Post In / Out Referendum

Well folks it’s no great surprise to all in my last blog post I mentioned the positives of what our EU funding has contributed  in the city of Birmingham in the West Midlands Region and I support the Remain camp.

Post in /out referendum what has transpired racism and fascism(intellectually challenged) has reared its ugly head in the most dangerous way by using selective targeting of Muslims and EU citizens who have helped to build our nation. Some will argue that it had began with the the death of Jo Cox when it was allegedly a member of the far right stabbed and shot a member of parliament which may or may not be true but for the moment I will wait for the court hearing to take place before commenting further out of respect for Mr. Brian and his two young children.

Now we have learned that the great David Cameron has fallen on his almighty sword by taking the humph to resign yet he was the conservative prime minister that went to the European Parliament telling the European Parliament that the Remain will win it with a 70/30 hands down. Where I live the residence will say to him what a wanker to make such a prediction as the Leave campaign are having the last laugh at him and dear I say it Nigel Farage is rubbing it in the European Parliament then have the gull to say to his European parliament chums you have never done a days work in your life.

The Leave Campaign headed up by Boris and Gove was a racist as anything Farage could have created, it may not have used the words but it implied it day in and day out for weeks as all they ever talked of was immigration.

Yet because of their total irresponsible lying about Europe and of how people coming to the UK contribute to society and the UK economy, it has allowed the far right to start coming back.

The ugly disgusting scenes of people being abused and threatened by brain dead morons in the UK are a direct result of Johsons ambitions to be PM. He as a mainstream MP along with Gove new he was allowing the race card to be used but did nothing to stop it.

Now we are seeing violence and aggression not seen since the 70’s on the streets of the UK. So forgive me when I do not feel the referendum vote was fair or democratic seeing as it based on lies not facts, and that in splinting form the EU, we are now worse of and have lost our direction and place in the world.

Remember this when Boris Johnson wants to become PM, he never wanted to leave the EU, he was just using it as a means to raise his profile. So he even lied about that.

So the reality of the leave votes rolls on and this is just the start of the bad news. How deep and wide these cuts and rises will be will not be known for a bit, but its pointless to assume this will not happen and that austerity extra can be stopped.

The UK economy is heading into deep recession, there will be less money generated in trade and we may soon see massive job losses the closer we head to to the end of two years period. Companies will slow or stop investing and that will also mean less jobs being created.

I recall the Leave side saying this was just Project Fear? No this was what all the experts said would happen but because Leave only wanted to talk about immigration they ignored the warnings. Sadly millions of Brits also ignored the warnings too!

Nomatter what happens, despite the UKIP racist style leave campaign said, net migration to the UK will not be falling and foreign nationals will not be forced to leave as anyone who has lived here for 6 years will have a right to remain. However chances are freedom of movement will still be in place in full.

Far from leave the EU entirely we are more likely to opt to still be part of the single market. It will cost us more to trade; we will have far less ability to get our goods out. Big companies will still move their HQs to within Europe; this would also add to big job loses. And the UK would have to get used to having absolutely no say on any EU laws created because we would still have to follow them and implement them

That of course means to be in the single market you have to accept freedom of movement. Its only fair as that is the principles the EU holds and to be accessing their club it is what they require. We cannot just ignore the bits some people do not like and think it does not apply to us.

But given the nuclear scenario of withdrawing completely then we would be be mad not to opt for the Single Market approach, regardless of the referendum vote, the isolation approach just to avoid freedom of movement would cripple the UK beyond belief economically and would diminish family finances greatly.

So what was the point of all this pain? What has it achieved? Nothing. Not one positive can be claimed for leaving the EU. We are to be a poorer weaker nation, we are to have no influence and no say in Europe and we are to see living standards fall sharply. More suffering for those with little, less life chances for our young people. More cost to trade, higher inflation and higher interest rates, higher taxes, more austerity and less pensions and less sense of identity and a place in the world!

All brought to us by the lies and cons of the Leave camp!

I was proud to be British and proud that the UK was part of the EU. Now I am not sure what to be proud of anymore. This country has lost is way and lose its sense of values. Yet now is the time to pick up the pieces and find real leadership. It is time for those blocking progress to stand aside and put the nation above their own interests.

Though, Id put money on it, this country will start to regret ever voting to leave the EU and we will now likely spend the next 10/20 years trying to rejoin it!

Now we know what the outcome of the vote from the In / Out referendum in a nutshell of what I have seen on social media so far. I have seen trading blows of insults in both camps which I would be kind to say it a case of very high passions when the truth is nobody really knows the final outcome will be if we will be better off in or out. What I do know is that in 1973-1975 I did not have the vote this was on the grounds of me being a wee lad but I remember my parents took me out on various campaign trails to secure a remain victory. Some would concur back then that there was full employment then compared to today.

1975 may be a long time back, but while time has passed the issues of why the EU became a strong part of Europe, Jobs, and Trade and increase living standards. Within the Government leaflet the late Harold Wilson PM set out the reasons why the Labour Government in 1975 voted to stay in the EU the reasons are as clear as if they were written for today.

Little has changed in what we view as important in the UK from the past to now. We want a place in the world, we want to have investment so more jobs are created and we want better working rights and fairness. In fact what has changed with Europe was for the better. So now additional priorities likes the environment, animal welfare and how to tackle terrorism and global threats are now all part an parcel of our place in Europe.

The EU is no dictator, it does not stop the UK achieving but what it does do is stop are those with power and money from overriding everyone else. That is why some with vested interest do not like it and more reason why people like Rupert Murdoch should be ignored.

The UK needs the EU and it is that simple, rows about immigration won’t go away anytime soon in or out, but prosperity and living standards will be greatly harmed is we leave. Do we really want to see another big recession?

And do people really want to see Boris Johnson as PM? As a vote to leave will give a green light for that to happen? One Donald Trump in the world is more than enough. We do not need a British version.

Europe is positive, so use your vote today for a positive choice for the nation’s future. Vote to remain in the EU and secure Britain’s place in the world.

The understanding of the world and motivations of older people are rarely as selfish as suggested. Many who intend to vote ‘leave’ are hoping that doing so will help to return things to better times with secure well paid employment, decent genuinely affordable housing mostly public housing in their communities, socially cohesive communities for particularly their children and grandchildren children and publicly supported care and decent pensions for themselves.

As we continue to remember the life of Jo Cox and the feeling that politics and the public must change to reflect a more balanced democracy built on respect not hate. A reminder of the sort of trash that is out there who thinks threatening the lives of children is perfectly acceptable.

This idiot does not like Yvette Coopers stance on staying in the EU, so this is how he chose to have a go at her.

I hope this jerk is arrested and is charged and appears in Court tomorrow or the next day.

This type of view is unacceptable, there are no excuses for it and it’s a symptom of what is wrong with some of the British public in their attitudes towards MP’s. It is not just MP’s that have to change, the public must as well.

No more should communications like this be tolerated, regardless if a person means them or not, If you write it down it is a threat and given the cruelty to Joe, its a threat everyone should take seriously. If he ends up doing two years in prison then that is his own fault. I frankly do not care.

We have to get back to standards in how debate and communications are made; this is an example of how not to engage with an MP.

I wish Yvette well and hope she gets the police involvement that she deserves for herself and her family’s protection, she and all MP’s should not be subjected to such sickening abuse.

In the absence of these things, those who can will hold onto what they can so they can support their children and live a half decent life for themselves. That has been the position since Thatcher and her ‘there is no society’. It is a divisive fiction to pitch young and old against one another. How they explain the world to themselves and how they decide what is best way forward is a completely different issue and is the product of an ideological hegemony which diverts them away from the actual causes of their condition and leaves those in power to pursue greater power and wealth at the expense of all.

The continued grip of that Thatcherite ideological hegemony is, largely, a failure of the left and our inability to provide alternative explanations and courses of action. Instead we have allowed the main project of the right continue only alternating between more or less compassionate flavours. The fundamental problem with this referendum is that there is no option to give the whole establishment a well-deserved kicking merely a choice between to branches of it with, paradoxically, the nastiest presenting as being on their side.

Ironically if one decides to hold a proper debate with members and supporters of UKIP, BritainFirst, and BNP they always very quick of the mark to insult your intelligence by being very aggressive, rude and at worse at times intelligent challenged with their reply to the arguments that one poses to them. Or they are very quick to put the blame on European Union for their lack of comprehension such as education, housing, which they seem to not comprehend that it’s a UK government issue which has a track record of systemic failure of building of more affordable and rentable housing and if the establishment does build houses the price tag are out of reach to first time buyers and they will have to depend on their parents to dig very deep into their savings just to claim up the property ladder. Here is a very classic chestnut that schools are filled with immigrants taking our children places in school. I really hate to disappoint all with this myth. This has always been a far right argument to stir up hatred by using the divide and rule of the old Britannia example of under tone of racism to say I don’t want my children to mix with us foreigners. Let’s be very clear the last Labour government did a very good job of cutting class size down whilst they were in government. The formation of a coalition government (Tory and Libdems) destroyed class sizes by dismantling what was working so they could make way for schools to become academies so in a nutshell one size fits all.

I wonder whether there might be a better way to understand the vote to Leave in solid Labour areas than criticizing people as being anti-immigration and racist.

It is surely the combination of high immigration levels and six years of austerity that has fueled this reaction.

Immigration is high because of the economic depression in the rest of the EU and the stronger economy in Britain. Throw in austerity and you get a toxic mix. Reward the rich and make the poor pay, pose no realistic alternatives – and is it any wonder people go for the scapegoats.

The other big issue is the gross distortions in the UK economy. Huge infrastructure investment in the big cities like London and Birmingham. Charity shops and Pay Day loan sharks in the smaller towns. Where’s the hope in Stoke or Dudley?

People are disenchanted and no mainstream politicians have remotely credible policies to address their very real concerns.

That’s our job in the Labour Movement . Dare to propose a real house building plan. Dare to invest public money in industry. Dare to increase local government funding. Dare to increase the deficit and public debt to give the forgotten areas a future..

That’s the way to get our country back.

Come on Jeremy. Time to set out your stall. Now I have to declare a conflict of interest  I did not have Jeremy Corbyn as my first choice as Leader of Labour P  Party but I will continue to support him as the leader. the question is who will be the best person to be the next leader of Labour.

We’ have given many these people little to hope for. Little employment, poor job options when they do exist and a really shitty education system that doesn’t allow non-academic kids to learn really useful skills and survive.  the Metro elite have ignored the working class (mostly white ) vote for so long and taken it for granted and have invested little time in getting to know and understand and do something about places like Stoke, Hartlepool and other deprived areas.

The toxic mix of de-industrialisation and cheap labour from elsewhere is something to do with this result. Dudley and even my local place is a ghost town, we live in Pound shop England and if you ignore those who feel they don’t matter, they are going to turn their backs. Unfortunately they are at risk at being exploited by those with other agendas, as we have seen. I think the Labour party needs to stop its Westminster huddle and get out there and find out why so many wanted to give it a kicking and until it does it will remain out of power.

As much as we might not like to accept it there is a substantial element of the working class which is racist. Normally they sit at home and don’t bother to vote but with the rise of UKIP and others in the Tory party it has become main-stream to be xenophobic. The genie is out of the bottle, how do we get it back in.

So let me spell it out to all those who believes in the conspiracy theories that this referendum vote were rigged. Having been an election campaign manager, I can absolutely confirm that fiddling an election is virtually impossible. There is more chance of security guards stealing money from cash boxes than boxes being tampered with. The boxes are all security sealed with polling booth staff having no access. Each vote is cross referenced back to the polling data. Then under security the boxes are delivered, with the voting records to the polling records. Then under the scrutiny of the polling tellers from both sides, independent auditors the votes are counted and watched my tellers and Auditors and numbers checked back to the polling records. Any discrepancies result in s recount. The process is one of the most robust ever and impossible to defraud. Even if one vote was added, I am 99.9% certain it would be found as it would not have an aligned polling record. The papers are made with a special solution and a myth an X can be rubbed out. They cannot be and because of the seals on the boxes, impossible to be tampered with. The vote will be fair whether it’s remain or leave.