I prefer to see Brexit as the biggest blow to the banking and oil dynasties who really run the world and apparently want first, a European superstate, and then a world government - concepts I personally am far more uncomfortable with than the turmoil and tough times (for a while) of leaving EU - a wasteful and inefficient behemoth if ever there was one.
A friend has just sent me a link to the Kalergi plan. If you take out the word 'genocide' and assorted paranoia, it makes interesting reading. Not that immigration per se is the problem for most people. It is mass immigration, unplanned, unconsulted, and without the infrastructure to support it without turning various communities upside down and making them question their own identity that has caused the anger. Along with tax exiles, corporations and the super rich dodging their taxes, MPs fiddling their expenses, housing shortages, NHS pressures, Gulf Wars, Philip Green asset stripping BHS, bedroom tax. the fall of the steel industry, homelessness and all the other blows the working class in particular feel they have been subjected to without anyone noticing or caring. And even though not all of these are the EU's fault - this was Britain's big opportunity to register a protest vote - for better or worse - and they took it.
Notwithstanding, why shouldn't they be angry about imported workers who are prepared to live in garden sheds or 4 to a front room for the privilege of working in a central London coffee chain outlet and at being undercut in the labour market generally? For many natives (and I count established or second generation immigrants in the term 'natives') wages have been effectively frozen for the last ten years as the cost of living continues to rise inexorably. And that is if they have been lucky enough to keep their jobs. We are constantly being told Britain is a WEALTHY country, but the reality is Britain is only a wealthy country for the top 5% of those who live in it, not for most of the rest. When open borders were first proposed by Tony Blair back in 1997, it was estimated only 13,000 people would move to UK per year. That figure turned out to be nearer 300,000 per year. Meaning 180,000 new houses need to be built per year to keep up with the immigrant population alone, let alone the home market. This places towns and cities under the most enormous pressure from development and many are in the process of being over-developed beyond all recognition. Heritage in particular has never been more at risk. Separately to this overseas buyers - generally from the far east - are snapping up just about everything built in city centres off-plan as an investment (developers prefer selling off-plan in order to get their money back quicker). Many such buyers never live in them and some won't ever visit them either. They are simply gold bars in the sky, there to accumulate ever more wealth. However despite not serving local housing need, such developments are still counted towards each council's 'housing target.'
My Hindu newsagent was over the moon at the Brexit vote and gleefully started telling me how many other countries are planning to exit too. He is not the only established immigrant I know who could be construed as 'racist' by the PC brigade. But ultimately labels like this are just an excuse not to listen to people's concerns (valid or otherwise), an excuse to shut down all constructive debate and this is what leads to the enormous anger building. David Cameron has been proven not only to be a poor gambler with this Referendum (a professional gambler would never risk what they weren't willing to lose) but wildly out of touch with huge swathes of the electorate and their experiences of modern Britain and anger at being ignored and hammered by their government on all fronts. This also explains Corbyn's popularity against all odds - many working class people feel they have a chance of being listened to by him, rightly or wrongly.
But to end on a more positive note, Britain once ruled the world. Why should it be so impossible for it to rule itself? Especially now we have the opportunity to do so minus the slavery, child labour, sexism, racism and other undesirable traits of our forbears. I just hope we can recover both our independent spirit and our ability to roll up our sleeves and get on with things. As for controlling our borders, every country should have this right without being branded 'racist', That does not mean they don't let anyone in, just that they have proper procedures in place for doing so which strikes some kind of a balance between those emigrating and those immigrating in order that resources are not overstretched and wanted criminals and t.e.r.r.o.r.i.s.t.s not allowed in. Mind you, it took my Canadian friend and former colleague TEN years to be allowed into UK, despite having proved himself charming, polite, articulate, well-dressed and hard working, not to mention an Anglophile of the first order who knows more about this country than I do, so the powers that be had no hesitation in being unreasonable to him, a citizen from a Commonwealth country, for goodness' sake!
An alternative future scenario might be that enough European countries pull out of EU to cause its total collapse in order that something better can rise up from the ashes which truly represents our interests and listens to our needs.
2 comments:
I wonder how many people really voted for Brexit, or in reality voted for change? My firm belief is the latter...if you live in the industrial wastelands of Wales, the Midlands, the North which have been the recipients of vast handouts of EU cash, but you are still unemployed with no prospects then you're bound to want change. I don't think people want handouts, what they really want is a job that gives them a sense of their own self-worth. The media has blamed the EU for pretty much everything, and I think people will be surprised when they realise that in or out of the EU nothing will change until we decide to start rebuilding the economies of the deprived areas. Migrant workers are a red-herring - the numbers will not fall outside the EU as we have an economy based on low-cost labour, and that structural change is what needs to happen before there is any real change. I get so annoyed with a friend who runs a bakery chain who says he can't afford the living wage...but doesn't seem to understand that if your business can't sustain basic costs, then it is not a sustainable business... (sorry, on my high horse!)
I voted for Brexit because I don't believe that being part of the EU as being good for England. Personally I was very disappointed with the way London voted which now seems highlight the disconnect that place has with the rest of the country.
On the point of us being 'recipients of EU cash'. Is that the cash which we give the EU significantly more of than we receive? Yes we get a good deal there don't we. We don't receive and have never received any handouts from Europe so lets not go there :).
Also is Corbyn popular with the labour party? I bet a large number of people who joined the labour party in order for him to be elected were not what you would call traditional members of the labour party and are greatly to left. Corbyn is pleased with the swelling of the labour party membership but just who are these new members, there is a real possibility the labour party will split again with life long supporters of labour turning their back on it.
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