An open letter to those who claim to be on the Left -

I believe that the State (whether it be national or a group of nations working together) should intervene to stop capitalist excesses - and uphold workers & consumer rights : step on anti-competitive carving up of markets : uphold standards in medicines : invest in infrastructure projects : promote and help finance cultural activities - which is why I am opposed to the hard right, ultra-libéral forces who have been pushing for Brexit for so long. Their success would undermine so much of what we on the left, and in workers movements across Europe have fought for and achieved.

I’d also recommend that you read this - A long article - but worth reading. It blows to pieces the casual optimism of the Brexiteers and addresses some VERY hard truths.

http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2018/07/27/this-is-what-no-deal-brexit-actually-looks-like

Serious words....

On Sunday I listened to President Macron's moving and challenging speech at the Commemoration of the round-up of Jews at the Vel d'Hiv, Paris in 1942

It is available in full (and in French) at http://www.elysee.fr/declarations/article/discours-du-president-de-la-republique/

His words speak to us....

My friends, barbarism does not advance with open face. She does not wear a uniform. 

And when the Nazi boots strike the pavement of Paris, it is already too late. Barbarism is first forged in people's minds. It is the ideas and the words that gradually break the dykes of our consciences, push back civilization, which accustom us to listen, to accept words that we should not even hear.

HITLER, 
First the Third Reich? It is not 1933! 
HITLER is first and already Mein Kampf! 
None of this was born with Vichy and it was the weakness of France to allow this cancer to thrive. 

But none of this either died with Vichy. I know well that all of us, we are strong to fight against anything that could lead to the same situations. But we must open our eyes, look at reality in the face. 

In France today*, this corruption of minds, the moral and intellectual weakness of racism and anti-Semitism are still present and present. They take new forms, change faces, choose more sneaky words.

It is enough to stop there for a moment to break through the new appearances,  - old racism, the most concealed anti-Semitism. Ordinary racism...  It closes the labor market to young people who are stigmatized because of a surname or a first name. 

Conflicts of the world are being invoked in certain territories of our Republic, creating divisions that chase Jewish children from certain schools or lock up immigrant families in their communities. 

And then one day, because we You, because we did not want to see, the passage to the act intervenes. 

So what was words, which was only some hatred formulated differently and in others a form of cowardice or a complaisance not to want to see, then it becomes mowed lives and gestures that kill. 

Every synagogue, every mosque, every church, every temple, every desecrated or vandalized cemetery must alert us. The theory of the planetary plot, fantasies about world finance, insidious iconography, identity anxiety mobilizing the most toxic clichés At high speed it reaches gullible or permeable minds. 

Racism and anti-Semitism have the means to carry out their work of undermining - there are now unprecedented means of propaganda. 

Social networks are the biggest providers and we have not yet seen the extent of their influence in this regard.

* we can substitute the UK

Oh dear!

“Under EU law, there is no cap on the amount an employer found guilty of discrimination can be ordered to be pay in compensation. 

This could change after Brexit. 

The last government commissioned a report on employment law, by venture capitalist Adrian Beecham, that recommended introducing a cap on compensation payments for discrimination. 

Until now, EU rules have prevented UK government ministers from doing so.”

How Rights are Killed Off

UK laws banning discrimination on the grounds of age, religion or sexual orientation come directly from the EU’s Equal Treatment Directive. 

EU laws have also made it easier for people claiming discrimination to get justice, by placing the burden of proof in discrimination cases on the alleged perpetrator rather than the alleged victim.

To lose those rights, EU law has to be changed - that requires a long process where Members of the European Parliament (representing all strains of political opinion); Ministers from each of the EU member states and the European Commission have to agree to repeal these rights - OR a country like the UK can withdraw and the Government which controls most of the time in the House of Commons - can push through secondary legislation (not even requiring the limited parliamentary scrutiny available to Bills).

As you may know I have been writing and posting pieces on Facebook about the impact of Brexit on our rights. This morning I woke to the news that my Facebook account has been disabled - and therefore am silenced. I'm going through the procedure to have it restored. It seems that the complaint is that I'm not a real person!!!

I had prepared the following post - and if you feel able - can you post you - and by all means make it clear that it is from me - and that someone has sought (albeit temporarily) to silence the legitimate expression of political argument

All the very best

David

--------------------

Many of the funders of Brexit have a long record of complaining about the burdens forced on us by the EU. 

Most of us welcome the fact that EU law guarantees women a minimum of 14 weeks maternity leave. 

The 1992 EU Pregnant Workers Directive also gave women the right to take time off work for medical appointments relating to their pregnancy. It placed a duty on employers to look after pregnant women, including putting them on paid leave if the nature of their work was unsuitable during pregnancy – for example, if it was overly physical and potentially dangerous.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has made clear any discrimination towards a woman because of her pregnancy or maternity leave is sexism and should be treated at such. The ECJ also ruled that employers must give women on maternity leave the same contractual rights as they do to other employees, for example by continuing to pay in to pension schemes. 

Well that “burden” could be lifted when the UK leaves the EU.!

If you are serious about protecting rights - what are you doing to stop these rights being lost?

Blogging, Tweeting and Facebook

As well as my activity on my blogs - I also tweet

@jdm_progressive

and am active on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/jdavidmorgan

Recently I've been taking to social media to highlight why leaving the EU is very bad news for progressives.Please feel free to to use social media to spread that message around.

Here are some recent posts

Brexit - a challenge for Progressives

I have friends in the Labour Party who genuinely believe that Brexit promises opportunities for the advancement of progressive ideas.

I however have grave doubts about their strategy and the likely consequences of Brexit.

For one -

Britain faces a number of challenges to her economic future. Already some companies are preparing for to move (back) inside the EU to enjoy the full benefits of free movement of goods, persons and capital. They want to avoid any new tariff barriers that may be erected. That's bad for jobs in the UK, and bad for tax revenues. Some ideologues of the hard-right want austerity, not so much to reduce debt (which has been a huge failure in recent years), but to cause a reduction in the role of the State. With the UK Tories still able to attract millions of votes, and win more seats at Westminster, progressives who think that Brexit will unlock the keys to a greater role for Government expenditure are likely to be sorely disappointed.

My view is that we need to hold on to the rights already enjoyed - not sacrifice them to the Brexiters who want all EU regulations and rights annuled. I don't believe in giving up achievements, in order to refight battles already won. If, as some seem to believe, other EU countries want to halt socialism in its tracks - then withdrawing our role in EU decision making will strengthen "them". I'd love to know how socialism is achieved by shooting ourselves - and British workers - in the foot. For more on the rights protected by the EU (which Member States cannot unilaterally abolish) see here.

The way that hard-right Brexiters have been prepared to cynically play on progressive wishes is highlighted by the episode of the NHS bus. Deliberate lies were told to encourage progressive voters that the NHS would be strengthened by a vote to leave. Yet many of the leading Brexiters - who funded the dissemination of this lie - are no friends of a National Health Service. Their ideology dictates that privately funded, for profit provision of health services are a "better way"

There were people who backed Brexit within the Labour Party - but they were a minority in the campaign. It was driven by the hard-right - Arron Banks, Paul Sykes, Stuart Wheeler, Nigel Farage, Ian Duncan Smith, Michael Gove, Andrea Leadsom. The break up of the EU, because it represents to them a body interfering with business' right to do as it pleases - and imposing rights of workers and consumers, is also supported by the likes of Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, many of the tea-party tendency within the US Republican Party, Marine Le Pen and other right wing extremists. The Leave campaign - and today's shrill calls for a hard Brexit - have their cheerleaders in the Mail and Express groups - never friendly to progressives - but with a history of sympathy to the fascist leaders of the 1920s and 1930s.

They want Brexit - specifically a hard Brexit - to let them establish their ideological goals in one country - the UK - and then to spread their ideas by undermining the EU and the UN.

Progressives give them aid and assistance at their peril.