Post-Brexit: Britainia Handia eta alderdi laborista

1 Ingelesez: “The Noble Lie — Revealed

It’s time to let you into a little secret.

It’s a secret about the UK that those in charge keep in plain sight, but hide with their rhetoric.

They desperately want to keep your attention on the Wizard of Oz pantomime going on in front of you.

But we’re going to look behind the curtain.

This secret is so powerful and so profound that it will alter everything that you understand about how government works and what it can do for you.

It will highlight the lies politicians tell you. And it will disappoint you when you find that those lies are told by politicians across the spectrum.

It’s a simple lie. And they are always the best.

And the lie is this — that governments can run short of money.”

2 Ingelesez: “So what’s the truth?

The UK government owns the Bank of England and has an operational infinite overdraft with its own bank (known as the ‘Ways and Means Account’).

That means the Government’s credit card is a Super Platinum Card and nobody can tell the government what it can and can’t spend.

Running short is impossible.

And of course the interest rate is effectively zero. If you own a bank, then anything you pay to that bank as interest comes back to you as profits of the bank you own.

Now, when government spends it creates a chain of transactions that causes taxation to flow, and creates savings at the Bank of England that match the initial spending. In the ratio of about 90% tax for 10% savings. Penny for penny, each time, every time, for any positive tax rate.

The books always balance. Anybody suggesting otherwise is lying.”

3 Ingelesez: “So that means…

That means that if there is stuff and people free in the UK economy, then the UK government can set them to work.

If there are unemployed people we can give them a job.

If there is a drop in private trade, then that creates more space for government investment, not less.

It means that austerity is a political choice.

It means that paying interest on government debt is a political choice.

It means that the political class is lying to you.”

4 Ingelesez: “… So ask yourself:

Who benefits from the unnecessary interest paid on government debt. Why do we pay £240m per week overseas unnecessarily?

Who benefits from ensuring there are always fewer jobs than people who want them?

Who benefits from threatening tax rises when none are required?

Your politicians are lying to you, from all sides. Time to ask them why. Get them to admit the truth.

But importantly hold them to account for their lies at the ballot box.

It’s time to end political careers pour encourager les autres.”

5 Ingelesez: “58% agree that, ‘we must live within our means so cutting the deficit is the top priority’.

And they are wrong — because the system doesn’t work like that. It is a Noble Lie that needs to be dispelled. But if you are driven by polls you will never understand that or do something about it.

The problem Labour has is that it has two arms — those who want to be the Greens and those who want to be the Tories. It has no identity of its own any more.

Yet there is one there that speaks to all. You can be open on migration yet still have a target of net-zero migration — if we take a doctor from somewhere, we give one back. That works for everybody correctly sold.

You can explain that government spending pays for itself automatically as a matter of accounting and that anybody who says otherwise is simply lying. That allows you to get beyond money and start talking in terms of resources — is it right that we have doctors in private hospitals serving the rich and a shortage in the public healthcare system? Why are they allowed to jump the queue based on earnings rather than clinical need?

You can push an identity where public service comes first ahead of private exploitation and therefore has first access to resources.”

6 Ingelesez: “And you can put forward a Job Guarantee that solves poverty at a stroke, removes the need for most benefits, while making sure that people contribute as much as they can to society.

There is an alternative vision between chasing inaccurate aggregate poll figures, and a world of open borders that favours only the metropolitan elite.

Nobody is going to want a warmed over Labour Hamburger when there is real Tory meat on offer. That game is over. Time to invent a new one.”

7 Ingelesez: “It’s not about telling them. It’s about persuading them that you have a better vision for their lives. and that the lies coming from the neo-liberal establishment are there to crush their lives. That’s what “take back control” means. A genuinely New Deal from an independent UK government.”

8 Ingelesez: “I can guarantee everybody a job with a decent living income, a house to live in in their community and a pension to look forward to — all within a society that prioritise education and healthcare for local residents whatever business thinks. Because I understand what power government has within its own currency area to command the resources within it.

And yes the New Labour approach is the reason Labour has been losing support hand over fist for 15 years and has lost the last two general elections — because at the same time the Tories have roared back from their 1997 nadir. That approach no longer works. It was a one off opportunity and its over.

How many more elections have to be lost before Labour realise that the game has changed?”

9 Ingelesez: “You can’t create the biggest private debt bubble in the world again. That has already been done and failed disastrously. You can’t rely on the financial sector ‘self-regulating’. The banks have to be proscribed to a short list of useful services and kept on a short leash. You can’t listen to mainstream neo-classical economists who suggest all you need to do is a bit of redistribution while keeping largely out of the way. Those that have lost out to the international globalisation fetish are demanding restitution. It isn’t enough to stand to one side any more.”

10 Ingelesez: “So are we going to tell people that government has had enough of kow-towing to business and finance interests and that it will put people first ahead of business? Are we going to tell business that they are there to serve the people, not the other way around — and that by doing that business will actually make more far more money than they are doing now? Are we going to tell those in the North that the focus on London will end and that government will ensure income circulation in the Regions and in particular to the devolved areas? Are we going to end the ‘British Model’ of importing growth through immigration and concentrate instead on investment in automation, research and driving productivity — providing the private sector with new innovations from a resolutely public university sector?”

11 Ingelesez: “A better management of neo-liberal corporatism isn’t a vote winner any more. People voted out so they can get something that is outside the remit of the EU treaty — jobs and a life to look forward to in a community they enjoy living in.

Time to put forward a New Deal. Our voters demand it.”