTIP’s own detailed terms. In all likelihood, remaining in the EU means having TTIP for good. A Social Europe should respect trade unionism. EU law prohibits industrial action which “disproportionately” obstructs the free movement of goods, services, capital and workers – see the Viking and Rüffert rulings of the EU’s Court of Justice. Overriding these rulings would require Treaty amendment, needing common accord of all Member States. A Social Europe should permit state aid.  Thankfully Labour is now an anti-austerity party. As part of its public investment programme, Labour should be able to support domestic industries in order to promote full employment and greater equality. However, EU Treaty provisions mean that the European Commission must approve all state aids for their compatibility with the single market.  This includes state aids to the public sector.  The system also allows corporations to challenge grants of state aid on competition grounds.  Reforming the state aids regime would require Treaty amendment, needing common accord of all Member States. A Social Europe should respect public ownership.  Member States should determine the size of their own public sectors.  However, EU legislation consolidates privatisation.  Nationalising sectors such as gas, electricity, telecommunications and postal services is unequivocally forbidden by EU liberalising directives, which accord rights of market access to corporations.  New public enterprises have to compete with private firms in a capitalist market.  Similar legislation on railways is presently going through the EU institutions.  Repealing these directives would require a proposal by the Commission – the very instigators of EU “liberalisation”. Any such Commission proposal would require unanimous approval by the EU Council and the consent of the European Parliament. Furthermore EU Treaty provisions grant companies the right of freedom of establishment – they have the right to establish branches and subsidiaries in other Member States.  The EU Court of Justice would almost certainly deem nationalisation of branches and subsidiaries of companies based in other Member States a disproportionate limitation on freedom of establishment. For good measure the Treaties also give corporations the right to sue governments whenever any public monopoly infringes EU competition rules – including within the NHS.  These Treaty provisions could only be repealed by common accord of all Member States. A Social Europe should permit non-racist immigration policies.  The EU free movement of persons discriminates against non-whites.  EU citizens, overwhelmingly white, enjoy a constitutional right of free movement: non-EU citizens don’t. The refugee crisis shows this systemic discrimination in action.  Reform would necessitate Treaty change, requiring the common accord of all Member States. A Social Europe should allow Labour Party democracy.  The supremacy of EU law, first proclaimed by the EEC’s Court of Justice in 1964, remains its foremost constitutional principle.   The doctrine means national courts and tribunals must give priority to EU law, setting aside any incompatible national measure however framed.   Supremacy drives a coach and horses through Labour party democracy: any policy decisions of Conference which contravene EU law (such as renationalisation for example) may as well be thrown in the bin.  To overturn supremacy would require Treaty amendment, and therefore the common accord of all Member States. To sum up, EU Treaties provide no means of discarding the TTIP; and the other reforms would require a complete absence of neoliberal governments throughout the EU.  Sadly these policies are so heavily protected against repeal that a “Social Europe” is in practise impossible to achieve.  No doubt “another Europe is possible” – but outside the European Union." Danny Nicol was Assistant Secretary of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s.  He is Professor of Public Law at the University of Westminster and author of The Constitutional Protection of Capitalism (Hart, 2010). Reply Reply to All Forward More      See our website for further information about all aspects of the EU and why we should leave. Published by Trade Unionists Against the EU, PO Box 71625 London E17 0RJ http://tuaeu.co.uk

'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

Transatlantic Trade Danger!

Dear Editor

I write to alert your readers to one of the biggest threats to face public services and our health service in particular, in decades.

It comes in the form of an international trade agreement currently been negotiated without any reference to the electorate.

 

The agreement is called theTransatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Negotiations for this trade agreement(which were initially held in secret) would allow the wholesale incursion by the private sector into public services and public procurement. If passed this agreement would make it night on impossible to bring poorly performing privatised services back under public ownership and threaten those already under public ownership.

 

TTIPis purely about increasing the power of multinational investors, generally big business and hedge funds, and reducing regulation on these bodies. TTIP would establish in law the right of multi-national companies to sue nation states in a special court– The Investor –State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) – if the nation’s regulatory framework were deemed a barrier to free trade.

 

Campaigning bodies such as War on Want, the People’s assembly and trade unions are alerting people to this threat. Local people should contact their councillors, MP’s and EMP’S calling upon them to have public services taken out ofTTIP before it is too late.

Regards,

Unite the Union