Brexit

At the time of writing it's Wednesday 11 April.

Tomorrow, we would've been due to leave the European Union. Prime Minister Theresa May has asked the EU for an extension of the leave date for 30 June, 2019.

I would like to claim that prior to the EU referendum, that I knew all about the difficulties with dispensing with the EU Customs Union and the EU Single Market. That when the Leave result was announced I would say "Hang on a minute! What about the Northern Irish/Republic of Ireland border? Won't our exit from the EU cause a hard border? Won't that fly in the face of the Good Friday Agreement?"

Truth is, I didn't say anything about any of those issues, and I didn't even think of those issues. But then again, I am only a voter and not a politician.

What was noticeable was that many seasoned MPs and even Cabinet members were having the same struggles as me. One MP didn't even know what the Customs Union was. To be fair, I didn't hear of this term until about 2013, and even then, I wasn't really sure what a Customs Union actually did.

Remain was where we remained in the EU. If Remain had won, then it would be business as usual and we could focus on things like the NHS, education, police numbers, affordable and social housing, Mental Health and employment. How exotic that sounds today. It's called running the country.

Leave was where Britain would leave the EU. At the time, it was made to sound as simple as giving your notice in at work. You'd start your new job and within two months everything would've been sorted out for good.

Leave required a plan "B".

We had then and have now - NO plan "B".

Today, pretty well everyone, whether they voted leave or remain understands very well that not only is Brexit hideously and impossibly complex, but we will be worse off, rather than better off.

I've always subscribed to the notion that if I change my bank, my insurance or my internet -  the deal that I cancel has always got to be inferior to the one that I am signing up for. The one that I am signing up for has to be better than my previous arrangement. I know of no-one who thinks it's a good idea to do otherwise.

How will Brexit affect me?
Sadly, I have no Irish relatives, so Brexit will affect me. Otherwise, I would be off to the Irish Republic for a year and become an Irish citizen. This would be because remaining a British citizen will become inferior to being an Irish citizen. As an EU/Irish citizen, I will retain the same freedom of movement as I have now (until Brexit day, whenever that is?) and I will continue to have visa-less travel to the USA as well. (EU Britain currently has a visa waiver arrangement with the USA which takes just 20 minutes to complete online).

The post Brexit blue UK (non-EU) passport (You know. The one that's made in France!) will hopefully:

• include a description of your nationality as a ‘British Citizen'
• be an ePassport with the internationally recognised symbol on the front cover

What remains unclear to me is how visa-necessary travel is superior to visa-less travel.
I fail to see how restricting my passport privileges benefits me, or anyone else.

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Stop Press:

UK together with the EU27 have agreed an extension for 31 October.
Donald Tusk has told Britain "Please don't waste this time" - so sad that
we need to be told.

I wish we were better than this. 









 

I've Been Wrong Before

It's horrible when you're wrong. People say that it takes real character if you're strong enough to admit you're wrong. So how come I don't feel fantastic?

In September 2015 Jeremy Corbyn became elected leader of the Labour Party with a huge 59.48% share of the vote. I had voted against him. My main problem was that I believed that Jeremy Corbyn was not leadership material, and was not electable.

After the EU referendum, Labour MP's passed a vote of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn. In September 2016, Jeremy confounded the pundits by not only winning his second leadership contest in a year, but also securing a higher 61.8% share of the vote. During this contest I had been in a Labour Party meeting speaking up for his opponent, Owen Smith, to be elected as leader of the Labour Party.

So I had voted against Jeremy twice. I can't have been proved more wrong.


Over the last few weeks of this snap election, Jeremy Corbyn has proved that he is, in fact, a leader and capable of great statesmanship. He never raised his voice and he has always adhered to attacking policy decisions by the Tory government rather than personalities. Little wonder he has been and is now doing well in the polls. People now seem to be seeing his 'politics of hope' message.

It's a strange outcome for a general election where neither party has won. The Tories have won, in respect of the amount of votes cast. However, Jeremy has achieved 41% of the vote, which would have, in normal circumstances, delivered him to Number 10 with a comfortable majority. It gets more bizarre in that Theresa May actually won more votes than was won by David Cameron in the 2015 general election, which delivered a small majority of 5 seats.

So what has happened is a disaster. Theresa May sought to increase her majority by gambling on a snap election. She clearly didn't take into account how people might react to an exercise that seemed less than genuine in seeking a mandate. Judging by the growing popularity of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, people don't buy Theresa May's desire for continuity as a reason for staying at number 10. Add a very frightening manifesto for older people and it's easy to see why the result is a no-score draw.

It gets worse. Theresa May is now obliged to form a government with the DUP. A party which is extreme. Opposed to gay marriage, climate change and equal rights. Their thuggish, bigoted views have no place here in a much more free and liberal Britain. Even more serious than that, the DUP is one of the involved parties in the Northern Ireland Peace process. This Tory/DUP partnership explodes the UK government's impartiality that is crucial if it is to continue to broker the Northern Ireland peace process.

What is so important about Theresa May's government that it needs to flirt with both a circumvention of democracy (however temporary it may be) and also risk inflaming the DUP's political opponents?

No. This is simply a price that is not worth paying. We not only prostitute our democracy, our core principles, our ethics but we also gravely risk our continuing peace.

Bluestown

If ever there was something that should never have happened, it was the referendum result on Thursday 23 June 2016. Usually, these things are mere political preference. where people see their colours roundly condemn the other colours and, once again, it's their turn, until the next time. On early Friday morning, (as I can never sleep when these contests are taking place), it became mathematically clear that Britain had voted to leave the European Union. I believe that Brexit happened because we let it happen.

When Labour, my preferred political party, loses an election, (which seems more often than not), I feel dejected for a few days and when I have concluded that my arms and legs haven't dropped off because the Tories won again, I can get on with my life quite normally. After all, won't we get another opportunity to chuck the Tories out in 5 years time? Of course! Moreover, I always understand why we've lost an election. It's almost always because our lack of party discipline and unity is worse than the Tories.

There is no such turning back, with this referendum result. The 'leaves' will be in power for the rest of eternity. I suppose it is possible that Britain will re-join the EU, but not very likely. Not in my lifetime, I am sure. Another possibility, after that time, would there be an EU to rejoin? Again, it's possible that the EU may fail after this. First, Norway and then Britain.

The other dreadful possibility is that a sizeable number of the vote leaves may well think differently now and if given the chance would vote remain instead. After all there was only a difference of: 1,269,501 votes between Vote Leave and Vote Remain. Hardly an electoral chasm.

I remember a schoolteacher in my secondary modern school telling us about Sir Winston Churchill having passionately advocated a 'United States Of Europe'. The then Conservative government also saw it as a force for good. We had won the war, at a terrible cost, in both human and economic cost, a war, that in all honesty, we so could have lost. If we had have lost, then the most evil forces ever seen during the entire history of our planet would have ruled over us. Britain, the USA and Europe could so easily have lost this war and was the drive to form the organisations that eventually led to the formation of the European Union.

If all European countries were traded freely, and dare I say it, we adopt common laws and a common currency as well, then I saw it as a case for us all being richer and stronger together. People saw EU common laws as anathema. I took the opposite view and regarded law making by the many as being safer, not more dangerous. We still had the power to make around 87% of our laws. Many of the 13% were laws that had a pan-European element to them. To afford ease of movement across the EU of people, labour, goods and capital.

A prolific paedophile Andrew Tracey was brought to justice after a 30-year reign of terror, Cory Baptiste, Craig Shaw and Jeremy Forrest were others who were arrested, charged and convicted under the European Arrest Warrant. A European Arrest Warrant takes typically 3 weeks to complete, an extradition can take between 6 to 9 months.

My feelings about us leaving the European Union therefore are of horror. It was so many people's (unfounded) fear of immigration that lost us the referendum. People voted leave because they perceive immigration to be completely out of control. 'Let us have our borders back!' they say, which much mystify everyone else in the EU countries as we're the only the only nation that actually has border controls similar to those pre-EU.

The vast majority of people who speak to me seem to believe immigration is out of control. And yet, Britain has had the toughest immigration controls. As tough as the USA and Australia and yet no-one here believes that.

Happy New Year! (a bit late, I know...)

Ten feet snow drifts, the car is least likely to start and we’re marooned at home. We’re so angry at ourselves for comfort eating so early in the New Year that we calm ourselves down by going outside for a smoke. All over Britain, a New Year resolution failure meltdown takes place, often as early as 2^nd January.

Back in December 2009, Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire led this analysis. His team had asked 700 people about their strategies for achieving new year resolutions. Many of the 78% who fail in their plans are focusing on downside of not achieving goals, his research found. Giving up smoking, gaining a better qualification and also a better relationship were the top January targets.

Doomed to failure, most of ‘em, I would imagine. 

How many of us can be properly mentally prepared to succeed with our resolutions by a specific date? However, I did manage to give up smoking in January 1977, although I panicked, because I believed I was ready on December 26^th 1976 and I worried about the spotlight of the first day of ’77, thwarting my success. 

The first recorded New Year's Resolutions were made by the Babylonians around 4000 years ago. 

(If the Babylonians are anything like me, they probably meant to do it 4020 years ago).

Henry Moore ~ I think in terms of the day's resolutions, not the year's. 

Mark Twain ~ New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody, save, as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions. 

Then, there’s the advertisers of gym membership discounts and the publishers of self-help books. We usually roll our eyes and tut, while at the same time admiring those same advertisers for their enterprise and their seizing the moment.

Why on earth am I writing about New Year resolutions in April?  After all, anyone can write about New Year resolutions in January! Obviously, I am going for the creative high ground here. Although what that creative high ground is, perhaps I will know in January?

I am sure that April is a good month, however, to see how well we have done.

A New Kind Of Politics

Jeremy Corbyn is now leader of the Labour Party. The thought of a left-wing socialist securing the Labour leadership has been, for decades, unthinkable. I'll be honest. I didn't vote for Jeremy Corbyn, for reasons I will try to explain later. There is no doubt that a huge shift has taken place within the Labour Party. Although a sea change, took place 40 years ago, in 1975, where the Tories elected what they considered to be a rank outsider for their leader. This rank outsider became the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.

British people are amenable to change in either political direction, where they believe that beneficial social and economic change is possible. Margaret Thatcher's government was clearly not Ted Heath's or Harold Macmillan's 'one nation' Conservatism where the nation's prosperity would surely 'trickle down' to the working classes. 

Sadly Margaret Thatcher's government brought about no meaningful social change. The only radical changes she brought about was generate the huge gap between the rich and the poor and the isolation of the poor and the sick. The only prosperity she did bring about was the promotion of the already fairly comfortable working class to more comfortable middle class people. Margaret Thatcher said she believed that there is no society. She believed that the needs of the individual were sovereign, outweighing the needs of the many. A posh way of saying it's OK to be selfish and hang everyone else.

After Jeremy won on Saturday, September 12, 2015, a number of Labour MPs, who find themselves insufficiently 'Corbynite', are now 'considering their futures'.
While many Labour MPs may well agree with Jeremy's aims and objectives. (It is, after all, like stating that you're in favour of holidays, ice cream and sunshine), they may disagree about the method.

Jeremy Corbyn supports: 

• no tax cuts to the rich, (in addition, asking them to pay more tax).
• closing of the non-dom tax exile loophole
• quantitative easing to facilitate growth, which can be consolidated later when the economy improves
• opposing air strikes over Syria 
• yes to remaining within EU (although looking to renegotiate terms)
• re-nationalising the railways and also the big 6 energy companies

All of the above enjoys huge public support right now. 

All of these actions, if successfully executed, would bring about much needed additional tax revenues, without hurting jobs. Indeed more likely to create jobs. So any studies into this, which the Corbyn leadership has done, will be shown to be practical and not merely ideologically driven. This may explain why the Tories are curiously quiet on these issues at the moment.

A few hours after being elected, a recovered Jeremy Corbyn, began to spell out the success story that he believes is unfolding, which will enrich the Labour Party. For years, people have been complaining that New Labour was so close to the Tories in terms of manifesto content and pledges that it was seen to be over-cautious and more importantly, too Tory. This has translated into people voting for UKIP, BNP, Green and Respect as well as socialist-alternative parties.  

I think it is fair to assume that these voters, voted the way they did because they felt that Labour no longer spoke for them. Many believed that Labour seemed to speak more for public sector workers who were probably middle class as well. It seems to reasonable to assume that many of these wayward voters seem to be returning to Labour as Labour is now their preferred party, which they feel, now speaks for them.

More importantly than that, Jeremy Corbyn's Labour leadership has already been talking of truth and reconciliation. Familiar themes, in Nelson Mandela's post Apartheid South Africa. These ideas are very necessary ones for a party who has lost touch with its grass-roots. Further, it is vital to establish a meaningful dialogue to enable the people we have lost, to return to Labour and make them feel welcome again.  

Labour Party membership has reached the highest in its entire history. A few hours later he supported the protest through London which supported the welcoming of the refugees. Even the Conservatives admit that he is a conviction politician. He seems to be a politician who is in politics give him an opportunity to bring about real change for the better in British life, both social and economic, for all.

I was left wondering why I didn't support Jeremy Corbyn as he supports so many of the core socialist values that I do. I made the mistake that because I don't share the same space on the Labour Party political spectrum as Jeremy, well.....perhaps I will never know! Perhaps I was wrong. What is certain is that I can use my my time and energy and my financial resources, with renewed enthusiasm to back a Corbyn victory in 2020.

I believe that Labour's future will be best served by supporting Jeremy Corbyn, however we voted. I believe his contesting David Cameron for the number 10 job is perfectly achievable. Why shouldn't it be? It's true that people may feel that a more left wing brand of Labour wouldn't fit comfortably in the increasingly middle class Britain now. 

But given the higher levels of austerity to come, and this governments' inability to create a solution that works, then I truly believe that given high public support already in 2015 for Jeremy Corbyn's aims and objectives then by 2020 he could not only achieve a Labour victory, but a substantial Labour one. 
My conclusion? My Labour Party has just got more exciting!