This week I am mostly voting to remain in the European Union

I used to be very opposed to the UK’s membership of the European Union for reasons that I outlined in this post back in May 2013. However, over the last couple of years I have become more sympathetic towards the EU and, as things stand, I intend to vote to remain within the European Union when the referendum on UK membership takes place on 23rd June this year.
In the post linked to above, I gave two main reasons for being opposed to the European Union: Firstly, its size, and the concomitant diminution of my power as a voter (as well as the fact that the size of a government may be inversely proportionate to its efficiency of operation and may also make it more liable to 'capture' by corporate interests which are more capable of lobbying etc. compared to members of the public, for whom a continent wide government seems - and in many ways is - distant and remote). I still think this is a problem, and national governments should, in my opinion, work hard to push back against the inevitable gravitational pull of a large, centralised EU and try to make sure that only those powers which are relevant to the continent as a whole are retained by that institution. However, one of the big issues of our time is the increasing power of transnational corporations and the best chance that people have for holding these institutions to account is through a continent wide approach. The EU population (and therefore the number of consumers in the market) is nearly eight times larger than that of the UK. This means that the EU has eight times the bargaining power (and eight times the clout) of the UK when it comes to negotiating with - and regulating and taxing - the financial powers that be. Also, a united front among European countries when it comes to minimum levels of taxation, health and safety standards and workers' rights is the best way to prevent a race to the bottom as individual countries fight to retain profitable businesses within their own borders. At one time it may have been possible for governments to provide public services by taxing workers’ incomes in order to pay for them. However, over the last 30 years, an increasingly high percentage of the profits of industry and commerce has gone to owners and shareholders as opposed to workers, which means that in order to continue to provide good quality services it will increasingly be necessary for governments to be able to tax companies’ profits at a reasonable level. At a time when the power of corporations is growing, then, transnational unity among governments is surely a rational response.
The second reason I gave for being against the EU was the fact that there is no common language for Europe, which limits the possibilities for continent-wide public debate, so making it harder for the EU electorate to hold the EU institutions to account. I still think this is an issue, but a far less serious one than I used to think. This is because, as long as the UK parliament is the sovereign body in this country, then there is no actual threat to democracy from the EU. If we, as a country, choose to pool some of our sovereignty with other European countries then that is a decision that has been democratically arrived at through our own national institutions and one that we could reverse at any time - again through our own democratic institutions - should we, as a national electorate, so wish. Notwithstanding the fact that George Osborne recently described the upcoming referendum as settling the question of the UK's EU membership (or non-membership) for 'a generation' (and I have heard other politicians describe it as settling the question 'once and for all'), the fact is that even if the forthcoming referendum results in the UK remaining in the EU, should a majority of the UK public decide at any point in the future that it wishes to leave then there is nothing to stop it from voting in a government which would take the country out of the EU. What I am trying to get at is that it is okay to 'outsource' some of the functions of government to an institution which is perhaps less than optimally democratic, provided the decision so to do is arrived at democratically and that there are democratic procedures in place for reversing that decision. (To put it bluntly, if the United Kingdom’s domestic political system is sufficiently democratic that the ‘public will’ is reflected in government policy, then should the majority of the UK electorate at any given time wish to leave the European Union, the government will respond accordingly and implement that wish. In such circumstances, membership of the EU cannot be construed as any kind of threat to the sovereignty or self-determination of the UK and its citizens. However, if the UK’s domestic political system is not sufficiently democratic that the ‘public will’ is reflected in government policy, then to leave the EU with the intention of returning to a more democratic, responsive and popular form of government would be an exercise in fantasy and futility.) Incidentally, I think it is this non-compulsory aspect of EU membership that differentiates the EU from the traditional idea of an Empire and also helps to ensure the principle of subsidiarity – that is, the principle that the EU should only intervene in matters where national governments acting alone would not be sufficiently effective.
The advantages of EU membership in terms of free trade and a single market (and of having a seat at the table that decides on the rules of that single market - rules which are necessary to prevent a race to the bottom in terms of health and safety and working conditions) and in terms of encouraging inward investment into the UK are so great that, in my opinion, it is worth pooling a certain amount of our sovereignty in the manner described above, in order to retain these.
Finally, there are two additional reasons why I would like the UK to remain in the EU. Firstly, I have friends (and will soon have a relative through the marriage of one of my nephews) who are legally resident in this country because of the freedom of movement that our EU membership brings. Even when I was opposed to the EU I was not against the freedom to live and work in the country of one's choice, but I fear that should the UK leave the EU there could possibly be a threat to the right of these friends and relatives to remain in the UK or to become UK citizens should they so wish.
Secondly, there is a very real possibility that, should the UK withdraw from the EU, Scotland would vote to leave the UK. Not only that, but if Scotland were to be admitted to the EU as an independent country while the rest of the UK was outside of the EU, then there could be an actual border complete with customs and the need for passport controls between Scotland and the rest of Britain. A similar situation could obtain with regard to the island of Ireland, where a vote for the UK to leave the EU could result in the reinstatement of border controls between Northern Ireland and the Republic, undoing one of the achievements of the peace process.

Unsafe hospitals and low pay in the NHS

A couple of weeks ago, I heard on the radio that a report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has been published which described three quarters of NHS hospitals as unsafe. I work for an NHS Community Trust which was inspected recently by the CQC - we got good marks on everything except patient safety in our bed-based units (community hospitals) for which it was found that improvements were necessary. The reason we fell short on patient safety was the fact that we did not have sufficient numbers of nurses on all shifts. The Trust respnded to this verdict with an intensive recruitment drive, even sending representatives abroad to look for new nursing staff (including, incidentally, to Romania where, some would have us believe, the entire population is desperate to come to the UK) but even after this it was unable to recruit enough qualified staff to maintain the required levels for patient safety. Consequently, the decision was made to close one of the community hospitals, with existing staff having to be relocated to different sites (some simply resigned, exacerbating the problem of low staffing levels) and patients also had to be moved further away from their home area, making family visits more difficult. As a result of the closure of this community hospital there are now less community beds available than previously in the county in which I live and work.
The government claims to hav 'ring-fenced' NHS spending, but by freezing pay for NHS staff year on year* during a time of rising costs of living, a situation has been created in which there are now serious difficulties in the recruitment and retention of staff.
From my own experience working in the NHS I know that another consequence of the difficulty in maintaining staffing levels is that clinical staff often end up having to cancel previously scheduled training in order to stay and help out on wards, particularly when one or more colleagues may be off sick (and of course, sickness levels inevitably increase when staff are under additional stress due to having to work in an inadequately staffed environment); and staff being behind on training is another factor which contributed to hospitals being considered unsafe in the recent CQC report.
Those 'conspiracy theorists' who see a pattern developing in which the government appears to be deliberately making life difficult for the health service, and allowing its reputation with the public to be damaged, in order to make the process of privatisation (which is already underway in one sense**) easier, would certainly not be dissuaded of their view by this situation of wards and hospitals having to close as a result of Trusts' inability to recruit and retain staff, nor by the recent press coverage regarding the high proportion of 'unsafe' hospitals.

*The only reason that nurses and other NHS staff managed to get a 1% pay rise last year was by resorting to strike action - something that is very unlikely to be possible in the future if the government brings in their proposed new anti-trade union legislation.

**40% of new NHS contracts currently go to private healthcare companies.

Why progressive taxation is better than 'People's Quantitative Easing'

Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell and their economic guru Richard Murphy have spoken frequently of their plan to use quantitative easing (increasing the supply of money in the economy) to help fund projects such as housing construction, green energy production, digital infrastructure etc, as a way of creating jobs, getting the economy moving and solving some of the social and environmental problems that we currently face.
While I agree that these are laudible aims, I am not sure that quantitative easing (QE) is the best way for a future Labour government to go about raising revenue.  My reason for this is as follows:
Any increase in the supply of money inevitably decreases the value of money that people already hold, and this affects everyone in equal proportion, eg. a 2% increase in the supply of money means that, all things being equal, the value of all previously existing money decreases by exactly 2%.  In other words, QE operates as if it were a flat tax on everyone, including the low paid and those on benefits.  And since those with low incomes spend a higher proportion of their earnings on essential goods, they are more detrimentally affected by a decrease in the value of their money than those who have more of the stuff. QE, therefore, like VAT, is effectively a form of regressive taxation.
There is an argument, which may well be correct, that as long as there is excess capacity in the economy then increasing the money supply to fund investment should not cause inflation - the increase in available goods and services should counteract it (because the more products that are vying to be bought by those that have money, the greater the demand for money, thus increasing the value of money relative to those products).  However, even if this is the case, it means that, to the extent that the increase in goods and services were to be funded by some other method  - one which did not impact on the low paid - those at the lower end of the economic scale would benefit from an increase in purchasing power, which QE denies them.
For these reasons, I think that a better way to fund necessary and beneficial infrastructure projects would be to use some form of progressive taxation - rather than QE which, as explained above, is effectively a flat tax - so that the real cost of investment is distributed in a way that does not impact disproportionately on the low paid.

The Fiscal Charter: Damned if you support, damned if you oppose

I think John McDonnell and the Labour leadership were right to oppose George Osborne's Fiscal Charter yesterday. It is not the job of the current government to try to impose it's will on future governments. It is for future electorates to decide what kind of government they wish to install in 2020 and beyond, and to decide what type of economic policies to oppose or support.
The Fiscal Charter is clearly nothing more than a publicity stunt designed to either undermine Labour's credibility as an anti-austerity party (had they supported it) or to make them appear economically irresponsible in the eyes of the general public in the event that - as was the case - they opposed it.
Perhaps the best approach would have been a mass abstention on the part of the parliamentary Labour party. This would have avoided disunity in the party ranks while treating the Fiscal Charter with the contempt it deserves.

Why Jeremy Corbyn is so popular with the 'grass roots'

In my opinion, the current popularity of Jeremy Corbyn is not, on the whole, to do with any real increase in the level of support for left wing or traditional socialist ideology. In some ways, the old distinction between left and right wing politics is becoming outdated (or, perhaps, transcended), at least among large sections of the public. For many people, the more relevant distinction today is that between the ‘elite’ (both in political and economic terms) and the ‘masses’ of ‘ordinary’ people (the so-called 99% of the Occupy movement rhetoric). This explains why some people who voted UKIP at the general election now warm to Jeremy Corbyn (I know this because I have heard a number of them discussing their newfound interest in Labour on radio phone-in shows. They are not ‘saboteurs’ trying to wreck the Labour Party but people who are cynical about slickly professional mainstream politicians and drawn towards anyone who comes across as someone they might bump into in the local pub).
This phenomenon (the viewing of politics specifically in terms of the ‘little guy’ versus the elite) is, of course, partly a response to the growing momentum behind globalisation, with the increase in influence of the European Union and the growth of multinational corporations. But in some ways it is also a very old movement. The allies in World War 2 overthrew fascism and the ‘West’ then resisted communism because support for liberal democracy with its championing of the rights of the individual is embedded deeply in our collective psyche and, I would argue, this helps to make our culture predisposed to favour the dispersal (as opposed to the concentration) of power.
The distinction is deeply rooted in many aspects of our culture. From Tolkien to Harry Potter, the underlying theme is that of the small, the weak, the ordinary and the everyday (and therefore the good) versus the big, powerful enemy with its huge plans and ambitions for global domination.
Put simply, Corbyn is doing so well because his obvious sincerity and commitment to represent those who vote for him mean that he is trusted, to defend their corner, by those who feel alienated and powerless in this increasingly elite-controlled and globalised world.

Labour Leadership Limerick

When a Labour MP named Corbyn
Whose views were a trifle left wing
Joined the leadership race, many laughed in his face
Now it seems he may actually win!

Labour should have the confidence to be itself!

Yesterday, at the behest of their acting leader, Harriet Harman, the majority of Labour MPs chose not to oppose the government's Welfare Reform Bill aimed at reducing welfare spending through such measures as lowering the cap on Housing Benefit and completely doing away with Child Tax Credits for any but the first two children of a household. Harman's objective in not opposing this bill was to reassure the public that Labour is the party of the workers and not the party of welfare claimants.
In my opinion, the Labour Party is so busy trying to please all those people who didn't vote for it in the general election that it is forgetting it's real job - that of Her Majesty's loyal opposition.
Swing voters are, by definition, capable of having their minds changed by the policies, arguments and record of the parties between whom they have been asked to choose. In my view, rather than trying to belatedly conform to the wishes expressed by such voters at the last election, Labour needs to come up with positions and policies that reflect its traditional values of egalitarianism and social solidarity and offer a clear and credible alternative to the anti-public sector/benefit claimant/immigrant stance of the current government and then set about the business of persuading the potential swing-voters of 2020 that such policies are worth endorsing at the ballot box.
As for the committed Labour voters, such an approach would surely be welcomed by many of them, too - especially considering the amount of grass roots support their seems to be for the most left wing of the current leadership candidates.