It is the EU, not Brexit, that is the Right Wing Plot OR Combating Climate Change & other Left Wing reasons for Brexit

It is called "The Big Lie". If you repeat a lie often enough, society will eventually, despite all the evidence to the contrary, regard it as the Truth. Or as a certain German dictator put it, no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously".

The Big Lie that the main stream media, New Labour, the Yellow Tories and the Establishment would have you believe is that Brexit is somehow a Right wing Coup.

These siren voices of the Establishment want you to forget that we had a "once in a lifetime" (Prime Minister David Cameron) referendum that produced a clear result. The biggest single vote for anything in UK electoral history. The UK voted to Leave the European Union (EU), including most of the constituencies represented in Parliament by Remain MPs who got elected in 2017 by promising to honour the referendum result, but who are now breaking that promise. Another Big Lie.

These siren voices want you to forget that there are many left wing reasons for leaving the EU and that many of the giants of British socialism like Barbara Castle, Tony Benn, Bob Crow and Peter Shore campaigned for the UK to leave the EU. Indeed as Union Leader Bob Crow, said in 2013:
"The EU is largely a Tory neoliberal project. Not only did the Conservative prime minister Edward Heath take Britain into the common market in 1973, but Margaret Thatcher campaigned to stay in it in the 1975 referendum, and was one of the architects of the Single European Act – which gave us the single market, EU militarisation and eventually the struggling Euro.
After the Tories dumped the born-again Eurosceptic Thatcher, John Major rammed through the Maastricht treaty and embarked on the disastrous privatisation of our railways using EU directives – a model now set to be rolled out across the continent."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/17/exit-europe-from-the-left

Supporters of Extinction Rebellion should note that it is the EU neo-liberal economics that makes it impossible to make the required changes to combat climate change in the UK. As was noted as early as the 2013 climate change conference in Warsaw (COP19):
"If the world wishes to avoid exceeding the two degrees rise in global temperatures that will trigger non-reversible climate change, then the wealthiest countries, including the UK, have to adopt a de-growth strategy."
Also at the Climate Change conference in Warsaw in 2013 we were told that: "continuing with economic growth over the coming two decades is incompatible with meeting our international obligations on climate change".

But the UK cannot change this as the EU dictates UK economic policy. The EU is a neoliberal economy committed to economic growth; designed to make the rich richer and the rest of us to pay for it. It shows it's true form when you see the EU put austerity into action; in Greece, in Ireland, in Portugal, in Spain, in Italy and even in relatively rich countries like Denmark. In Greece for instance, EU diktat has meant a 42 year plan of austerity, which the Greeks cannot get out of until the year 2060.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/26/greece-was-never-bailed-out---it-remains-a-debtors-prison-and-the-eu-still-holds-the-keys

Measures taken by the EU in Greece include:
1. Right to evict families from their home.
2. Privatisation of all saleable state assets and a ban on re-nationalisation in the future.
3. Reductions in pensions and pension funds.
4. Curtail rights to trade union representation.
5. Further cuts to wages.
6. Right to overrule Greek court decisions.
7. EU control of Greek central bank and economics ministry.

As Green Baroness Jenny Jones once said, before she was seduced by the dark side: "the EU has become a dictatorial imposer of austerity and deregulation, uncaring about its impacts on the wellbeing of people and planet, and determined to derail any elected government that dares to dissent from its neoliberal ideology."

The four pillars of the EU, ironically called its "freedoms" actually mean the freedom of multi-national corporations to move people, capital, goods and services to wherever makes them the most money. Invest your capital in sweat shops where the labour is cheapest to make the goods, move people to ensure wages are kept low and ensure contracts are kept short and temporary to avoid giving labour rights. Provide your services from tax havens and allow profits (as capital) to freely flow back to those tax havens, whilst paying as little tax as possible.

The European Commission currently dictates Britain’s trade policy with the world.
Despite the internationalist rhetoric of the EU’s proponents, its trade agreements with some of the poorest nations on earth have a modernist colonialism at heart, imposing free market dogma (i.e. "Free Trade") to extract natural resources in the 21st century from the same countries colonised with military force up until the 20th.
After the UK leaves the EU, we could help the developing world to develop their own economies with bilateral fair trade, thereby reducing in part the push factor that is forcing so many developing world citizens to swell the migrant crisis.

Achieving this is unlikely whilst we follow the European Commission in imposing programmes such as the Raw Materials Initiative, which prevents developing nations such as Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo from raising investment through export taxes or regulating conditions in their dangerous raw minerals sectors.
This is yet another humanist left wing policy that will become available to the UK after we leave the imperialist EU. It would create a new model of fair trading that could then be followed by other countries in Europe and other developed economies, without the need for "Free Trade" agreements.
(See article by Fraser Watt "Left Wing Reasons for Brexit").

Because here is the crux of the matter. Brexit is simply a means to an end, not the end in itself.

After Brexit we don't have to have a Boris Johnson led Tory Government.

After Brexit, the British people will be free to choose an alternative Government that puts forward left wing priorities like re-nationalisation of utilities and transport, currently illegal under EU's competition rules.

Be free to reverse the privatisation of the NHS introduced by New Labour using EU competition rules and developed by the Tories and their yellow running dogs, the Lib Dems.

Be free to favour local producers and not have to put everything out to tender under EU procurement rules.

Be free to support and encourage UK manufacturing in exciting new industries like electric vehicles and put tariffs on gas guzzling automobiles from Germany.

Be free to develop a more highly skilled labour force, by investing in training for UK citizens, not poaching talent from abroad.

Or to put it another way, like another left wing hero of mine (Martin Luther King), "Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we will be free at last."

Hypocrisy by Tory MP over Mental Health

I discovered that hypocrisy had reached new levels when I read Richmond MP Rishi Sunak's piece on mental health in the Darlington & Stockton Times (26/7/19).

Mr Sunak wrote about the importance of prevention in mental health. This from an MP whose party has overseen a rise in mental health problems as a direct result of the policies they have introduced. Since the introduction of Universal Credit, claimants' suicides have doubled and claimant sanctions have rocketed.

More than one million welfare benefit sanctions have been imposed against disabled people since 2010. Over 32,000 claimants have been issued with sanctions longer than six months since 2012. Two-thirds of these were on the government’s hated Universal Credit (UC).

The Scottish Association for Mental Health in their report “It Was A Confusion” finds that Universal Credit is not working for people with mental health problems. they find that:

"Far from simplifying the UK’s social security system the introduction of Universal Credit has added to the complexities faced by people with mental health problems. This is causing hardship and emotional distress to people attempting to engage with the system. We found problems across the Universal Credit journey, from applying for the benefit to being assessed, the conditionality regime and managing a claim. Below are some of our main findings."

At the same time 57% of Clinical Commissioning Groups planned to reduce their spending on mental health services, despite Government claims to the contrary.

This Conservative Government, of whom Mr Sunak is now a prominent member, is forcing more and more people into poverty and depression. The Trussell Trust alone gave out 1.6 million food parcels in 2018-19, a rise of 19% in just one year.

Clearly, Mr Sunak has taken economy with the Truth to shameless new heights!

Sources:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/15/welf-m15.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/03/13/sanc-m13.html
https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/universal-credit-and-mental-health/65632/
https://fullfact.org/health/spending-mental-health-services/
https://universalcreditsuffer.com/2019/04/25/trussell-trust-foodbank-use-up-19-in-2018-19/

Brexit Party must not become a new Tory Party

As Brendan Chilton of Labour Leave said so eloquently this week, leaving the European Union is not a “hard-right Tory project”. It is just a decision made in a democratic and free referendum in which a majority of people, 17.4 million, voted to leave the EU. This is not an expression of hard-right politics, however convenient it is for left wing Remainers to smear it in this way.

( https://labourlist.org/2019/06/brexit-is-not-an-expression-of-hard-right-politics/ )

This is why it is imperative that the Brexit Party keeps the broad church of supporters it attracted when it was launched. In particular, the more than five million Labour, Green and other left wing supporters who voted Leave at the 2016 referendum and the many more who formerly voted Remain, but now respect the democratic result of the referendum.

As a former leadership candidate for the Green Party, I thought long and hard about supporting the Brexit Party. It seems to me to be the last best hope for getting the will of the people, the decision to leave the EU, enacted in the face of the near hysterical antipathy of the establishment towards Brexit.

Just look at the massive campaign to undermine Boris Johnson as potential leader of the Conservative Party by the main stream media, this week. Look at the supporters of Brexit, both big and small, who have been subject to vilification and in some cases, prosecution, by organs of the establishment such as the Electoral Commission. Look at the bending of the rules by the Speaker of the House of Commons, unprecedented in recent Parliamentary history.

Anyone and I mean anyone, who could potentially deliver the 2016 peoples' vote for Brexit is hunted down by the establishment pack and savagely attacked. Which is why we the believers in democracy need to stick together in the face of this extraordinary denial of our rights.

On June 30th the Brexit Party are having a rally to announce new policies to support their General election campaign. For me, the Brexit Party only needs one policy: to facilitate the UK leaving, permanently, the dictatorship that is the European Union.

Personally, I admire Nigel Farage's tenacity at sticking to his views on the European Union and his leadership skills in helping to create the effective campaigning organisation that is the Brexit Party. Anyone who helped during the Peterborough by-election could not have been more impressed with the efficiency of the organisation put together at such short notice. I fully expect that professionalism to be repeated at the Brecon and Radnor by-election and I expect and hope that the Brexit candidate there wins the seat.

However, I am not a supporter of everything that Nigel Farage has said in the past, particularly on economic issues. As a Green Socialist, I want the freedom to challenge the neo-liberal economic orthodoxy that the unelected Eurogroup have imposed on the EU with such devastating effect in countries like Greece. Brexit can and should give me and other socialists like me the opportunity to argue our case to the British electorate after Brexit.

So it is vitally important that the Brexit Party does not do or say anything now that will alienate their left wing supporters before we leave the EU. To do so will inevitably lead to a damaging split and calls for a new Lexit Party. In my opinion, to create such a party at this time would undermine the solidarity of Leave voters and play into the hands of the Remain establishment.

So far the Brexit Party appears to be favouring members of the business community and their negotiating abilities when picking candidates (although there are exceptions such as left wing MEP Claire Fox). Fair enough, perhaps, when you are picking MEPs to try to negotiate our way out of the EU. But candidates to be Brexit Party MPs should reflect the broad sweep of political opinion across the Leave spectrum. Candidates in former Labour seats need to appeal to left wing voters. The Brexit Party can do that if its focus is on leaving the EU. It cannot if it starts developing new business friendly polices outside of its brief to deliver Brexit and unpopular with left wing voters.

After the mess made of Brexit by the Conservative Government over the last three years, the last thing the UK needs now is another Tory Party. I urge the leadership of the Brexit Party to focus on the main task in hand, which is leaving the EU and creating an independent country that can decide for itself its future path. Whether that be to the Left or to the Right is for future generations of the British people to decide. That is what democracy is about, after all.

Remember the Liberal Democrats?

Remember the Liberal Democrats? The bastards who promised to abolish student fees then more than tripled them when they got a sniff of power? The ones who betrayed the NHS by voting for the NHS Privatisation bill in 2012?

Well suddenly they have come into money. Where from is an interesting question, but they have been using it to send out more leaflets than any other party, spreading more of their lies about the EU.

Being an erudite and thoughtful party their EU manifesto is called #BollockstoBrexit".
This follows their successful 2010 campaign #BollockstoStudents and their 2012 sell-out called #BollockstotheNHS

In one of their many election leaflets they claim that being in the EU under the LibDems will mean "A country with a growing economy fit for the future." This after 46 years in the EU has left us with an unsustainable trade deficit of £95 billion with the EU27, financed by debt and selling off the country's assets.
If we continue to be in the EU with this level of trade deficit, the country will be in the same austerity measures imposed by the EU, as Greece is now, within 10 years.

"A country where everyone can afford somewhere to live" the LibDems claim, just when the report by Sir Angus Deaton appears, showing massive inequality in wealth in the UK and record post war levels of child poverty. Just look at the graphs in the Lib Dem loving Guardian below and just look when that inequality started to rise, given that the UK joined what is now the EU in 1973.

Whilst in the EU, the UK is POWERLESS to change the neo-liberal economic policies that have caused this inequality, as these are written into the EU treaties and controlled by the unelected Eurogroup, consisting of bankers and headed by the German finance minister.

"Democracy had indeed died the moment the Eurogroup acquired the authority to dictate economic policy to member states..." (Yanis Varoufakis "Adults in the Room").

If we are to stop the slide into poverty of the country and its citizens, WE NEED BREXIT. Only then can we have the debate to decide what economic policy is right for the UK and its people.
So please, ignore the billionaire funded claptrap of the LibDems and VOTE FOR THE BREXIT PARTY ON MAY 23rd.

Not just the UK the Brexit Betrayal of Europe

It is now clear that Theresa May and the metropolitan elite have betrayed the British people in a grand conspiracy undreamt of in modern times.

The Brexit deal that she and her allies have signed up to could not have been worse, if the EU bureaucracy itself had sat down and written it for her. The likelihood is that that is exactly what they have been doing.

The plan seems to have worked beautifully. For over two years, the people of the United Kingdom have been strung along, been made to believe that May was negotiating a Brexit trade deal. But at the end of it there is no trade deal, just a Gordian knot designed, if accepted, to give the UK no legal route out of a permanent vassalage, unless the EU agree to free us from it, which of course they will never do.

At the same time her allies in all political parties, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Labour, Scottish Nationalists and Greens have all been carefully manipulated and orchestrated in a well paid for campaign (paid for by people who got very rich in the EU controlled market) to seek a second referendum to reverse the popular vote.

The future ploy of this minority Prime Minister is now clear. Unless the House of Commons has lost its wits entirely, they will reject this ridiculous deal. The conspirators will then say, as May has now said, the alternative to this bad deal in not, as was promised, no deal, but no Brexit. The Government will bow to the orchestrated campaign for a second referendum. Huge resources will then pour in to persuade the British people that they were wrong to choose independence and that they must, to save their very lives, vote to stay in the EU.

At the same time as this has been going on, supporters of Brexit, both big and small, have been and continue to be bombarded by legal challenges. The fact that more than twice as much money, money from the Government and shady foreign-backed characters was spent on the Remain campaign is ignored. The money spent by the EU itself, by the IMF, by numerous overseas interests, including the then President of the USA, has been and will be ignored in the grand push for the UK to remain under the yoke of Brussels.

Every critical referendum in EU history has been reversed, either by a second referendum or Government capitulation. Ireland, Greece, Netherlands, Denmark France, the EU has always managed to coerce and cajole a reversal of the anti-EU vote.

They knew, however, that the UK would be harder, the 2016 referendum having been the biggest popular vote in the UK's history. But the EU is used to playing a long game. Just look at Greece, locked into ant-austerity measures by the neo-liberal dictatorship of the EU for the next 42 years. Or Italy, where Governments have been rejected and brought down by the EU.

I myself would not have dreamt of such a conspiracy until I read Yanis Varoufakis' book "Adults in the Room" which showed the lengths that the EU deep establishment would go to bend the will of a sovereign nation towards its own agenda. As Varoufakis said in that book, it is the death of democracy in the EU.

No sovereign nation in Europe is now free to choose its own path. There are sufficient traitors, used to living off the EU's shilling, who are willing to continue to conspire to keep the tyranny of the unelected elite who control and run the EU forever in control. The fourth Reich is here, a reality that, unless a decisive revolt happens now, this time WILL govern the enslaved peoples of Europe for a thousand years.

Revisited: Why you should vote to look Forward and not Back. Why you should vote for Leslie Rowe as leader of GPEW

This blog is linked to the Green Party website to give members an insight into the alternative paradigm for the Green Party being championed by Leslie Rowe in his bid to be leader of the Green Party in England and Wales. Here is the statement accompanying his application repeated and updated, so that it appears first on his blog. No other candidate is putting forward such a radical ecosocialist agenda.

Have you looked out of the window lately? You know as well as I do that climate change is not a campaign for the future, its effects are being felt here and now.

That is why I am standing for leader of the Green Party. I want the Green Party to focus on climate change, on localism, democracy and economic de-growth and not on the EU. Prior to the 2016 EU referendum we, in our 2015 General Election manifesto, faithfully promised to accept the result. We should do that now and move on.

Our basic message has long been of replacing a pro-growth consumer society with a society wedded to conserving our environment. We have been told many times that if the world wishes to avoid exceeding the 2°C rise in global temperatures that will trigger non-reversible climate change, then the wealthiest countries, including the UK, have to adopt a de-growth strategy for a limited period.

"Having even a 50/50 chance of keeping the planet under a 2-degree level of warming is incompatible with economic growth," author Naomi Klein said at the 2014 Leipzig De-growth conference.

We should return to our roots and actively campaign for a UK de-growth economic policy, a beacon for the rest of the world to follow.

In the Green Party policy statement, EU100 we state "In our Green vision for Europe we seek to replace the unsustainable economics of free trade and unrestricted growth with the ecological alternative of local self reliance and resource conservation, within a context of wider diversity."

This is totally at odds with the declared aim of the EU for continuing Economic Growth. In his opening statement laying out his vision for the single market, the President of the European commission, Jean Claude Juncker put economic growth as the main goal of the single market.

There is no evidence that this policy will change in the foreseeable future.

In fact, economic policy in the EU is controlled by the unelected and secretive Eurogroup. As Yanis Varoufakis said in his book "Adults in the Room" ..."democracy had indeed died the moment the Eurogroup acquired the authority to dictate economic policy to member states without anything resembling federal democratic sovereignty" (page 237). It is the Eurogroup who continue to force privatisation on Greece and other EU states.

So it is time for the Green Party to campaign not for the EU and continued growth, but for a sustainable future based on de-growth and meeting the societal needs of the British people.

We can carve out a unique position by opposing ALL UK free trade agreements (including the EU single market) and focus on reducing the out of control UK trade deficit by supporting sustainable UK manufacturing, agriculture and fisheries. This may lead to disputes within the World Trade Organisation (WTO), but it would re-balance the UK economy and give us a unique position in UK politics.

Campaign to embrace localism in our procurement policies for schools, hospitals and other public institutions, making it a virtue of buying local, preferably organic, food and other supplies.

Step up our opposition to the creeping privatisation of the NHS, especially now that the Tories would no longer have the excuse of EU neo-liberal policies on procurement. Campaign to use the extra money for the NHS in tripling the number of training places for doctors and nurses, reintroducing bursaries and abolishing student fees.

Point out that leaving the EU does not mean that we have to leave the European Court of Human Rights, which is a separate and older institution. Indeed we can champion the Court in our opposition to Tory attempts to water down our rights.

Campaign for a progressive UK Government, supporting universal basic income and Positive Money; to reverse the neo-liberal economic policies favoured by all successor governments since Thatcher, both Labour and Tory.

Campaign to re-nationalise the UK railways and utility companies unhindered by EU Directives such as 2012/34/EU establishing mandatory competition in a Single European Railway Area.

Solve the Northern Ireland border issue by actively campaigning for a referendum for a United Ireland.

Renew our campaign for the abolition of the House of Lords and the creation of a new elected senate of the regions.

Actively campaign for more local democracy with proportional representation, a new independence referendum in Scotland and greater autonomy for Wales.

In this way we can renew and invigorate the Green Party by following a more radical agenda. If you agree, please vote for Leslie Rowe as GPEW leader.


Leslie Rowe is a retired accountant who stood for election for the Green Party in Richmond (Yorks) in the general elections of 2005, 2010 and 2015, the European Election of 2009, along with many other local council elections. He has been a Green Party member since 2003 and is a former treasurer of Yorkshire and Humber Greens and Richmond (Yorks) Green Party.

Promoted and Produced by Leslie Rowe as part of their campaign for election to the post of Leader. This is not an official communication from the Green Party of England and Wales.
Voting is open to all paid up members of the Green Party in England & Wales as at the 29th July 2018.

CETA, TTIP, "Common Rule Book" & all Free Trade Deals

If you look at the fine print of Ms May's Chequers compromise on Brexit, you will see that resolution of disputes may be done through "binding independent arbitration".

This will be the notorious Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) so discredited as part of all Free Trade deals, such as NAFTA, TTIP and CETA. These arbitration decisions undermine democracy and have forced changes in laws that protect the environment and even changes in taxation.

In this article I discuss the dangers of Free Trade Deals like May's "Common Rule Book" proposals, using the example of CETA (Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement between Canada and the EU currently going through the ratification process, but, in the words of War on Want, "under the EU’s anti-democratic procedures, it has applied most of the content of CETA on a provisional basis already, without worrying about any accountability to the people of Europe".)

There was a vote recently in the House of Commons on the ratification of CETA. There was very little debate and this infamous trade deal was backed by Tories, Lib Dems and Labour MPs, who, frankly, should have known better.

By signing up to CETA, the UK has given away far more sovereignty than was given to the EU.

At this point I must be honest about the debt I owe on this subject to David Malone, the Green candidate for Scarborough. If you haven't seen his talk called "The Death of Democracy" on YouTube, then please see it ASAP. It is three years old, but still relevant as all he says about TTIP applies equally to CETA. Most especially, because, as War on Want also point out, "CETA not only gives rights to EU and Canadian companies but also for any US firms with offices in Canada (which is most of them)."

The biggest threat to the UK from CETA is the threat to our food standards. The EU claim that they have built in safeguards to our food safety standards in CETA; no chlorinated chicken, they claim. But if standards remain, why have a trade agreement? The declared aim of a free trade agreement is to lower mutual tariffs, to gain access to each other's markets and to harmonise regulations.

The corporate lawyers have, time and time again, shown themselves to be more adept at drafting legislation in their own favour. That's why they get paid millions.

The EU itself said that 80% of the benefit of Free Trade deals is from reducing non-trade barriers (i.e. standards).

The heart of a Free Trade Deal (FTD) like CETA and the proposed "Common Rule Book" between the UK and the EU is the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT). These treaties always have four main elements and CETA is no exception.

1. Expropriation: to protect the assets of any company trading in the Free Trade Area (FTA). That includes any future profits of that company as was shown when Vattenfall, a Swedish nuclear energy company sued Germany for abandoning nuclear power generation at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
Even changes in tax have been successfully stopped as being a form of expropriation.

2. Equal Treatment: Governments are not allowed to stop Companies from bidding for any service, such as the NHS and the BBC. So if you have a Government, as we do, that favours privatisation, it becomes irreversible and as we have seen, companies can sue if they are not awarded contracts in the NHS.

3. A Fair and Equitable clause. This was used to stop the Canadian Government from banning a petrol additive, MMT. The Ethyl case set a precedent where, under NAFTA and similar agreements, a government has to compensate investors when it wishes to regulate them or their products for public health or environmental reasons.

4. Arbitration via the toxic Investor State Dispute Settlement procedure. ISDS is not a court, has no judge and no jury. Traditionally, three corporate lawyers decide the merits of an arbitration dispute. Civil society has no representative; there are no rights to know what evidence was considered or who brought it, no right of appeal and no right to know the reasons for the decision. Worldwide, just 15 corporate lawyers have decided 55% of all disputes.

The EU claim in their document, "CETA, ISDS" that arbitration will be done " in a transparent and impartial manner". Apparently our national courts are not good enough to settle these disputes. Personally, I have no faith that the corporate lawyers will not be too clever for them on this and dominate any permanent investment Tribunal set up by CETA.

In the past this arbitration has been used to overturn laws, moratoria and even taxes.

Defenders of this insane policy argue say that only countries that sign up to this arbitration will receive foreign direct investment (FDI). There have been several studies, however, notably from Yale and the World Bank in 2003 that conclude that there is no correlation between Bilateral Investment Treaties and FDI.

The General Equilibrium economic models that state that CETA will increase UK trade, in common with many of the economic models used by the Treasury, have been shown to be flawed. For instance, the models assume that if any part of our economy shrinks, then another part will automatically expand. So why has the UK developed such a massive trade deficit since joining the Single Market?

In October 2014, the UN policy economic model was used to assess the effects of TTIP (and by implication CETA) and showed that TTIP would result in a loss of net exports, a reduction in GDP, a loss of Government income, an increase in inequality and 800,000 job losses across the EU.

Sources:
David Malone "The Death of Democracy" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fDCbf4O-0s
War on Want: https://waronwant.org/what-ceta
Michelle Sforza and Mark Vallianatos Chemical Firm Uses Trade Pact to Contest Environmental Law April 1997 https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/212/45381.html
European Commission February 2016 Investment provisions in the EU-Canada free trade agreement (CETA) http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2013/november/tradoc_151918.pdf

Leslie Rowe's Response to the Fudge issued from Chequers on Brexit

The BINO (Brexit In Name Only) Chequers statement from May's Tory Government is a joke worthy of a comic book.

By suggesting that "The UK and the EU would maintain a common rulebook for all goods including agri-food," the Tory Fudgeteers have committed the UK to remain in an ever destructive economic growth regime in perpetuity, with an international treaty to bind the hands of any future Green Government.

It would lock in the ever growing UK trade deficit with the EU27 for the foreseeable future. Rising UK debt makes this totally unsustainable and will lead to the EU forcing more austerity, fire sales of public property and restrictions on organised labour on the UK, as they have already done in Greece.

My message to Green Party members is that we must, to avoid exceeding the 2°C rise in global temperatures that will trigger non-reversible climate change, plan for a de-growth economy as has been recommended by successive climate change conferences.

But this Tory BINO would make that illegal, as it would be against the common rulebook set by the EU, making the UK perpetually subservient to the neo-liberal economics set by the unelected and secretive Eurogroup (the committee that control EU economic policy).

The Green Party (when in Government) is committed to assisting the development of UK sustainable industries, like new tidal barrages, community wind and solar farms and a state owned viable public transport infrastructure.

However, the Tory BINO commits the UK to "apply a common rulebook on state aid and establish cooperative arrangements between regulators on competition".

In other words, subservience by the UK to all EU regulations on competition, including a ban on re-nationalising the railways and adherence to EU Directives such as 2012/34/EU establishing mandatory competition.

This is contrary to both Green Party and Labour Party manifesto commitments. I call on all Green and Labour MPs to reject this comic book policy and pursue a "de-growth" strategy to have any chance of saving our planet.


Promoted and Produced by Leslie Rowe as part of their campaign for election to the post of Leader. This is not an official communication from the Green Party of England and Wales

Leslie Rowe Video

My home made but heartfelt video to accompany my campaign to be leader of the Green Party in England & Wales is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnSckiWLLOg

The transcript, if you need it, is set out below.

"Hello. Today I want to talk about the weather. Is climate change a problem to be addressed? NOW? If not now, when?

In eight years time? Forty years time? Can we REALLY wait THAT long?

We have been told many times that if the world wishes to avoid exceeding the two degrees Celsius rise in global temperatures that will trigger non-reversible climate change, then the wealthiest countries, including the UK, have to adopt a de-growth strategy.

Kevin Anderson & Alice Bows-Larkin presented compelling research on this at the Climate Change negotiations in Warsaw in 2013 which stated that: "continuing with economic growth over the coming two decades is incompatible with meeting our international obligations on climate change".

That was five years ago, and what has the Green Party's focus been on since? Curbing consumerism? Climate Change? Or our continued membership of an organisation wedded to economic growth for the next forty years?

In the Green Party policy statement, EU100 we state "In our Green vision for Europe we seek to replace the unsustainable economics of free trade and unrestricted growth with the ecological alternative of local self reliance and resource conservation."

THIS is the goal the Green Party should be pursuing.

But, this is at odds with the declared aim of the EU. In his opening statement laying out his vision for the single market, the President of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker put economic growth as the main goal of the single market.

There is no evidence that this policy will change in the foreseeable future.

In fact, economic policy in the EU is controlled by the unelected and secretive Eurogroup.

May I quote the Irish Examiner as an impartial observer of the Greek tragedy?

"Until 75% of Greece’s public debt is repaid — in 2060 at the earliest — the country will be subject to ‘enhanced surveillance’.
This means 42 years of quarterly reviews, during which the European Commission and the ECB, “in collaboration with the IMF”, may impose new measures on Greece, such as austerity, fire sales of public property and restrictions on organised labour."

The neo-liberal, pro-growth economic policy of the EU has been locked in for the next 42 years. What chance of de-growth in that period?

Unless, WE, we in the Green Party of England and Wales, provide an attractive and unique alternative paradigm of promoting De-Growth and the championing of conservation over consumption. A beacon of hope for other nations to follow.

And we can start by accepting the result of the EU referendum so that we can offer a unique and attractive sustainable future for Britain.

I am offering you a chance to vote for a new direction, a path that means we manage our own economy.
As was said in Molly Scott Cato's trade report:
"Greens have always argued for greater self-reliance and stronger local economies. It now looks like such a path will be the best future on offer for the UK outside the EU."

Or as was said in her farming report:
"Brexit could be a unique opportunity to move towards an ecologically sustainable farming system."

We could promote widespread re-nationalisation.

We could support sustainable industries and start tackling the enormous public and private debt by ensuring all companies that trade in the UK pay tax in the UK.

And yes, we could fund the NHS.

My name is Leslie Rowe and I am standing for the leadership of the Green Party.

If you want the Green Party to focus on climate change, on localism, democracy and economic de-growth and not on the EU, indeed to have its own unique appeal to the electorate then please vote for me. I believe in a new Green revolution that would transform our country. If you share that dream, then vote Leslie Rowe for leader.

Promoted and Produced by Leslie Rowe as part of their campaign for election to the post of Leader. This is not an official communication from the Green Party of England and Wales

Looking Forward, not Back, the campaign by Leslie Rowe to be the new leader of the Green Party

Leslie Rowe has submitted his nomination to be leader of the Green Party in England and Wales. Here is the statement accompanying that application.

Have you looked out of the window lately? You know as well as I do that climate change is not a campaign for the future, its effects are being felt here and now.

That is why I am standing for leader of the Green Party. I want the Green Party to focus on climate change, on localism, democracy and economic de-growth and not on the EU. Prior to the 2016 EU referendum we, in the interests of democracy, faithfully promised to accept the result. We should do that now and move on.

Our basic message has long been of replacing a pro-growth consumer society with a society wedded to conserving our environment. We have been told many times that if the world wishes to avoid exceeding the 2°C rise in global temperatures that will trigger non-reversible climate change, then the wealthiest countries, including the UK, have to adopt a de-growth strategy for a limited period.

"Having even a 50/50 chance of keeping the planet under a 2-degree level of warming is incompatible with economic growth," author Naomi Klein said at the 2014 Leipzig De-growth conference.

We should return to our roots and actively campaign for a UK de-growth economic policy, a beacon for the rest of the world to follow.

In the Green Party policy statement, EU100 we state "In our Green vision for Europe we seek to replace the unsustainable economics of free trade and unrestricted growth with the ecological alternative of local self reliance and resource conservation, within a context of wider diversity."

This is totally at odds with the declared aim of the EU for continuing Economic Growth. In his opening statement laying out his vision for the single market, the President of the European commission, Jean Claude Juncker put economic growth as the main goal of the single market.
There is no evidence that this policy will change in the foreseeable future.

In fact, economic policy in the EU is controlled by the unelected and secretive Eurogroup. As Yanis Varoufakis said in his book "Adults in the Room" ..."democracy had indeed died the moment the Eurogroup acquired the authority to dictate economic policy to member states without anything resembling federal democratic sovereignty" (page 237). It is the Eurogroup who continue to force privatisation on Greece and other EU states.

So it is time for the Green Party to campaign not for the EU and continued growth, but for a sustainable future based on de-growth and meeting the societal needs of the British people.

We can carve out a unique position by opposing ALL UK free trade agreements (including the EU single market) and focus on reducing the out of control UK trade deficit by supporting sustainable UK manufacturing, agriculture and fisheries. This may lead to the UK leaving the World Trade Organisation (WTO), but it would re-balance the UK economy and give us a unique position in UK politics.

Campaign to embrace localism in our procurement policies for schools, hospitals and other public institutions, making it a virtue of buying local, preferably organic, food and other supplies.

Step up our opposition to the creeping privatisation of the NHS, especially now that the Tories would no longer have the excuse of EU neo-liberal policies on procurement. Campaign to use the extra money for the NHS in tripling the number of training places for doctors and nurses, reintroducing bursaries and abolishing student fees.

Point out that leaving the EU does not mean that we have to leave the European Court of Human Rights, which is a separate and older institution. Indeed we can champion the Court in our opposition to Tory attempts to water down our rights.

Campaign for a progressive UK Government, supporting universal basic income and Positive Money; to reverse the neo-liberal economic policies favoured by all successor governments since Thatcher, both Labour and Tory.

Campaign to re-nationalise the UK railways and utility companies unhindered by EU Directives such as 2012/34/EU establishing mandatory competition in a Single European Railway Area.

Solve the Northern Ireland border issue by actively campaigning for a referendum for a United Ireland.

Renew our campaign for the abolition of the House of Lords and the creation of a new elected senate of the regions.

Actively campaign for more local democracy with proportional representation, a new independence referendum in Scotland and greater autonomy for Wales.

In this way we can renew and invigorate the Green Party by following a more radical agenda. If you agree, please vote for Leslie Rowe as GPEW leader.


Leslie Rowe is a retired accountant who stood for election for the Green Party in Richmond (Yorks) in the general elections of 2005, 2010 and 2015, the European Election of 2009, along with many other local council elections. He has been a Green Party member since 2003 and is a former treasurer of Yorkshire and Humber Greens and Richmond (Yorks) Green Party.

Promoted and Produced by Leslie Rowe as part of their campaign for election to the post of Leader. This is not an official communication from the Green Party of England and Wales.
Voting is open to all paid up members of the Green Party in England & Wales as at the 29th July 2018.

A History Lesson: Did the UK join the EEC for the wrong reasons?

Giving all the fuss about Brexit, you may have wondered why did the UK join the EEC in 1973 and did the UK achieve the goals it set itself?

The reasons can be traced back to a study made by the Macmillan Government in 1959. The "Future Policy Study" was a long range study of UK overseas policy during the decade to come (1960 to 1970). It revealed amongst other things that the then French President, General De Gaulle, regarded the Treaty of Rome, which created the European Economic Community in 1957 (the EEC, the forerunner of the EU) as a purely commercial treaty, which De Gaulle admitted he would not have signed, if he had been French president at the time.

The Britsh prime minister Harold Macmillan still wanted the UK to be a world player. However, the summit meeting in May 1959 between the four "great" powers of the time (USA, USSR, UK and France) had failed to achieve any positive outcome, because of the shooting down of an American U2 spy plane over Russia earlier that month. It was at a time when the UK was losing its Empire and Macmillan realised that on its own, the UK could no longer be the "World player" that it had been. The study suggested that the UK had two possible routes, either to help develop the emerging economies of the Commonwealth or to throw in its lot with the EEC.

As historian Peter Hennessy wrote in his book "Having it so good: Britain in the Fifties" , "EUROPE, for the British was not a shining collective goal in itself, but a means of sustaining BRITISH power." As the French philosopher Raymond Aron put it in 1962, "those for whom Europe is to be a fatherland cannot avoid recognising that in British eyes (except for a small minority) it will never be anything but a means for something else".

The main reason for joining the EEC then, was to sustain Britain's powers in international affairs. Indeed the reports suggested that the UK expected to become the lead player in the EEC, if it joined. Hennessy described UK "wishful thinking" in not believing what the Treaty of Rome said about ever closer union in its opening paragraphs on the grounds that only French "mystics" could subscribe to it.

However the report acknowledged that joining the EEC might be unpopular. " It is to be expected that , if we were to join the Six (the original six countries of the EEC) there would be considerable opposition from some sections of public opinion.."

In a conclusion that Hennessy describes as "chilling", the 1959 report declared " This opposition would require careful handling; intensive RE-EDUCATION would be needed..."

This re-education started before 1973, when the UK joined the EEC and continues to this day. However, the UK never did achieve the dominance over the EEC that was its original goal. That honour now clearly lies with Germany. Indeed the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, then the Amsterdam, Nice and then Lisbon treaties increasingly took power away from Westminster and gave it to Brussels. The UK went from being a net exporter to the EEC to having a massive trade deficit with the EU (£82bn in 2016).

Notes to the 1959 report also concluded that the UK " should consider full membership, but seek special terms to meet our fundamental interests and those of the Commonwealth." Edward Heath, who took the UK into the EEC, failed to achieve any special terms and the UK has continued to fail to negotiate any meaningful "special terms" even when the EU was faced with Brexit (as David Cameron discovered).

The time has come to recognise that the UK failed in its original objectives and that the EU juggernaut will continue towards its goal of "ever closer" union until a United States of Europe is achieved or the EU implodes as its nation states collapse.

It may or may not be too late for plan B, to develop economic ties with Commonwealth countries. But it is time to recognise that the massive private and public debt (more than doubled since 2010 under Tory "austerity" to over £2 trillion) that the UK has amassed by being part of the EU must be addressed. As the 1959 report predicted:

"Whether we join the Six or not, we shall have to reduce the proportion of our output devoted to consumption and increase the proportion which is invested or exported."

We have ignored this advice in the forty five years since we joined the EEC, which has left the UK in massive debt. Now is the time to reverse that situation, exacerbated by the urgent need to reduce consumption in order to reduce the risk of global warming. We need to stop pretending we are a global power and instead put the needs of the British people and the country first.

A CALL TO ARMS 2018

(A poem copyright Leslie A Rowe 18th January 2018)

I am the man that fell at Hastings,
Whose heart was pierced at Bannockburn.
Who was cut down at Agincourt
Even as I let my arrow fly.
The King he wooed his Kate
As MY lips were eaten by the crows.

At Marston Moor I did fall;
At Worcester was I trampled underfoot.
I drowned off Trafalgar
And lost my life at Waterloo.
At the Somme and at Passchendaele,
You will find my broken body
Left behind at Dunkirk
My corpse floats on the waters of Normandy.

I am the common man
Who has laid down his life
For his country, so many times.
And yet, and yet
What has this country done for me?
A country ruled by the generals
Who sat upon the hill, as
I shed my life below.
A country sold to the very foe
From whom I died defending.
A country now run by the selfish and the greedy.
Our country represented by thieves and usurpers.
Our voice ignored, our wishes spurned.

Once only in our lifetime has our voice been heard.
Above the clamour of the chattering classes.
But once again the wicked and the charlatans
Bend the rules to their own favour and
Cloud the issues with prattle and fakery.

Rise up; rise up, my fellow country folk.
'Tis time to cast off this yoke
Of subservience to those in power
And call this our finest hour
When we, once more, take up the sword
Bend our bows and fight
To declare our right
To rule our country and distain
Those who would take it from us again.
Yes, take back control
Take back our right
To stand up tall against the might
Of those who would claim
Their right to rule over me.

Send me no Kings nor Queens nor false politicians
Spare me from false princes
Hiding their ancestry behind pomp and circumstance.
My life, my country are mine own
To do with as I will.
'Tis time, 'tis time to walk the walk
To talk the talk
And defend our rights as human beings.
Defend our rights to the country
Our forebears fought to free,
But only succeeded in giving
To thee, mine enemy
Your right to bury me.

Leslie Rowe 18/1/2018


Youtube link:

https://youtu.be/CzXucLjD5Mo

Tory plan for a United Ireland?

The day after the Brexit referendum on 23rd June 2016, I set out my vision on how to achieve a Green Brexit (see below). I think I can safely claim that my planning was considerably more advanced than that of the Tory Government who have looked totally without vision and bumbled from one crisis to another ever since.

One of the positive aspects of Brexit, I predicted, would be a referendum on a United Ireland, a simple solution to the Irish border question. Well, at last, the Tories seem to have caught up, with their proposals for "a continuing regulatory alignment" between Northern Ireland & the Republic, strongly welcomed by the Irish Taoiseach & the EU, but not surprisingly, rejected by the Ulster Unionist Parties. Rejected as it is clearly a first step on a united-Ireland agenda. As both the Tories and the DUP are scared that a general election will see Labour gain power, expect to see a loosely worded re-branding of this "alignment" accepted next week.

Thereafter it will only be a matter of time before Scotland also asks for the same arrangements and new referenda on Irish reunification and Scottish Independence lead to the new paradigm I hoped for.

(You will find my original post from 24 June 2016 in the history of this blog, but I reproduce it below):

Priorities for a post Green Brexit
Those priorities, I believe, should be, as follows:
1. The UK having addressed the democratic deficit in the EU, our next priority should be to address the democratic deficit in the UK. We should call for immediate discussions on electoral reform to give the people of the UK a more representative voting system. We got this referendum because of internal Tory Party squabbles and a weak Prime Minister who promised the EU referendum in the clear expectation that he would not get a majority in the House of Commons in 2015 and not then have to deliver on that promise. Now literally hoisted on his own petard, the Green Party should take this opportunity to attack the electoral system that got him elected with the support of less than one quarter of the electorate and demand proportional representation.
2. Similarly we should renew our campaign for the abolition of the House of Lords and the creation of a new elected senate.
3. The Green Party in England & Wales should support the demands for a new independence referendum in Scotland and a referendum for a United Ireland.
4. One of my greatest criticisms of the position of the Green Party over Europe is that we seemed to have forgotten our basic message of replacing a pro-growth consumer society with a society wedded to conserving our environment. We have been told many times that if the world wishes to avoid exceeding the 2°C, then the wealthiest countries have to adopt a de-growth strategy for a limited period. We should return to our roots and actively campaign for a de-growth economic policy.
5. That would embrace localism in our procurement policies for schools, hospitals and other public institutions, like the military. Making it a virtue of buying local preferably organic food.
6. Step up our opposition to the creeping privatisation of the NHS, especially now that the Tories will no longer have the excuse of EU neo-liberal policies on procurement.
7. Given the new spirit of rebellion engendered in the EU by the UK's unprecedented rejection of the arguments put forward by international vested interests, I believe TTIP is now dead. Obama has already promised that the UK will be put to the "back of the queue" regarding a free trade agreement and we can carve out a unique position by opposing ALL UK free trade agreements.
8. Point out that leaving the EU does not mean that we have to leave the European Court of Human Rights, which is a separate and older institution. Indeed we can champion the Court in our opposition to Tory attempts to water down our rights.
9. Try to develop an electoral pact with the Corbyn wing of the Labour Party, to increase the possibility of a truly socialist and progressive UK Government, to reverse the Thatcherism and austerity favoured by all successor governments since Thatcher, both Labour and Tory.
In this way we can renew and invigorate the Green Party by following this more radical agenda.

Audi Man

What's it with Chuka Umunna and Audis. In the last episode of BBC Question Time (30/11/17), Umunna must have mentioned his preference for Audis half a dozen times. Anything less than an Audi was just not good enough for this Labour MP.

Go back 50 years and Labour MPs had other priorities. Harold Wilson, for instance, felt his challenge was the Balance of Trade. Maximising our exports and reducing our imports was key to economic success in the 1960s. But then came Thatcher and the survival of British Industry was no longer a priority. Indeed the Tories and the neo-Tories seemed to make the destruction of UK industry a priority. The mines, steel, cars, nuclear energy, the UK went from being world leaders to abdicating power to overseas producers. The Tories, for instance, stopped ordering new trains for British Railways three full years before privatisation, putting every UK owned locomotive manufacturer out of business. Now the only manufacturer of trains in the UK is Canadian owned.

Forty four years after Ted Heath took us into the EU, the UK now has a massive trade deficit with the EU27. £90 billion for the last year alone. A whole generation, Chuka Umunna amongst them has forgotten that to import Audis the country needs money. That is why public and private debt is at an historic high. That is why so many UK manufacturers have been sold to foreign companies, using our historic capital to fund revenue expenditure. As any accountant will tell you, using your capital to fund day to day revenue expenditure is a recipe for disaster.

We need Brexit to bring some sanity back into our Balance of Trade. We need to protect and develop UK industry. The new industries of driver less cars and robots need to be built for UK consumers in the UK. Because there are now few items of family silver left to flog off (as former Tory PM Harold Macmillan so famously described privatisation) to pay for our consumerism. We have little credit left to borrow any more money. And we need to jettison politicians like Chuka Umunna, whose primary consideration seems to be the comfort of his backside in his imported car.

Democratic Deficits in both the EU and the UK

As an active campaigner during the 2016 referendum I argued passionately for the UK to leave the EU. I campaigned not from the right, but as a member of Green Leaves, the Leave campaign supporting Green Party policies. Until the recent volte-face by the leadership, the Green Party had long been a Euro-sceptic party, its policies reflecting the Party's unease at the undemocratic nature of the EU.

Indeed the number one issue I discussed with voters on the doorstep and in meetings during the referendum was not immigration, but the lack of democracy in the EU.

As the former European Commission president José Manuel Barroso (now employed by big EU lobbyists Goldwin Sachs) said in 2007: “. . . I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of empire. We have the dimension of empire.”

The European Commission is the most powerful pillar of a complicated EU structure. According to the Economist magazine it is "it is the guardian of the treaties, the originator of almost all legislation and the sole executor of the EU’s budget." But its members are appointed rather than elected. From Brexit to CETA it is always the Commission that represents the EU.

The parliament is made up of elected MEPs from across Europe, but it is a weak parliament, with no real power over legislation. Indeed the majority of the legislation drafted by the Commission is not discussed in detail in the EU Parliament before it is enacted. From there it goes directly into domestic UK law. Even arch remainer Nick Clegg admitted that: "probably half of all new legislation now enacted in the UK begins in Brussels."

Meanwhile, EU citizens are led to believe they are voting for true representation in Brussels, when in fact they are voting for a weak Parliament unable to fundamentally change EU policy set by the Commission. Realisation of this has led to disillusionment amongst EU voters. Less than half the EU electorate bothered to vote in the last European Parliament elections. Indeed, many national parliaments have cast doubt on the European Parliament’s democratic credentials, as has the German constitutional court.

The real power in the EU lies with the undemocratically appointed Commission. To put it another way, power is vested in an unelected and unaccountable elite who make laws to preserve the status of their paymasters in large multinationals. Multinationals achieve this preferential status by spending enormous sums of money on lobbying. With over 30,000 corporate lobbyists in Brussels, they are estimated to influence 75% of European legislation. Large numbers of former Commission staff (like José Manuel Barroso) end up employed by these large corporations.

A classic example of this was CETA, the Canadian/ EU trade agreement, which not even MEPs were allowed to scrutinise before its final draft. One of the strongest arguments against CETA and TTIP (the US/EU agreement abandoned by Trump), made by Green Party leader Caroline Lucas and others, was that the structure of dispute resolution, in the form of the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system, was biased in favour of multinational companies. It allowed corporate lawyers to be the final arbiters in disputes between business and governments, usually upholding the right of business to make a profit in all circumstances. Other criticisms of the system are that it’s secret, that it’s dominated by unaccountable big-firm lawyers, and that global corporations use it to change sovereign laws and undermine regulations.

Both Labour and Green Party leaders appear to be ignoring the fact that any new trade deal between the EU and the UK would also have to have a dispute settlement arrangement. It has been shown that ISDS has increasingly become a way for rich investors to make money by speculating on lawsuits, winning huge awards and forcing taxpayers to foot the bill. All of which is a long way from the democratic will of the people.

The democratic deficit in the EU is indisputable, but to be consistent we must also address the democratic deficit within the UK.

Two thirds of the votes cast in the last general election were wasted, in that they made no difference to the outcome of the election.

In the UK's undemocratic "first past the post" electoral system, most constituency MPs are voted in by a minority of the electorate and often more people vote for opposition candidates than for the winner.

The democratic case for Brexit has no legitimacy without electoral reform of the UK parliament to ensure it accurately represents the British people, something this appalling minority Tory government clearly fails to do.

Power should rest not with Parliament, but with the British people. That means not only respecting the outcome of the EU referendum, but also ensuring that Parliament properly represents the electorate in direct proportion to citizens' political opinions. True Democracy depends upon proportional representation (PR).

I cannot agree with the Tory Brexiteer who said that the British people fought in two world wars to uphold the supremacy of the House of Commons. They fought for democracy, which was why the most reforming British government in the 20th century immediately followed World War 2.

The time is right for a new reforming Government, elected by PR and using the limitless possibilities given by Brexit to truly reflect the hopes and aspirations of the British people.

LIFE AFTER BREXIT - AN ALTERNATIVE TO MOLLY SCOTT CATO MEP's TALE OF DESPAIR

The Sunday of the recent Green Party conference witnessed a further resurgence of "Project Fear" now being resurrected by EU vested interests. In this case it was a speech by Green MEP Molly Scott Cato, who outlined a dystopian future for the UK after Brexit without providing a shred of evidence for her predictions.

So, with the evidence of history behind me, I would like to propose a different view of the UK in the year 2030, an alternative to the doom and gloom predicted by Molly, using the same examples she used, but with a completely different outcome.

The Japanese companies that provided nearly a million jobs since the Tories trashed our manufacturing sector in the 1980s, embraced with open arms the opportunity to work with the National Investment Bank and help manufacture goods and services in the UK after Brexit, rather than import them from low wage economies. Indeed, the "site here to sell here" policy introduced by the Progressive Coalition Government (elected by proportional representation) has meant that the majority of the new electric vehicles sold in the UK are now manufactured in the UK, rather than imported and the number of British manufacturers, particularly of components for renewable energy, has increased. (Vast savings were also made by cancelling the foreign owned Hinkley Point nuclear power station and state investment in offshore wind farms and tidal barrages).

Led by Government owned banks, like RBS and the National Investment Bank, the expertise of the City of London has ensured that banking employment has increased, again with the help of the "site here to sell here" policy which helped to control and localise finance and abolished the right of commercial banks to create artificial debt (positive money). In addition, the aggressive anti-tax avoidance policies introduced after Brexit has outlawed institutions based in countries that actively encouraged tax avoidance like Luxembourg and Ireland and led to a big increase in tax revenues; (also boosted by the introduction of the Robin Hood tax on unnecessary financial transactions across Europe).

As environmentalist Colin Hines described in his book "Progressive Protectionism - taking back control", the UK has re-introduced tariffs, quotas and capital controls, to curb the power of big business to play countries off against each other and threaten to relocate unless the UK bends the knee to open borders and global competition. Similar tactics to those used by China to become the largest manufacturer of goods in the world.

Naturally, leaving the EU as well as the democratisation of the World Trade Organisation (the WTO) has meant that economic growth is no longer the driving force of the UK, but instead a focus on improving the quality of life of its citizens. So free trade deals, like TTIP, like CETA and indeed like the EU single market, are no longer considered necessary.

A Government subsidy to facilitate a switch to more organic vegetable production in the UK, as well as the ability, now that the UK has left the EU, to support agriculture in the developing countries of Africa, has left the UK awash with fresh, healthy vegetables and fruits. Similarly a big increase in animal welfare legislation, banning the factory farming methods so prevalent in the EU as well as banning the use or import of meat adulterated with unnecessary hormones and antibiotics, has led to a big increase in the quality of meat production.

New localism policies have improved prospects for local firms, such as local dairy farms producing milk under higher welfare standards. As a result the health of the nation has never been higher, especially after the big increase in spending on the NHS, paid for in part by the savings made in not having to pay contributions to the EU budget. (There is still debate as to how much that exactly was!)

The un-enforced environmental health standards of the EU, such as for air quality, have been replaced by legally binding UK environmental standards and a big increase in jobs at the Health and Safety Executive.

The border problem between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland was quickly solved by a unification referendum and the abolition of the border, as Ireland was re-united at last. Indeed relations with all European countries has improved as the UK has stopped stealing staff trained in other countries and instead vastly increased its own investment in training, particularly of doctors, nurses and vocational jobs. With the abolition of tuition fees, universities have once again become centres of learning and not just businesses.

So, no Molly, Brexit does not necessarily mean the Tories continuing in power for the next 13 years. Indeed, we can and should replace the unpatriotic Tories, (whose only concern is to help their foreign paymasters in big business) with a patriotic Government that uses Brexit to put the UK, and its people, first.

Leslie Rowe
October 2017

Brexit and the Kindness of Strangers

Once again we have civil servants and politicians telling us we need ten years to negotiate trade deals with the EU before we can have Brexit. This is what Hitler called the big lie, something obviously untrue, but if you keep saying it then people will begin to believe it.
The reality is that we do not need trade deals, as we have our biggest and most profitable trading area right here on our doorstep. It is called the UK.
And the same civil servants and politicians, who oppose Brexit, have spent thirty years actively undermining the UK economy in the name of "free trade". As a result we have an unsustainable trade deficit, which is the biggest challenge facing the UK, not our lack of trade deals.
Earlier in 2016, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, called it "the kindness of strangers". This is the willingness of foreign banks and institutions to finance the UK's massive trade deficit .
A dangerous and insecure foundation for any economy.
Yet throughout the debates about Brexit and the UK's position in the world, the trade deficit has not been something that any of the political parties or civil servants discussed. Not even the Green Party, despite the fact that it is a major factor in the sustainability of the UK economy.
Greens should be asking: are EU economic policies sustainable, or should we be striving for a more self-sufficient society? This is the big question that I believe the Green Party leadership failed to ask itself before the EU referendum. Will we get a more sustainable society inside or outside the European Union?
If it is about anything, Brexit is about the long term future of the UK economy. We should be thinking about what sort of society we want to be living in for the remainder of the 21st century. The Green Party in particular should be campaigning for a society that is sustainable in the long term.
This is not just an issue of phasing out fossil fuels, to try to avoid the Armageddon of global warming. It is about whether we want to continue consuming the world's resources at the current rate; a rate not sustainable by two earths, not just the one we inhabit. We are constantly being told that we are consumers, but should we not be striving to become conservers?
The EU has and always will be an advocate for big business. The number one goal of the current EU trade commissioner is to expand international trade by taking the EU into TTIP.
Indeed it was written into her remit by the President of the EU commission himself. The biggest and most effective lobbyists in Brussels come from the multinationals. But most of all, the very essence of the EU is about economic growth, no matter what the cost.
This is why, despite the relative ease of doing so, the EU or any one of its member states have never taken effective measures to curb wholesale tax avoidance by multinationals. Indeed, some countries actually style themselves as tax avoidance facilitators, like Ireland as it struggled to get out of its debt crisis and Luxembourg (championed by a Prime Minister who was later to become the President of the EU Commission).
That is why the UK Chancellor's stated big ambition is to have the lowest corporation tax in the EU. It should be to build a sustainable country, with a priority of protecting and serving its citizens.
The EU cares little about the balance of trade between EU countries; its priority is the furtherance of trade for the EU as a whole. This is why we have the desperate economy of Greece co-existing with the massive wealth of Germany. It is also why the unsustainable trade deficit of the UK is entirely down to the imports from the rest of the EU being far more than our exports to the EU.
In the first quarter of 2016, the trade deficit of the UK with the EU reached £24bn (the equivalent of £96bn a year ). If the UK economy is to survive, then any responsible government must plug this trade gap, before the "kindness of strangers" runs out, as it did in Greece.
In 1957, the then prime minister Harold Macmillan ordered the first big post war economic re-appraisal of the UK economy and, after the shock of the Suez crisis, of the UK's role in the world. The conclusions were clear, a post imperial Britain had to have a trade surplus to survive. So Macmillan and his immediate successors focused on supporting British industry, to replace the trade lost as the empire disappeared.
This "export or die" support for British business continued until Thatcher and her acolytes (Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, and Clegg) broke the post-Suez consensus around economic sustainability. Blinded by the pseudo-science of the neo-liberal economics sponsored by the multi-nationals, they allowed our domestic economy to stagnate.
Indeed, since Thatcher there has been little economic growth per capita. That means that what economic growth there has been was largely the result of an increased population due to net immigration and price inflation. (Between 2008 and 2014 the economy declined by 0.2% per individual officially resident in the UK).
What there has been is a steadily increasing trade deficit, as UK industries were either deliberately destroyed (like locomotive manufacture, when the Tories refused to buy any new trains for three years before they privatised the railways) or by their transfer to cheaper parts of the world, including other parts of Europe. Thus we had the unedifying sight of British workers (as in Phillips and Cadburys) training their successors before being put out of work.
With the UK part of the EU, economists thought on an EU level. It did not seem to matter that the UK had a massive trade deficit with the rest of the EU. But when the UK voted for Brexit, the economists suddenly had to view the UK as a stand-alone economy. This slap in the face with the reality of the UK's terrible trade deficit is what caused the drop in the pound, not the democratic decision of the British people to leave the EU.
The biggest challenge of Brexit is how to reduce this trade deficit and re-establish the UK as a sustainable economy. What we need is a healthy dose of Keynesian economics, with public and private investment in manufacturing and much needed public services. The Tory and pseudo-Tory government policies of laissez faire of the last thirty years have failed and is time for a UK Government to manage our economy once again, as even the arch-Tory Macmillan realised sixty years ago.
We need a Government that invests in our future, a sustainable future. This means doing away with tax breaks for oil producers and fracking and replacing them with investment in renewable energy, in home and business insulation and community energy schemes. It means public investment in our NHS, cancelling PFI contracts and stopping the leeching of money to private sector providers in the name of market economics.
It means cancelling the dodgy deals to build obsolete nuclear power stations with money supplied by a communist dictatorship and investing instead in reducing our energy consumption.
It means taxing multi-national businesses in the UK on their profits made in the UK and properly policing by HMRC to eliminate fake management, service and commodity charges charged by holding companies in off-shore tax havens.
It means using quantitative easing to invest in our country, instead of increasing the value of bonds held by the richest 5%.
The problem has always been that much of this direct Government involvement in developing UK industries directly contravenes EU directives. Even the purchase of local produce by local authorities has been shown to fall foul of EU competition rules.
But most of all we need to recognise that with 65 million "consumers" the UK is a massive single market on its own. Because every country in the rest of the EU exports far more into the UK than the UK exports into those countries, the UK market is far more valuable to them than the EU market is to the UK. As mentioned £24bn more in the first quarter of 2016 alone.
With Brexit we have two main opportunities, currently not even being discussed by this failed Tory administration nor indeed by the official opposition.
First to reduce our trade deficit by investing in our own economy to reduce and replace the goods and services purchased from the other countries in the EU.
Secondly, to actively engineer our economy away from a throw-away society towards a society based on providing the goods and services that people actually need, like renewable energy and good health and social care. In Sweden for instance, they are giving tax breaks to people who repair goods rather than throw them away.
It is no coincidence that we have not seen a sustainable economy since we abandoned Keynesian economics and replaced it with 'the world's dumbest idea': the economics of Milton Friedman. So I ask everyone who has the best interests of the UK at heart, please stop looking back to challenge Brexit and instead look forward to a resurgent UK investing in itself and its people once again.

BBC Lying on UK News

THE BBC ARE LYING TO THE BRITISH PEOPLE ON THEIR NEWS BROADCASTS IN SUPPORT OF THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN. The BBC News at 10 last night (Monday 20th June 2016) gave the "Remain" propaganda message that imports from the rest of the EU were roughly the same as UK exports to the rest of the EU. THIS IS A BLATANT LIE!

They also gave the Remain statistic that only 6% of EU exports came to the UK. That is also a blatant lie.

THE BBC ARE LYING TO YOU IN THEIR "NEWS" BROADCASTS AND I WILL PROVE IT.

The balance of payments deficit with the rest of the EU in 2014 was £104 billion. In 2015 it was £106 billion. The balance of payments is made up of the balance of trade and then other payments out to the EU, such as dividends from assets sold to them by Tory privatisations etc., such as the railways, now mainly owned by other EU governments.

So in 2015, the total trade in goods and services showed exports from the UK to the EU (from the UK Office of National statistics) of £223 billion. Imports from the rest of the EU were £291 billion. So the net trade deficit (not including dividends etc) with the EU in 2015 was £68 billion (in 2014 it was £59 billion). That is over 30% more than the UK exports to the EU. Not the same as the BBC reported. 30% more.

According to Wikipedia, the last figures we have for EU exports to the rest of the world were $2259 billion (£1526 billion). But of those, £280 billion were UK exports to the rest of the world, so the remaining EU exported just £1246 billion. If we add the exports to the UK of £291 billion, that makes total remaining EU exports to UK and the rest of the world of £1537 billion.
The UK proportion (£291bn) of the total (£1537 bn) is 19% of all the exports from the rest of the EU, not 6% as reported by the BBC. The BBC are just regurgitating the Remain propaganda without checking their facts.

And remember this is a percentage of a much larger figure than the percentage of UK exports that go to the EU, so comparing these percentages as the BBC did is misleading.

The fact is that the rest of the EU exports far more to the UK than the UK exports to the rest of the EU. Import Tariffs would be much more disadvantageous to the rest of the EU than to the UK.
By leaving the EU we could focus on boosting UK trade worldwide, including the EU, without any fear (falsely engineered by the BBC and their Remain friends) of punitive tariffs from the EU. The same threat was made to Norway when it had a referendum in 1994 and proved just as false.

WE WILL BE SAFER AND STRONGER IF WE LEAVE THE EU AND PUT THE UK FIRST!

PLEASE PASS ON THIS MESSAGE TO YOUR FRIENDS AND COMPLAIN TO THE BBC ABOUT THEIR BLATANTLY BIASED REPORTING. http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/

Fracking and the Technocrats

I live in North Yorkshire and I protested outside Northallerton County Hall against fracking. But I have also worked at County Hall and I knew in my heart that the supine North Yorkshire County Councillors would be led by the nose by the Technocrats (aka Council Officers) who recommended the destruction of our Green and pleasant land by fracking.

As former Cameron advisor, Steve Hilton has recently written, it is these Technocrats who rule this country and the EU. These Technocrats who hand down the rules and regulations who are "acting in the interests of the big businesses that have corruptly captured the levers of power in Brussels through their shameless lobbying and insider deal-making, enabling a gradual corporate takeover of our country."

These same Technocrats have now foisted fracking onto the people of North Yorkshire. I have no doubt they will be fought; there will be protests; there will be civil unrest. But to defeat the Technocrats, whether they work for North Yorkshire County Council, or the EU or the IMF or the Bank of England, we need to fight them on all fronts. That is why, I, a former Green Parliamentary Candidate, call on everyone to start this fight by voting to Leave the EU on 23rd June. Take this first step down the road to Independence and the ability to cry "Free at last, free at last"!

Here is the Evidence that the UK WILL be better off after BREXIT

Over the last few weeks we have heard a cacophony of vested interests telling us that it was not in THEIR best interests for the UK to leave the EU. From the US President and US treasury, the IMF, the Bank of England and George Osbourne's minions, there has been an orchestrated message of dire warnings about perceived threats to the personal wealth of every man, woman and child in the UK.

But all of these warnings have been predicated on one hypothesis: that if the UK leave the EU, the UK's trade will reduce. This is not a fact, it is a forecast, a prediction, basically a guess. And lo and behold, what is the outcome of this hypothetical scenario? Why we all get poorer.

A reasonable hypothesis you might think, but is it? It is based on us losing, as we are repeated told, an export market of 500 million people. That, of course, is a lie. Nearly 66 million of that 500 million are in the UK market, so we are actually talking about are exports to a market of 430 million people. What the hypothetical models do not take account of is the dynamic between the UK market of 66 million and the other 430 million in the EU.

So let us look at that dynamic: something the EU does not do, because it is only concerned with the whole market, not with the individual members, and least of all individual people like you and me. That is why the EU forces poverty and unemployment on vast swathes of the EU, from Greece to Portugal, young people in particular are suffering from this emphasis on the EU market as a whole, not the wealth of individual countries.

When we joined the EU, in the days of Ted Heath and Harold Wilson, the most important UK national statistic was the Balance of Payments. The difference between what we, the UK, as a nation export in goods and services and what we import. Indeed for many of the post war years, as we struggled to pay off the biggest debts of any nation after WW2 (any nation that actually paid its debts that is), we had import controls, because as a nation, we decided that we could not afford imports.

You rarely hear of the balance of payments these days. Yes, it was mentioned by the Bank of England as the Financial Policy Committee (29/3/16) dutifully trotted out its carefully worded support for REMAIN and the interests of international bankers. But only as a footnote: it merely said it had "concerns" about the UK's balance of payments deficit(1).

Yes, deficit. Because ever since we joined the Common Market, we have had a deficit with the rest of the EU. And as the EU has got bigger and bigger, so too has our deficit with the rest of the EU.

So here's the rub. Here is the evidence that yes, we would be better off if we LEAVE the EU.

In the last three years alone (2013-2015), according to the UK Office of National Statistics(2) , we have had a balance of payments deficit with the rest of the world of £267 billion. Within that, our trade deficit with the rest of the EU has been a staggering £303 billion. Yes, we actually had a modest SURPLUS of trade with the rest of the world outside the EU, of £36 billion.

And that deficit with the rest of the EU is going up, from £89 billion in 2013 to £107 billion in 2015. If we REMAIN, and the status quo does not change, then over the next ten years, based on these figures, we will have a net deficit with the rest of the EU of over ONE TRILLION POUNDS (£1,000 billion).

So, how will we pay for this trillion pound spending spree? Well, the Bank of England told us. As a nation, there are only two ways to pay for this massive trade deficit. Either by flogging off our capital, or, by increasing our debt. Well, our national assets have gone to pay for the profligacy of the past. Margaret Thatcher started it by selling off our North Sea Oil too cheaply, such that last year whilst Shell paid Norway over $4billion, the UK actually paid Shell $123 million in tax rebates(3). Since then the railways, water, utilities and many other public and private assets have been sold and are now owned by overseas, particularly EU interests. The profits from which are, no doubt, squirreled away in Luxembourg tax avoidance schemes set up under the now EU Commission president, Jean Claude Juncker, when he was president of Luxembourg (free the "LuxLeaks" whistle blowers now under arrest in Luxembourg!)

So, as the BoE pointed out, the only way to pay for the £trillion pound balance of payments deficit with the EU expected over the next ten years is by debt. A debt that is frankly, unsustainable.

Yes, if the UK remain in the EU, within ten years the UK will be bankrupt.

So, what is the Brexit alternative? Well one alternative is to stop importing this stuff we don't need and start making ourselves the stuff we do need. We could stop importing quite so much and invest in our own economy instead; in steel, manufacturing, the NHS, local farming etc.. We can say good riddance to all these trade deals like TTIP whose primary purpose is to allow multi-nationals free rein to satisfy their greed for a privatised NHS, schools and other public works.

Another alternative is to stop worshiping consumerism and embrace conservation. We have the opportunity to be world leaders in sensible technology like renewable energy and home insulation.

Investing in the UK will cost us far less than the Trillion pounds the UK will have to find in the next ten years to feed our addiction to EU imports. That is why the world's vested interests are united in spending so much time and money on persuading us that our addiction to EU imports must continue, no matter what the cost to the British people. That Trillion pounds goes into the coffers of those same vested interests and further increases the servitude of debt into which every UK citizen is daily encouraged to fall.

The reality is that, after BREXIT, we will continue to trade with the EU, but on our terms, not theirs. The EU will still want its Scotch and other UK products, but more importantly, the EU cannot afford to lose all of that Trillion Pound bonanza it is expecting over the next ten years. The EU will be falling over itself to strike a trade deal with the UK, because it cannot afford to lose its largest export market. We just need to have faith in ourselves, in our country and have the courage to say NO to membership of the EU and stand on our own feet again.

References:
(1) www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/news/2016/032.pdf point 11
(2)www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/bulletins/balanceofpayments/octtodecandannual2015 & previous periods
(3)http://www.standard.co.uk/business/nick-goodway-why-do-we-pay-shell-to-extract-our-oil-assets-a3228751.html