The UK Politics and EU Referendum thread - merged

[aaron1867]

I was quite looking forward to last night's Farage v Cameron "debate".

What an anti-climax that was, fancy the PM bottling out of actually debating the issues.

To be fair, it's clear these tv debates this year or last don't favour him, so if you know it doesn't help, you're hardly going to want to do it.

Itv look to be pro Europe, questions look to be ideal and Julie butting her nose in to pull farage up a few times.

Have to laugh at Boris Johnson though. Months ago he said he wouldn't share a platform debating against Cameron, but saying the complete opposite.

[nirvana]

Always amazes me that literally millions of narrow-banders, those of us earning say between 20k and 100k , want to be concerned about macro economic factors like few percent swings in gdp, employment rates, house prices, exchange rates etc while a tiny % continue to hog the gravy above 100k.

We're impacted by these things all the time and like most kids learning to read it evens out over time for the small man. The yah boo claiming of provable FACTS on both sides is pretty laughable.

I remain totally frustrated by the lack of imagination, philosophy and vision on all sides

Will probably vote out cause Cameron is a first rate cuntybollocks

[nirvana]

ITV debate quite interesting - exclude the notional heavyweights, Nicola and Boris and the 2  'leavers' are just massively outperforming the 2 'remainers' - might be biased tho innit

[nirvana]

Eagle can't stop degening into a party political broadcast and whining in an increasingly high pitched manner - too fun

[nirvana]

Sturgeon only got tory bashing too - not that there's anything wrong with that

[PokerBroker]

I think this is one of the best arguements I have heard, I know the RMT don't get much love on here from the tory love in, but this is a proper analysis and an arguement that working class people can understand. 
______________-

By Steve Hedley, Senior Assistant General Secretary, Rail Maritime & Transport Union (RMT)

We in the RMT are a union of 80 000 workers that covers train workers, Tube workers, port workers and seafarers. We oppose racism in all its forms, we are for a peoples’ Europe and a peoples’ world; a socialist Europe and a socialist world.

You may have been forgiven for thinking that the right wing are the only people who are arguing for a British exit from the European Union. News reports concentrate almost exclusively on the Brexit campaign led in Britain by racists like Farage, and racists like Boris Johnson and the right wing of the Tory Party. We have no association with these people at all.

They are like a stopped clock which is only right twice a day,  but for all the wrong reasons. We want to come out of the European Union because we want to protect the rights of workers.

If we look at the philosophical and political reasons why the European Union was formed we can see that it a capitalist entity, a completely ruthless trading block, in competition with other trading blocks, including developing countries.

As early as 1957 the European Treaty outlined the absolute necessity of the free movement of Capital, labour services and the pre-eminence of the free market economy within the borders of the signatory states. This completely rules out two of the fundamental bases of socialism i.e. the need for a planned economy and control over the movement of capital. To change this treaty all 28 current European states would have to unanimously agree the changes.

Of course, those in Britain arguing to remain in the EU  will correctly point out that the Conservatives led by Thatcher [and after that, the Labour government under Blair] brought about privatisation in all the major utilities; gas, water, electricity, telecommunications and of course the railways. However, what the EU does is institutionalise these privatisations and does not allow nation states to reverse them.

Take the rail industry for example. The European Fourth Railway Package institutionalises privatisation and enshrines it in European law, which has precedence over the national law of member states.

The Fourth Rail Package in its own words seeks:

“Opening domestic passenger markets. The 4th railway package includes the proposal to open up domestic passenger railways to new entrants and services from December 2019. Companies would be able either to offer competing services, such as a new train service on a particular route, or to bid for public service rail contracts through tendering. The proposed changes would make competitive tendering mandatory for public service rail contracts in the EU.”

Even if we had a left-wing government elected in Britain tomorrow and Jeremy Corbyn was Prime Minister,  he would not be allowed to renationalise the railways and stay in the European Union.

In our Maritime industry we have seen the obscene spectacle of Portuguese workers, our brothers and sisters, working in British ships in Southampton being paid less that £3 per hour, which is less than half the national minimum wage.  This is completely legal under European law, which in the Viking Lavelle judgements stated that an employee can work in a foreign country and be paid the minimum wage of their home country [Portugal] and not the superior wage of the host country [Britain].

In essence this is what the EU is all about. It’s a bosses club, a rich capitalist institution that wants to destroy workers’ rights and workers’ terms and conditions. It seeks to open up markets to private capital that have previously been closed to it, precisely because they were state owned and run. SteveRMT

We welcome any worker from across Europe and indeed across the world. We have far more in common with workers from other European countries [and beyond Europe] than with our bosses. We want those workers paid on the same terms, conditions and pay as British workers.

Our opponents try to brand us as ‘racists’ because we demand that the workers of all nations should have equal rights. It is a slur and a lie. It’s part of the “Project Fear” campaign to intimidate workers – especially those from ethnic minorities in Britain – into voting to remain in the European Union.

The liberalisation package that the EU is demanding by 2020 is the reason that France is on strike at the minute. It is intended that this package will be applied in every European country.  As in France, the need for capitalism to maximise its profits means deregulation, lengthening the working week, cutting pensions, introducing flexible working conditions [including zero hours contracts] for workers throughout Europe.

Multinationals are already taking advantage of those European laws which prevent free trade. We have the appalling example of an American company, Uber, registered in Holland, taking the Spanish government to the European court because, they say, their trade is being restricted.

The actions of Uber will become the template for every other multinational that wants to drive down terms and conditions. If a government tries to protect its workers, companies can take governments to the European Court. This will be further enshrined in the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement, which is now being negotiated in secret, behind our backs. The chief negotiator for Europe in the TTIP talks said plainly that she was not responsible to the European people, but was responsible to the unelected European commission.

I would like to end by saying that this year is an historic year for me as an Irishman.  One hundred years ago, a few thousand Irish people rose up in 1916 and shook the chains of the British Empire. It is my fervent hope that in 2016, the peoples of France, Germany, Spain, Greece – and indeed all the peoples of Europe – will rise up against the dictatorship of the European Union.

[nirvana]

Nice piece that - I may join the RMT

Leadsom on this debate is just so good

[RickBFA]

Julie Etchingham is useless.

Nicola Sturgeon just winds me up.

[DaveShoelace]

Just flicked on to this, literally as somebody made the argument 'don't vote leave because Nigel Farage is a bit sexist'.

By that logic, vote remain, we fuck pigs.

Have we officially run out of arguments? Shall we just do the vote now?

[doubleup]

Nice piece that - I may join the RMT

pretty sure you can't join unless you're able to say "you ***** are walking to work unless you give us more money"

[nirvana]

Nice piece that - I may join the RMT

pretty sure you can't join unless you're able to say "you ***** are walking to work unless you give us more money"

That would be so liberating

[aaron1867]

Slightly disappointed by the IN team tonight, we shouldn't be talking about Boris, we should be talking about their lack of pure substance and facts.

I suspect it will be evened up when Nigel Farage is on QT in ten min. He really is not helping the out campaign imo.

[arbboy]

Julie Etchingham is useless.

Nicola Sturgeon just winds me up.

Very much this.  ITV just terrible at Politics.

[david3103]

Slightly disappointed by the IN team tonight, we shouldn't be talking about Boris, we should be talking about their lack of pure substance and facts.

I suspect it will be evened up when Nigel Farage is on QT in ten min. He really is not helping the out campaign imo.

Farage helped the Out campaign a lot more than Eddie Izzard helped Remain on the first question. I expected much better from Izzard than to cite Farage's family history as a reason why he (Farage) should support immigration.

The Remainistas seem to believe that personal attacks on those who disagree with them are fine. i suppose it saves them having to actually tell us the whole truth about where a vote to stay would leave us in 10 years time.

[PokerBroker]

Eddie Izzard is an utter cock.  So tilting.