GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

Bank of England has kept interest rates at 0.25% of 0.50% for virtually a

decade. So anybody who thinks that this is sustainable I think is living in a

fool’s paradise. This is not sustainable. People have reached the limit to where

they feel comfortable taking on more debt, the housing market has topped out

because people cannot afford to get on the housing ladder, first time buyers

cannot afford to get on the housing ladder and I think we have got to the stage

now where we have to think about some pretty profound changes to the

economy in order to make it work better and to work for more people, because

just look around the world. Why is it that the two main parties in the French

presidential election were wiped out? It is because people have lost faith in the

political process. Why is it that people voted for Trump in the US? It is

because people, understandably, after what has happened to them, have lost

faith in the political process. Why is it that people here voted for Brexit? Not all

of them. Half of the population feels that the system is not working for it. A lot

of people feel that the system is working for them and they voted for Remain, a

lot of people felt it was not working for them and they voted for Leave.

Let me just go on to why I voted for Brexit. I voted for Brexit for a complex bag

of reasons really. One was I think the European project sucks. I think the

single currency was quite possibly the worst economic idea thought up by

anybody at any time and it has actually pushed Europe to the brink of collapse,

because when I talk to my Guardian colleagues I try and explain to them that

actually the single currency is neoliberalism enshrined at a European level. Its

major belief is to control inflation, it wants to keep budget deficits low. If you

think about what has happened in countries like Greece and Portugal, they

have had austerity imposed upon them from Brussels and essentially from

Berlin. I find absolutely nothing progressive or left wing about the single

currency at all, so my first reason for voting for Brexit was I sincerely hoped

that it would be a big enough crisis to kill off the single currency which has

been the thing which has institutionalised mass unemployment and low growth

across Europe. That was the first reason. I thought there would be the

possibility that either the Europeans would decide to get on and finish the job if

they want to go ahead and consecrate a fully-fledged single currency with a

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