Monthly Archives: September 2016

Verdict on Cameron’s legacy: “a shitshow”

The comment made by Barack Obama on the Tory intervention in Libya probably characterises Cameron’s legacy as “a shitshow”. Why it takes an official report, at great public expense, to come up with this is another question. I thought it was common knowledge at the time. However the verdict has been delivered rather more quickly than that on Iraq, which again the 1 – 2 million who marched in London and those who demonstrated elsewhere across the globe knew instinctively.

Obama’s description could be applied to Brexit, after the faction winning turned out not to have a clue what to do when the result came out in their favour. The outcome has led to what Jean-Claude Junkers has called an “existential crisis” for the EU. Donald Tusk qualifies the argument by pointing out that the issues identified by Britain are shared by other member states:

In a letter to the 27 governments sent before the meeting, the man organising the summit, European council president, Donald Tusk, said it would be “a fatal error to assume that the negative result in the UK referendum represents a specifically British issue”.

He writes that “it is true that the leave campaign was full of false arguments and unacceptable generalisations”, but the Brexit vote was also “a desperate attempt to answer the questions that millions of Europeans ask themselves daily”, citing border control and the fight against terrorism.

“People in Europe want to know if the political elites are capable of restoring control over events and processes which overwhelm, disorientate, and sometimes terrify them. Today many people, not only in the UK, think that being part of the European Union stands in the way of stability and security.”

Guardian 14/9/2016

What he doesn’t mention is the commonality of substantial opinion from trades unions and working people in France, in Greece, even Germany faced with EU directives towards stepping up privatisation and forbidding state intervention such as the nationalisation of railway systems etc. The German state railway is currently being soften up for private intervention and is itself bidding for railway franchises, including London Midland in the UK. Brexit continues to be characterised as a far right racist, anti-immigration move while ignoring appeals by sections of unions and parties who supported from a left-wing perspective. This aims at bringing working peoples’ common interests together across Europe with their work forces consisting of peoples of all origins open to exploitation. Who is representing their interests? Not UKIP or the Tories under Johnson et al. Sadly not the Labour Party who voted to remain under a regime flagrantly against them.