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The discussion amongst international law lawyers about how to get out of the “backstop” is very revealing. It confirms what we have always said that, in the end, treaties are just scraps of paper that any state can get out of if and when it wants.
One of them, with the perhaps appropriate name of Pannick, says that what the UK would need to do to get out of the backstop would be to invoke Article 62 of the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties by claiming that “a fundamental change of circumstances” had occurred:
Some MPs have suggested looking into whether the backstop could be solved by using Article 62 of the Vienna Convention – which would allow the UK to withdraw from any treaty if there had been “a fundamental change of circumstances… which was not foreseen by the parties”.
In a letter to the Times, cross-bench peer and QC Lord Pannick said the UK would be “entitled to terminate the withdrawal agreement” under this clause – although he questioned whether it would be “wise politically”.
Evidently this Article is the let-out clause that is always in the small print of all legal documents. Any lawyer worth their salt should be able to come up with some specious argument about how circumstances had changed and that this was not foreseen. After all, that’s their trade.
What to do in the event of a referendum, general election or Euroelections provoked by the Brexit shambles is already on the agenda of the EC and Conference.
In the event of a general election, South Wales branch would contest a seat in Cardiff. In the event of Euroelections we could contest the South East and/or Wales region, both of which we did last time (these elections are based on proportional representation of party lists). As to a referendum, that would depend on the question, but the most likely one would be to confirm whatever deal is agreed.
In the meantime we will be leafletting (with our “Identity” leaflet) this pro-referendum march next Saturday as many on it will be protesting as much against xenophobia as against leaving the EU.
Some ammunition for Dave’s anti-Amazon speech at next month’s Party Conference:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8610116/911-calls-amazon-warehouses-workers-suicidal/
On the other hand:
They are not evidence that Amazon workers experience suicidal episodes more often than other American workers, in or out of a warehouse.
i.e., conditions in other companies’ warehouses may be no different.
Who the hell is Beto O’Rourke? In fact why am I wasting our cyberspace to mention the name of this obscure non-entity again?
More on her thinking here which someone has posted on our facebook page (I wish the Americans would write 11 March as 11/3 not 3/11).
Pity she opts, to benefit from “techno-futurism” and breaking the link between work and satisfying needs, for universal basic income and not for socialism as a society of common ownership, democratic control, production geared to satisfying people’s needs and not for profit, and distribution on the basis of “from each according to ability, to each according to need”, i.e., a world of abundance every man women and child on Earth can have unconditional free access to what they need just because they are members of society.
Yes, there does seem to be a trend developing to say that capitalism, at least in its so-called “neo-liberal” form, has “failed”. There’s him, the famous Elizabeth Warren, Corbyn & McDonnell, the Business Insider and the analysts it cites. But Rajan is being a bit of an economic determinist when he says:
“I think capitalism is under serious threat because it’s stopped providing for the many, and when that happens, the many revolt against capitalism,”
as if there was a direct link between worsening economic conditions and people revolting against capitalism (also of course he’s wrong when he suggests that at one time capitalism did provide for the money, whereas it never has or can.) Fortunately or unfortunately, this has not proved to be the case. The outcome this time is most likely to be a revival of reformist movements that aim to try to put things right through more government intervention and regulation in the capitalist economy. Reformists as, once again, more or less consciously “the breakdown gang of capitalism”.
Of course capitalism becoming a dirty word again is grist to our mill but, as we know, discontent with capitalism will not lead to a movement to end it unless people hear, discuss and come to agree with the case for socialism. Hence the need for a group like us to do all we can to help ensure this happens.
It’s all smoke an mirrors. Some Brexiteers had seen the backstop as a cunning ploy by the nasty Europeans to keep the UK in permanent vassalage to them by forcing the UK to stay in the customs union indefinitely and made a big song and dance about this. In other words, they accused the EU of bad faith. As in fact this was not the EU’s intention it was no real problem for them to confirm this, which they have done. In any event, if they had blatantly used the threat of refusing to allow the UK to leave the customs to extract a better final trading arrangement — which would be a case of bad faith — the withdrawal agreement already provided for the UK to appeal to an arbitration panel about this and presumably win if it was that blatant. The most that the documents that May has brought back from Strasburg do is to give more prominence to what was already there. I suppose that getting the EU to confirm in a further legal document that they will not negotiate a new trade agreement with the UK in bad faith might make the UK’s bargaining position slightly less weak. The EU, however, don’t think they have conceded anything meaningful. In other words, this was an opening exchange in these negotiations.
Business Insider is a US financial magazine. I got mislead by the way the word “labour” was spelt. They were in effect arguing that too low wages were slowing down the growth of the capitalist economy and, to remedy this, workers should get some more of the value they create. She might agree with this but had made the statement in connection with a demand for a higher minimum wage. Ironically — cruel fact as it is, but capitalism is like that — some people on very low wages are on them because their skills are not enough to create much more value than that of their wages. The real way out of course is to abolish the whole wages system so that people can satisfy their needs irrespective of what they are able to contribute.
Apparently Nutty Yahoo’s statement has been criticised, by Wonder Woman and the President of Israel:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gal-gadot-hits-out-netanyahu-over-jewish-people-comment-n981636
There’s hope yet.
The flow of money out of the City has already begun:
That’s about 10% of banking assets in the UK. Financiers were split over Brexit with some funding Remain and others funding Leave, but in general the City favoured Remain. Those funding Leave were mavericks who wanted out to avoid further EU regulation of their often dubious activities. They won, but some of them too are moving their assets — and fiscal domiciles — out of the UK.
“Israel is not a state of all its citizens. According to the basic nationality law we passed, Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people – and only it.” – Netanyahu.
Incredible. Completely shameless. Imagine a Prime Minister of Northern Ireland saying that Northern Ireland was a state for the Protestant people only. I think one did say something similar in the 1930s but didn’t go that far. He was denounced as a sectarian.
Actually Janet it’s not that complicated. You don’t need O level economics just common sense. Anybody can see that the only way that new wealth (things and services) can come into existence is by humans working on materials that originally came from nature. And that merely shuffling money, which is all they do in financial centres like the City, does not, cannot, create new wealth. All it can do is redistribute wealth that has already been produced by people working.
First thing, this is not cranky or conspiracy theory stuff but a genuine study (though the bit about the clerk from the City sitting at the table in the House of Commons is overdone; this is a historical leftover that shows that the merchants of the City did once have some special influence, but they don’t any more).
What goes on in the City of London (and other financial centres) is a redistribution of wealth (surplus value) produced elsewhere and so is a zero-sum game; no new wealth is produced so those capitalists and chancers who get wealthier do so at the expense of other capitalists and foolish workers who put some of their savings there who get poorer.
What I would challenge is the study’s view of the source of the wealth that is redistributed/gambled there. They suggest that it comes from the productive sector of the UK economy. Some will of course, but most comes from the surplus value part of wealth produced (mined or manufactured) in other parts of the world. The City is an international financial centre which attracts surplus value produced in all parts of the world and, in doing so, does contribute to increasing the UK’s GDP as a statistic.
The City has always done this but at one time UK capitalism also had a large manufacturing sector. This largely ran down in the 1980s when the then Tory government (under Thatcher) decided to give absolute priority to the City as a source of GDP income, mainly from abroad. This policy was continued by successive governments including that of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown (so the study is right to say Labour has been just as much responsible as the Tories for prioritising the City over manufacturing industry).
Corbyn and McDonnell are promising to reverse this. If they are assuming that they can simply divert to UK manufacturing industry the surplus-value sucked by the City from abroad they (and the authors of this study) are in for a shock. Capitalism doesn’t work that way and the money that now flows to the City will flow elsewhere, e.g. New York, Frankfurt or Amsterdam. If Labour gets elected and their policy fails (as it will) prepare for the blame to be put again on “the gnomes of Zurich” as Harold Wilson did for the failure of his Labour government in the 1960s. Unfortunately we’ve seen it all before.
Oh good, we can discuss the policies too of this bunch of reformists. I thought this about Amazon being “anarcho-capitalists” which you posted on libcom was amusing (incidentally libcom’s forum seems as alive as ours, must be a sign of the times):
In particular:
Capitalism is failing in America, and Amazon is both the cause and beneficiary of much of the breakdown … In the most extreme form of capitalism taxes do not exist. This is called “anarcho-capitalism.” Among all corporations, Amazon may be the leading advocate of this philosophy. They haven’t paid federal income tax for the past two years.
So, Amazon was must be singled out and dealt with because it has helped make American capitalism fail and pays no taxes. Bash Amazon to save American capitalism. There could be some vote-catching mileage there.
There is also something there about the wages and conditions of its workers (which I can see Dave reading out at Conference), though the word “exploit” here is used in its popular sense of being treated worse than most other workers (in the Marxian sense all workers are exploited, whatever their pay or however good their conditions).
Off topic? This whole topic is off topic. Just a list of more or less obscure American professional politicians who have thrown their hat into the ring to become 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate. So I looked for something to liven it up and introduce a bit of a socialist element. It worked.
