Much talked about of late has been the so-called £50 billion Brexit divorce bill.
The usual minutely relevant mainstream media left-right paradigms dictate that one side—right-wing Brexiteers—are strongly against the settlement—protesting in their usual grown-up, diplomatic, sensible and coherent way at the cost of the bill.
Priti Patel, the recently disgraced Tory MP, Whip and former Ex-International Development Secretary and Vote Leave figurehead, recently expressed the standrad negotiation sentiments we’ve come to expect from the hardcore right-wing Brexiteer camp.
Following her recent resignation scandal, speaking at a Tory-porn Spectator event, Patel spewed:
My views on money are pretty clear, I don’t like spending money so I would have told the EU in particular to sod off with their excessive financial demands.
Indeed Patel’s views on money are pretty clear: her former position as International Development Secretary involved going around the third world securing billions of pounds in handouts for British businesses, such as Guinness, and “consultancy firms” who have all used the foreign aid budget to line their own pockets.
The sad reality is that the foreign aid budget is all too often used for this purpose: in many cases, the way it is spent likely does more harm than good. Unlike the right-whingers who seem to detest the very concept of aid, I do support the concept, and would like to see more aid if anything: but it must go to the right places….corporations who use the money to further impoverish people in the third world, enslave them and steal their resources are not the right places.
Global Justice Now reports that:
More and more aid is channelled through financial intermediaries like big banks, insurance companies and opaque investment funds. For example, 88 per cent of the portfolio of the CDC Group, which is a UK government-owned institution that delivers aid, is channelled through the financial sector, which then goes on to ‘invest’ in projects aimed at creating economic growth. That’s why British aid ends up in dubious (but profitable) projects such as luxury housing and shopping malls in Kenya. In 2006, the CDC even invested in Nigerian companies that were later proven to be used by corrupt politician James Ibori to launder stolen money.
These institutions also make heavy use of secretive tax havens, which ensures that much of their activity is shielded from public scrutiny. Of the 157 ‘aid’ investments made by the UK’s CDC Group in 2013, 118 were channelled through tax havens.
Large proportions of aid also go towards cleaning up the mess caused by previous UK government policy. We only need climate finance because the UK has emitted such a large amount of carbon dioxide. Much of the money that went to Afghanistan and Iraq is only necessary because of the UK’s military involvement in those countries.
Sorry to digress, but honestly, the issue just doesn’t get any attention normally….
Anyway….
What is it with these hardcore Brexiteers? Are they able to do anything other than telling people they disagree with to “sod off” or “jog on”? What kind of mad attitude is that towards negotiation and diplomacy?
Would they approach any other aspect of their lives like this?
Would they go into a shop and upon being told the price of something they liked, feeling it too expensive, tell the shopkeeper to “sod off! and jog on!”
To be fair, looking at the state of the hardcore right-wing Brexiters, they probably would do exactly that: and then proceed to pull down their trousers and take a massive shit right there on the floor, whilst looking the shopkeeper directly in the eyes. No doubt, if the shopkeeper was to protest they would proceed to call them a “whiny crybaby moaner!” and mock them for protesting the shittings.
Anyway, I digress (again)…..
The mainstream left is, of course, more pro-the extortionate settlement…still though, the questions that should be raised as usual haven’t been by either side of the MSM.
So, casting aside the various political narratives designed to distract us from the real reasons that these things are happening—who is really pulling the levers of power around here, that is—we can see the actual reason the Tories are coughing up £50 billion to the EU without much attempt at negotiation (if any).
Financial industry newspaper City AM, ran on Monday’s front page, the fat cats latest demand on the public purse and nanny state.
Yes, that’s right, the City wants us to just get on with it—cough up and pay so they can make even more money.
Haven’t you noticed all those CEO’s lining the streets in their cardboard boxes during these freezing cold winter nights? There’s more and more by the hour don’t you know! The poor babies! Won’t somebody please think of the real victims here? Honestly, it would be selfish not to.
The City we are told doesn’t want the Government to “penny pinch” over this—heaven forbid it should affect their poverty wages after all.
The City would have us believe on its front page—and in the braoder mainstream coverage—that they truly fear Brexit will lead to the Apocolypse.
By page 25 of City AM, however, sanity and truth manage to miraculously appear.
In an article by Sam Smith, Chief Executive of finnCapp we are told that:
Michael Bloomberg, of course, being a man who is worth around US$ 47.8 billion and owns Bloomberg financial news and a host of other banking services.
So, then, as usual, the City cry babies get what they want and we all have to foot the bill for their gold-plated dummies and Mercedes-Benz brand prams.
The City knows all too well that they are far from collapse or peril—with or without Brexit, however, clearly they would prefer that we just pay the massive bill for thier own benefit.
Another example of how the bankers rely on the nanny state—taxpayer—us—to survive.
Great “free-market” capitalist system this, isn’t it? How we fund the bankers and their every plutocratic whim and bail them out when their crooked gambles go catastrophically bollocks up.
Apparently, that’s free market capitalism….
The only time we actually have what resembles a free-market capitalist system in this country is when it comes to the working class-poor.
If you’re just a penny short in Tesco paying for a loaf of bread—boom! fuck off! They’d throw you in prison for 6 years just for asking them to let you have it for a penny cheaper.
What a sick joke.
The real threat of Brexit is from de-regulation to our food, banks and other consumer safety protections—things like pharmaceuticals, a whole range of rights and safety standards that are currently protected under EU treaties.
As well as this, we have the obvious issues over human rights, and worker rights, data protection, etc.
The farming out of NHS services to bloated US healthcare giants….the list of real threats from Brexit is no joke….yet does any of this even get a column inch in the mainstream media?
Global Justice Now produced a report earlier this year highlighting the fact that corporations are essentially lobbying the Tories to get the Brexit they want—and keeping the public excluding in the process.
Global Justice reports that:
- The DexEU list of lobby meetings includes several actors who have previously made financial contributions to the UK Conservative Party’s head office, as well as corporations with revolving door links to senior party figures.
- The corporate bias in the lobby meetings of DexEU mirrors the pattern of lobbying seen at the UK Department for International Trade. The ministers developing the UK’s post-Brexit trade relationships with the rest of the world have been holding 90 per cent of their lobby meetings with representatives of business interests, previous research showed.
If things continue as they are on track to, we’ll end up with a Brexit that costs billions and leaves us, as Corbyn has said many times before as:
bargain basement Britain, a low-pay tax haven on the shores of Europe
We’re already forking out 50 billion because the City demands it—YAY!!!
That isn’t to say that we shouldn’t pay settlements and come to an aggreement—obviously, we should honor our legal obligations and do our best to settle amicably.
But to just rush head first into these things, with no public control or oversight says it all about the true nature of Brexit.
Staunch Brexiteers who were all too happy to declare what a great day for democracy the referendum was—alas, those same Brexiteers have been strangely quiet about the multiple ways in which the public—and indeed the opposition—has all but been excluded from the Brexit negotiations…..
As usual, it will be the poorest who voted for Brexit who will suffer the most as a result of all this.
As usual, the left-wing Guardianista commentariats will call them all racists and bigots when they find new scapegoats to blame their often justified economic-social rage on.
Short film examining the religious nature of Brexit
Apparently, that’s democracy? Apparently, this is capitalism?
Can somebody please learn how to use a dictionary in this country?
Preferably before I go totally insane.
Cheers
You can follow Chris Turnbull on twitter at @EnemyOfTheState or at his webpage Enemy of the state