Spanish model for new politics UK needs (Owen Jones)

[Ghost Dog]

There are three philosophies at play right now. The first blames migrants and people fleeing violence and poverty for the multiple problems afflicting European society, from the lack of secure jobs and houses to stagnating living standards to public services ravaged by cuts. The second seeks to build a Europe with shrivelled social protections, run ever more in the interest of major corporations, as exemplified by the notorious but embattled Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership. These two visions are far from mutually exclusive; they are frequently allied, or feed off each other. The third vision challenges them both: holding the powerful interests responsible for Europe’s crisis to account, and aspiring to a democratised Europe that puts people before the needs of profit.

I left Britain’s poisonous referendum campaign for a few days to travel across northern Spain with Unidos Podemos. It didn’t feel so much like entering another country as passing into a parallel universe. Spain shows there is nothing inevitable about people blaming migrants, rather than the people in charge, for their problems. And when it comes to problems, Spain is not lacking. A fifth of its workforce is unemployed, and nearly half of its young people are without work. Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards have been evicted from their homes. Child poverty has risen. Public services have been slashed. Yet in the working-class town of Torrelavega a crowd roared with approval when told the problems facing Europeans are caused not by foreigners but by bankers, tax-dodgers and poverty-paying bosses.

There is no mass anti-immigration party contesting Spain’s elections. Mainstream parties are not trying to outdo each other with anti-immigration vitriol. It is not as though there is a lack of people entering the country: Spain experienced a sixfold increase in migrants in the 2000s. Immigration is simply not the prism through which people understand their problems...

... Europe has now endured years of cuts, regressive tax hikes and stagnating or falling living standards. The xenophobic right has feasted on the despair and grievances that have resulted. The antidote is movements such as Podemos: those that redirect anger at the correct targets, and propose an alternative Europe that doesn’t breed insecurity...
Our own government has led the attempts to drive the EU ever more down the road of servility to the interests of the market – by vetoing EU action to prevent Chinese steel-dumping, for example, and being the biggest cheerleader for TTIP. That direction of travel makes the work of movements such as Podemos even more vital...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/22/politics-spain-podemos-radical-europe-uk

[Silver_Witch]

1. Kicked for its sanity! Finally the truth!!

[Denzil_DC]

2. K/R. The irony throughout this campaign

of hearing Leavers bemoaning the state of housing, employment, health and social provision etc. when the plurality voted for a party campaigning blatantly on imposing continued austerity is glaring.

I don't know what makes it worse: the fact that drive for austerity is based on flawed calculations - see here http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1088&pid=9481 - or that the media have failed to challenge the ideas that immigration is to blame and our government's been some sort of bulwark against all sorts of EU excesses.

It's smoke-and-mirrors scapegoating, and it's utterly shameful.