I'm a procrastinator. Through and through. And on political questions, as much as anything else, especially when I have the luxury of holding off on making a decision, or not making one at all. Take the question say, of which Republican candidate I see as a greater threat in the upcoming US presidential elections, Donald Trump or Ted Cruz... As for my preferences overall, clearly I'm leaning towards Bernie, and frankly I want nothing to do with the Republican party, the supposed 'moderate' candidates of which, would have been the far-right of just a few decades ago. I still feel I should have an opinion though, and I've just left the notion of choosing between these two maniacs percolate in my mind the last year or so. Then, somewhere between tweeting
this, & a few days later
this, I just made up my mind.
Strange as it seems to say it, I fear Ted Cruz as the GOP candidate more than Donald Trump. a), Because all the head-to-head polls show Cruz as the greater threat in the general versus either Clinton or Sanders on the Democratic side. And b), because, while I know Ted Cruz to be an extremist, an ideological bomb-thrower & theocrat, I don't honestly know what the fuck Trump is. He increasingly looks and sounds like a fascist, but some of his economic talking-points* sound more like those of Sanders, his absurd rhetoric regarding ISIS aside, he seems less a warmonger on foreign policy generally than Clinton, and despite his newfound paper-thin pretense at being a devout Christian, he still sounds more liberal on social issues than his fellow Republican lunatics. Never mind the fact, that everything he's doing or saying right now could all be an act. Trump's a gamble, to be honest. I don't really know what the hell he truly stands for (neither do his own supporters, apparently)**, but given a choice between a
possible lunatic fascist and another
proven lunatic fascist, who's a dyed-in-the-wool theocrat to boot, I can't honestly say that Cruz isn't at least equally scary. He's more subtle and more soft-spoken sure, but he's still an evil fucking snake. And if a Trump candidacy destroys the Republican party...well woo-hoo, party-time ! All our birthdays and Christmases come at once.***
Which is all a very roundabout way to get to the question of...Europe. More specifically, a so-called 'Brexit' -- Should the United Kingdom exit the European Union ? I've been on the fence about this forever, and even now, I'm conflicted. I'd call my attitude towards the EU historically Euro-sceptic, were it not for the fact that that term was adopted long-ago by those who, far from being merely sceptical about the EU, were dead-set against everything it stood for. I like the idea of the European Union in general terms, the notion of (Western) European nations transcending centuries of bloodshed & hatred to unite around shared values & traditions, in a new liberal democratic union. And after the end of the Cold War, I had hopes that the EU could help balance American power in global affairs.
Instead...the EU consistently does the US' bidding on foreign affairs; the actual government has become a bloated bureaucratic mess sprawling across multiple cities; membership of former Soviet-bloc countries was rushed through to provide Western businesses with cheap labour, and new markets, with membership frequently floated for the likes of Turkey, Georgia, and even North African nations****; the shared currency has impoverished Southern European nations to Germany's benefit, one of which has been routinely blackmailed, looted, and humiliated in the name of paying debts it should never have been allowed to take on in the first place; as with the case of said country, and with trade-deals like TTIP, the EU has consistently been an anti-democratic force, placing the interests of banks & multi-national corporations ahead of both democracy & national sovereignty; and the EU has not only proven unable to control its borders, but the most prominent national leader therein, one Angela Merkel, actually worsened the worst refugee/migrant-crisis since WWII by inviting millions of refugees and economic migrants to disregard both actual refuge, and their own safety, by making the dangerous and unnecessary journey to Northern Europe. Why ? Because big business wants even more cheap labour, even more downward forces on the economic status of existing citizens and workers. And I haven't even mentioned yet the lunatic ideologically driven class-warfare of so-called fucking 'Austerity'. I could go on and on and on...
Now, after years of the 'Eurosceptic' voices being largely marginalised, and despite the sizable support of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) being suppressed through archaic first-past-the-post voting-practices, we find ourselves following the economic crisis of 2007-2009, following decades of class-warfare & globalisation, following the utter humiliation of Greece, and in the midst of oppressive economically dubious policies of Austerity, and a migrant-crisis worsened considerably by Merkel's idiocy...here. David Cameron, having made an election-pledge to allow an in/out-referendum on EU-membership that he never expected to have to follow through on, with the expected outcome of the election, and having failed utterly to get a new settlement for Britain from the EU, that isn't found laughable by the entire political spectrum, has put Britain on the verge of seriously leaving the shared community for the first time since 1975.*****
Less than four months from now,
British citizens will be asked 'Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?' And that vote might eventually lead, to the slow dissolution of a union six decades in the making... Seems, almost every time I go on Twitter now, I'm confronted with a poll on this subject, and, depending on the wording, I either answer 'Don't Know', or pass it over altogether.
My opinion of the European Union is the lowest it has ever been in my lifetime, and the last few years have been an embarrassing time to be a European. Than again, they've been an even more embarrassing time to be a Brit.
The coalition-government formed in 2010 lost its lustre fairly early on, and was becoming an embarrassment towards its end. Then, despite the disgraceful behaviour & rhetoric of the Tory party in the wake of the (narrowly won) referendum on Scottish independence, despite the warnings and exhortations of what a returning Tory party would do to Britain, and not so much despite of as because of a viciously malignant fearmongering campaign by the Tories and the establishment-media to convince the British public that voting for Labour would bring about a) A sinister deal w/the SNP resulting in the end of the Union, and b) Economic armageddon (partly based upon the continuing lie that Labour was somehow responsible for the
global economic meltdown of 2007-9), the British public (or, a sufficient plurality thereof under first-past-the-post voting) gave the Tories not just the chance to form the next government, but an outright majority of seats in Parliament.
Hence, amongst other things, the referendum on leaving Europe, Cameron never actually intended to preside over. Hence the loss of what little moderating influence the Liberal Democrats had been able to provide under coalition-government. Hence the enabling of the more right-wing and more 'Eurosceptic' Tory backbenchers. Hence David Cameron's government turning the dial on Austerity-politics up to eleven, as they slashed regional & local budgets wherever they could, even as they entered into more expensive and unnecessary military adventures & promised to renew the ever-more expensive Trident nuclear-deterrent. Hence, the DWP's escalating war under that monster Iain Duncan Smith on the very most vulnerable members of society... How many have died in recent years, many at their own hands out of total despair, as a result of ideologically driven cuts & sanctions under his regime ?
If you've read the first paragraphs above, you already have an idea of my opinion of the GOP, the Republican Party in the USA. Even lacking some of the more explicitly theocratic tendencies of the GOP, I find the modern-day Conservative party worse. I despise those evil fuckers and everything they stand for ! One of my (admittedly selfish) reasons for opposing Scottish independence, is the fear of a right-wing Tory dominance of England & Wales for decades to come. And I have similar fears about the loss of the relative moderating influence on civil liberties of the European Union under a so-called Brexit.
The United States at least has a modicum of constraint on abuses of its' citizens' rights via a written constitution (abused and distorted as that has become over the last two-hundred plus years). Britain has the last disintegrating shreds of Magna Carta, and the supposed balanced powers inherent in division of government between a now completely neutered monarchy, the now completely corrupt vessel of political patronage****** that is the House of Lords, and the ever less democratic institution that is the House of Commons. Absent the likes of the European Convention of Human Rights, where would the government draw the line in restricting civil liberties in the name of 'Security', in the name of the so-called 'War on Terror' ? What limits on indefinite detention without trial ? What protections for freedom of speech & assembly ? What to stop the government stripping anyone it doesn't like of citizenship at will ? Having them murdered by drone in secret ? What would now stand in the way of these fascist fuckers turning the UK into an out-and-out police-state ?
But, but, restoring our sovereignty...But, but immigration...But, but TTIP...
What kind of utter naïve blind fool would you have to be at this point, to think that any of the major mainstream parties, let alone the whores to Big Business that the Tories have become, give a damn about sovereignty, give a damn about ordinary people's jobs, incomes, futures ? They're bought and sold by the biggest bidder. They're selling all Britain's remaining state-owned assets, including to the likes of the People's Republic of China, in whom they apparently intend to entrust the building, and control of Britain's future nuclear reactors. They're pulling away at every loose thread in the National Health Service, salivating at the prospect of finally privatising the crown-jewel of Social Democracy and the post-war consensus. And whether, under the name of TTIP, or some new trade-deal, the Tories (probably the biggest proponents of TTIP on the entire European subcontinent) will absolutely give away Britain's sovereignty, making British governance subservient to not just the quasi-democratic influence of Brussels, but to the absolutely undemocratic power of completely unaccountable multi-national corporations.******* And absolutely, one way or another, they will find a way to justify ever more immigration from the poorest nations on Earth, in the name, yet again, of driving down labour-costs, of reducing the working man to the lowest common denominator conditions possible.
There'll be less bureaucracy under a 'Brexit', I suppose. Fewer stories in the Daily Mail about bans on bendy bananas, or 'political correctness gone mad'. Also, less restriction on the ability of huge companies to poison the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe; to 'frack' Britain from Land's End to John o' Groats; to contribute even further to Anthropogenic Climate Change... We can't even claim any economic advantage to dropping the shared currency, the Euro, since Britain never abandoned the Pound in the first place. Just about the only benefit I can think of in Britain leaving the EU, is that Britain, the great tax-haven for foreign billionaires & tyrants, that a London-dominated finance-centric Britain has become, would no longer have to contribute financially to the upkeep of the bloated EU bureaucracy, or to supporting its poorer neighbours...Any guesses where such a windfall (even assuming it weren't cancelled out by a decline in trade with the continent) would go ?... Not into your pockets. Not into crumbling infrastructure. Not into rebuilding what remains of the welfare-state, certainly. I don't even need to say it. You already know what would happen to the damn money...
The ironic thing is, the European Union is ripe for reform. Desperately in need of it, to create an edifice that reflects the democratic interests & aspirations of the subcontinent's citizens, rather than a mechanism to funnel more and more wealth & power into the hands of the planet's elites. If Britain goes, it almost certainly won't be the last, and I can't blame the citizens of every nation in Europe for being fuming mad at what their governments have done to them, for wanting far better. And if he and/or his party were remotely serious about reforming Europe, David Cameron could have gone to the EU with a far-more credible plan at reforming not just Britain's place in the EU, but the EU as a whole. Instead of which, he comes back with pledges to restrict benefits for migrants.
Which is where I really started with my thinking on this. I listen to the language surrounding this debate, and it's all about denying benefits to migrants, who time after time we see are striving to come to Britain very specifically for
jobs and
not welfare. It's all about Othering, about spreading fears that the migrants, be they from Kraków or Kabul, will not only steal your jobs, but rape your wives, and enslave your daughters. That any moment now, your town will fall under sharia-law, and the ISIS flag rise over the town-hall. And fuck, I'm just about as right-wing on such matters as most, but the blatant racism, the hatred, the incitements to violence, it's too much to bear. And then I see the public faces of 'Brexit', such inhumane fascistic monsters as Iain Duncan Smith, and I think 'whatever my doubts, whatever my fears, do I really want anything to do with a movement championed by such an evil piece of excrement as this ?!!'
I can't really apologise for the European Union, such as it is -- it's a g-d-awful mess, in need of probably quite radical reform, if it is to survive at all in the longer term, never mind as the shining hope of the world some may have hoped it to become. And I can't blame Brits, any more than other Europeans, for wanting out. But I'm not remotely convinced that the leaders of the Exit campaign have Britons' best interests at heart, I don't see any sign that the real problems blamed on the EU would be solved by an exit, and if anything, especially under the current far-right political regime, I fear things could get even worse.
As meaningful reform isn't on the table, as any kind of real return of sovereignty isn't in the offing, as the current government would likely be only further enabled by exit, and the continuing crushing war on the working-classes and the most vulnerable in society only escalate, and as Britain would lose what remaining influence it had in the EU, to even attempt at a better direction for Europe, I'd have to say...Stay.
Not happy, not comfortable, not even entirely sure. But sometimes I just know where I must stand.
* What word am I supposed to use here ? Would be dishonest to call them ideas, never mind actual policy-proposals.
** Shit, I could've said the same of George W Bush for that matter. Even Obama maybe.
*** Well also assuming, the Democrats kick his ass in the general...obviously...
**** Most of which are either geographically or culturally not European; in some cases, neither.
***** Common Market/EEC at the time. I'm not going to go into the whole history, including the various treaties between then and now, partly because it's beyond the scope of what I'm talking about here, partly because I'm not remotely qualified to do so.
****** Thanks again, Tony Blair !
******* And oh yeah, if America says 'Jump !'...
Right now, we still have a nominal semi-democratic republic in the United States. We still have, in theory, rule of law, and a written constitution with guaranteed rights & protections for ordinary citizens & residents. In theory, even as Trump and some around him (Can you say 'emoluments' ?) may be in violation of certain provisions thereof already.
