Another Thursday, Another Vote

Only the one polling agent outside the Town Hall this morning when I cast my vote. She said she felt a little embarrassed as she thought there would be more people there with rosettes. But I thought, good for you, standing there outside the polling place, humanising the process with a cheery smile. Hopefully she will still be smiling when the votes are cast. Yes, there are things wrong with the EU and the way it operates, and theoretical left wing reasons to leave, but at this time and in this manner I feel we must stay in. The discontent that people feel with the neoliberal consensus in UK politics needs directing in the proper direction, against the capitalist elite who have set about dismantling the post-war collective consensus for their own ends and have dramatically tilted the balance between capital and labour in their favour, while most of us have not paid enough attention. Instead of the problem being Europe and Immigrants it's private capital and their allies that have made ordinary people's lives worse over the past decades. Big business that doesn't pay the taxes it should, landlords that want to squeeze as much as possible out of private tenants, zero hours contracts, a task-based economy that takes us back to the days of dock workers waiting at the gates for a day's work (and if they got hired at least they got a full day, rather than the single fare that an Uber driver gets). The Remain campaign has been lacklustre because the real argument to counter Farage and his dog whistle politics is to admit the failings of a Westminster-based political class. Either the Tories for turning public goods into private profits or Labour for not stopping them (or worse still, helping them do it).