My observation is that the Leave result would not have come as such a shock if Labour had been listening to its grass-roots supporters
I had been attempting to tell every Remain Labour party member and/or supporter, who will listen, that the presumption that Labour supporters will vote Remain, is just that. My experience 'on the doorstep', as well as those to whom I speak around town when walking my whippets and in meetings with clients and groups over Essex, is that the majority of grass-roots Labour wanted out of the EU. Even some who have never previously voted and had viewed voting as a pointless exercise because, 'they're all the same', said they were actually registering to vote in order to vote Leave. They were angry, felt unheard and wanted to at least have a voice. Rightly or wrongly - theirs was a protest vote. When I attended a Labour women's event earlier this year and prior the vote, I attempted to discuss this alternate referendum view with the speaker, an MP based in the Midlands. She wasn't interested in discussing a position that was not Remain - her manner was closed and condescending.
A day before the referendum, I was contacted by telephone by a youthful sounding female. As I am a Labour Party member she was asking for a donation. I tried to engage her in the EU topic. There was an intake of breath when I told her that many socialists do not feel heard by Labour and will vote 'out' and that I sympathise with that view. She patronisingly suggested that I read up a bit more on the topic.
I was not passionate about the EU referendum, one way or another, it has little effect on my personal situation plus I saw it as a political tactic; it is the people I see struggling that I want to support; those who've been forced to take a reduction in wages. Skilled trades downgraded and given to unqualified, inexperienced workers who will take a cut in their pay, has meant that qualified teaching staff, building industry foremen and site managers with years of experience are now scrapping around for work with a decent wage. even registered nursing posts are being reduced to Care-Worker grades. I cannot say to what extent these repercussions of EU membership have been proliferated by plutocratic governments but what I can say and what I do know is that regardless of the government of the day, and in my experience, is that at one time, in England, a school leaver, if they wanted it and worked for it, could have secure employment on a decent wage and were able to plan for the future.
A typical example; I was raised on a council estate in Dagenham, built between the wars. We were surrounded by cornfields, when Dagenham was in rural Essex and not as it is now, Outer London and as such is felt as a loss of identity. My parents had moved from the Holloway Road in London, having been allocated the house in 1939.
In 1957, my elder sister aged twenty-one, having left school at aged fifteen, (she won a scholarship aged eleven but family finances meant she couldn't take it) was working in a typing pool at Chelmsford County Hall. Her fiancé had just completed his National Service and was working as a Tally Clerk at the East India Docks. They were married and had a mortgage by the time they were twenty-six. They planned their family and when six months pregnant with their first child, she was obliged to retire from her job, receiving a lump sum of £200 which constituted Maternity Pay according to legislation then. She remained at home until her children were considered old enough for her to take up employment again. Nowadays, many a twenty-six year old cannot afford to leave home, let alone make a life for him/herself and start a family. I don't know whether joining the EU exacerbated that situation but we need to be questioning why, in 2016, when on one hand we have had massive progress in technology, the sciences, advances in medicine, the unravelling of DNA and its value to forensics; basically, in every field, yet have taken such retrograde steps socioeconomically. No political party apparently wants to address that crucial fact, how that situation came about and why they let it continue; well, they all say they'll make changes but once they get in 'power' as they like to call it, they do nowt. And yet still 'the few' get richer and 'the many' get poorer. I believe this to be no accident and intentionally contrived.
In 1957, my elder sister aged twenty-one, having left school at aged fifteen, (she won a scholarship aged eleven but family finances meant she couldn't take it) was working in a typing pool at Chelmsford County Hall. Her fiancé had just completed his National Service and was working as a Tally Clerk at the East India Docks. They were married and had a mortgage by the time they were twenty-six. They planned their family and when six months pregnant with their first child, she was obliged to retire from her job, receiving a lump sum of £200 which constituted Maternity Pay according to legislation then. She remained at home until her children were considered old enough for her to take up employment again. Nowadays, many a twenty-six year old cannot afford to leave home, let alone make a life for him/herself and start a family. I don't know whether joining the EU exacerbated that situation but we need to be questioning why, in 2016, when on one hand we have had massive progress in technology, the sciences, advances in medicine, the unravelling of DNA and its value to forensics; basically, in every field, yet have taken such retrograde steps socioeconomically. No political party apparently wants to address that crucial fact, how that situation came about and why they let it continue; well, they all say they'll make changes but once they get in 'power' as they like to call it, they do nowt. And yet still 'the few' get richer and 'the many' get poorer. I believe this to be no accident and intentionally contrived.
Mine was a basic Primary School then Secondary School education though I was an intelligent, even gifted, child; always a straight 'A' student, but it was only the children from the more prosperous families (with hindsight) who were selected by the school's headmaster and given extra tuition in preparation for the Eleven Plus examination with its opportunity of a grammar school education.
Upon leaving school in the 1960s we seemed to have so many opportunities, whether in skilled/unskilled office or shop work and I was offered several jobs; secretarial and in science labs as I'd achieved 98% in that exam but fashion was my 'thing' so I applied for and was accepted by C&A in Oxford Street, London and undertook a window-dressing apprenticeship. In addition I was offered and accepted a Saturday job working for the Oxford University Press.
Even in the 1970s 'one man's wage' was still sufficient to maintain his family comfortably. I continued my education whilst rearing my sons. Study and academic achievement was the bread-of-life to me, I devoured it. Subsequently qualifying and working in a variety of areas including Further Education Teaching, Integrative Therapy plus mental health roles within Social Services and the National Health Service, eventually setting up my private counselling practise.
Upon leaving school in the 1960s we seemed to have so many opportunities, whether in skilled/unskilled office or shop work and I was offered several jobs; secretarial and in science labs as I'd achieved 98% in that exam but fashion was my 'thing' so I applied for and was accepted by C&A in Oxford Street, London and undertook a window-dressing apprenticeship. In addition I was offered and accepted a Saturday job working for the Oxford University Press.
Even in the 1970s 'one man's wage' was still sufficient to maintain his family comfortably. I continued my education whilst rearing my sons. Study and academic achievement was the bread-of-life to me, I devoured it. Subsequently qualifying and working in a variety of areas including Further Education Teaching, Integrative Therapy plus mental health roles within Social Services and the National Health Service, eventually setting up my private counselling practise.
Regarding the referendum I had waxed and waned on how to vote but did vote Leave, in order to support the people who are frustrated at being dismissed, or even, as I heard on the BBC, accused of being uneducated, politically ignorant or even racist because they have an opinion based on their experience.
I do not necessarily concur with all I hear, however immigration, from the EU and elsewhere is a genuine issue for some people. A member of staff at my local GP surgery told me that they are inundated with patients over and above their official list, some of whom who cannot converse adequately in English and due to tradition or culture frequently arrive at appointments with virtually all their family members in tow, which clearly takes up more of staff time.
(2017 All GP surgeries in my area are now closed to new patients leaving people to make their way to a surgery in another town, eight miles away.
2018 I have since been informed that this surgery is now closed to new patients, I don't know where people are being directed to.)
Some schools now have classes of fifty children. In Boston, Lincolnshire, statistics show that one-in-seven of the population was not born in the UK and locals feel they have lost their identity; that phrase again. Some children there are starting school unable to speak English; parents and teaching staff are concerned as to the effect this has on other children within the learning environment. People should not be vilified for stating such things, these are facts; appreciated by any parent - anywhere. It is not 'racism' but expressing such concerns is frequently labelled as such.
(2017 All GP surgeries in my area are now closed to new patients leaving people to make their way to a surgery in another town, eight miles away.
2018 I have since been informed that this surgery is now closed to new patients, I don't know where people are being directed to.)
Some schools now have classes of fifty children. In Boston, Lincolnshire, statistics show that one-in-seven of the population was not born in the UK and locals feel they have lost their identity; that phrase again. Some children there are starting school unable to speak English; parents and teaching staff are concerned as to the effect this has on other children within the learning environment. People should not be vilified for stating such things, these are facts; appreciated by any parent - anywhere. It is not 'racism' but expressing such concerns is frequently labelled as such.
In Chelmsford, Essex, a woman who trained as a State Registered Nurse in the 1960s said on local radio, that she believes that if National Health Service (NHS) training had continued at that excellent standard and with the financial support, including accommodation, as in the days when nursing was viewed as a valued and respected vocation, then more men and women may have entered the profession and we wouldn't need to look to EU immigration to fill the posts; plus we had an excellent input of medical staff from the Commonwealth, which we have now deserted; to our cost.
I tend to agree with her.
Lincolnshire, with its one time thriving fishing industry, now has only a handful of vessels. A trawler skipper tells me that he blames EU regulations for the severe restrictions on fishing rights so much so that he is no longer able to earn a 'decent living'; another said, 'Going out to sea was once a pleasure now it seems pointless.' Upon driving through farmland in The Dengie in Essex, thirteen miles, I passed eight large Leave placards, not one Remain.
I tend to agree with her.
Lincolnshire, with its one time thriving fishing industry, now has only a handful of vessels. A trawler skipper tells me that he blames EU regulations for the severe restrictions on fishing rights so much so that he is no longer able to earn a 'decent living'; another said, 'Going out to sea was once a pleasure now it seems pointless.' Upon driving through farmland in The Dengie in Essex, thirteen miles, I passed eight large Leave placards, not one Remain.
When my children were small and I was studying, I, with other mums, took seasonal work, pea picking, apple/pear picking and Brussels sprout trimming, often with our children round our feet. It was 'pin-money', never intended to be a living wage. It infuriates me when it is implied that British workers are lazy and will not do 'menial work'. Field-work is also an excellent form of income for students, my sons did it but it was never viewed as a secure occupation, it was seasonal work. You couldn't get a mortgage or raise a family on your pea-picking money but it helped; one friend was doing it so that she could contribute towards her daughter's private schooling!
Jeremy Corbyn is likely the last remnant of true Socialist Labour Party leaders. He also values human life, believes there are solutions to conflict that do not involve war and annihilation, he does not ridicule members of the opposite bench during Prime Minister’s Questions, unlike the vitriolic Tory Leader but the Establishment obviously do not want this new kind of politics. Corbyn was always known as a Euro sceptic but for the Parliamentary Labour Party to blame and hound him because of the referendum result is not only vindictive and dishonest as it was obviously always the plan of certain members of his party to bring him down. At a time when the nation needs support and direction, the Labour Party is flapping around like a head-less chicken and doing its reputation no good whatsoever. If there were an election tomorrow Labour would lose, hands down. The Labour coup is an embarrassment and confirmation, if needed, of the immaturity and unsuitability for office, of several of its members.
