Saturday 25 June 2016

On behalf of the 6 million...

Like 30 million other people in the UK, I woke up on Friday horrified by the outcome of the Referendum.

But for me, and 6 million Europeans living in the UK and Britons living in Europe, this this goes far beyond the generalised horror. We are already feeling it's impacts. This result could turn our lives on their heads.

This isn't a theoretical problem. Hundreds of thousands of pensioners will find their next euro payment in Spain or France will be worth 15 or 20% less than the one they received last month.

It has already impacted on the emotional security and well being of Europeans working in the UK who feel unwanted and unvalued. The ones I know about here, the midwives, nurses and doctors who were in tears on Friday morning, people who will still save the lives or deliver the babies of "leave" voters - but may well not stick around for much longer.  (Ironic that one of the charges against immigrants is the pressure they put on health services, I wonder how much more pressure and exodus of EU health professionals will create?)

The same applies to the Brits I know living in Europe. There's no guarantee that reciprocal arrangements for health care will continue, or even an automatic right to remain. As for people like me, someone who's never been able to afford a house in the UK but has manged to find a ruin in France and rebuild it with my sons over many years, but hasn't yet legally switched to France, I could well find myself homeless. And there are probably many thousands in a similar situation.

To say I'm sick with worry is an understatement and I'm sure I'm far from alone. The gnawing anxiety is just as strong today as it was yesterday - and I doubt it will go away. The prospect of seeing everything planned for the future disappear before your eyes tends to be stressful. Knowing that it's happening because of an almost unimaginably crass referendum won by the tiniest of margins adds several layers of rage and wild fury to the equation.

Poor sports...?


"Ah!," outers will say,  "you are just a sore loser."

Well I'm certainly sore, but consider this: had the result been the other way round, you would have just lost a referendum - nothing more.

There's a lot to loose


At worse we face losing our homes, our jobs, being forced to move out of the country and the life we've built over many years, and serious direct economic harm. At the very least we face years of stress and anxiety while our fate is negotiated by the likes of Farage and Johnson with a furious Europe. Lets be clear, what I'm sore about is the damage it's doing to all of us and especially the damage to me personally. Knowing most of you had no real understanding of what you were doing just adds extra spice to my rage.

My last sentence could be seen as "typical remainer arrogance" towards leavers, but it's not. Watching a large group of people who've been crapped on for decades being duped into voting for something that almost entirely in the interests of the people doing the crapping is not easy. Knowing the crappers have already backed away from the 3 central promises that drew much of their support, £350 million a week extra for the NHS, stopping immigration and an immediate application to leave the EU, just shows what bare faced lies the remain campaign have told.

The main political players in the leave campaign are "extreme right". I am quite sure their prime motivation for leaving is to pave the way for policies in UK heavily influenced by US style libertarian capitalism - the kind of thing Donald Trump says out loud in the States - he's not quite the isolated nut job freak show we think he is.

Look for the Money...


The US right has long complained that Europe is "too liberal", code for: "we want all cash flows in public services as investment vehicles for the vast amount of capital we've stolen from the world at large". Strip the UK of EU rules that uphold the European liberal democratic consensus and see how much worse things will get for working class outers, and all the rest of us too.

Almost all the ills the working classes are experiencing spring from Thatcher, and Cameron's extreme right wing ideology. It's the agenda of the super rich. I'm not for a second denying the fury and resentment is unjustified but it's been misdirected. It's not the EU's fault there are millions of immigrants from the Indian sub- continent, and lets be honest, it's brown muslim immigrants who inspire working class ire more than anyone else. It's not the EU's fault that we have failed to build sufficient housing for 30 years and deliberately trashed existing social housing stock. It's not the EU's fault that their jobs have been exported to pillage slave labour and third world eco-systems  - that's global capitalism. Deflecting the blame for the consequences of these policies on to the EU is well executed distraction...

...and it is sheer genius to to use the same trick to shoe horn in a far right wing Tory administration led by Johnson. Working class people have been duped - again.

The narrow leave "victory" in the referendum is being portrayed as a "working class revolt against the establishment" but it's no any such thing. This is a right wing coup - the window the working classes had on the issues has been owned by the right for 30 years and the right wing media have successfully used real issues to power brexit, enable an unltra right wing government and possibly precipitate the break up of the EU.

This is a moment when the left need to understand that the referendum was a battle in a war - the war isn't over - Farage himself said that if they lost 48/52 he would fight on.  We have to be prepared to fight Brexit with every fibre of our being until the bitter end. So no talk of healing wounds, rebuilding friendship or "accepting democracy" - democracy is about more than votes cast - there's still plenty to play for









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