Politicians are trying to turn next week’s EU Election into a second referendum on Brexit. All the more so, because of the question mark hanging over a so-called “people’s vote”, a “confirmatory” referendum on a Brexit withdrawal deal - if there ever is one - or a general election...
Brexit dominates everything in the rotten kingdom of Westminster. And its politicians think the rest of us have nothing else on our minds either: they claim that the message from the “people” (in low-turnout local elections, mainly in Tory shires!), is to “sort out Brexit”. Really?
Isn’t the message really that “we’re fed up with Brexit - and what about all the issues which affect us now, like broken hospitals, broken schools, poverty wages, homelessness and the need for food banks”? Where is the stake in all of this “Brexiteering” for the working class?
Certainly no politician standing up today can be trusted to speak the truth. Above all, not one of them dares to say that Brexit clearly isn’t in working class interests: that it divides us and weakens us! That it restricts our current freedom of movement and our freedom to share equal pay and conditions (and our future collective fights!) across the whole expanse of the European continent! Or that it has already damaged the NHS, as thousands of essential NHS workers have left Britain, pushing hospitals further into crisis.
Voting us all back to square one
Of course, Tory politicians are quite pleased to see the working class weakened, but this refusal to speak the truth goes for Labour’s frontbench too. It sits on the fence, looking both ways, to serve its best interests, which are purely to get into power; i.e., to prove it’s the “true party of business”, as John McDonnell boasts! Far be it from him to tell workers who loyally vote Labour, that Brexit is really bad for them. So it’s a bit of a joke that hysterical right-wing Tories should call Labour “socialist”, or worse, “Marxist”!
And now we get yet more politicking, as if we haven’t had enough of it over the past 3 years! Yes, votes are all that count for them. And they’re cynically playing on our frustrations to get ours.
Like Nigel Farage, still sitting in a comfy seat in the EU parliament, supreme con-artist that he is! He’s delighted to leap back onto the political stage with his new Brexit Party - just as he did in 2014, when he “won” the EU election for UKIP, putting the wind up Tory MPs, and actually precipitating this whole Brexit fiasco!
Farage counts on the fact that the “nasty” part of his politics are now left behind with his former UKIP associates and he can assume a clean image, demanding a “clean Brexit”!
Who this is supposed to be good for - except his own ego - is hard to see. He doesn’t like to answer the question when asked, how his “man of the people” image fits with his former millionaire City stockbroker image, or how this fits with being a Member of the EU Parliament, paid £92,460 plus pension, plus expenses, which he was caught proudly fiddling! By the way, when Farage leaves the EU he gets a leaving bonus of £180,000! Either way, he wins!
So what a joke that a cartoon crook like this can pretend that he is “mending broken politics” and defending “democracy” and the “will of the people”.
In fact this same old refrain, which we keep hearing from him, but also Westminster’s own crooked bunch, is getting really annoying.
Poverty isn’t the will of the people
As if the “will of the people” was to have the poverty and inequality that we see everywhere today? Today one in 5 of us - 20% - lives below the breadline. A new inequality study shows a 10-year gap in life expectancy between men in poor parts of the country compared to rich! Over the past 40 years, FTSE100 executive pay has risen to 145 times that of the average worker, while workers’ incomes have stagnated.
And the Sunday Times Rich List just confirmed Britain now has a record 151 billionaires, with a combined wealth of nearly £525bn, 9.2% more than last year! The Billionaires’ Club is flourishing, despite Brexit.
As for the companies which threaten to close or cut wages and jobs like Ford, Honda, British Steel... They don’t lose out either, because whatever happens, Brexit or not, they’ve got it covered!
The working class on the other hand, is only “covered” if it can defend itself by fighting back. A piece of paper in a ballot box, whether for Brexit or against it, will be used against us, so that the capitalists can carry on surviving on our backs thanks to our labour. They get rich and we stay poor. That’s the name of their game. Unless we decide, collectively, to change it.