More on Brexit
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Playing the immigration card, again?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/18/theresa-may-tory-rebels-brexit-deal-uk-immigration
<p class=”story-body__introduction”>“Getting back full control of our borders is an issue of great importance to the British people,” she will say, adding that EU citizens will no longer be able to “jump the queue ahead of engineers from Sydney or software developers from Delhi”.</p>Just had time to read through the leaflets picked up at Saturday’s anti-racism march. The Morning Star, which was being given away free, had the rather-too-clever headline “Devils Back Faustian Brexit Deal. Bosses’ union throws weight behind May sell-out attempt”. In other words, May was watering down Brexit to please the CBI and the Stock Exchange while what was required, in the reported words of the Communist Party’s General Secretary, Robert Griffiths, was
Rather than an anti-people’s second vote, we need a left-led Labour government to negotiate a People’s Brexit.
No surprise there, then, with Communist Party and Morning Star still on auto-pilot from the 1975 referendum.
I didn’t get anything from the SWP or SPEW but did from “Socialist Resistance”, the group in Britain affiliated to the original (they say) “Fourth International”. They say they voted “Remain” and call for a campaign to “demand a new referendum” and “defeat a Tory hard Brexit” and, presumably, a “People’s Brexit” too.
And so the Hard Left is also lining up behind one side or other of the capitalist class in their dispute over that class’s trading arrangements.
While we focus on the Irish/Northern Ireland border, Spain’s interest is with Gibralter
Playing the immigration card again?
Rather disturbing comment by the London Evening Standard City editor Jim Armitage in yesterday’s issue on May’s statement that “software developers from Delhi” are to be given priority over workers from Europe:
… it’s a sales pitch that makes little sense politically: those who voted for Brexit on immigration grounds did not want to replace Poles with Nigerians.
No doubt true, and is why a second referendum is to be dreaded as it will unleash another wave of xenophobia, with verbal abuse and physical attacks, not just against East Europeans but against immigrants from Asia, Africa and the West Indies and their descendants as both sides scramble for votes. Another example of us being collateral damage to this dispute amongst the capitalist class about their trading arrangements. Why don’t they leave us out of it and settle it amongst themselves?
An AF article
Armed with critical thinking about long-term predictions from our discussion of climate change, we can also be sceptical about the government and Bank of England predictions about what will happen depending on the type of Brexit that happens:
The Bank of England is at least explicit in stating that its scenario is a worst-case one:
The central bank considered the worst-case scenario to be a Brexit where the UK is unable to agree to a deal with the European Union and there is no transition period after March 2019.
In this situation, the UK economy would suffer for years and be about 8% smaller by the end of 2023, compared to the bank’s most recent projections. There are also expectations for inflation to peak at 6.5% and unemployment to peak at 7.5%. House prices could fall by about 30% and interest rates could spike.
The Bank of England (BoE) also expects an exodus of tens of thousands of people leaving the UK each year in the midst of such a downturn.Since the UK is highly unlikely to (I’m prepared to say won’t) leave the EU on 29 March without any arrangements being made, this really is Project Fear. The government is evidently pulling out the stops to try to get its deal adopted.
As to the government’s 15-year predictions, these aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. Nobody can predict how the capitalist economy will be even in one year let alone fifteen. It is curious, though, that the government itself is predicting that the policy it is pursuing will slow down the accumulation of capital.
I know it’s a bit embarrassing to be agreeing with the Mad Brexiteers but on this point they are correct: we are not all going to die. So, keep calm and carry on watching the capitalists and their political representatives arguing over the best trading arrangements for capitalist business.
It does look that we are heading towards a second referendum and the festival of xenophobia that will be.
Wish they fix the formatting problems of the forum soon for it makes things difficult to read. -edit- i see someone did
Somethings are happening right now, though, aren’t there?
The slowdown in EU migrants (but that can also be explained by the drop in the pound-value and not necessarily all to do with Brexit) They are predicting a labour shortage and the evidence is there right now for it.
Already concessions being made with special deals for special workers – the farm-workers, not exactly the same as the appeal for caps on EU workers in the IT industry made recently. I note Australia is also having trouble with lack of workers on the farms and relaxing visa regulations.
Who says that a government in Britain can govern without the support of a majority in the House of Commons and that parliament is just a talking shop that has to accept what the government decides?
If i am found in contempt, i get punished. Will the government face a legal sanction for being found to be in contempt?
What i find strange is that this contempt procedure was not evoked about the non-publication of the legal opinion on the Iraq War
It looks as if we might be heading for a yes/no referendum on the government’s deal with the EU. At least that wouldn’t be as bad, in terms of being an occasion for a festival of xenophobia, as a re-run of the 2016 one. It is pathetic, though, that workers up and down the country in pubs and on social medias are arguing with each other about what terms “we”, i.e. the capitalists, should trade: WTO, Norway, Single Market, etc. Who cares if there’s a regulatory border in the Irish Sea? What difference is it going to make to anybody’s ordinary life? Perhaps we should republish our 1911 pamphlet on “Socialism or Tariff Reform”.
Socialism versus Tariff Reform Recreated missing pamphlet and added PDF version also.
Are we really sure that what made people vote leave was the economic argument? I very much doubt that. I recall it was more nationalistic chauvinist xenophobia.
And if there is another referendum, even if the politicians and media make the economy the central focus of the campaign – are we sure people will simply vote from their original prejudices – anti-foreigner.
So perhaps the next referendum, if there is one, is the appropriate time for an issue of an anti-nationalist pamphlet rather than one on protectionism and free trade which would, of course, feature a chapter in an analysis of nationalism.
So perhaps the next referendum, if there is one, is the appropriate time for an issue of an anti-nationalist pamphlet rather than one on protectionism and free trade which would, of course, feature a chapter in an analysis of nationalism.
Absolutely agree with this suggestion. The Party seriously needs a pamphlet on nationalism particularly now given the rise of nationalist and populist movements in Europe and elsewhere. This is a major obstacle to the socialist cause.
A call was made for anyone interested in submitting a draft to come forward and contact the Publications Committee. So far there have been no takers. I would ask people here to give this some serious thought….
We would need to be clear as to who the pamphlet is directed: would it be at xenophobes like the average Brexit voter or at those who voted Remain because they opposed the xenophobia of the Brexiteers or at ourselves to provide a historical and theoretical analysis of the origins, role and dangers of nationalism?
If the first it would have to be very basic. And of course we would have to refute Theresa May’s nasty claim in her speech to the Tory Conference this year that
if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere.
Incidentally, I was not proposing that we really reprint our 1911 pamphlet on tariff reform. I mentioned it to make the point that workers today, as then, were getting worked up over the trading arrangements of the capitalist class.
Alan, did you miss out a “not” in this:
And if there is another referendum, even if the politicians and media make the economy the central focus of the campaign – are we sure people will [not] simply vote from their original prejudices – anti-foreigner.
In any event, I don’t think we can be sure that they won’t. One thing that is certain is that the Brexiteers would pull out the stops and play the anti-foreigner card to the maximum, resulting in more attacks on East Europeans in the streets and children whose parents came outside Britain including even from Italy and Portugal being handed notes to take to their parents telling them to leave Britain, as happened last time.
Personally, I’m dreading another referendum but I can’t see how the political representatives of the capitalist class are going to avoid calling one.
We would need to be clear as to who the pamphlet is directed: would it be at xenophobes like the average Brexit voter or at those who voted Remain because they opposed the xenophobia of the Brexiteers or at ourselves to provide a historical and theoretical analysis of the origins, role and dangers of nationalism?
Personally I would go for an all-purpose pamphlet but certainly featuring Brexit and the resurgence of nationalism and xenophobia in Europe and elsewhere in the context of globalisation. It could also touch on the historical background with reference to the writings of people like Benedict Anderson and the cultivation of nationalist mythologies. Then there is the matter of leftist support for so called national liberation struggles and the theory of imperialism….
There is a lot to cover but I do feel this is a yawning gap in the Party’s literature which needs to be closed sooner rather than later. Contemporary developments are crying out for such a publication
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