Brexit: The saviour of capitalism.

An election is looming in the UK, on the 12th of December the nation will vote for a new leader of this beleaguered country. If you follow the polls, you may be thinking things are looking bleak for Labour, as many polls have the Conservatives in a sizeable lead. Of course, they could be way off, as they were in 2017, when Labour made significant headway. What amazes me is not that the Conservatives are reportedly doing better than Labour, but the question must be; how are they even close? Massive inequality, an NHS that’s steadily being sold off, poor public services, inconsistent education, increase usage of food banks, a growing homeless population and inertia when it comes to climate change, just to name a few issues. This should be a perfect time for a change Prime Minister of which Corbyn is well suited. So what’s happened? The answer is Brexit.

I’m not sure at the time if David Cameron, the Conservative Party or the right wing in general realised how much political capital would be gained by the charade that has become of leaving the EU. Before we go any further, I will just reaffirm my position on Brexit and it’s a simple one. It will be neoliberalism if the UK stay in Europe and it will be neoliberalism if you’re eating Corn Flakes having voted for the Conservative Party on the morning of the 13th of December. Nothing will change, well not for the better anyway. Everything will continue to get worse, only at a quicker pace because a majority of people will have voted for entitled, public school educated, upper class psychopaths, with a mandate to do as they wish.

This election has rather predictably been labelled a Brexit election, but this is merely a sideshow. There is much more going on in the UK that requires urgent action. Sadly Brexit has divided people like no other issue, blinding many to much more pressing matters that Brexit simply cannot and will not resolve. The UK is split on geographical lines, education, class, race, political party, climate change and of course the ‘B’ word. The political right know that when people are divided, apathetic, politically demoralised and voter turnout is low, they win and usually handsomely.

When people are united by the need for change, with a trust that this can be achieved through the democratic process and a general agreement of what it should look like, the population tends to move to the left. Much of the populist left does not possess much money or power, but when it works it is driven by the people, in vast numbers. Hence the beauty of Brexit. It adds yet another fissure to society, keeping people divided, bitter, angry, emotional and desperate. These factors lead to some working class people who have gained nothing from the system to vote for the very party who will maintain the status quo.

The ruling elite are feeding off the anxiety and desolation of the working class, who have seen whole areas decimated and relieved of any trace of industry or prosperity. Huge swathes of this group show all the signs of ‘Stockholm Syndrome‘. This is a condition that is often displayed by abused people, prisoners of war and cult members. This occurs when people feel intense fear of physical harm and believe their captor is in total control. It is chiefly thought to be a survival response, which includes sympathy and support for their captor’s plight and can even display manifestations of negative feelings towards people who are trying to help (in this case Labour and Jeremy Corbyn).

A large proportion of this magic trick is performed by the ruling elite, providing disgruntled citizens a common enemy, while proposing a solution to end their pain. Primarily, but not exclusively regarding Brexit this particular ‘patsy’ is immigration. The powers that be, along with a complicit mainstream media have created immigration as a major issue. It has been suggested that immigrants are stealing jobs or reducing wages within the UK.

All this despite academic research suggesting that this is a false narrative, but the myth persists, as any dissenting voice is simply discarded as propaganda, both from the left and the right dependent on which side of the Brexit fence you sit on. Many people will vehemently declare they are not racist and I’m sure they are generally sincere with these admissions. However, the process of immigration involves of course people from varying countries and cultures and without any compelling evidence to support the immigration theory, lets just say, it doesn’t look good.

Many people who move to the UK are there because the nation requires their skills, particularly in the NHS. Regarding EU immigrants, a paper by the London School of Economics suggests that they are generally more educated, younger and less likely to claim benefits than people born in the UK. Approximately 44% of this population have some form of higher education as opposed to 23% of those born in the UK. With regards to taking jobs, immigrants also consume goods and services, therefore, potentially creating more employment opportunities. Evidence has shown that in areas with the most amount EU immigration the situation has not resulted in major job losses or a reduction in pay for UK born workers. Most major economic repercussions resulted from the rich playing roulette with other peoples’ money, pre and post 2008.

So on the face of it, the immigration scapegoat holds little water, but we shouldn’t let a good yarn obscure the facts, because after all the ruling elite have a solution for all this. This of course is Brexit, on waking up post election, plus Brexit shortly after, the UK will be free to make their own decisions and to screw up the country as they see fit. They will be free to continue with the privatisation of the NHS, free to penalise the poor and free to allow corporate CEO’s, ex Prime Minsters, celebrities and other undesirables to hide their money in British Overseas Territories via trusts. All this freedom must be intoxicating for some people, but not necessarily for anyone you or I know. The idea that Brexit will cure all our ills is a fantasy, but it continues to fragment the people and for that the Conservatives must be eternally grateful.

How the rich and powerful fool us all: The games the ruling elite play.

So we enter another round of scandals regarding the rich and almost by design it’s been given the delightful rather fluffy name of the Paradise Papers. Don’t worry for those who are apathetic or have the attention span of an amoeba, I am relatively confident in a couple of months this will have been forgotten just like many scandals before. Overnight we will have our attention redirected back onto immigrants, Brexit, or the poor supposedly stealing the ‘wealth of a nation’, surreptitiously performed by the great conjurers of the ruling elite. Or better still, the powers that be will hope we have drifted off into a reality TV induced hypnotic state with the possible aid of Captain Vacuity himself aka Simon Cowell. The individuals who direct these propaganda initiatives are some of the very same people who are implicated in this recent ‘incredible disappearing money trick’. From the usual suspects including; Facebook, Apple and Nike to monarchs such as Queen Elizabeth II are all entwined in this mass money stashing exercise we’ve witnessed recently. Irritants such as Bono who have the gall to ‘bang on’ about helping the poor and the oppressed, evidently has an alternative set of rules when it concerns his own cash. Paying tax that helps to fund hospitals, schools, infrastructure and so on is clearly OK when it is somebody else’s money, primarily us minions. However, Bono and many like him consider themselves far too special for such inconveniences as paying tax. The array of characters implicated this time consist of; monarchy, politicians, CEO’s, sports people, entertainers, lobbyists, property speculators and governments, all with one thing in common, money. I would wager they would all bellow out the same mantra like a church choir if cornered, “but it’s legal”. For many people outside the world of private jets, multiple homes, private islands and more cars than you could count, there is such a thing as morality, which many of us observe. Unfortunately this concept holds little or no currency among the reasonably small cabal that rule over many of us. For them the only question is; “can I get away with it and if so, how”? So, how do they get away with it and more specifically, why do we let them? As people we are divided globally by; language, culture, geography and politics to name a few examples. Within our respective nations we are separated further dependent on a whole raft of variables; political affiliation, religion, gender, race, age, geography, economic class and many more. Some of these factors are natural such as race and age, meaning they are unchanging, but these too can cause rifts dependent on people’s viewpoints. Other areas of dispute, however, can be completely contrived such as which football team you support. Even this still divides people across not only nations, but cities and often not in a trivial way. The point is, as a species we are split along thousands of social-cultural and political fault lines which is to the great benefit of neoliberal ruling elite. Some of these divisions are allowed to run their course with little interference from the powers that be, such as wars that don’t directly affect the nation; in fact instability to a region could be helpful, for trade or resources for instance. Other areas are directly manipulated by the government, corporations and media including social media to create a myriad of distractions or false targets of anger. It is ultimately the construction of division between sections of the community that is the primary objective. This fragmentation, or the equally damaging apathy of the people ultimately fends off any coherent opposition to the regime. So lets pick up on a couple of these distraction techniques, starting with everyone’s favourite talking point in the UK ‘Brexit’.

Brexit effectively has nothing to do with the vast majority of people. That’s not to say the effects good, bad or indifferent will not have a bearing on your life, of course they will. To put it bluntly the decision to host a referendum was not taken in the best interests of the people, whether you are pro-EU or not, it was never about you. The two sides only argument within the government was how best to produce a right-wing, neoliberal paradise, that was good for them and their corporate masters. Although, neither side particularly cared about the population, they still had to convince them to vote their way, hence the litany of lies on both sides. To you lefties out there, I do realise there was such a concept as ‘Lexit’, but you were inconsequential regarding your impact and it actually served the ‘juntas’ purpose by engineering yet another split. Even now supporters still have pet names for their opposing tribes, such as ‘remoaner’, while the pro-EU supporters will often try to attain the moral high ground, while hurling the word racist or xenophobe around. This gets to the crux of the ruling elites tactics, Brexit was a masterstroke, because it didn’t abide by any of the usual left-right paradigm. What occurred was a further fissure had been carved into the fabric of society. Although this may not have been predicted by the establishment at the time, this was certainly seized upon and used to keep us fragmented, therefore, allowing the continuation of the rule of the self-interest. Another favourite with the establishment that keeps us squabbling is immigration. This  ‘hot-potato’ was neatly included into proceedings during the referendum run-up. Remember Nigel Farage’s poster of Syrian refugees being turned away at the Croatian border?

This was a deeply conscious attempt to frighten ill informed members of the population, while confirming the fears of the xenophobic and racist sectors of the nation. The primary objective of right-wing media (which is the majority in the UK) is to confuse and anger certain segments of society, while conflating EU or non-EU migrants with refugees and asylum seekers. They amplify certain news stories, such as Muslim sex offenders, while purposefully reducing the volume on all other sex offending. Although, when you dig a little deeper, you realise that the reality is unsurprisingly vastly more nuanced. In fact figures from Greater Manchester Police indicated that 95% of sex offenders were white, which is not to say there isn’t a problem within certain sectors of the Muslim community regarding this issue. It is just worth acknowledging, however, that the answer to many of these problems is not a binary solution. The kind of moral reporting required involves critical thinking and a modicum of ethical concern, however, this is clearly not in the interest of the elite. What we are generally left with after several rounds of hyperbole is a great big bowl of hate and vitriol. This is kept simmering by using repeated biased rhetoric from news outlets such as the Daily Mail, owned by tax dodging Lord Rothmere. This ship of hate is steered impeccably by Paul Dacre the editor of this overtly, right wing, xenophobic rag, who’s mission is to spread fear and racism as far around the globe as humanly possible. The Daily Mail will purposefully focus on aspects of migration to suit Dacre and his boss’s warped worldview. As an example the Mail have printed twice the percentage of articles about the criminality of migrants than any other newspaper. Furthermore, they’ve also publish double the amount or stories regarding economic pull factors being the motivation for migrants. The Daily Mail is exceptionally adept at cherry picking information to fit Dacre’s political position, which it would appear is a little right of Hitler. The Daily Mail continues to delight their readers (of which my Dad is one) with pithy little cartoons, all in the wonderful style of hate filled islamophobia see below for details.

You may feel I am unduly picking on the Daily Mail and you’d be right. Primarily because it’s propaganda from the likes of the ‘Fail’, The Sun and The Daily Express that contribute to social division. I also feel it would be naïve to believe that this is not an intentional plan to frighten their readers primarily in ‘middle England’, while stoking the fires of social disunity, thus maintaining the elitist view of social order. Unfortunately xenophobia, racism and an acute lack of compassion are not far from New Zealand either, in fact it masquerades across the ‘ditch’ daily as the Australian government. Recently Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has attempted to broker a deal with Australian Premier Malcom Turnbull to take 150 asylum seekers from the ‘hell hole’ of Manus Island detention centre. So far Turnbull has declined the offer, suggesting in line with that bastion of racial equality Pauline Hanson, that NZ will be just be another route asylum seekers will take to gain entry into Australia. Since 2013 Australia has held the draconian stance that no refugees arriving by boat will set foot on Australia. Instead they have been detained on the islands of Nauru and Manus (although Manus is currently being closed down) in appalling conditions, which the Australian government has refused to take responsibility for. Poor mental health on the islands is rife, with detainees displaying PTSD, severe anxiety and depression. The regime has been cruel, unlawful and deeply punitive. Physical abuse, verbal abuse and theft by locals has been commonplace. Accounts of sexual abuse and rape of female asylum seekers have been reported to the UN. All the while neither the local police or the Australian government have been held accountable. The UN have concluded that the actions of the Australian government are cruel, inhumane and degrading, but so far no action has been taken. It is important to note that over 60% of the detainees have either been given refugee status or will be, which is not an easy criteria to meet and are, therefore, protected by international law. Despite this, one of the phrases used by both the US and Australian governments to deflect such accusations of cruelty is to describe the people seeking asylum as ‘illegal’. This in my opinion is entirely designed to illicit a desirable response from their political supporters and backers, while justifying their actions to detractors. It is agreed that migrants arriving at a country without documents may well be irregular, undocumented or unauthorised, but they are not illegal. As they have not committed a crime they cannot be deemed illegal, however, this term is deliberately used to dehumanise people and serves to bolster the feelings of fear among the host citizens. It is this fear, combined with xenophobia and racism that I have noticed in several comments sections of New Zealand news sources. What is staggering is many of the comments are identical to ones I’ve read on UK news sites regarding asylum seekers in Europe, such as; “they’re all rapists”, “they don’t look like kids”, “where are their wives” and so on. It’s the same rhetoric that is dispatched around the world by both the state and the mainstream media who effectively have the same goal, which is to remain in control. Eventually this right wing driven narrative or to put it more bluntly propaganda insidiously morphs opinion into ‘fact’. Although immigration is probably the biggest weapon the establishment use to maintain a societal fissure, another particular favourite of the ruling elite is the poor and more specifically recipients of benefits.

The old ‘it’s not us, it’s them’ trick, is the classic game the rich and powerful play to keep the riff-raff in check. As we have found all the way through, their ‘cunning plan’ is amplified and conveyed spectacularly by the very wealthy press barons, as it serves their purpose. Both my major countries of interest the UK and NZ have spent millions on ‘benefits fraud campaigns’. While programmes such as Benefits Street helps to stigmatise the poor and vulnerable.

The reality is, in the UK the amount lost to benefit fraud is roughly £1.3bn per year. This sounds a lot until you realise that unclaimed benefits amounts to £16bn and overpayments due to error totalled £1.4bn. This is of course not an effort to condone benefit fraud, but a little perspective is required, certainly when we consider tax evaders and avoiders. The HMRC in the UK has conservatively estimated that £30bn has been lost to schools, hospitals and so on, due to evaders and avoiders, however, Tax Research UK estimates the sum is much nearer to £120bn. This brings us full circle to the Paradise Papers and the unique rules by which the rich live by. If the Queen can’t even be bothered to pay taxes for her own country, I think we have to conclude that society is well and truly broken. Not only is the monetary difference between rich and poor crime staggering, but the disparity of how the two crimes are viewed is equally perplexing. Approximately 720 people work in the ‘affluent’ and ‘high net worth’ units tracking down 500,000 of the UK’s wealthiest and the not unsubstantial sum of £120bn per year. While on the other side of the ‘tracks’ so to speak over 4000 staff are employed to investigate benefit fraud, which loses roughly £1.2bn per year. This glaringly obvious contrast in the number of officers assigned to each area indicates to me that the powers that be are not remotely interested in chasing down tax criminals and that this pretence of addressing it is nothing more than ‘window dressing’. New Zealand doesn’t escape the charge of targeting the poor markedly more than the rich either. The figures show a similar story in the southern hemisphere, whilst benefit fraud swindles $30.6 million from the tax coffers, tax fraud wrestles $1.24billion from the government’s grasp. Hopefully with the recent arrival of Prime Minister Ardern, this diabolical trend of socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor will end.

The reason for the asymmetrical treatment regarding the have and have nots shouldn’t be hard to attain. One group has no power, an acute dearth of money and an absence of collective social cohesion. The other by contrast has an abundance of money in which they use to create the imbalance of power. It’s not inconsequential that many politicians also have business investments to protect, the two components effectively feed each other and are often one in the same. The poor have nothing to offer the ruling elite, while the rich have battalions of lobbyist offering ‘incentives’ if only the regime of the day tips the scales further in favour of the rich. What we have here is a story of division, our ‘glorious leaders’ utilising power, manipulating people to achieve personal gain and to climb ever further on the ladder of power. A fragmented disjointed populous is crucial for the smooth running of a plutocracy. Many people are not even aware this is occurring and they certainly don’t think it is being done on a conscious level, by government. Let me assure everyone this behaviour is completely intentional and is an exceptionally well engineered con trick. We can only defeat the scourge that is neoliberalism headed by the plutocracy if people collectivise, this however, will require a rapid mutual awakening.