Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Theresa May's post-fact call for an election


It is breathtaking how many untruths May packed into her statement calling a snap election. To take one example:

At this moment of enormous national significance there should be unity here in Westminster, but instead there is division. The country is coming together, but Westminster is not.

This is only a few weeks after 100,000 marched for Europe in London on the 25th of March along with many others in other parts of Britain. This is the largest show of support for the EU that there has ever been in Britain. The opposition to Brexit, on the other hand in parliament has been spineless.

Yet listening to Theresa May saying such things with such conviction it is very hard to credit that what she says is not the absolute truth. All politicians spin, they bend the truth to be more favorable to themselves and, let's be honest, so do we all. However to say things that are so divorced from reality so shamelessly is a feature of populist authoritarianism. It works because the human mid is simply overwhelmed by the size of the whopper being told. It takes a supreme effort to realize that it isn't true.

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Grammar Schools and the unequal future Britain faces in Brexit


Among the many things that shows Theresa May's promise that Brexit will be fairer to be a lie is the government's to re-establish grammar schools across England. The evidence is that selective education largely benefits the better-off. Justine Greening, however, thinks that will change by moving the focus of education policy away from targeting the most disadvantaged households. Seriously? To move the focus away from the most disadvantaged who also have the least chance now is going to transform grammar schools into conveyor belts of social mobility?

But lets for a moment imagine that grammar schools could become engines of social mobility enabling the brightest and best from working class communities to reach university - what would be the result? It would mean that those communities would be deprived of of their most able members so leaving those communities less able to organize for their rights. In short greater social mobility would be at the cost of greater inequality for those who would be left behind.

But of course, grammar schools are not some Tory party to undermine working class communities by siphoning of those with the most enterprise so co-opting potential trouble makers. Instead it is a way of ensure government spending on education preferentially goes to the children of the Tory base - those already privileged.

Nonetheless it is worth keeping in mind that more grammar schools would make Britain more unfair even were they to work in the way the government claims.

Welcome to brave new Brexit-Britain.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

The new Supreme Court judge exposes the brutal reality behind the authoritarian populism of Trump


If you didn't follow the nomination of Niel Gorsuch the newly sworn in justice of the US supreme court check out the case of Alphonse Maddin, the truck driver, who was sacked because he detached the trailer from the cab and then drove the cab to somewhere he could warm up. When Maddin made that choice the temperature in the cab had fallen to 14 degrees below zero, and not that was not Centigrade but Fahrenheit. The law in the US protects a worker who refuses to operate a vehicle but Gorsuch chose to define vehicle as the cab alone (the trailer had frozen brakes) hence he came up with the idea that Maddin had been sacked for refusing to not operate the vehicle. Essentially he twisted the law to say that a worker has to be ready to lay down his life to protect the cargo he is delivering in order to avoid being sacked.
That such an extreme pro-corporation stance should be a selling point for Trump puts into sharp relief the extent that Trump will push the interests of those of his class rather than the downtrodden he claims to represent. It also shows the Republic Party as a whole who voted for Gorsuch unanimously to be the party not of conservatism but reaction.
But the fairer Brexit of Theresa May is just as much a lie. That Brexit will mean an assault on the rights of employees can be seen by the determination with which the government is defending the hike in fees for Employment tribunals. It is a pretty clear signal that a government which undermines the enforcement of employment rights will trash them once the Brexit Henry the 8th clause gives them carte blanche to trash those rights.

Friday, April 07, 2017

EU-friendly local authorities - a way of breaking thought the media blackout.


Anyone who was at there on March the 25th, the biggest pro-EU march there has ever been in Britain, knows we can stop Brexit. But with the media taking on a herd mentality of the inevitability of Brexit which means excluding voices resistance and remain voters are chosen to be those who are depressed and acquiescent.
CND faced a similar problem 35 years ago and came with a number of inventive ways to their issue on the agenda. One of these was getting local authorities to declare themselves as nuclear free zones. That idea is easily adaptable to the struggle for Europe. Getting local authorities to declare themselves as EU-friendly districts (or whatever) provides a local focus for local activist groups and success would send a clear message to both the media and the local MPs. As important it would encourage fellow remainers that it is still worth fighting Brexit. Most valuable of all would be for us to win over local authorities in areas that at the time of the referendum voted leave.

Monday, April 03, 2017

Gibraltar and Brexit


Anyone paying attention would have known that Brexit was going to be bad for Gibraltar. Hence the sudden outrage of the Brexiters on behalf of Gibraltar is extremely hypocritical. It is true that for the 27 to raise the issue shows that a friendly breakup is not an overarching priority - why would anyone think it would be (though note -it is the Brexiters not Spain who are raising the issue of sovereignty)? However, the bellicose reaction of the Brexiters (literally bellicose in the case of Howard) shows them to using Gibraltar as a pawn to ensure their aim of a car-crash Brexit - that is to crash out of the EU with no deal. A car-crash deal will leave them free to strip away "red tape". Red tape is of course workers rights, safety rules and the protection of the environment. Thus they hope to achieve their dream of a bargain-basement Britain in which a narrowly defined liberty benefits rogue-corporations at the expense of everyone else including more responsible business leaders.