As those who follow me on Twitter will know I went to a Brexit debate in Ely Cathedral last night, organised by its Business Group.
There was much to criticise about the event. Six white, late middle aged men debated. There was not a woman in sight on the platform.
Nor was there political diversity: all who spoke were right wing. When Tory MP George Freeman was the left winger you know there is something wrong.
But the event attracted over 200 people, mainly older people but with a smattering of sixth formers. I did, almost inevitably, get to my feet, choosing to concentrate to the EU's contribution on employment rights - something the panel had conveniently ignored and which I suggested it was the Cathedral's duty to promote.
More interesting though was the reaction of the audience to the UKIP agenda presented by two (at least) of the panelists, one of them UKIP MEP Stuart Agnew. The commentary was offensive, xenophobic and hectoring.
At the start of the event a poll was taken via mobile phones on whether people were in, out or undecided. It was roughly 50% in and 25% for the other two camps. At the end it was at least 70% in with the remainder split roughly 20:10. I think the number voting increased slightly.
You can almost see why Labour is currently absent from this debate. UKIP can do the job they need for them of persuading people to vote in. Certainly last night they did their very best to alienate the audience with their irrational diatribes, and succeeded.
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Given what you say about the make up of the panel, it doesn’t reflect well on the Cathedral’s Business Group, although I can’t say I’m surprised by their right wing bias.
Anyway, interesting in – out stats, for an area where I’d have thought out would be a majority view. But you’re right about Corbyn and Labour keeping quite and letting UKIP sink the Brexit ship. One thing you can be sure of with UKIPer’s is that they seldom let facts and commonsense get in the way of their prejudices and hatred.
That’s what they are there for Ivan.
Exactly. The phrase “tea party movement” comes to mind.
It’s like watching a boxing contest where all the bases have been covered. It gives the punter the illusion that a real contest is taking place.
So here’s an argument for exit from a left perspective.
We all admire the advanced social democracies of Europe; Germany, France etc. Surely we will be better off tethered to them, so that we might emulate them? But the EU is not about advancing social democracy — it is about destroying it.
There is, as far as I know, zero conditionality on a trading agreement with the EU, in terms of minimum wages or social overheads such as healthcare or education.
The zero hours contract thrives in the UK, and that renders any employment rights beyond the minimum wage purely theoretical.
EU rules hamper the fiscal and monetary options available to a sovereign national government to utilise it’s surplus capacity, be that natural resources, manufacturing potential or surplus labour. The end game is monetary union in which former sovereign nations are now effectively obliged to borrow in a foreign currency, and we know what a disaster that has been for the developing world.
That’s when conditionality kicks in — where the IMF and co. wade in to make international capital whole, insisting on reducing entitlements and divestment of publicly owned utilities. The EU is not a bastion of social democracy — it is a tool of the neoliberal globalist agenda. It will reduce those nations we admire to the wretched condition of the UK.
And it is no longer about “pooling sovereignty”. The EU collaboration with the TTIP treaty will result in the total surrender of European governments to transnational corporations.
There has been more employee protection coming from the EU than anywhere else though
This is the only point which makes me dubious about a Brexit, but I have yet to find an analysis describing EXACTLY which rights come from the adoption of EU directives.
I am keen to read anything about that and I will be grateful if someone could point me in that direction.I keep hearing the “in” field mentioning this point without any explanation whatsoever.
Otherwise, being part of the EU makes no political or economic sense at all. Despite the short term issues, the long term advantages of having your own fiscal and monetary sovereignty are obvious to everyone who wants to see. There should be no debate at all on that.
I am also hopeful that a Brexit will trigger the Eurozone collapse, thus eliminating the hole in world demand just sitting next to us by a return of sound economic policies in all those countries.
Disclosure: I am an Italian migrant who has been living in the UK for many years. A Brexit will likely create a lot of personal issues to me (visa, pension, taxation, remits etc.) but I love more my adoptive country than my personal convenience.
The TUC have a good list
As previously detailed it is probably accurate to observe that, as with much EC legislation/regulation/directives etc, the process of translating those regulations etc into national laws of member states through their own Parliaments and subsequently into the processes of employee organisations has altered the original intent and produced practical outcomes which have resulted in less protection than existed prior to that legislation being introduced from the EC.
On employment protection covering such as the WTD, the Six Pack on Health and Safety, qualifying periods for such as IT’s and a whole raft of similar employment legislation the everyday practice has not produced anywhere near similar protection outcomes across similar economies such as say between the UK, France, or Germany. Giving a lie to the oft used argument that the UK is being dictated to by Brussels and has lost sovereignty.
To be effective legislation not only has to be passed at national level in its original form (which it has not been) but it also needs to be implemented and properly enforced. This blog accurately observes the corruption of purpose and capture of organisations such as HMRC and the impact upon the actual outcomes for subverting the intent of tax egislation, regulation and enforcement.
The same process exists with the so called employment protection legislation where not only is the original intent subverted by a supine national UK parliament doing the bidding of the City but also the regulatory agencies such as the HSE are either so run down they are toothless to enforce their remit or they have become subject to the same capture and corruption of purpose.
I spent eleven years as Branch Rep in our industry and some of the stories about the actual lack of protection would make your blood boil.
I agree with John and Dave we’ve seen working conditions/security/health entitlements diminish over the last thirty five years.
The Left argument for reform from within sounds weak and pathetic to me -I’d rather see alliances between countries fighting for social justice and equity outside this ghastly financial oligarchy where Governments have become, to use the phrase of John Ralston Saul, ‘managerial castrati.’
leaving the EU might well release these forces on the left. The migration crisis and Russophobia shows how defunct and at sea is the EU at present.
So what countries are you going to align with?
Richard -if liberalism is to be challenged effectively any alignment would have to be with workers rights/environmental/anti-financialisation groups independent of the EU anyway. In the end it is a global issue and alliances can be formed anywhere. It doesn’t have to filter through EU directives.
That is not how states work Simon
States are not pressure groups
@John Fitzpatrick
I agree with you John.
The arguments for staying in are more easily ‘rationalised’. It’s what we know v. what we don’t know. And because people / markets don’t like uncertainty the ‘Remain’ campaign will probably win.
However I still maintain there are good reasons for considering Brexit in the long-term interests of the UK. It’s not just about £sd.
It’s a shame for democracy that the main Brexit proponents are such extreme ego-centric nationalists with a limited narrow agenda.
Ignoring the stupid graphics (an irritating feature of Business Insider) but here’s another perspective – http://uk.businessinsider.com/reasons-why-uk-leaving-the-eu-brexit-is-a-good-idea-2015-10
The EU is in a much more parlous financial state than is reported in the MSM – http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=32954 (go to Conclusion).
You’ve probably read this: ‘The left wing case for leaving the EU’ –
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/06/john-king-left-wing-case-leaving-eu
And do we really want to be a member of the same club as one of the planet’s most odious leaders Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan –
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/turkey-has-become-a-rogue-state-and-even-erdogan-must-face-up-to-the-fact-a6909196.html.
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160209/1034439102/erdogan-eu-blackmail.html
Overall, I just think it makes sense to be more in control of our own destiny – whatever it may be – instead of being formally linked to a crumbling institution that has been hi-jacked by the neo-liberal mafia who will do anything to protect its interests (viz. Greece).
If there was any chance of having this debate – about a new Europe for the 21st century – then I’d vote to stay in.
“So the choice is not exit or surrender but how we transform Europe. And the basis must be moral not just pragmatic. We must build a new Europe because we believe in solidarity and cooperation, in our interests and the interests of everyone. We must now actively embrace openness, diversity, pluralism and as much continent wide equality as we can create. This has to be a fully democratic and accountable Union, a Europe done with people not a Europe done to people.”
(https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/neal-lawson/europe-is-our-battlefield)
But, regrettably, the EU has become so corrupted by vested interests I fear it’s too late.
We need to go back to the drawing board and maybe Brexit could trigger that.
Staying in under the current régime provides no democratic solution for the future.
Maybe it’s better the devil you don’t know and time to hit the ‘reset’ button!
I still do not know how it is left wing to harm job prospects, income and employee protection
Thanks JohnD for those links. I hadn’t read the New Statesman article. It expresses the conclusions I have arrived but in a better informed fashion.
I used to be a supporter of the EU, but have slowly come to see a gulf between what I imagined it stood for and what goes down in the world. When “the West” sponsored a violent fascist coup in the Ukraine whilst EU “leaders” urged restraint on the elected government, and our public broadcaster propagandized shamelessly – all in the interest of dragging another nation into the EU – that did it for me finally.
When Sultan Erdogan can play a strong hand in destroying Syria through supporting IS and bombing the Kurdish fighters opposing them, with no concern that it will damage Turkey’s bid to join the EU – that tells me all I need to know about the nature of the EU.
If Labour has got any sense it will keep its powder dry on the EU referendum until a few weeks before the event, leaving the Tories to rip shreds out of each other in the meantime and hopefully create enough division that a few more exit stage right for UKIP.
I think there is some merit to that.
Labour rightly argued in the General Election campaign that an EU referendum is an unecessary diversion from real problems. An indulgence which the Right Wing just couldn’t resist and what we witness now is the Right reapng what it has sown – it is ripping itself apart before our very eyes.
That said, it has to take a stand at some point and campaign vigorously for Remaining in the EU. Otherwise Cameron will sweep up all the plaudits if Remain wins (not surprisingly perhaps but Labour needs some stardust from somewhere).
If Leave wins, then all bets are off. I don’t fancy what is coming down the track after that eventuality. An extreme Right Wing agenda emboldened, almost unstoppable. Farage and his cronies catapulted to the heart of our national conversation on all matters, despite being so obviously unfit to pontificate on any.
If leave wins we will have Boris as Prime Minister and we will have a new Chancellor in June. It is tempting to think that whoever it is it couldn’t possibly be worse than George but I wouldn’t bet on it.
My fear about the EU referendum is that if the right continues to dominate the media coverage (Boris v Dave etc) and no alternative is heard then come polling day all the little Englanders turnout in force for brexit whilst those not so bothered about the EU stay at home. Turnout in past EU elections has been small, approx 34% for instance in 2014.
The stranglehold of banking/globalised capital has created the feeling of impotence as it no feels as if change is not possible via Governments or that attempted change will reap vengeance from the strangler. This is to democracy what privatisation of the air supply is to respiration.
It’s not just UKIP who are doing Remain’s job for them. The most high profile BREXITers (IDS, Patel, Fox, Gove) are enough to make anybody, even if they know nothing about EU issues, wonder why they’re so keen to leave. I’m sure they’ve won Remain a few more votes. The irony of IDS complaining he’s being bullied hasn’t been lost. He’s even threatened to resign. (Bring it on!)
…IDS, Patel, Fox, Gove… Grayling, you forgot Grayling!
If I had the need to convince the public to vote Remain, I’d look and see what sort of things people had been angry enough about to sign petitions for (groups like 38degrees, Change.org, Govt.’s own petition site all great sources) and base my choice of bogeymen on this information.
Millions are paid for this sort of “neuro-marketing” advice on tactics. The EU project is a long term thing, the TTIP negotiations also. Of course the issue of referendums, their existence and timing are consulted on and planned for.
It was on this site I read about the advice by J.P Morgan on the negative effects for the EU project of so-called “legacy constitutions”…constitutions rooted in the defeat of, or otherwise end of, dictatorships. Constitutions that tended to build in protections for workers,right to protest and limits to central power.
The problem is and always will be, how little redistribution you can get away with… and as we see, it’s much less as the older generations die off- those with righteousness on their side- and who’s left are those who enjoyed the benefits of other people’s struggle and those who have no clue about that struggle.
Even so, demographic change in voting patterns is indicating that the timeline for locking in economic policy in favour of multinationals is more or less Varoufakis’ 10 years, due to effects on the young of unemployment,precariety,privatisation,corruption,hypocrisy, policy by vested interests…and this generation has no memory of dictatorship, so does not vote ‘advised by fear’.
I like to think that precisely those “legacy” countries will be able to resist this economic coup on democracy; I know they will have more chance to do that without the UK, as it is.
I’ve always aid we could do with a real economic crash so I should support Brexit which will, undoubtedly, give us one.
But I don’t want to leave EU. My sons will need to get work, ideally proper work not just being some kind of “investment analyst”.
The Germans & even, to a degree, Italians, ae still producing stuff. UK no
My main concern is that UKIP in actual fact does not make any impact on people’s views whatsoever concerning Europe because many may in fact will be already convinced anti-Europeans long before UKIP ever turned up.
The ‘are we in or are we out?’ argument has rumbled on ‘like forever’ and seems to be routinely whisked out to take our minds of the ghastly shenanigans of whichever administration we have in – usually the Tories. The whole issue hangs about us like bad smell that cannot be removed.
Again – I am not convinced that the EU is working properly (like many others above) but if we leave we can only really walk straight into the arms of America.
And I do not fancy have a closer union with what I believe to be a rogue state.
Our relationship with the USA reminds me of what it is like when one of your children innocently brings home the kid everyone in the area knows is nothing but trouble and the next thing you know your little angel is being excluded from school for bad behaviour and getting into all sorts of trouble.
That sums up Britain’s post-war relationship with the US for me. The US is bad news.
So I hope that we do stay in the EU and instead of Cameron’s illusory efforts to look as though he is changing it, we stay and fight for more democracy within the institution.
But I do believe that over the years, anti-Europeanism has been injected into the British people until is almost part of our genetic heritage and it is very worrying that their seems to be a tangible chance to exit when Europe is under a lot of external and internal pressures that could rip violently it apart.
The alternative to the EU?
A bilateral TTIP with the USA
And that will be worse than even an EU based TTIP
And that will be bad enough
While my instinct is to vote “stay”, the issue that concerns me most is what will become of democracy, whether in or out, with both the UK government and the EU Commission currently showing little obvious appetite for anything resembling representative democracy, instead opting to appease international capital.
My instinct is driven by my near certainty that brexit would lead to our current governent becoming ever more driven by its demonstrated ideology to impose greater autocracy, to the great detriment of the UK population whereas an EU of states with competing ideologies seems to me to offer greater hope that, in the long term, something closer to a functional democracy for the benefit of all EU citizens might emerge.
There’s also the point that a crowing right wing government, in which the likes of IDS, Gove, Grayling, Johnson, Patel, Fox, etc would doubtless spend most of their time gloating while further impoverishing the most disadvantaged, is, of itself, a very strong argument for staying in the EU.
Nick
I quite definitely share that concern, as you know do others here such as Ivan Horrocks and Andrew Dickie
I think the risks to democracy are real
Overall, and it’s marginal, I think the EU lends support to democracy, although I watch Hungary with real concern
Richard