Thank goodness I'm not a member of UNITE....

[LeftishBrit]

10. Because at the moment leaving the EU is inextricably intertwined with anti-immigrant, racist policy

Last edited Sun Feb 5, 2017, 08:31 AM - Edit history (1)

and with support for Trump, Farage, LePen and the far right.

With wanting to kick out immigrants. With using the leave vote as an excuse for rejecting 'political correctness' and taking it as a green light for bullying, racism, violence to people heard speaking languages other than English, etc.

BREXIT IS FUNDAMENTALLY ABOUT REJECTING IMMIGRANTS AND FOREIGNERS! AND ABOUT REVERSING SOCIAL PROGRESS! Of course there are many people who voted Leave for other reasons; but this is what the Brexit *leaders* want.

And increasingly it is associated with the economic right as well. If we leave the single market, we are likely to become a low-tax, low-regulation, low-welfare economy. That's what the government has told us. And even if Labour get in, they will have a very hard time dealing with the massive economic deficit that would result from Brexit. They will not be as ready as the Tories to balance the books on the backs of the poor, but they would have a hard time maintaining welfare and job security under the massive deficit and loss of trade and industry that would result. Especially if Trump is exerting all kinds of hostile pressures.


This is not BTW just about Corbyn - his original chief rival Andy Burnham has become worse than Corbyn in pandering to the Brexiters.

UKIP has ONE MP, and he is not from the North or Northeast. If people in the North (or anywhere) would truly turn to UKIP in droves under these or any circumstances, then basically all hope is lost for anything good in the world or at least in this country, and we're back to the 1930s, and I and all others like me have lived too long, and might as well just give up on all hope for anything good ever happening again. But I don't think this is the case. I think that the monsters of pure evil on the Trump/UKIP side can be defeated (at least, if the cancer does not spread elsewhere in Europe, i.e. if LePen does not win in France) What Labour need to do is to say, 'We have all lied to you over the years. There have been cuts and loss of industry and public services - but it is not due to the EU or to immigrants; that is just an excuse. It is due to Thatcherite policies, and our own failure to effectively fight and reverse them. If you elect us, we will introduce public works programmes and public service expansion; we will try to make sure that people don't just have jobs but have secure jobs; we will try to enable people to have access to the public services that they need -BUT we cannot do so easily if we are at the same time losing ties with our nearest trading partners, and if Trump is raging. Please let us have four years to make the changes, without Trump breathing down our necks. If in four years' time you still wish to leave the EU, we can revisit it then, when the international crisis is over.'

And then seek to put their promises into practice. That will deal hopefully with people's genuine economic concerns. Pandering to UKIP and xenophobia and racism will not do any good.



'Can you suggest any way to fight austerity and for workers' rights AND fight for continued membership in an institution that will never allow anyone any space for doing so? That would be the best possible way, but how could it be possible?'

I certainly cannot suggest any way to fight austerity and for workers' rights AND at the same time to leave an institution, which with all its own faults, is keeping us afloat economically, and is all that stands between us and far greater dependence on countries that do not value workers' rights at all: China; Saudi Arabia; the US under Trump. It was not the EU that 'never left us space for fighting austerity'; it was our own governments, which of course found it very convenient to allow people to blame the EU rather than them. (I am actually opposed to the single currency, but we are not in it, or ever likely to be.)


In any case: I would never tell YOU to give up the fight against something that you consider of desperate importance and danger to everything you value, and certainly I would never call you 'anti-democratic and elitist' for doing so; and I would be grateful if you did not do the same to us. Some of us are truly OUT OF OUR MINDS WITH TERROR of the right-wingers trying to take over in our country, just as I'm sure you are of those in yours!