Rjan:
Winseer:
Rjan:
I have of course come round to the idea that war needs to be waged on the neoliberal elements of the EU though - an end to the competition laws, for example, and an end to free movement - which is why I’m supporting Corbyn’s Brexit.If he’d only define it, I might have some leaning towards it. I Meanwhile, I have not heard any denouncement of the Socialist experiment that is the EU, and therefore continue to hold Corbyn’s Labour in high suspicion over him getting power for five years first, and throwing Brexit under the bus the moment the EU demands it for “Full funding for Labour’s incoming spending plans”.
On that point I agree with you. Labour’s Brexit agenda needs to become properly defined.
I think hitherto the thinking has been that by remaining silent on detail and offering dithery rhetoric, Labour has avoided having hard arguments about collective policy, and can instead be a reservoir of all hopes for all men. That makes sense. Corbyn is a 40+ year experienced politician after all. Perhaps his younger “not afraid of getting into trouble with plod” days might then reach out to those that otherwise don’t have much love for Labour nor Corbyn otherwise.
But the time for letting the Tories embarass themselves on their own account has passed - they’ve shown their hand and it’s turned out to be a pair of deuces - so Labour needs to start creating it’s own crystal clear negotiating narrative with the EU, and offering this as a clear alternative to the country. You’d be surprised how many poor poker players would consider “drawing to an underset” as a way to go on with a hand. The trouble is, it’s far easier to make a good player fold than an idiot - who then ends up winning, because despite the odds tipped in the good player opponent’s favour - the cards then don’t fall right. Eg. Player A has 2-2, player B has A-K, and the board comes 6-7-8 rainbow… A-K moves all-in, and 2-2 calls - “because he has a hand”. What does he think he’s beating here? - A bluff? (which turns out to be the case…) Too many idiots will make that call, and many a good player has gone broke having made the bad play that “you can bluff an idiot”. You cannot. Don’t bother trying.
I think red lines on ending further free movement, and on democratic control of the economy (covering nationalisation and state investment), both of which are extremely popular (even wider than Labour’s electorate, with many Tory voters supporting it, and citizens in the other member states of the EU) should be the headline of the policy. And Labour needs to be crystal clear that those already settled here will continue to enjoy the same rights and won’t suffer Home Office harassment. In fairness, “ending free movement” is the very most difficult (I’ll avoid using the word “hard”) part of a full Brexit to achieve. We’re talking about having our borders as they were during WWII rather than 1975-1999. The only way it could be enforced - is to check everyone coming and going, which has already been lamblasted as “unworkable”. So what then? I would favour a HARD policing of illegal immigrants already within our borders, and deporting them to whatever country we see fit. Let’s see how many “No Papers, I’m a syrian” types - volunteer to be deported to Raqqa, should they persist with this “Yuman Rights Protected” line of thought. Once out of the EU, we’ll be tearing up our adherence to the Strasbourg accord, and going back to Magna Carta. All we have to do then is enforce Magna Carta properly, which means “If you ain’t British, you have no rights at all” - kinda Hard Nationalism argument. This, I think - would and should have been the main difference between “Left” Brexit and “Right” brexit of course. I don’t believe Labour would ever want to leave the EU institutions that protect the rights of the “Few”, even if there are a lot of lowlife criminals, terrorists, and imposters among them.
And it needs to, and can, win the argument on these issues, showing both that they are widely democratically-supported, and that they are reasonable.
I don’t expect any “denouncement of the socialist experiment of the EU”, because of course the Labour party is a socialist party.
Labour can never outdo the right-wing radicals in Ukip or placate anti-EU headbangers, but what it can show the electorate is that there are only two real choices at the next election, incoherence and mendacity with the Tory party pursuing a Brexit pipe dream that it is now clear will never be delivered, or a sensible, deliverable, and trustworthy position on Brexit with Corbyn’s Labour, along with a substantial manifesto of other pro-worker measures. It’s “Brexit” or “No Brexit”. Any half-measures will be considered a “soft” or “Non” Brexit then.
While Shore at least would have had the balls which I’ve described to have kept Ford’s operations at least,onshore here.On the basis if you remove production from the country then you can no longer sell your products here with the resulting win win for BL if they refused to back down.That’s just one example of protectionism and Nationalism in action.
I agree with your logic as far as the domestic economy goes, but it wouldn’t work for the export economy which was (and is) a large source of jobs and wealth.
I don’t think we’ll ever have the type of “Protectionist” economy that Trump envisiges for America. We’ve already done away with enough power stations that we are now dangerously dependent upon EU energy supplies, especially since the (in my mind deliberate) trashing of relations with Russia recently.
This is why I say to you that pulling the drawbridge up is not a solution to all our ills. We must be economically competitive with other European nations - the only question is whether it is on the high road (with a left-wing Labour party promising industrial investment, consolidation, and rationalisation) or the low road (with the Tories).
It is the EU that won’t let us stay in the single market and customs Union on UK terms - i.e. for free. If it were for free, we woudn’t even be talking about leaving it in the first place!
All we had to do to make this big EU experiment work - was to enforce the rules equally, like the law is supposed to be enforced.
Instead, we have the high-ups and low-downs getting away with murder, whilst the middle earners end up suffering from the crimes, and paying for it all via PAYE taxes.
This failure alone, was perfectly good reason to vote the Centerists into oblivion, only to have them rise back up again as “unelected” and “anti-democratic” Bureaucrats that cannot ever be removed.The real way in which the British working class is paying is not through taxes, but through wages being diverted into profits, and the fragmentation of industry that brings in many more bosses taking unearned incomes whilst employing lower and lower paid workers on poorer and poorer conditions and more insecure contracts. “Profit” is hardly a dirty word, not when a company ploughs back profits into higher wages for their staff, and only increases an already measly dividend by “less than the increase in profits” let’s say… Eg. Company made £100m last year, paid share dividend of 5p. Increases profits to £220m this year, gives it’s workers a 6% pay rise, and one-off bonus lump sum, - and increases the dividend from 5p to 6p. The face of Capitalism when it’s actually working - is a face the Far Left would rather never saw the light of day, of course. It is those companies like BHS, or M&S or Tescos or Carillion that make the headlines - all for Anti-Capitalist reasons of course. One could even argue that for reporting all the negative aspects of “Moral Hazard” Capitalism without balancing it out with some sterling stories of “Great firms to work for” elsewhere - is nothing short of Mainstream Media’s broadcasting of Far Left Propaganda right out of the pages of Das Capital!
It’s the money that people never see in their pay slip, and thus are never taxed on, and the intangible aspects like deteriorating working conditions and job security, that is the real issue with the British economy as it has been under Tories and New Labour.
Once again, we need to hear more about the “nice” companies that have “dead man’s shoes” reputations, and a whole lot more DONE rather than “said” about the shysters that think it’s OK to loot the company pension fund, sack people for whilstleblowing, and deny pay rises that even keep up with the rate of inflation, let alone exceed it. I think we can agree that a firm like Sports Direct are “Shysters” here, compared to the top-hole reputation an outfit like John Lewis has…