Vote Remain II

Farage and Co have not articulated their argument very well. Even their stance on immigration fails to recognise factors such as how public services such as the NHS will cope without migrant labour; who will carry out the work in our agricultural sector; where the tradespeople for construction and the maintenance sector will be found; and who will support the state pension, which is after all deferred wages.

Another myth that needs exploding is that somehow or other once we exit we can simply carry on trading with the EU, business as usual. That’s not how it works. Both Norway and Switzerland pay the EU to trade within the zone as well as having to comply with EU laws. All this without any say in the running of the union.

Of course there is then the rest of the world we can trade with. Negotiating international and global trading agreements takes years. The other trading blocs across the globe also have rules and regulations they expect trading partners to follow.

Politically and socially I think the EU stinks. Its institutions are not very transparent, which leads to accusations of undemocratic structures. But then, I could be speaking about the UK which itself is hardly a paragon of democracy. 

For too many years EU neoliberalism has favoured capitalism and the boss class over working and poor people. But we still have a range of social laws and protections in place that were implemented by the EU through left political and trade union lobbying.

Once outside the EU there is no reason that employers would not dispense with many of the social gains we now enjoy, such as: 

• Rights for part-time workers,
• parental leave,
• equal pay,
• rights for fixed-term workers,
• limits on working time,
• 5.6 weeks’ holiday per annum
• rights for disabled people, etc.

Politics swings from left to right and right to left. At the moment there is a right wing ascendency in the EU. This can change and along with it the direction of political thinking. A vote to remain is a vote to be able to at least attempt to effect change in the EU; a vote to exit the EU is to surrender any chance of change, and indeed a deterioration in our civil and working rights.