Some rambling and unstructured thoughts.
The EU didn't win us employment rights. Unions did. It's disappointing that even our unions believe this liberal revisionism where all our rights just appeared out of powerful people feeling nice, rather than often bloody collective struggle.
I'm absolutely fed up of the immigration argument. Don't blame Immigrants for low pay. Blame the bosses. We currently have built on about 2% of land, we have space, we have enough empty homes, it's the lack of social housing, the government not building more, and the private sector controlling supply to keep the prices up that cause the problems. The NHS is being driven into the ground, massively under funded and doctors being forced out, you're far more likely to be treated by an immigrant than be behind one on the queue at A&E. It's so much easier to blame the immigrants than the people really responsible. We've got some of the tightest immigration laws in the EU and we're planning on removing non-EU immigrants that earn under a certain amount (am amount much more than I earn), all this talk about 'open door immigration' is nonsense. I've no problem with immigration, I'd happily join Shengen. I've got far more in common with an immigrant worker than I do anyone in parliament, and immigrant workers aren't desperate to take away my rights and the NHS, I know who's side I am on.
I still don't know what to do. I don't like the EU, its structure isn't the most democratic and open (but I'm sick to death of the right wing leave people saying it's undemocratic as if people like Johnson and Farage are fans of democracy, and how much is it down to apathy and not the EU being shadowy?), thank god we're not in the euro, what they've been doing to Greece, as well as Spain and Portugal, is disgusting, they don't like the NHS. But it has benefits, Europe is more peaceful than ever before, we do have more rights secured through them and things like the ECHR which isn't a part itself but is connected, and I think people overlook the everyday benefits, the ease to go abroad, things like the plan to get rid of roaming charges. Coming out wouldn't free us of the red tape and extra laws regarding trading, we'd still have to meet them to trade with the continent. The EU also put a lot of money in to areas of this country that the government won't, like Cornwall, and EU money pretty much rebuilt Liverpool, where few forget what the British government did to it in the 80s. If we left the EU, the government would not invest in these areas. EU funding protects a lot of things our government would rather let die. We're going to continue to be closely tied with Europe, I'm not sure being a voice outside it will really help, we're not that big and important and there's potential for them to get back at us, and any dealing will be slowed down, like the case with Canada. We seem to do fine trading out the EU, Osborne seems to be in China every week selling the last dying scraps of our industry. A lot of people, like Farage, seem to want us to be the 51st state rather than an independent country. A lot of the independence arguments don't seem to be about anything tangible like the Scottish referendum, but more about some idea of patriotism that stands at odds with what the ruling and business classes are doing, like Osborne, and we increasingly live in a world where countries matter less and cities and businesses matter more, I'm not convinced what little Englander arguments have to offer beyond patriotism, which is terrible. Not that I'm saying this development is a good thing, far from it, but it is a thing. Leaving the EU won't actually stop this sinister assimilation into a globalised corporate dystopia, especially not when we have a government ran by the party who pioneered the process. Great seeing monarchists arguing against something that costs money, has unelected power and has questionable benefits for normal people. Great seeing people who voted Tory telling us the EU is a threat to the NHS.
TTIP is another big worry, it's absolutely horrifying, but our government will sign up to it either way. Some scary people want us in and when people like the IMF say we should stay in no one is fooled in to thinking they want us in for our own benefit and no one fails to see the threat there. Voting out is basically voting for the Tories to be less restrained in their efforts to destroy all our rights, freedoms and basically our lives, and that's a terrifying prospect. Sure, we can vote them out, but with their boundary changes, plans to cut short money, and the shift in the country's views etc, that seems unlikely to happen. But voting in its okaying the EU to continue doing everything terrible they're doing.
Both campaigns have been terrible, full of lies and scaremongering and I'm fed up of them. I fear that whatever the result is, whatever way many people vote, many won't be doing so from a well informed position because I haven't a clue either.
Basically either way we'll continue the slide down into the unbearable Randian late-capitalist hellscape we've found ourselves in, so we best pray the aliens come or something.
