When I write a blog which is a
two parter, I always write the second part quickly; in the space of a week or so but with this
blog I have taken a long time to find the right way to express what I want to
say. I lost the plot when the elections brought the Conservatives back into
power with a majority because I couldn’t understand why they wanted to scrap
the Human Rights Act and which Human Rights were they wanting to scrap? I got
so bogged down trying to piece so many things together I couldn’t work on
anything. But then I remembered I had written a blog about the “Lifeboat
Theory” and speculators and I remembered the old FBI saying “follow the money”
and things became a bit clearer.
I’ll start with the Human
Rights part of my problem. Sorry if you get brain freeze, I will be brief.
During World War Two the allies
adopted what they called “Four Freedoms” as their war aims – freedom of speech,
freedom of religion, freedom from fear and freedom from want. The United
Nations Charter framed that as faith in fundamental human rights and dignity
and worth of the human person and all member states were to promote “universal
respect for and observance of human
rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex,
language or religion”. When the nazi atrocities were fully uncovered
the UN realised that the United Nations Charter did not define human rights
clearly enough so a Universal Declaration of Human Rights was created. On the
10th December 1948 the General Assembly adopted the Universal
Declaration. This is the basis of all the other acts and charters, because as
time passes the original ideas are refined and defined more clearly. Now, we
come to the act I think the government wants to revoke, put a wet towel on your
forehead if it is all too much. The Human Rights Act was passed by the UK
parliament in 1998. It means that you can defend your rights in the UK courts
and that public organisations like the government, police and local councils
must treat everyone equally with fairness, dignity and respect. This act protects
all of us. Some of the rights include the right to an education, the right to
privacy and a family life, protection against slavery and forced labour, the
right to a fair trial, freedom of thought, religion and belief, protection of
property and free elections. I could not understand why anyone would want to
scrap this legislation for a “British Bill of Rights” when Britain had been one
of the main instigators of the original UN charter and how could these so
called “British Rights” be any different to the ones we already have.
Then I read that the parliamentary committee
which scrutinises any major constitutional changes had been scrapped, it has a
long name “The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee”. At a time when
this committee is most needed – not just because of the human rights challenge
but what about the referendum on membership of the EU, more devolution being
given to Scotland and Wales, redrawing parliamentary constituency boundaries
and this commitment the Tories have to “English votes for English laws”.
Everyone of these subjects needs intense, detailed work and people from every
party who really know their stuff, to put it mildly, but scrapping it certainly
shields the government from real scrutiny and it scares me rigid how easily our
system can be picked apart.
Then I was watching “Question Time” and Owen
Jones started to talk about TTIP and the host David Dimbleby stopped him.
(Sometimes you have to watch the gaps on that programme to realise what is
important and what is white noise) Nobody wants to talk about TTIP, even the
observers to the discussions aren’t allowed to discuss it, they have all had to
sign confidentiality agreements and can just about admit to going to meetings.
The “Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership” is a series of trade negotiations being held in secret between the
EU and the USA. It is about reducing the regulatory boundaries to trade for big
business (the transnational corporations and cartels) in areas like food
safety, environmental protections, banking regulations and the sovereign powers
of countries.
One of
the main aims of TTIP is to open up Europe’s public health services, education
and water services to American companies. So, the NHS is right in the firing
line and that means the privatisation of our health service, the health service
invented by the Welsh and given to the nation to serve all of us.
The next thing in the firing line is food and
environmental safety. The US wants to bring EU standards closer to those of
America but American standards are much less strict with 70 percent of all
processed foods sold in American supermarkets containing GM whereas the EU
allows virtually no GM foods. The US is very lax on the use of pesticides and
it uses growth hormones in its beef which is restricted in Europe due to links
with cancer. America has repeatedly tried to circumvent European restrictions
and failed TTIP opens the door. The same thing will happen to the environment.
In Europe a substance has to be proved safe before it can be used. In America
any, I repeat, any substance can be used until it is proven unsafe. For example
the EU bans 1,200 substances from being used in cosmetics, the USA just 12.
TTIP also covers banking. Now, this is
interesting because the City of London is trying to convince America to loosen
its very strong financial rules which were implemented to stop another banking
meltdown. If American restrictions are removed all the power is back in the
hands of the bankers and the casino is open for business again.
In 2012 the European Parliament threw out “Anti-Counterfeiting
Trade Agreement” because after a huge public backlash against an attack on an
individual’s privacy where internet service providers would be required to
monitor our online activity (which in my case would be very boring consisting
as it does of ordering shopping, playing “Pengle” and checking “Facebook” and
okay, writing subversive blogs). TTIP would override the European Parliament
with an easing of data privacy laws and a restriction of public access to
pharmaceutical companies clinical trials being part of the agenda.
What is really terrifying is that the EU has
already admitted that TTIP will cause unemployment as jobs move to America
where labour standards and trade union rights are lower or non existant. The
Americans have advised EU members to draw on European support funds to
compensate for the expected unemployment despite public assurances about TTIP
bringing hundreds of thousands of new jobs to a Europe desperate to get its
people into work.
And finally, there is ISDS which sounds like
a sexual disease and is just as pernicious. “Investor-State Dispute
Settlements” allows companies to sue governments if those governments’ policies
cause the company to lose profits.
The introduction of ISDS is one of the main
aims of TTIP. What this really means is that unelected transnational
corporations can dictate the policies of democratically elected governments. It
is happening already because ISDS is in place in other bi-lateral trade
agreements so, in Germany a Swedish energy company “Vattenfall” is suing the
German government for billions of dollars over its decision to phase out
nuclear power stations after the Fukushima disaster. Phasing out the power
plants affects “Vattenfalls” profits and shareholders dividends. There are
around 500 similar cases being prosecuted at the moment around the world in
arbitration tribunals made up of corporate lawyers, basically secret kangaroo
courts biased towards big business overriding democratically elected
governments laws and regulations and neither the public or politicians can stop
this happening.
So, you can see why I was laying awake,
unable to sleep, listening to classical music night after night trying to
understand why all these things were happening when every one of them was
against the good governance and security of the world, let alone Europe or the
UK.
Now, these are just my answers; I haven’t
unravelled even a quarter of it, there are so many layers. First I will say
that hedge funds, cartels and speculators need turmoil, shortages and upheaval
on a global level as well as local levels to achieve maximum profits. You can
make profit in a stable climate but to make mega bucks, let your cocaine dealer
have three holidays a year kinds of profit you need to use insider trading in
the middle of war zones (e.g. Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Ukraine) and areas
where populations are in terrible flux and dire need (e.g. all the refugees
trying to reach Italy, the Rohingya, the Yazidis, Afghans) because food
shortages, water shortages, every kind of arms deal imaginable plus the trade
in priceless works of art looted from world heritage sites means huge profits.
There doesn’t have to be such drastic
upheaval as the things I have just written but the London Stock Exchange is
being affected every day by the upcoming referendum on whether to leave the EU
as companies ponder how to structure their business so imagine the field day
hedge funds and speculators will have once TTIP is in place and if the
population is pushed far enough by Conservative policies there might be a few
riots, strikes and maybe even a hunger march as the 30 billion in cuts starts
to hit home to make the City even more nervous so there could be some very
juicy “puts” being placed by wide boys in City braces even as I write. Whether
it is the more “genteel” version of unrest, shortage and insider trading or the
terrible war torn destruction kind it all feeds into achieving the “Lifeboat
Theory” world view.
Briefly this theory says that there are too
many people in the world and the earth is a lifeboat with limited resources,
all the rich, important, entitled people are in the boat and all the poor, the
flotsam and jetsam of the world are in the water drowning and they should be
left to drown because the only people “worth” saving are the rich who will use
earth’s resources to keep them in the luxury they are used to. When TTIP comes
into force all the multinational companies and richest families must see is
profit without any restrictions; no governments, no regulations, no unions just
a more easily controlled (because there will be a lot less of them, the “Great
Unwashed” after war, famine and pestillence have culled the herd) desperately
poor ready to do anything for a crust
labour force and no way of stopping the free market and its ultra conservative
right wing mad men from dancing us all into the dark.
Usually I have some suggestions about how to
tackle the issues that I have written about but right now I don’t. My friend
may be right when she says work houses will be coming back there’s no law to
stop them.
