GUEST BLOG: David Cunliffe – No matter who wins Brexit – Democracy damaged

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united kingdom exit from europe relative image
united kingdom exit from europe relative image

However the Brexit vote turns out, one thing is certain: public anger with the status quo is taking Britain to within a few % of bolting from the EU, weakening a key global institution and continuing a trend towards political “weirdness” worldwide.

Except it is not weird, or accidental. It is inevitable.

As incomes become more fragile, as wealth becomes more obscenely unequal, as business becomes more global and the means of democratic oversight more remote from everyday folk, how else can things turn out?

Of course the sensible middle class will be gradually polarised.

Of course the old certainties will be swept away.

But what will replace them?

Let us hope it is sustainable, democratic and humane.

Let us hope it results in good international rules and global power sharing.

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Let us hope we can begin to address the challenge of global climate change that is now roaring at us.

Use technology for good and provide a just transition to new, flexible forms of work supported by lifelong learning.

And restore justice and opportunity to so many who are increasingly marginalised, disempowered and angry.

Because it could so easily be the reverse: Economic, political and ultimately military chaos on a scale not seen since WW2 and the Great Depression.

Reform prevents revolution.

Reform is long overdue.

Just ask the good people at Te Puea Marae.

30 COMMENTS

  1. “|And restore justice and opportunity to so many who are increasingly marginalised, disempowered and angry.

    Because it could so easily be the reverse: Economic, political and ultimately military chaos on a scale not seen since WW2 and the Great Depression.”

    Just ask the good people at Te Puea Marae.”

    Yes you nailed that well David, you need to get out front with the party and hit the hearts of many as we hear less from all opposition parties to all get together AND FORM SOME COMMON VOICE LIKE THIS.

  2. The UK is not alone in this position.

    The distrust in govt, political and commercial power and adventurism in warfare, is well earned.

    NZ’s position is not far removed.

  3. Update: at 4pm Friday Brexit ahead 52-48. See tracker below.
    The marginalised regions of the midlands and north are leading the Leave result. Those marginalised by globalisation are having their say. Let us hope this does not cause more problems than it solves – though I fear that it will.

    Message to the Davos elites: care about all your people, before they get their own back.

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2016/jun/23/eu-referendum-live-results-and-analysis

    • Capitalism Will Collapse Because Elites ‘Allow Poor to Rot,’ Tariq Ali Tells Chris Hedges (Video)
      Posted on Jun 14, 2016

      By Chris Hedges

      “The elites who have run the United States and Western Europe have proven incapable of offering even the smallest palliatives to their populations,” says Tariq Ali, a British-Pakistani radical intellectual, in an interview with Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges on RT America. “They have allowed the poor to rot—regardless of skin color—and grow. … And so what we have is a protest against this center elite, which I call the extreme center, because whether it’s social democratic or conservative, they unite to crush.”

      http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/capitalism_collapse_elites_allow_poor_rot_tariq_ali_chris_hedges_20160614

  4. From out of the frying pan, into the fire

    People want change but they seem to forever put their faith in the wrong vehicle for it eg Trump in America. Tripped up by their own ignorance, prejudices and need to have a scapegoat to blame.

    Nice article, by the way

  5. Interesting to note that the left were mostly in the remain camp. As a leftie, I’ve been frustrated at how parties like Labour have become part of the establishment, telling people what’s good for them, and maintaining the current economic system that increases income disparity.

  6. We see a bright future in UK as the French past PM agreed Brixit signals a “Re-found” Europe!

    The EU is run by “un-elected beaurocrats” who are not representing any people but their own interests, and that have caused this not UK!

    “The fact that people have given up on Europe is a major cause for concern for all countries. I am totally against the UK leaving Europe. The worst would be Brexit plus Turkey’s membership, that would be the grand slam of errors,” he said.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/17/brexit-debate-is-opportunity-to-re-found-europe-says-sarkozy/

    By Henry Samuel, Paris
    17 May 2016 • 5:32pm

    The Brexit debate has created an “opportunity to re-found Europe”, Nicolas Sarkozy has said, but the former French president warned that Britain’s departure from the European Union would go down as part of a “grand slam of errors” for the continent.

    Mr Sarkozy, 61, who leads France’s main centre-Right opposition party, The Republicans, said that Europe requires a new treaty, notably to better manage its borders, regardless of whether Britain remained in the bloc.

    “The debate on Brexit is an opportunity to re-found Europe. On many of their criticisms, the British are right,” he told Le Monde.

    “The fact that people have given up on Europe is a major cause for concern for all countries. I am totally against the UK leaving Europe. The worst would be Brexit plus Turkey’s membership, that would be the grand slam of errors,” he said.

    “But Brexit or no Brexit, we will have to deeply re-found the European project regardless and that will happen via a treaty that France will propose as early as summer 2017.

    Mr Sarkozy is widely thought to want to run for re-election next year and is limbering up for party primaries in November in which the current favourite is Alain Juppé, the more moderate, veteran ex-prime minister.

    One of his primary rivals Bruno Le Maire, a former Europe minister, has pledged to hold a referendum on Europe in France should he be elected – without specifying whether the question would be on whether to leave the EU or the eurozone.

    The former French president said he was against holding a referendum on “such complex questions as re-founding Europe”, but wanted to push on with a new treaty recognising that the current Schengen agreement on free movement in Europe was “dead”.

    Europe requires a “Schengen 2” with a “government” of interior ministers from member states led by a “stable president” who would “have authority over Frontex” – the EU’s border force, he told Le Monde. While this is being set up, the free movement of all non-EU nationals should be put on hold, he proposed.

    The condition for this new “common immigration policy” would be “harmonising” social benefits for asylum seekers to avoid “welfare tourism”, he said. Mr Sarkozy suggested blocking in-work benefits for workers from any new EU entrant for five years “like the British” (who have a deal blocking such benefits for four years) and drawing up a list of “safe countries” from which migrants cannot seek asylum.

    The conservative ex-leader was deeply critical of the EU accord with Turkey, whose 75 million citizens will have the right to enter the Schengen zone for up to 90 days at a time with biometric passports from the end of June if Ankara passes key anti-corruption and terrorism reforms.

    The decision was part of a hastily-assembled deal brokered by Brussels to halt the flow of migrants from Turkey to Greece.

    A European Commission report acknowledged this week the “increased mobility into the Schengen area of criminals and terrorists who are citizens of Turkey, or who are foreigners based in Turkey.”

    Mr Sarkozy described the deal as “irresponsible in the current security climate” and given the fact that Turkey was “heading more and more towards an authoritarian regime”.

    “To think that Turkey can durably manage and resolve these problems is a mistake,” he said.

  7. Of course the old certainties will be swept away.

    But what will replace them?

    Let us hope it is sustainable, democratic and humane.

    It’s just another step in the age old war between democracy and capitalism. Each time it’s happened before we’ve become just that slightly bit more democratic, just a slightly bit more humane. Perhaps this time we’ll add sustainability to the bill as well.

    Capitalism is slowly losing out as we learn more.

  8. I don’t see where Mr. Cunliffe gets his heading from. The people have voted to divorce themselves from the faceless apparatchiks in Brussels that were telling them how to live their lives and flooding their country with people who wouldn’t pass a UK visa application.

    The people have spoken and democracy is strengthened. The people can sometimes push back against the progressive elite agenda after all.

    • Onmetrack; “Progressive elite agenda”? Hmmm, the Right come up with another term based on “One Percent elite agenda”.

      Never let it be said that the Right engage in create thinking when parroting and mis-using other phrases is easier.

      And since when have the right-wing ever been concerned about the “people have spoken and democracy is strengthened”?

      Tell me, Onetrack, would you support a referendum on whether or not New Zealand should be part of the TPPA?

        • Ditto, Sam.

          Come on , One Track, answer Frank. Would you support a referendum on the TPP? And would you vote YES to EXIT the TPP?

          Simple questions.

          • I don’t think you will get a response Sally.

            For what it’s worth, I would love to get a chance to vote YES to EXIT the TPP in a government initiated referendum. It’s binding, whereas a citizen initiated ref is not. That’ needs to change under a new government.

    • 2000% Sally’s husband,

      David needs to be raised up inside the labour party again.

      There is a lot of support for him as a centre left labour MP.

      • Give him a break, the vicious, hateful media have only just started leaving him alone. I am amazed the guy is still standing, still doing a great job after the media tried to destroy him, and he hasn’t come out unscathed. I can’t help but get the impression, his ranking drop was to put him out of harms way. I could be wrong, but from what I see, he’s been free to do his job without the media assaults. Surely that’s way more important than rankings at this stage.

  9. Well said David, this should be at the top of the agenda for the next Labour Conference.
    Everything you say is correct, people around the world have had enough of so few having so much, each month the gap grows wider.
    Communities around the world are being fed a diet of fear, fear does terrible things
    Fear was one of the reasons so many voted the way they did, they are now wondering why they did. In the morning light things look very different.
    Yes I support a NZ vote on the TPPA, I suggest Key and his cronies are beginning, in the cold light of this morning to ask themselves… I wonder if New Zealand would do that to us?

  10. Well said David, this should be at the top of the agenda for the next Labour Conference.
    Everything you say is correct, people around the world have had enough of so few having so much, each month the gap grows wider.
    Communities around the world are being fed a diet of fear, fear does terrible things
    Fear was one of the reasons so many voted the way they did, they are now wondering why they did. In the morning light things look very different.
    Yes I support a NZ vote on the TPPA, I suggest Key and his cronies are beginning, in the cold light of this morning to ask themselves… I wonder if New Zealand would do that to us?

  11. The biggest single threat to democracy is the television.
    Vastly financially resourced Banks can, and do, lay waste to the unsuspecting as those unsuspecting are led by the nose by advertisers pimping Bank debt products via the television into a life of desperation.
    All of NZ’s woes can be attributed to Banks and their use of the television. The Television allows Banks to walk into our homes and steal our lives away and they are able to do that by eroding our vital responsibility to maintain and exercise our hard won democracy.
    More than thirty years of neo liberalism has seen the balance of power shift from democracy orientated workers Union-power to the 1 %ers mighty Bank-power.
    The 1%er need a crippled work force buried under debt in order to harvest money from the aforementioned crippled workforce. ( And that ‘ money’ is no longer in the form of cash funds, it comes in the from of debt owed to Banks who on-sell it and insure it. So, crank up house prices ! And the Banks know bloody well that mortgage holders are going to weaken and buy that luxury item by drawing down on their faux capital. Now? The Banks have a vast debt product that currency traders can make fortunes from. Ask Jonky? )
    Our democracy is now not much more use than an ornament on the mantle piece. Voting in elections is farcical and thinking that our politicians are there for you and I is embarrassingly naive in the extreme.
    There’s now only one course of action. And that is of direct action. There must be power groups organised to lead charges against the Banks and the politicians who make us vulnerable to their vile games.
    All foreign owned banks must be sent fleeing from our country. All money lenders must be chipped like dogs so we know who they are and where they are. All mortgage debt must be forgiven and so what ! ? All will win. Some will win big, some will win small. All will win.
    But I bet you won’t go near the above flight of fancy will you cunliffe? Mr $ Six Figures plus entitlements and with our blood on your hands. You can write about ‘ hope’ in that misty eyed way of the disingenuous but when was the last time you sprayed graffiti on a wall? When did you stick your neck out and got stuck into some crooked, punk, other politician walking past you in our halls of parliament?
    That time when you went into a debate with jonky prior to that particular election? Jonky must have done a line of Hawaiian Snow because he bounced off the walls while you looked like a stalled Morris 1000. Why didn’t you simply smack jonky across the face? You should have knocked jonky on his arse. Every victim of the tyranny of the Banks around the world would have jumped to their feet.

    Brexit is brilliant in my view. It gives the Banks the raised middle finger and by God! So do I !

    • Why must we pay all that crazily inflated principles plus interest back to Australian Banks!? Why not to a kiwi bank? Why give money to speculators? All too late now we’re stuffed by greed and the Key shit charisma. Basically kiwis don’t care about their society and cohesion but have sold out to greed and wealth worship. Sad. Bye Bye once fair and decent NZ.

  12. The most compelling issue that drove the Bexit was the human spirit to keep the UK sovereignty above all so they could choose their own future not to have some un-elected Brussels German/French/Austrian/Italian or other beaurocrat to order their own Government to comply with Brussels.

    Isn’t this (without bossy other beaurocrats) what we want too?

  13. “However the Brexit vote turns out, one thing is certain: public anger with the status quo is taking Britain to within a few % of bolting from the EU, weakening a key global institution and continuing a trend towards political “weirdness” worldwide.”
    The most politically “weird” thing I ever came across was the newly elected Labour Party of the early eighties embracing Rogernomics and the unholy doctrines of the Chicago Boys. Quite satanic really and now this weird factor is openly diplayed.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYKnfDQ7IMg

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