Somerset Labour Party member and Trades Unionist Nigel Johnson thinks that Brexit is one of the biggest cons in our recent political history. This is why.

There’s big money on both sides of the debate, but there’s no way the millionaire backers of Brexit (or UKIP) will want to deny themselves access to cheap labour. A UK (or an England and Wales given that Scotland will then almost certainly break-way) outside the EU will, I suspect, allow big businesses with influence over the government of the day to still pull in whatever labour they like, while removing most worker protections such as paid leave or maternity pay. That’s the real game being played here, and that’s why the Hard Right, including figures such as Gove and IDS, are so firmly behind the Brexit campaign.

There WILL be Economic Disruption

When Farage talks about controls on EU immigration allowing us to bring in more migrants from outside the EU read between the lines: that potentially means even more desperate people being brought into the UK who are willing to work for less. The Australian “points-based” system, that he often cites, allows migrants to be brought in on employer sponsored visas. In other words, even cheaper labour. Combine that with removal of workers’ protections, and then combine that again with the economic disruption caused by Brexit, as the UK has to negotiate trade deals not only with the EU but also every non EU country, and the effect on the conditions of “we the workers” will be catastrophic.

There’ll STILL be Freedom of Movement

The further irony is that, if we end up with EU trade deals along the lines of Switzerland and Norway, then we’ll still have to accept freedom of movement anyway.

It’s a con, or a con on top of a con given that one of the oldest tricks elites use to stay in power is to use “out-groups” to “divide and rule” and scapegoat.

A better way to protect the workers is with well regulated markets and working conditions agreed across a wide trading area, so that any “races to the bottom” are avoided (it’s the same with environmental protections and consumer protections: we need a jointly regulated common market to avoid “sharks” out-competing each other by ruthlessly cutting corners, at long time cost to workers, consumers and the environment). Plus strong unions and better worker participation. Ultimately, I’d say we need to share control and ownership of the “means and factors of production” amongst everyone, so that wealth can stay with the workers’ who produce it rather than be stolen by those who monopolise the investment and physical means, the “tools”, needed to enable wealth generation in the first place. In other words: Socialism!

To avoid being “overrun” with desperate people we need to work through the international institutions we have, and to both strengthen those institutions while making them more accountable. Then we co-operate to solve the global problems we have as a species in a calm, rational and compassionate way. Then there will be less “desperation” in the first place. If that sounds utopian then can anyone suggest a better way, as we can only really solve these problems by working together?

Brexit is NOT anti-establishment

A vote to “Brexit” is not an anti-establishment vote. The UK “establishment” is actually split on this issue (certainly far more so than the Labour movement or the Left, including the Greens, who are overwhelmingly but not exclusively Remain). If supporting Brexit you would actually be supporting the most hard-line elements of the UK establishment, including the Right wing of the Tory party and those who left the Tory party because it wasn’t Right wing enough.

To me, Brexit feels like the second stage of the slow-burning Tory coup that started inn 2010 with the Fixed Term Parliaments Act. The stage when the Hard Right, those interested in authoritarian capitalism who use even so-called “neoliberal” “free” market ideas merely as a fig-leaf, to ditch Cameron and even Osborne for being, incredibly, too “soft” and “left-wing”.

Brexit will bring MORE  inequality and WILL be brutal

If I had to guess the results of a vote for Brexit will be brutal. More inequality and rule by the 1%, while the 99%, if they have jobs at all, have to work harder and longer for less. Protest will just result in more oppression, including Boris getting to use his water cannons. Our establishment, and especially our media, frightened of the Left, will carry on seeking to tacitly channel dissent towards the extreme Right (Consider how Corbyn’s been across the country campaigning for Remain, but been given almost no coverage in the media?).

Think 1930s Germany. Think the totalitarian UK Government portrayed in Alan Moore’s “V”. Anyone who’s hoping this will provoke a Socialist revolution, let alone a peaceful one with a stable and benevolent result, is, I’m afraid, deluding themselves.

Rampant out of control capitalism is the real threat. It’s the bosses we need to worry about, not the migrants.

Brexit is a con trick, a trap, a diversion and deception. Please don’t fall for it.

If you’re still undecided please take 20 minutes to listen to the convincing explanation of the issues and the facts from this lecturer in the subject