'Deal or No Deal'

'Deal or No Deal'; but it is not a TV reality show even if you hold hands with Donald Trump. Britain will leave the EU, but who will secure the 'Best Deal'? Theresa May sacked 20,000 Police, to be replaced by a 'Commission for Countering Extremism'. Despite Security Service warnings, 'No Deal' takes us out of Europol, ditches the European Arrest Warrant, and quits Euratom which ensures the security and safety of nuclear reactors and uranium fuel. In contrast Labour will recruit 10,000 police, 3,000 firefighters, 3,000 prison officers, 1,000 security and intelligence agency staff and 500 more border guards.

Rising inflation, devaluation, zero hours contracts, 18% fall in car production, national debt soaring to 89% of GDP, are just a foretaste of what is to come under more Tory Austerity. If we are to remain a trading and exporting nation we must retain access to the EU's Single Market, the largest Free Trade Area in the World which takes 44% of our exports. The hardest hit will be small businesses, costs will rise, and export markets will be lost – and the Government's response was to whallop British entrepreneurs with a huge rise in National Insurance, whilst giving away billions in Corporation Tax Cuts to multi-nationals. The Tories have never understood that our wealth comes from designing and manufacturing quality goods for sale and export; not rents, dividends or from 'managing money'. The end result is that Tory Economics have left nothing to maintain the NHS, our schools, police or care for older people unless they pay the Dementia Tax.
If you want a secure Britain cooperating with our Allies, offering decent education to our young people with grants not debt, skilled and well paid jobs, export led growth with access to the Single Market, dignity in old age, and an NHS to be proud of you can only choose Labour. This election is not about Brexit it is about our future, and the sort of country that we bequeath to our children.

Dementia Tax

Theresa May's decision to seize the homes and money of older people in need of care must rank as one of the most callous proposals of the century. As a 2010 Labour Parliamentary Candidate the policy that I was most proud to present was Gordon Brown's National Care Service, to be funded by a small levy on all deceased estates. It was fair and progressive, each contributing according to their means, and all benefiting through a substantial increase in care funding. The Tories condemned that as a Death Tax - and then spent 7 years undermining the NHS as well as cutting Local Government social care funding. Like Faust, pensioners have had their votes bought by the Tories for years, but Theresa May has come to collect their souls, their pensions, their cash, and their houses - big time. The total spend on adult care is about £18 Billion per annum, the total value of ALL deceased estates is about £70 Billion. A 5% levy would increase the amount of money desperately needed to deliver care for older people by 20%. Rather than spread the cost fairly the Tories have proposed an ill thought out scheme that means that those with greater health needs, and the most vulnerable, pay the most.

I am European

So the next time I work in Germany I will be a foreigner. I have not thought that way for more than 20 years. No apologies Mrs May I reject the identity that you are trying to force on to me. I may be British but I have always been and will continue to be a European.

It has taken me months to get to the root of my anger, but I really think this is it. I genuinely consider myself to be European, all my grandparents are immigrants, as is true for a lot of people in Britain. In fact who is not an immigrant if you go back far enough. I remember posting some goods to Germany about 22 years ago (pre Maastricht Treaty), the post office clerk asked me a question which I cannot remember, I automatically replied "Its not going abroad its going to Germany" - I meant it then and still do not consider Europe to be 'foreign' - but the row that ensued in the queue was epic. I guess we are fortunate to have lived the main part of our lives as EU citizens, living with the benefits, and breathing in the freedom that came with them: an ethos that placed people at the centre of our society with freedoms our parents could only dream of. That freedom can never come from a Free Trade deal - because it is people who need freedom not 'things'. I had hoped we had moved on from Nationalism but clearly we still have a lot of work to do. I deeply resent the attack on my identity, and the loss of my rights.