Monday 16 July 2018

Taking The Empire Biscuit

Until the First World War, they were called German biscuits. In Ireland, they still are.

The Parliament of the United Kingdom reserves the right to legislate for the British Overseas Territories, all of which remain so voluntarily. But that right is not used in practice. They run themselves. Apart from the perfectly scandalous situation on the Chagos Islands, the word "colony" has not properly applied in decades.

By contrast, the Government's proposal, predicted from the start by some of us, is that the United Kingdom be turned into a colony of the European Union, a rule-taker but not a rule-maker, and into a satrapy of the European Union, paying while having no say. 

The laws made by the EU without our participation would indeed apply here. Reams and reams of them, directly affecting great tracts of daily life and making, for example, the 2017 Labour manifesto impossible to implement. 

Meaning that our struggle against that state of affairs would have become an integral part of the anti-imperialist struggle worldwide. The same would be true if we came to have a Prime Minister, most obviously Boris Johnson, who had been installed by the Head of a foreign State, most obviously Donald Trump.

In either case, it would be beside the point that this had been passed by Parliament and signed by the Queen. All empires have been built on the treachery of local rulers who have sold their people and their people's land in return for the preservation of their own wealth and local position. 

Thankfully, the people who have always opposed the EU, and who have done so by reference to things that it has really done rather than to fantasies or to sentimental twaddle, are the people who are also most embedded in the anti-imperialist struggle worldwide, and one of them is the Leader of the party that is currently ahead in the opinion polls.

Alas, though, while his party in the country is now overwhelmingly either like that or willing to be led by the people who are, much of his parliamentary party is still not of that view, nor is it likely to be so for quite some time to come.

There is going to be another hung Parliament. We need our people to hold the balance of power in it. I need £10,000 in order to stand for Parliament with any chance of winning. My crowdfunding page has been taken down without my knowledge or consent. But you can still email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com instead, and that address accepts PayPal.

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