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.
Showing posts with label BREXIT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BREXIT. Show all posts
Friday, 29 June 2018
Saturday, 12 May 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.
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.
Tuesday, 24 April 2018
An Opinion on the House of Lords and Brexit by Leslie Rowe
Brexit is a wonderful opportunity, a catalyst if you will, for change. The day after the EU referendum, I presented the GreenLeaves (the Green campaign for Brexit) nine point plan for change.
See below (in 2016) and pined to top of https://www.facebook.com/greenleaves2016/
One of these points was the plan to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a directly elected chamber, representative of the regions of the UK.
Never more starkly does the need to abolish this chamber of privilege present itself than now. Blithely their Lordships ignore the democratic wish of the people and vote again and again to try to reverse the vote for Brexit.
Who are these people who feel that their wishes outweigh the 17.4 million UK citizens who voted for Brexit? Take for instance Baroness Ludford, the author of the motion to keep the EU charter of fundamental rights enshrined in UK law and one of the one hundred or so unelected Lib Dem peers (far more than the twelve members in the House of Commons).
I knew Sarah Ludford when I was chair of the Liberal European Action Group and she was vice-chair. She was made a peer even before she was given a top slot on the Lib Dem European Parliament list. Like so many others whose backsides polish the red benches, I have absolutely no idea why she was given a seat in the House of Lords.
One of the many reasons why I eventually abandoned the Lib Dems and joined the Green Party, was because, in my opinion, the Lib Dems were about who you know, not what you know. (Clearly I am not a Party animal, having changed my mind on the EU and am now in disagreement with the Green Party leadership over Brexit).
Ms Ludford continues to turn a blind eye to inconvenient truths. Such as that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is a political tool (set up to bind the EU closer as part of the Lisbon treaty), not a judicial one. The European Court of Justice is very selective in what it decides to prosecute and no action is taken if it is politically inconvenient for the EU establishment.
For instance, the EU is itself contravening several Articles of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights by supporting the Spanish government’s actions against supporters of Catalan independence. Similarly the EU is in direct contravention of the Charter in their disregard for the basic rights of the Greek people including the right to trade union representation.
In both examples and many more the EU is directly contravening:
Article 1: The Right to Human Dignity
Article 6: The Right to Liberty or Security of Person
Article 11: Freedom of Expression and Information
Article 12: Freedom of Assembly and Association
Article 21 Non-discrimination (on political or any other opinion)
Article 54: Prohibition of Abuse of Rights
These rights are being denied in Catalonia and Greece. When Catalans want to exercise their right in a democratic vote, the Spanish government calls it treason and sends in police thugs to beat up Catalans and repress their legitimate right to freedom of expression. Why has the European Charter of Fundamental Rights not been implemented?
Because the EU institutions, including the Court of Justice, allow politics to overrule legal protections. In Greece the legitimate Syriza Government and the wishes of the Greek people were overruled by an EU body with no legal standing (the Eurogroup). As Yanis Varoufakis says in his book "Adults in the Room" "..democracy had indeed died the moment when the Eurogroup acquired the authority to dictate economic policy to member states without anything resembling federal democratic sovereignty (pg237)."
We need a UK Charter of Fundamental Rights, administered by impartial UK courts, not the politically motivated European Court of Justice, which would have the power to overrule the democratic wishes of the British people, just as the EU has done in Catalonia, in Greece, Cyprus, Portugal and many other EU vassal states.
Wednesday, 24 January 2018
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
(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
Friday, 22 December 2017
The Establishment talks to the Establishment
Have you noticed how it is always the usual suspects who appear on all the talk shows and write all the newspaper columns?
What the establishment says needs to be treated with such scepticism, as lies and half truths spew out of the TV and radio.
The BBC yesterday in parliament programme reported this week, for instance, that the Liberal Democrat former minister Tom Brake had claimed that the EU referendum result was in part because of Russian cyber terrorism. Then they reported the Tory grandee Edward Leigh saying that this was just sour grapes, because liberals could not accept that the working class rejected the left wing in the EU referendum!
Finally "Yesterday in Parliament" shamelessly reported, that "the UK democracy is the most robust in the world." Robust yes, democratic no. Just look at the makeup of the Houses of Parliament. The Lords full of unelected establishment yes men. The Commons full of brown nosed sycophants, who also owe their position to patronage and an undemocratic electoral system which allows a government to be elected by just one third of the electorate. No surprise that MPs do not reflect the views of the majority in the country on such a fundamental issue as Brexit. No, democracy to Parliament is voting to allow themselves to overturn the will of the people on Brexit if they disagree with the dog's breakfast being served up by this minority government.
There are many such examples touted as truth by the Ministry of Truth, aka the BBC and the mainstream media.
If you believe the establishment, there is no such thing as a left wing supporter of Brexit or a right wing remainer. How often do you see Labour Leave invited onto the talk shows and yet we hear from Tony Blair all the time, despite the fact that he has been out of office for almost ten years. As a member of Green Leaves, the organisation of Green Party supporters who support Brexit, I am not aware that any of our members has ever been invited by the media to comment since the EU referendum. Why are the views of Labour Leave or Green Leaves less relevant than those of Nigel Farage or Tony Blair? More importantly, why are the alternative paths to Brexit they propose not reported?
The establishment continues to have the same agenda that the BBC have had throughout its history. To limit the voices you hear through the establishment media to the people who control the selection of MPs, the appointments to the House of Lords and the rest of the ruling class.
What the establishment says needs to be treated with such scepticism, as lies and half truths spew out of the TV and radio.
The BBC yesterday in parliament programme reported this week, for instance, that the Liberal Democrat former minister Tom Brake had claimed that the EU referendum result was in part because of Russian cyber terrorism. Then they reported the Tory grandee Edward Leigh saying that this was just sour grapes, because liberals could not accept that the working class rejected the left wing in the EU referendum!
Finally "Yesterday in Parliament" shamelessly reported, that "the UK democracy is the most robust in the world." Robust yes, democratic no. Just look at the makeup of the Houses of Parliament. The Lords full of unelected establishment yes men. The Commons full of brown nosed sycophants, who also owe their position to patronage and an undemocratic electoral system which allows a government to be elected by just one third of the electorate. No surprise that MPs do not reflect the views of the majority in the country on such a fundamental issue as Brexit. No, democracy to Parliament is voting to allow themselves to overturn the will of the people on Brexit if they disagree with the dog's breakfast being served up by this minority government.
There are many such examples touted as truth by the Ministry of Truth, aka the BBC and the mainstream media.
If you believe the establishment, there is no such thing as a left wing supporter of Brexit or a right wing remainer. How often do you see Labour Leave invited onto the talk shows and yet we hear from Tony Blair all the time, despite the fact that he has been out of office for almost ten years. As a member of Green Leaves, the organisation of Green Party supporters who support Brexit, I am not aware that any of our members has ever been invited by the media to comment since the EU referendum. Why are the views of Labour Leave or Green Leaves less relevant than those of Nigel Farage or Tony Blair? More importantly, why are the alternative paths to Brexit they propose not reported?
The establishment continues to have the same agenda that the BBC have had throughout its history. To limit the voices you hear through the establishment media to the people who control the selection of MPs, the appointments to the House of Lords and the rest of the ruling class.
Sunday, 10 December 2017
EU / UK joint report on Brexit is a blank cheque made of fudge
The EU / UK joint report on Brexit is a fudge. Most glaringly, it has fudged the issue of Ireland, kicking the can down the road yet again. However, unless a way is found to do the impossible of allowing Northern Ireland to be part of single market and outside it at the same time the fudge says:
"In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement."
It also says: "the United Kingdom will ensure that no new regulatory barriers develop between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom..."
In other words, the whole UK will remain bound by EU rules forever.
This is not Brexit: just capitulation by a weak and wobbly Tory government!
Now is the time for Brexiteers to declare that no deal is better than this fudge. But Tory Brexit supporters are too scared of a general election and a Corbyn win to rock the boat. Tory flag waver Jacob Rees-Mogg cravenly concedes defeat:
“Arlene Foster saved the day and the Prime Minister has done well to secure a deal that Brexiteers can live with."
Yet again the Tories have shown that they put their own interests above those of the country. It is time for the rest of us to demand the Brexit we voted for.
This EU / UK joint report on Brexit reads as if the whole lot was drafted in Brussels, which indeed it was. It uses EU jargon to muddy the waters and hide the dangers lurking within.
The consequences of this agreement are frightening. Not only will the UK be bound to the Single Market and the Customs Union forever, but also the financial consequences are probably under estimated.
Take one paragraph: "In particular, the value of the RAL, as audited by the European Court of Auditors, will be adjusted to take into account the actual implementation of the Union’s commitments, taking into account decommitments and assigned revenue. The UK opt-outs leading to non-participation in Union programmes existing at the date of withdrawal will continue to apply in respect of the financial settlement."
What on earth does this mean? The RAL stands for Reste à Liquider which, according to the Huffington Post ( http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/adam-hamdy/eu-referendum_b_10625150.html ) is "a fancy monicker for the EU's unfunded future liabilities." According to the HP "The EU commits to expenditure on the assumption that member states will continue to fund it. So it might agree to fund a €100 million infrastructure project over three years, but only receive the money for it over a much longer six-year period. This creates a gap between income and liabilities. The original idea behind the Reste à Liquider was to enable the EU to smoothly manage its commitments and not to be tied to receipts from member states."
"The only problem is that the gap between income and liabilities has kept growing to the point where it now stands at around €220 billion (in 2016). Total unfunded liabilities now equate to approximately 25% of the entire EU budget over the last six-year cycle, or over 140% of the EU's annual budget. The liability gap is so large that the ECR Policy Group has warned that the EU may soon be unable to pay its bills. The liabilities are starting to look a lot like an unapproved overdraft that's getting out of control."
The Court of Auditors is so unreliable that they were recently raided by the fraud squad. The EU's finances have never been properly audited, let alone the RAL. So the commitment for the UK to fund all EU expenditure "Committed" before the withdrawal date (according to the EU sometime in 2021) is basically a blank cheque. There is no way that anyone can actually put a figure on these unfunded future liabilities and who knows what additional financial commitments the EU will agree to before 2021. A European Army? The building of the capital of the United States of Europe?
The estimate of a net cost of £36 - £39bn is just a guess. The UK has no legal obligation to fund any of these " future liabilities", so why should we commit ourselves to pay for an unknown figure just to allow the EU27 continued free access to the UK market?
In the last year the UK trade deficit with the EU27 has been £90bn. This will continue and expand if this dodgy deal is allowed to stand. The UK just cannot afford to finance the incompetence of this Conservative minority administration. The country should rise up and demand that as we voted for Brexit, we should have Brexit and have it without this stitch up by the EU.
"In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement."
It also says: "the United Kingdom will ensure that no new regulatory barriers develop between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom..."
In other words, the whole UK will remain bound by EU rules forever.
This is not Brexit: just capitulation by a weak and wobbly Tory government!
Now is the time for Brexiteers to declare that no deal is better than this fudge. But Tory Brexit supporters are too scared of a general election and a Corbyn win to rock the boat. Tory flag waver Jacob Rees-Mogg cravenly concedes defeat:
“Arlene Foster saved the day and the Prime Minister has done well to secure a deal that Brexiteers can live with."
Yet again the Tories have shown that they put their own interests above those of the country. It is time for the rest of us to demand the Brexit we voted for.
This EU / UK joint report on Brexit reads as if the whole lot was drafted in Brussels, which indeed it was. It uses EU jargon to muddy the waters and hide the dangers lurking within.
The consequences of this agreement are frightening. Not only will the UK be bound to the Single Market and the Customs Union forever, but also the financial consequences are probably under estimated.
Take one paragraph: "In particular, the value of the RAL, as audited by the European Court of Auditors, will be adjusted to take into account the actual implementation of the Union’s commitments, taking into account decommitments and assigned revenue. The UK opt-outs leading to non-participation in Union programmes existing at the date of withdrawal will continue to apply in respect of the financial settlement."
What on earth does this mean? The RAL stands for Reste à Liquider which, according to the Huffington Post ( http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/adam-hamdy/eu-referendum_b_10625150.html ) is "a fancy monicker for the EU's unfunded future liabilities." According to the HP "The EU commits to expenditure on the assumption that member states will continue to fund it. So it might agree to fund a €100 million infrastructure project over three years, but only receive the money for it over a much longer six-year period. This creates a gap between income and liabilities. The original idea behind the Reste à Liquider was to enable the EU to smoothly manage its commitments and not to be tied to receipts from member states."
"The only problem is that the gap between income and liabilities has kept growing to the point where it now stands at around €220 billion (in 2016). Total unfunded liabilities now equate to approximately 25% of the entire EU budget over the last six-year cycle, or over 140% of the EU's annual budget. The liability gap is so large that the ECR Policy Group has warned that the EU may soon be unable to pay its bills. The liabilities are starting to look a lot like an unapproved overdraft that's getting out of control."
The Court of Auditors is so unreliable that they were recently raided by the fraud squad. The EU's finances have never been properly audited, let alone the RAL. So the commitment for the UK to fund all EU expenditure "Committed" before the withdrawal date (according to the EU sometime in 2021) is basically a blank cheque. There is no way that anyone can actually put a figure on these unfunded future liabilities and who knows what additional financial commitments the EU will agree to before 2021. A European Army? The building of the capital of the United States of Europe?
The estimate of a net cost of £36 - £39bn is just a guess. The UK has no legal obligation to fund any of these " future liabilities", so why should we commit ourselves to pay for an unknown figure just to allow the EU27 continued free access to the UK market?
In the last year the UK trade deficit with the EU27 has been £90bn. This will continue and expand if this dodgy deal is allowed to stand. The UK just cannot afford to finance the incompetence of this Conservative minority administration. The country should rise up and demand that as we voted for Brexit, we should have Brexit and have it without this stitch up by the EU.
Tuesday, 28 February 2017
Proposals for Tax Reform after Brexit: VAT
This is the first of a series of proposals from me, to enhance the UK after Brexit. It is NOT Green Party policy, but I would like it to be!
Value Added Tax (VAT) in the UK is a tax on spending with numerous exceptions, which makes it a complicated system.
There is a strong argument for reform of VAT after Brexit, in particular in relation to imports. Currently VAT is charged on some, but by no means on all, imports. However, the VAT charged on imports can be set off against VAT charged on subsequent sales, i.e. it is fully recoverable if you are VAT registered.
After leaving the single market, the UK will be free from EU VAT regulations. My proposal consists of three stages:
1. Reduce the VAT rate to 15% from the current high level of 20%, which would reduce the cost of all purchases, both imported AND UK produced, by about 4%.
2. Put VAT on all imports, most importantly on overseas service and management charges, which are used by offshore companies to avoid UK corporate taxes. VAT would also be imposed on all food imports, including the over-pricing of commodities by multi-nationals, which is also used to avoid taxation, and on meat. This would be a disincentive to the long distance transfer of foodstuffs (and animals)and encourage more local production, upon which VAT would not be charged. It is also likely to reduce meat consumption, in favour of locally produced vegetables.
3. Stop VAT on imports being recoverable. This would undoubtedly increase the cost of imports, but it is likely that:
(a) it would be an incentive to produce more goods and services locally in the UK and reduce the record levels of imports, now running at £582bn a year;
(b) it would be allowable as a business expense, thus being partially mitigated for importers by a reduced corporation tax bill (if they pay their taxes);
(c) competition would encourage importers not to pass on all of the extra costs to their customers, to avoid being priced out of the market;
(d) the extra cost to consumers for imports would encourage people to prefer locally sourced goods and services;
(e) the extra cost to consumers would be more than mitigated by the overall reduction in VAT on ALL their purchases, both imports and locally sourced;
(f) be a major disincentive for tax avoidance using charging for "fictitious" overseas services, such as management costs or over-priced commodities.
(g) it would, at current rates, bring in an additional £80bn+ in revenue to the UK treasury, which could be used to improve the NHS and social care;
(h) it is likely to reduce consumption overall, as part of a "de-growth" economic strategy, which was recommended for economically developed countries,after the 2013 climate change talks in Warsaw.
Such a change would challenge EU rules and would probably flout World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules as well. But it would be in line with the Green Leaves proposal to shun all free trade agreements, like TTIP and CETA.
However, it is also likely that retaliatory action might be taken by other countries, in the form of tariffs on UK exports, but as imports to the UK outweigh exports from the UK, this is something that can be negotiated favourably on a bilateral basis with each country or trading bloc, particularly the EU, whose exports to the UK are already £70bn more than the imports from the UK.
Value Added Tax (VAT) in the UK is a tax on spending with numerous exceptions, which makes it a complicated system.
There is a strong argument for reform of VAT after Brexit, in particular in relation to imports. Currently VAT is charged on some, but by no means on all, imports. However, the VAT charged on imports can be set off against VAT charged on subsequent sales, i.e. it is fully recoverable if you are VAT registered.
After leaving the single market, the UK will be free from EU VAT regulations. My proposal consists of three stages:
1. Reduce the VAT rate to 15% from the current high level of 20%, which would reduce the cost of all purchases, both imported AND UK produced, by about 4%.
2. Put VAT on all imports, most importantly on overseas service and management charges, which are used by offshore companies to avoid UK corporate taxes. VAT would also be imposed on all food imports, including the over-pricing of commodities by multi-nationals, which is also used to avoid taxation, and on meat. This would be a disincentive to the long distance transfer of foodstuffs (and animals)and encourage more local production, upon which VAT would not be charged. It is also likely to reduce meat consumption, in favour of locally produced vegetables.
3. Stop VAT on imports being recoverable. This would undoubtedly increase the cost of imports, but it is likely that:
(a) it would be an incentive to produce more goods and services locally in the UK and reduce the record levels of imports, now running at £582bn a year;
(b) it would be allowable as a business expense, thus being partially mitigated for importers by a reduced corporation tax bill (if they pay their taxes);
(c) competition would encourage importers not to pass on all of the extra costs to their customers, to avoid being priced out of the market;
(d) the extra cost to consumers for imports would encourage people to prefer locally sourced goods and services;
(e) the extra cost to consumers would be more than mitigated by the overall reduction in VAT on ALL their purchases, both imports and locally sourced;
(f) be a major disincentive for tax avoidance using charging for "fictitious" overseas services, such as management costs or over-priced commodities.
(g) it would, at current rates, bring in an additional £80bn+ in revenue to the UK treasury, which could be used to improve the NHS and social care;
(h) it is likely to reduce consumption overall, as part of a "de-growth" economic strategy, which was recommended for economically developed countries,after the 2013 climate change talks in Warsaw.
Such a change would challenge EU rules and would probably flout World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules as well. But it would be in line with the Green Leaves proposal to shun all free trade agreements, like TTIP and CETA.
However, it is also likely that retaliatory action might be taken by other countries, in the form of tariffs on UK exports, but as imports to the UK outweigh exports from the UK, this is something that can be negotiated favourably on a bilateral basis with each country or trading bloc, particularly the EU, whose exports to the UK are already £70bn more than the imports from the UK.
Thursday, 15 December 2016
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.
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.
Tuesday, 24 May 2016
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"!
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"!
Saturday, 23 April 2016
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
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
Friday, 15 April 2016
Jeremy Corbyn the Pessimist?
I have never known such a pessimistic Labour Party leader as Jeremy Corbyn. In his lack lustre speech about the reasons for his volte face over Brexit, he talked about the Tories as if they were destined to remain in power forever. He predicted that if we left the EU the Tories would immediately "dump rights on equal pay, working time, annual leave for agency workers, and on maternity pay". Even if we accept that the Tories could get away with such a change without the type of furore that we are seeing over their attack on disability benefits, surely he should be saying that if the Tories were so stupid as to attack the rights of working people, a future Labour Government would restore them and more. After all it was before the UK joined the EU that Barbara Castle championed equal pay!
That is the advantage of Brexit: a future left wing UK government can restore workers' rights and improve them. Compare and contrast EU law and TTIP. It is part of the EU Commission's president Jean-Claude Juncker's mission statement on trade to implement TTIP before 2019 (http://ec.europa.eu/commission/2014-2019/malmstrom_en). It will be done. And what rights do we, the British (or any European) people, have to reject TTIP or a future UK Government to repeal it? Absolutely none: once signed TTIP will remain at the whim of the EU Commission.
It is this lack of democracy and accountability that it is at the heart of Brexit. A Vote to Leave the EU will restore the rights of the British people to make and repeal our own laws at will. A vote for Brexit is a vote for Freedom and that is why I will vote to Leave the EU on 23rd June.
That is the advantage of Brexit: a future left wing UK government can restore workers' rights and improve them. Compare and contrast EU law and TTIP. It is part of the EU Commission's president Jean-Claude Juncker's mission statement on trade to implement TTIP before 2019 (http://ec.europa.eu/commission/2014-2019/malmstrom_en). It will be done. And what rights do we, the British (or any European) people, have to reject TTIP or a future UK Government to repeal it? Absolutely none: once signed TTIP will remain at the whim of the EU Commission.
It is this lack of democracy and accountability that it is at the heart of Brexit. A Vote to Leave the EU will restore the rights of the British people to make and repeal our own laws at will. A vote for Brexit is a vote for Freedom and that is why I will vote to Leave the EU on 23rd June.
Saturday, 19 March 2016
The Case for Green Party Supporters to VOTE FOR BREXIT
I am deeply disappointed with the Green Party over the lack of opportunity to discuss the referendum on Europe. Ever since the referendum has been called, the Green Party has refused to debate how we should campaign in the referendum. Indeed the Green Party broke its own rules on emergency motions to push through a pro-EU vote at the Autumn 2015 conference. A vote in which the vast majority of the 66,000 Green Party members were excluded. Fewer than 1% of members voted for the emergency motion and ever since all debate on whether or not to campaign for or against Brexit has been stifled by the leadership. There was a time when the Green Party refused to have "leaders" and I now understand why. This official censoring of debate is undemocratic and dictatorial.
Mainly because of the more democratic voting system, it is clear that the greatest success that the Green Party of England and Wales has had, has been at the European Elections. The Green Party now has three times as many MEPs than the Liberal Democrats. It does mean, however, that this Europhile tendency does tend to dominate the corridors of power within the Green Party, grouped as it is in the South and East of England.
However, I do feel that in their Euro-enthusiasm, our leaders do tend to forget their own rhetoric.
Perhaps I could remind you of some of the things mentioned in the Green Party manifesto in 2015.
• "We have lost half the wild animals on earth in the past 40 years.
• We lose between 20,000 and 100,000 species every year. This is between 1000 and 10,000 times faster than the natural extinction rate.
• We are causing a ‘sixth extinction’. The other five occurred naturally. This one is down to us.
• We have increased CO2 concentrations from a pre-industrial 280 parts per million (ppm) to about 400 ppm.
• Global temperatures are due to rise between 1.5 and 4.8 degrees C by 2100. And that’s just the internationally agreed range without feedback effects. Many experts are predicting rises as high as 6 deg C.
For the first time in the history of the Earth one species is changing it forever – the human species. They call this new era the ‘Anthropocene’. We now have our very own geological epoch."
Now, such Armageddon type predictions suggest some pretty drastic changes are needed quickly to avoid a global disaster. But:
• you do not get change by voting for the status quo;
• you do not get change by being part of an economic union with economic growth as its over-riding ambition;
• you do not get change by voting for trade agreements like TTIP whose only purpose is to encourage unsustainable economic growth and further domination of the world economies by the increasingly avaricious global conglomerates;
• you do not get change when alternatives to unsustainable growth are not even on the European Commission agenda.
The EU as it is currently constituted is run for and by big business. The European Parliament continues to be dominated by right wing parties, paid for by big business. Even the UK "Remain" campaign is organised and paid for by the bankers and financiers of the City of London. The BSE campaign is financed by Goldman Sachs and J P Morgan and led by the former chair of M&S Lord Rose.
Even the "Vote Remain" campaign material being given out at the Green MEP stalls at Harrogate was paid for by British taxpayers via the EU levy, upon which British people have no vote and no say.
What we need, as the Green Party said at the General Election, is nothing less than a Green Revolution. Again from the 2015 manifesto:
• Make achieving international agreement on limiting climate change to within 2 degrees of warming a major foreign policy priority.
Foreign policy in the EU has been led by un-elected and unknown appointees like Catherine Ashton, who led us into the creation of conflicts in the Ukraine, Syria and Libya, but did nothing to foster international agreement on climate change.
• Invest in a £85bn public programme of renewable electricity generation, flood defences and building insulation creating more than 250,000 good jobs (in the UK).
Such a policy would not be allowed under current EU rules as it would create state subsidised unfair competition to the energy companies, now dominated by French, German and Spanish conglomerates.
• Support local sustainable agriculture, respect animals and wild places.
Again the EU rules do not allow the active support by member state of local food, at the expense of imports. An increase in animal welfare needs cross-EU support, as does the protection of habitats, so will take much longer to achieve within the EU, than if we just did it ourselves.
• Cut emissions by providing cheaper public transport, and encouraging cycling and walking.
The re-nationalisation and subsidy of the railways and bus services is not allowed under EU Directive 2012/34/EU.
The EU is all about economic expansion and enforced austerity, not public investment. Look what has happened to those countries faced with having to have a bail out to remain in the Euro. Massive levels of unemployment in Greece, Portugal and Spain. Even Ireland, touted as a success story, has effectively turned itself into a tax avoidance fiefdom of big business, emulating Luxembourg.
The Green vision for Europe is laid out the Manifesto for a Sustainable Society: the policy of the Green Party written by its members, not its leaders. This says:
EU110 To achieve the Green vision, Europe will need very different structures from those currently in existence. Europe should be made up of overlapping, co-operative, democratic, decentralised groupings of nations and regions.
This is not the EU and will NEVER be achieved with existing EU structures.
EU111 European institutions must be designed with care and with mechanisms for correction, to prevent the drift towards centralism that has repeatedly been seen in history.
The drift towards centralism has been a constant in the sixty year history of the EU and continues today.
EU112 Part of the way to do this is to have a multiplicity of independent bodies with clearly defined areas of responsibility, and with the possibility of membership by different groups of nations and regions. An example is the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe for conflict resolution.
Again, this is not found within the EU and is not part of any European Commission policy being considered .
EU113 Europe must not become a super-state or global power bloc.
But this is precisely how the "Remain" campaign define the EU: as a global power bloc: it is at the very heart of their rhetoric. But a power bloc for whom, comrades? For you? For me? Or a power bloc for the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about?
Why do you think Obama is actively campaigning for the UK to remain in the EU? A single European nation suits the US government, its multinationals and its military. One leader is a lot easier to deal with than many.
Finally, again from the Green Party manifesto (preamble page 8):
The Green Party knows that:
• It’s hard to be a citizen when life tells you that you are a consumer;
It is Green Party policy to persuade the UK to abandon consumerism and back conservation. Conservation of our environment by abandoning waste and the constant search for more and more "things" we do not need or really want. Never mind the quantity, look for the quality of life. Look for sharing the wealth we have, not concentrating it in fewer and fewer hands.
But concentrating power in fewer hands is precisely what the EU is designed to do. Getting change is such a slow process in the EU that in forty years of membership, the UK has failed to change any EU Treaty; absolutely essential if you are to change the EU in the ways envisaged by the Green Party.
So, please, Green Party members, do not just accept the propaganda put out and financed by big business and the EU. Please think for yourselves. Look at Green Party policies and decide whether you want a society dominated by the commercial interests across the EU or an independent UK, where we can campaign for that Green Revolution and the British people can decide for themselves whether to be consumers or conservers.
Mainly because of the more democratic voting system, it is clear that the greatest success that the Green Party of England and Wales has had, has been at the European Elections. The Green Party now has three times as many MEPs than the Liberal Democrats. It does mean, however, that this Europhile tendency does tend to dominate the corridors of power within the Green Party, grouped as it is in the South and East of England.
However, I do feel that in their Euro-enthusiasm, our leaders do tend to forget their own rhetoric.
Perhaps I could remind you of some of the things mentioned in the Green Party manifesto in 2015.
• "We have lost half the wild animals on earth in the past 40 years.
• We lose between 20,000 and 100,000 species every year. This is between 1000 and 10,000 times faster than the natural extinction rate.
• We are causing a ‘sixth extinction’. The other five occurred naturally. This one is down to us.
• We have increased CO2 concentrations from a pre-industrial 280 parts per million (ppm) to about 400 ppm.
• Global temperatures are due to rise between 1.5 and 4.8 degrees C by 2100. And that’s just the internationally agreed range without feedback effects. Many experts are predicting rises as high as 6 deg C.
For the first time in the history of the Earth one species is changing it forever – the human species. They call this new era the ‘Anthropocene’. We now have our very own geological epoch."
Now, such Armageddon type predictions suggest some pretty drastic changes are needed quickly to avoid a global disaster. But:
• you do not get change by voting for the status quo;
• you do not get change by being part of an economic union with economic growth as its over-riding ambition;
• you do not get change by voting for trade agreements like TTIP whose only purpose is to encourage unsustainable economic growth and further domination of the world economies by the increasingly avaricious global conglomerates;
• you do not get change when alternatives to unsustainable growth are not even on the European Commission agenda.
The EU as it is currently constituted is run for and by big business. The European Parliament continues to be dominated by right wing parties, paid for by big business. Even the UK "Remain" campaign is organised and paid for by the bankers and financiers of the City of London. The BSE campaign is financed by Goldman Sachs and J P Morgan and led by the former chair of M&S Lord Rose.
Even the "Vote Remain" campaign material being given out at the Green MEP stalls at Harrogate was paid for by British taxpayers via the EU levy, upon which British people have no vote and no say.
What we need, as the Green Party said at the General Election, is nothing less than a Green Revolution. Again from the 2015 manifesto:
• Make achieving international agreement on limiting climate change to within 2 degrees of warming a major foreign policy priority.
Foreign policy in the EU has been led by un-elected and unknown appointees like Catherine Ashton, who led us into the creation of conflicts in the Ukraine, Syria and Libya, but did nothing to foster international agreement on climate change.
• Invest in a £85bn public programme of renewable electricity generation, flood defences and building insulation creating more than 250,000 good jobs (in the UK).
Such a policy would not be allowed under current EU rules as it would create state subsidised unfair competition to the energy companies, now dominated by French, German and Spanish conglomerates.
• Support local sustainable agriculture, respect animals and wild places.
Again the EU rules do not allow the active support by member state of local food, at the expense of imports. An increase in animal welfare needs cross-EU support, as does the protection of habitats, so will take much longer to achieve within the EU, than if we just did it ourselves.
• Cut emissions by providing cheaper public transport, and encouraging cycling and walking.
The re-nationalisation and subsidy of the railways and bus services is not allowed under EU Directive 2012/34/EU.
The EU is all about economic expansion and enforced austerity, not public investment. Look what has happened to those countries faced with having to have a bail out to remain in the Euro. Massive levels of unemployment in Greece, Portugal and Spain. Even Ireland, touted as a success story, has effectively turned itself into a tax avoidance fiefdom of big business, emulating Luxembourg.
The Green vision for Europe is laid out the Manifesto for a Sustainable Society: the policy of the Green Party written by its members, not its leaders. This says:
EU110 To achieve the Green vision, Europe will need very different structures from those currently in existence. Europe should be made up of overlapping, co-operative, democratic, decentralised groupings of nations and regions.
This is not the EU and will NEVER be achieved with existing EU structures.
EU111 European institutions must be designed with care and with mechanisms for correction, to prevent the drift towards centralism that has repeatedly been seen in history.
The drift towards centralism has been a constant in the sixty year history of the EU and continues today.
EU112 Part of the way to do this is to have a multiplicity of independent bodies with clearly defined areas of responsibility, and with the possibility of membership by different groups of nations and regions. An example is the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe for conflict resolution.
Again, this is not found within the EU and is not part of any European Commission policy being considered .
EU113 Europe must not become a super-state or global power bloc.
But this is precisely how the "Remain" campaign define the EU: as a global power bloc: it is at the very heart of their rhetoric. But a power bloc for whom, comrades? For you? For me? Or a power bloc for the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about?
Why do you think Obama is actively campaigning for the UK to remain in the EU? A single European nation suits the US government, its multinationals and its military. One leader is a lot easier to deal with than many.
Finally, again from the Green Party manifesto (preamble page 8):
The Green Party knows that:
• It’s hard to be a citizen when life tells you that you are a consumer;
It is Green Party policy to persuade the UK to abandon consumerism and back conservation. Conservation of our environment by abandoning waste and the constant search for more and more "things" we do not need or really want. Never mind the quantity, look for the quality of life. Look for sharing the wealth we have, not concentrating it in fewer and fewer hands.
But concentrating power in fewer hands is precisely what the EU is designed to do. Getting change is such a slow process in the EU that in forty years of membership, the UK has failed to change any EU Treaty; absolutely essential if you are to change the EU in the ways envisaged by the Green Party.
So, please, Green Party members, do not just accept the propaganda put out and financed by big business and the EU. Please think for yourselves. Look at Green Party policies and decide whether you want a society dominated by the commercial interests across the EU or an independent UK, where we can campaign for that Green Revolution and the British people can decide for themselves whether to be consumers or conservers.
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