Why I am standing in the 2024 general election
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I am standing in this election because I do not believe that there is a progressive political agenda to be had in
the early twenty-first century that does not embrace principles of internationalism and therefore that does not
embrace EU membership.
I used to be a member of the Labour Party, but I resigned after Keir Starmer reneged on earlier promises and
adopted his "Make Brexit Work" position.
The idea that Labour will bring about any significant rapprochement with the EU, having spent the months and years leading up to the election saying it will do no such thing, strikes me as unrealistic.
Brexit is the great elephant in the room at this election. The Tories won't talk about it for want of any "Brexit benefits". Labour won't do so because it is terrified of taking on Brexit's far-right promoters. The Lib Dems won't do so because they have decided to concentrate their limited resources on a few winnable seats where they intend saying whatever they think the voters they encounter in such seats want to hear them say.
Starmer knows that the electoral system and the the fact that voters' effective choices in each constituency are confined to the two front runners effectively frees him of any pressure to offer anything significant to those of us who understand that Brexit is the primary factor underlying our current misery. That is why it is so important to vote Rejoin EU. No, we won't rejoin tomorrow, but our performance in the London Assembly elections on 2nd May confirmed that increased support for us translates into further activists coming forward, a heightened capacity to spread our message, further support and so on -- in a virtuous circle.
So no, a vote for Rejoin EU is not a wasted vote, far from it. Over 100 Independent candidates were elected in the local elections in May confirming the groundswell of popular anger at the continuing misery and the lack of any real choice being offered at this election by the three main parties.
I support:
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* Joining the European Union – for improved living standards, climate justice and a more tolerant and open society. Brexit has brought economic stagnation, the cost of living crisis and misery to exporters, travellers and young people denied opportunities to study, work and train in Europe.
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* The UK European Movement’s Manifesto on Europe: https://www.europeanmovement.co.uk/
* The five demands of the Peace and Justice Project on employment, a green new deal, housing, progressive taxation and refugees: https://thecorbynproject.com/demands/
If we are serious about joining the EU, then rebelling against Starmer is essential. Otherwise, all that will happen is that he will continue to take us for granted. The fact that the man claims to be the "change" candidate while offering policies indistiguishable from those of the Conservatives is further evidence of his untrustworthiness. In one respect, he is quite right: if you want change, you have to vote for it. Where he is completely dishonest, is in the suggestion that you will get change by voting for him! So if he ends up winning the election simply because voters feel so negative about the Conservatives, then he will merely pave the way for the far right to make a comeback in an even more extreme form than its present manifestation. After all Starmer is saying that he will neither raise taxes nor reduce public expenditure. But when he is asked what he will do if the economic growth necessary to sustain this combination fails to materialise, and when he is asked how he will generate the necessary growth when trade with the UK's largest market is so difficult thanks to Brexit, he has no answer.
So I suggest that, offering voters no real hope, Starmer will rapidly find that the party he leads has become as unpopular as the Conservatives are presently. Having, therefore, attempted to construct a defence against Farageism and the far right by becoming Farageist himself, he will find that all he has done is reinforce it. And in that case, democracy itself will be under threat. After all, Farage has said he wants to campaign for Donald Trump -- a man who has said that if given a prison sentence in light of his recent criminal conviction, he will being his supporters out onto the streets in organised resistance.
This is why increasing the pressure on Starmer by a vote for the Rejoin EU Party is so important. You cannot defeat Farageism and the populist right by cosying up to it. You have to confront it head on. As Winston Churchill once said: "You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth".
