The EU referendum debate reveals a more sinister democratic deficit

Brexit campaigners have a point, the EU referendum debate reveals a democratic deficit - our collective ignorance and illiteracy.

On the 23rd June the nation will be asked to vote on an issue whose outcomes reach further than any general election while masses of voters are struggling to comprehend the issue. Our establishment resembles a totalitarian state in matters of public information. So much for a progressive enlightened western democracy? Also the same vested interests have prevented 16/17 year olds voting despite the enormity of the decision. Wouldn't want too many people getting involved in democracy would we?

We don't need conspiracy theories when at every turn we are kept ignorant of our governing system and it is no accident or oversight. Our political illiteracy is not confined to the wilfully ignorant or the uneducated. One can simply ask intelligent, knowledgeable people about the core EU institutions, what are they? how are they elected? how do they affect our lives? what is the troika?

Beyond the simplistic soundbites of our anti-intellectual debate, the European Parliament legislates on a number of issues like regulating banks and setting a bonus cap. It can maintain online privacy and uphold human rights, but it could also mean permanently privatised railways, austerity and the spectre of the profit-over-people TTIP trade deal. And so the EU economic war on the vulnerable continues as the gap widens between rich and poor.

The Brexiters offer nothing against neoliberal global institutions which wield more combined power than their continental nemesis. The undemocratic governance of the EU is replicated internationally. Anyone remember having a say in the G20? The G7? Or deciding the IMF board? Meanwhile the World Trade Organisation (WTO) oversees secretive trade talks of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal involving the collective economic might of East Asia, Australia and the US. This pact is very similar to aforementioned TTIP in that it favours big business over citizens. Brexits want Commonwealth trade to replace EU trade, yet fail to challenge the anti-consumer TTIP terms. With the lack of profile given to this massive issue why should the public feel confident them as an alternative?

The simple framing of Remain or Brexit excludes a third possibility of a democratic EU with bottom-up sustainable economics, fairer competition, absolutely no TTIP and strengthened worker rights. This referendum issue is a complicated mix of national, regional and global debates. But you can't study their underlying neoliberal orthodoxy on any national curriculum, or understand it by watching the news. That is perhaps the greatest democratic threat of all.

Instead we are distracted by the opium of personalities like Boris & Farage because the mainstream media gets revenue from the sensational over facts & insights. The day they and Brexiters highlight the importance of information about power structures is the day I'll believe they want ordinary citizens to reclaim democracy.

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The financial crisis awakens while too many are blaming the powerless

The tories have exposed the UK to global instability

In the last few months there have been no shortage of signs that another financial crisis is coming. Osborne and the tories will probably blame it on Labour while they are responsible for steering the nation through it:



Yet this government are happy to prostitute our resources, markets and workforce to any country as long as the right people are reaping the benefits:

• Our railways are actually two-thirds nationalised but not domestically - the German, French & Belgian states run large swathes of it. So the supposedly patriotic, Queen & country flag-waving tories are essentially saying "any state can run our railways as long as it isn't the British state."
• Immigrants that our elites seem to like, Russian oligarchs and the new super-rich Chinese, are welcomed to inflate property prices for locals & citizens who've paid a lifetime of tax only to be priced-out.
• As we know from 2008 our financial services industry is more open than ever under Osborne's light touch.

Our hyper-globalised economy can be a good thing, but not when run so unfairly for minority vested interests. While true that everyone is dependent on faltering China, the source of the turmoil but the tories seems to enjoy our status as one of the most globally exposed economies. If we had more control over our markets we could make decisions of economic sovereignity.

Anti-EU types seem to pick and choose when they speak about this lack of sovereignty, the much nastier global institutions of the G7 / G20 / IMF / WTO / TTIP are hidden from the spotlight - as is predatory global finance in general.

Stuttering growth is toxic for an unbalanced economy about to take a global hit. The graph below should have the tories apologising and using evidence-based economic solution instead of the austerity delusion. Yet they indulge in the rhetoric of empty triumphalism.





Domestic retail slowdown:

Weak figures over the 2015 Christmas shopping period do not present a optimistic future. The tories even had the gaul to blame it on mild weather. Seem to remember they used cold weather for a similarly disappointing yuletide results.

Meanwhile the supposedly anti-tax tories persevere with their ridiculous burden-on-the-poor VAT rate of 20% having raised it from 17.5% in 2011. Under the Labour it was 15% at one point encouraging consumer spending and liquidity after the 2008 crash.

UK productivity is one of the lowest in the G7 This particularly telling because it shows the lack of attention the tories pay to bottom-up long-term solutions. If there was a plan to incentivise small marginal gains for low-waged workers than the benefits would ripple-up. Instead trickle-down carrots do not permeate further than a small group, which as we know from wider economics.


Tories act as if certain groups are not essential parts of the economy:

While UK steelworkers suffer under market volatility the government does nothing. It appears they are completely at ease with skilled manual labourers losing employment through globalisation and ending up in the local Aldi for pitiful wages. While tax-take goes down it is also a complete waste of experience and expertise which tends to impact already-marginalised communities.

They sit on their hands apologising for dodgy Chinese market practices and provide no answers. No real surprise from the party who callously smashed the miners contributing to the regional issues in the first-place.

Meanwhile the Northern powerhouse has been moved from Sheffield to London. There are no words.

And the corporate media are up to their usual smoke & mirrors by again by failing to scrutinise the institutions which govern our lives. 

When the financial crisis strikes again we will finally realise the extent of media distraction #marr #bbctbq #bbcsp pic.twitter.com/hyTzbvZGG9

— JeSuisFedUp (@JeSuisFedUp) January 31, 2016

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Facts on bombing Syria: David Cameron is now a threat to our national security

So you've decided to bomb Syria

The UK has aimed its sights at what 'intelligence' says is ISIS / Daesh HQ in Raqqa, a Syrian town of 150k. This is despite every Paris attacker being an EU national based in France/Belgium - and not immigrants as many media outlets propagated. This raises the first suspicions that the decision is poll boosting economic imperialism rather than any long-term strategy for peace. Even David Cameron's tories admit these airstrikes will not defeat ISIS, especially as they are decentralised global entity using social media to interact and organise.

ISIS/Daesh need to be wiped-out but instead of empty war grandstanding for  furthering western interests, the solution should target the economic roots. A multilateral approach should stop their oil being exported through Turkey. This gets sold to the usual array of mercenaries and opportunists as well those resisting the cult who have no choice. All this enabled by the money transfer system of global finance which has only been addressed recently. Follow the money. These internal financial and external smuggling networks maintain the ISIS infrastructure. It is rarely understood that the proposed caliphate has fostered welfare and school systems, this doesn't happen without the involvement of western finance. So ISIS spawned from the Iraq blundering of neo-cons, is now exploited by their neo-liberal accomplices.

Selling arms to unstable regions or regions that trade arms to them is all part of the short-term profit making for the complicit west. Cash from chaos. Meanwhile Labour's Jeremy Corbyn highlighted these issues and how they could be alternatives in the fight.

What are the UK providing?

Since French and US allies have been bombing Syria precipitating the Paris attacks, not much is being offered. The UK is already bombing ISIS in Iraq but with permission. Of course we can't get it from Syrian despot Assad, who met the Queen once - see below.

A meagre force of 10-14 Tornado jets equipped with Brimstone missiles. Again war hawks confess there will still be civilian casualties with this latest technology because nothing that powerful can be 100% accurate 100% of the time - also if intelligence is flawed (hello WMDs) the missile is irrelevant. And Raqqa is densely populated and doesn't contain 150k of mostly innocents Syrians. There will be horrific collateral damage just as there has been with 28 Mosul school children killed and the Afghan Doctors Without Borders hospital deaths

What is the effect of civilian casualties?

General stoking up of the false clash of civilsations narrative between the imperialist  west and fascist pretend-muslims with their Wahhabi brainwashed followers. Ideology is how militarism is sold on both sides. The Nazis used the Reich propaganda of the master race. We let Saudis spread extremism because they have oil and it makes powerful western lobbyists money in the military-industrial complex.

Potential allies on the ground?

Obviously we can't bomb democracy into people so we need to influence those on the ground.
This chart is complicated enough to digest let alone work with in the chaos of war.
And factor in that they are unlikely to be "moderates" or sympathetic of the west.

Is there an exit plan?

Errr see above?

The complexities are obvious to anyone enquiring mind but government warmongers and their media enablers deceive for their usual purposes. Here is an example. 

David Cameron and the Queen are now a threat to our national security.


Despite the propaganda BBC Newsnight ran a debate broadcasting free un-spun opinions from both sides and several walks of life concluding in undecideds choosing not to bomb. Some polls back this up.

Does anyone without a vested interest in bombing for peace believe this will make the world a safer place?

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The establishment groupthink at the heart of the BBC

Print journalism was famously called 'the Fourth Estate', a remark attributed to MP Edmund Burke at the 1787 introduction of press reporting in parliament. He was emphasising the importance of holding government to account with complete independence - unlike the 3 other estates of the time (the Commons and two Lords).

The following highlights the conflict of interests within the supposedly culturally diverse BBC undermining Edmund' Burke's tenet of democracy in the contemporary media landscape. 

James Harding, Head of BBC News

• Went to same independent school as George Osborne.
• Went to Cambridge.
• Worked as a financial journalist.
• Worked at The Times owned by Rupert Murdoch.
• During his time at the paper he had to apologise for withholding information to the High Court during the Leveson inquiry.

Laura Kuenssberg BBC political editor

• From a well-connected family. Relatives include the last Governor-General of colonial Nigeria, a High Court Judge and the founder/president of the Royal College of GPs.
• Worked at ITV

James Landale, BBC News Deputy Political Editor

James Landale in David Cameron's kitchen

• Went to Eton with David Cameron.
• Worked at The Times.

Andrew Neil, presenter on the BBC Daily Politics

 Andrew Neil with David Cameron, Grant Shapps and Spectator editor Fraser Nelson

• Tutored by Vince Cable during his University of Glasgow days, who he would later interview many times.
• During university was a member of the Conservative Club.
• Worked for Rupert Murdoch as Sky's chief mover in the early days.
• Worked at the right-wing free market Economist and right-wing Sunday Times.

Andrew Marr BBC Marr Show presenter and ex-Political Editor

• Married to Jackie Ashley from another mostly establishment media org The Guardian and daughter of a Labour life peer. Life peers are a thing that exists in 21st century Britain
• Made use of a High Court super-injunction to prevent the media reporting the truth, nevertheless he continues to be regarded highly as a journalist in mainstream circles.
• In April 2003 made the report below celebrating  Blair's illegal Iraq invasion.

Allegra Stratton, BBC Newsnight reporter

• Cambridge alumnus
• Married to James Forsyth political editor of the right-wing The Spectator magazine owned by tax exiles the Barclays Brothers, who also own the right-wing Daily Telegraph

Nick Robinson ex-Political Editor 2005-2015, now at BBC Radio 4 Today show

• Founder member of Macclesfield Young Conservatives
• ex-Cheshire Young Conservative Chairman
• Former Young Conservative National Advisory Committee member
• As a student he was President of the Oxford University Conservative Association

The BBC Board of Trustees

Rona Fairhead, Chairman of Trust

Rona Fairhead being questioned about financial irregularities

• Cambridge alumnus
• Also works for HSBC and PepsiCo
• Declines to answer questions about Swiss banking irregularities.
• Admitted failings when her bank received a fine for money-laundering 
• Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for 'services to industry'

Roger Carr, Vice Chair

• Worked in the City
• Business background at Thames Water, arms company BAE systems & energy giant Centrica
• Knighted

What does this mean for any public interest issue that challenges the weaknesses in their inevitable consensus. It doesn't have to be conspiracy for decision-making to be influenced by mostly privileged backgrounds. All homogeneity by definition has blind-spots.

Would James Harding ever take aim at his powerful old boss about his bigotry or non-dom status?
Would Allegra Stratton ever scrutinise on the financial matters of the Barclays Brothers?

Would Rona Fairhead ever green-light an investigative series on the workings of HSBC, a bank that has already proven to be corrupt and a major part of our economy?

The names are inter-changeable, the outcomes similar.

Below is some background to journalists at The Times I published previously here

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The UK Austerity Myth

All 3 UK mainstream parties (Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats) and pretend protest party UKIP believe in some form of austerity. Since the 2008 global banking crisis which crashed the international economy austerity has become the consensus of most governments and institutions like the IMF.

It is intuitive to sell cuts to a public who are led to believe that running a country is like running a household. In hard times everyone can relate to the tightening of belts. We hear phrases like 'fix the roof while the sun is shining' and 'maxed out the credit card'. The whole extended metaphor is simplistic.

A country can borrow on global markets and print money via central banks. Debt and deficit are part of nations' finances because a global economy accommodates borrowing for investment. Households cannot use these tools and are not responsible for a population through which they can raise funds through taxation - if they dare. Still the austerity salespeople would like us to think this metaphor is valid.

What actually happens under austerity is a crisis of confidence that means banks stop lending, businesses stop employing and consumers stop buying and the whole household demand economy enters quicksand. Job numbers fall and with it income tax take. Is this ever mentioned by media vested interests?

Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman writes:

So what happens if everyone simultaneously slashes spending in an attempt to pay down debt? The answer is that everyone’s income falls — my income falls because you’re spending less, and your income falls because I’m spending less. And, as our incomes plunge, our debt problem gets worse, not better.

And yet despite the austerity rhetoric the current UK government is actually spending more than in pre-recession days. In 2009 and the start of 2010 the UK was recovering from the the turmoil of the crash under Labour's  economic plan. Then the newly elected coalition started taking an axe to the UK finances leading to stuttering performance until 2013 when they realised what many knew, austerity was incorrect. The legacy is 2 years wasted and then a return to massive borrowing while hypocritically bashing Labour. 

After the 2008 bak bailouts prevented world finance from collapsing. It was necessary but then that is an indication of the broken global system of finance. Quantitative easing is the same socialism for the rich.

The scale of the support currently provided to UK banks has fallen from a peak of £955 billion to £512 billion, but the amount of cash currently borrowed by the Government to support banks has risen by £7 billion since December 2009. It is likely the taxpayer will be providing support for years to come.

So what have the coalition government done they have punished public sector workers, the low paid, and the vulnerable. Further pain would be felt if the Conservatives remain in power after the forthcoming election when they restart their already-failed-once austerity.

Meanwhile there is little sign of a deterrent in the Libor rate scandal (CORRECTION 1 since 2012) or for banks laundering drug money affecting billions.

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