Leave the EU to save the NHS.
Republished from "New Worker", the weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain.
DR
DAVID Owen, once a Labour Foreign Secretary who led a right-wing
split in the party in the early 1980s to form the short-lived Social
Democrat Party, was once a staunch supporter of Britain being part of
the Common Market. But last week he called on people to vote to leave
the European Union in order to rescue the NHS.
Owen
was speaking in response to a claim by discredited Health Secretary
Jeremy Hunt that leaving the European Union would endanger the NHS.
But Lord Owen said: “The EU/Eurozone from 1992, in marked contrast
to the old European Community of 1975, creeps into every nook and
cranny of our life.
"It
is now becoming entrenched in the NHS and this June we have a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get it out.”
But
Lord Owen was not the only ageing political grandee to have joined
the EU referendum debate. Kenneth Clarke — one of the Tories’
strongest EU supporters has also been giving socialists and
progressives a good reason to vote to leave, although this was not
his intention.
Clarke
warned that if Britain did vote to leave, David Cameron would be
overthrown as Prime Minister within 30 seconds. Cameron told MPs this
week that he would remain in office to negotiate Britain’s exit in
the event of a vote to leave the EU, but Clarke said it would be
“farcical” for him to continue.
The
Tory party is already dissolving into bitter in-fighting. Bernard
Jenkin, the senior Tory backbencher who supports the leave campaign,
warned the party would be in “grave danger” if the Britain voted
to remain in the EU. Jenkin said: “I think a lot of people will
leave the Conservative party. I expect whatever emerges from the
wreckage of Ukip will be more potent than before. I think these are
very great dangers.
And
a remain vote paradoxically makes a Corbyn government somewhat more
likely because the Conservative party will be in such an unhappy
state. Certainly our voters will vote leave. The vast majority of our
activists will vote leave. And under these circumstances, the
Conservative party will be far more governable and leadable.”
Meanwhile
more and more on the Left are waking up to the reality that this
referendum is about much more than immigration and that many of the
pro-EU claims are based on pure myth.
The
EU does not protect workers’ rights; the Maastricht and Lisbon
treaties have seriously and steadily undermined workers’ rights.
In
January this year Germany was ordered to drop a law that insisted
that all lorry drivers within its borders should be paid a basic
minimum wage of €8.50 (£5.48) and hour. The rule angered trucking
companies in Poland, Denmark and Poland who had been paying their
workers less and winning business by undercutting German trucking
companies. So it had to go; the role of the EU is to support bosses.
The decision was made not be the elected European Parliament but by
behind closed doors by the European Commissioners — where the real
power of the EU resides.
Here,
now the Tories’ latest Trade Union Bill is in its final stages. The
House of Lords has made many amendments to try to ameliorate its
worst measures. It is a direct attack on all our civil rights but the
EU has done nothing to hinder it.
Some
claim the EU has protected women’s rights. But we still have a pay
gap that is almost as large as when Barbara Castle put through the
Equal Pay Act. And they are closing women’s domestic violence
refuges because of austerity cuts. The EU has not protected us from
this.
The
EU has destroyed Greece economically and reduced millions into
desperate poverty and it has been trying to do the same to Ukraine.
Another
good reason to leave: according to European Parliament President
Martin Schulz a Brexit vote could destabilise the whole EU edifice
because workers in many other EU countries are itching to get out and
get back some of their rights.
“Europe
has been on a sliding slope for some time now. Many people’s trust
in institutions, whether national or European, has gone,” Schulz
said in an interview with the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.
The
EU is a bastion of global imperialism like NATO, and the IMF. If it
is weakened, so much the better for workers all around the globe.
DR
DAVID Owen, once a Labour Foreign Secretary who led a right-wing
split in the party in the early 1980s to form the short-lived Social
Democrat Party, was once a staunch supporter of Britain being part of
the Common Market. But last week he called on people to vote to leave
the European Union in order to rescue the NHS.
Owen was speaking in response to a claim by discredited Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt that leaving the European Union would endanger the NHS. But Lord Owen said: “The EU/Eurozone from 1992, in marked contrast to the old European Community of 1975, creeps into every nook and cranny of our life.
"It is now becoming entrenched in the NHS and this June we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get it out.”
But
Lord Owen was not the only ageing political grandee to have joined
the EU referendum debate. Kenneth Clarke — one of the Tories’
strongest EU supporters has also been giving socialists and
progressives a good reason to vote to leave, although this was not
his intention.
Clarke
warned that if Britain did vote to leave, David Cameron would be
overthrown as Prime Minister within 30 seconds. Cameron told MPs this
week that he would remain in office to negotiate Britain’s exit in
the event of a vote to leave the EU, but Clarke said it would be
“farcical” for him to continue.
The
Tory party is already dissolving into bitter in-fighting. Bernard
Jenkin, the senior Tory backbencher who supports the leave campaign,
warned the party would be in “grave danger” if the Britain voted
to remain in the EU. Jenkin said: “I think a lot of people will
leave the Conservative party. I expect whatever emerges from the
wreckage of Ukip will be more potent than before. I think these are
very great dangers.
And
a remain vote paradoxically makes a Corbyn government somewhat more
likely because the Conservative party will be in such an unhappy
state. Certainly our voters will vote leave. The vast majority of our
activists will vote leave. And under these circumstances, the
Conservative party will be far more governable and leadable.”
Meanwhile
more and more on the Left are waking up to the reality that this
referendum is about much more than immigration and that many of the
pro-EU claims are based on pure myth.
The
EU does not protect workers’ rights; the Maastricht and Lisbon
treaties have seriously and steadily undermined workers’ rights.
In
January this year Germany was ordered to drop a law that insisted
that all lorry drivers within its borders should be paid a basic
minimum wage of €8.50 (£5.48) and hour. The rule angered trucking
companies in Poland, Denmark and Poland who had been paying their
workers less and winning business by undercutting German trucking
companies. So it had to go; the role of the EU is to support bosses.
The decision was made not be the elected European Parliament but by
behind closed doors by the European Commissioners — where the real
power of the EU resides.
Here,
now the Tories’ latest Trade Union Bill is in its final stages. The
House of Lords has made many amendments to try to ameliorate its
worst measures. It is a direct attack on all our civil rights but the
EU has done nothing to hinder it.
Some
claim the EU has protected women’s rights. But we still have a pay
gap that is almost as large as when Barbara Castle put through the
Equal Pay Act. And they are closing women’s domestic violence
refuges because of austerity cuts. The EU has not protected us from
this.
The
EU has destroyed Greece economically and reduced millions into
desperate poverty and it has been trying to do the same to Ukraine.
Another
good reason to leave: according to European Parliament President
Martin Schulz a Brexit vote could destabilise the whole EU edifice
because workers in many other EU countries are itching to get out and
get back some of their rights.
“Europe
has been on a sliding slope for some time now. Many people’s trust
in institutions, whether national or European, has gone,” Schulz
said in an interview with the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.
The
EU is a bastion of global imperialism like NATO, and the IMF. If it
is weakened, so much the better for workers all around the globe.
