Do as I say but not as I do

Obviously the gender equality and anti-discrimination directives have not yet reached the upper echelons of the EU.

Paul Mason doing mental cartwheels on BBC Question Time this week

Paul Mason is a left wing economist who was economics editor for Channel 4 news, and someone on the left I have alot of time for, but maybe not for much longer after this item.  Like some on the left he admits that the EU is undemocratic and unworkable but despite this he says he is unlikely to vote Brexit as it would hand power to "crazed, rightwing Conservatives" in the UK.  Paul, old bean, these "crazed, rightwing Conservatives" were actually elected by the people last year and can be voted out in a few years time, which is more than can be said for the EU commission.

George Galloway and Brexit

Now that Cameron has given us the date of EU referendum of June 23rd, both sides are already working hard in achieving victory.  The PM's recent renegotiation to me is an irrelevance, it is now understood that the deal he negotiated is not even legally binding.  Especially the rules surrounding the take up of benefits by EU migrants.

However the most surprising thing for me so far has been the entry of George Galloway on the Brexit side, sharing a platform with Nigel Farage on the Grassroots Out meeting. This must be the only thing that Farage and Galloway agree on.  Even though I loathe his views on Israel, Galloway is correct here. The EU is not only a businessmen's club but an attack on our democracy and freedoms.  For me it means that GG is at least a man of socialist ideals unlike Jeremy Corbyn and Labour party who have thrown their weight behind the remain campaign.  Corbyn's main argument is that the EU has brought in many workers' rights, however I think these are just delusions. Corbyn and Labour want the EU because it brings in more migrants, who are more likely to vote Labour.  So Corbyn has sold out his principles for votes as he was once fiercely anti-Europe like Tony Benn. My view is that Galloway might sway some of the UK's muslim vote towards Brexit.  Time will only tell.

My other salute is that Michael Gove and Boris Johnson have both backed the leave campaign.  Again this must be the first time I have agreed with either man.

The Left's EU problem

Since my move from being pro-EU to being anti-EU, the questions and contradictions that dog the left still remain.  The EU, along with the EC and EEC before that, is essentially about trade, that is the free flow of goods, capital and people. Therefore at its inception the left was hostile to the concept of a trade bloc. Indeed, during the original EEC membership referendum the late Margaret Thatcher campaigned for a yes to enter vote and the late Tony Benn campaigned for no to stay out vote.  This changed slowly in the 80s and 90s as the EC and later EU moved more to the left with laws to protect worker's rights, thereby circumventing the sovernignty of its member states. But in the 2000's a new factor entered the mix - immigration.  The addition of the former Eastern bloc countries and the Blair government's policy of allowing citizen's from these new members to enter the UK to work and live turned the whole debate on its head. So instead of the EU being a businessman's club to help them earn more profits, the paradigm was about cultural diversity, enrichment and the benefits of immigration. Now the axiom was that if you were against the EU then you were racist, in the same way that being against mass immigration was racist.

We can see this in the way UKIP are demonized during the 2015 general election, and the Green's party rather confused policy of campaigning to stay in the EU during the referendum but cutting down on the amount of trade between the UK and EU.  Strange that Greens do not mention cutting done the free movement of labour, only the free movement of goods and capital.

So therefore now we are in a situation where the British left are essentially campaigning to stay in a businessman's club , because it does not want to be seen as being pro-nation state, pro-sovereignty and against immigration.  This all ties in with the fact that since the fall of the USSR, the left has been pushing a cultural marxist of Frankfurt school agenda rather than an economic one.  In that anything that undermines British or western culture is good as the western or British culture is essentially racist, imperialist and made no positive contributions in the the left's view of the world.