BY: Michaell Lange,
London, 29/07/16 –
The British referendum on the membership of the European Union has revealed the state of political madness in which Britain has found itself with. That’s not to mention the state of politics in countries on the other side of the spectrum such as Brazil, Turkey and Russia and obviously, the most weird of all, the United States of America. It shows that across the globe, regardless of political ideology, neither socialists, liberals, conservatives, democrats or republicans, have been able to address the concerns of the people they represent. The concept of democracy seems to have been reshaped into a bizarre and dangerous form of self-imposed nationalism that is pulling the world apart. It’s dangerously creating devisions between countries and deeply dividing people around the world. Although the global economy and financial markets are permanently fused and interdependent, social globalisation seems to have reached its limits and appear to be starting to break up. Is the world tired of integration? Or, is it a result of a combination of extremely incompetent governments, unscrupulous global financial market activities and the mainstream media 24/7 news? For some reason, yet to be explained by political theorists and scientists, the world seems to be moving backwards. Economic and social unrests like the ones from the 60s, appear to be on the rise again. Wars and violence are plaguing countries in central and North Africa as well as in the Middle East causing an exodus of biblical proportion. Generations of young people in Europe and North America are leaving universities with tens of thousands of pounds in debts. Lack of opportunities and the housing crises, are creating a generation of tenants which will never be able to buy their own houses. Some people claim it’s the end of Capitalism as we know it, but if it’s, what’s next?
Despite strong denial from politicians and the main stream media, Britain is in a mess, and so is most of the rest of the world. Yesterday, three different British news papers brought three different news about the economy. “UK economy begins to feel Brexit tremors” said The Guardian. On Daily Express the headline was; “No Stopping Booming Britain”. On Financial Times it said; “FTSE 250 rebounds from referendum”. On the same time, Lloyds Bank Group says it will cut 3000 more jobs and close a father 200 branches as the bank of England gets ready for possible negative interest rates; and we haven’t even triggered article 50 yet. For the Brexiteers from parliament, everything is rosy. The economy is “booming”, The weather is good, we have taken back control. It’s almost as if they were on LSD. Nevertheless, people continue to believe what they are told by our governments. “Everything is fine and everything is going to be alright” they say; when in reality, it’s clearly not fine and not alright. Why do we continue to believe in politicians? Is it just because they look good and trustworthy even when they are clearly not? Boris Johnson lied on his wedding day! A man who cheated on his wife, and lied to the nation about the £350 million Pounds for the NHS, and people continue to love him and trust him to be the Prime Minister. How can it be possible? Even Tony Blair after the revelations of the Iraq inquiry, still beloved and respected by so many. Is Hollywood to blame for our concept of bad guys that always look badly dressed, with rough beards and ugly faces, while the good boys are always beautiful and handsome? Don’t Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi fall perfectly into that description of bad guys while George W Bush and Tony Blair are the perfect examples of the good boys, even though the real difference between them are mostly, the number of innocent people they have killed? Does it explain why the two “bad” boys are dead and the other two will never face trail for their crimes?
The Brexit, as well as the worsening social crisis regarding housing, the NHS and job opportunities for young people, are sending a clear message that social unrests like those of 2011, might be just around the corner. The heinous situation of thousands of workers trapped on self-employment contracts with zero employment rights, working incredibly long hours for less than the minimum wage, is pushing society to a breaking point. For the first time in history, the new generation will be worse off than their parents’. There are countless cases of big companies exploiting their workers by paying less than the minimum wage and in inhumane working conditions. Sports Direct, Hermes, Addison Lee, E-Courier, BHS and Uber, are just a few examples of companies either in court or already found to be operating on the margins of the Law and way below their social and moral obligations. All of these has been going on under the nose of the government and with the bless of many politicians. In fact, they are allowing big corporations to ship billions of pounds of untaxed revenue out of the country, leaving behind a trail of misery, and they continually get away with it. How can such immoral and unpatriotic behaviour be allowed to happen?
Jeremy Corbyn is a British politician that is trying to do something about this mess. He is against big corporations declaring their profits somewhere abroad when their profits were made here in Britain. He is against pensioners, nurses, junior doctors, the police, the fire-fighters, the NHS and ordinary workers, to pay for the losses of billions of pounds of tax payers money caused by Bankers. He is against the government spending hundreds of billions of pounds in weapons we will never use. He is against big corporations interference in government affairs, and he is against theatrical politics like the PMQs where comedy seems to be more important than the concerns of the British people.
Mr Corbyn might not be the next British Prime Minister. People in power don’t want to lose their good lives so, they will not let go without a fight. They claim he is not the person with the leadership or the best ability do deliver the changes we so desperately need to see on British politics. So, who is? Blair? Cameron? It’s just hard for anyone to judge whether he would or wouldn’t be a good Prime Minister just like is hard to say if Mrs May will. We have had a number of Prime Ministers and Presidents around the world highly “prepared” to do a good job, but ended in failure. Tony Blair maybe one of the best (or should I say the worst?) examples. He was young, fit, good looking, ambitious, educated and overall, well prepared to be an excellent Prime Minister. Nevertheless, he allowed his personal ambitions to take over his responsibilities and ended up being a war criminal and co-responsible for a genocide in Iraq. In the 70s, the conservatives thought Margaret Thatcher would be a disaster for the country, but she made history as the Iron lady.
Jeremy Corbyns ideas might be just what Britain needs in order to clean up this country from political and financial greedy which has taken over the economy and has ruined ordinary people’s lives. Politics cannot be treated like comedy. In fact, use comedy in politics in the way it’s been done, is an offense for millions of British people struggling to pay their bills. We have a parliament full of clowns and Jeremy Corbyn is a threat to the comedy show. Since Corbyn was elected by a huge majority of labour voters to be the leader of the Labour Party, he made clear he wants to change the way we do politics in Britain, and it seems to be causing a lot of fuss in and around the Commons hence all the rhetorics, abuses, bulling and attacks he has been suffering. If he will never be a Prime Minister as claimed by the conservatives and many labour MPs, why they are so worried about him?
It’s bizarre to say the least, to see Mr Corbyn making a very important question concerning millions of Britons across the country and instead of answering the question, the Prime Minister chose to tell a joke about the Labour Party or about Mr Corbyn itself. Then everybody laughs, the question is forgotten, no answer is given, and they move on for the next question. Mr Corbyn then, make another important question that concerns the nation only to be ignored again by the Prime Minister who will tell another joke to entertain her friends and the media instead of giving a proper answer for the question asked. It has been like this for decades, if not ever since we have a Parliament. Despite the fact she was not elected yet, how committed is the Prime Minister to the people she’s supposed to represent? The main stream media classify these politics of jokes as a “great performance”, a “victory for the Prime Minister”. Iain Dale, a presenter of a daily show at LBC Radio, almost had an orgasm on air after Theresa May had ignored Mr Corbyn questions to instead, abuse and bully him all the way to the end of her first Prime Minister Questions. No questions asked about the lack of proper question and answer as PMQs supposed be in the first place. PMQs are not a competition to see who makes the best joke! It’s absurd! We continue to accept and approve this kind of behaviour from a Prime Minister. It’s a culture that needs to change. Mr Corbyn has been elected leader of the Labour Party to do just that, and he is under attack from all sides including his own Party MPs. His fight resembles the problems with gun control laws in America. Every time someone stands to make it harder for people to by heavy weapons, they got attacked from all sides even when statistics show thousands of innocent people are losing their lives to gun violence every year in that country. The parallel to Mr Corbyn’s fight is true. When he tries to change a culture that is hurting this country so badly he got attacked with no mercy by those benefiting from the establishment he’s fighting against. Those at the top do not want to change. They like it the way it is whatever what people think.
Whatever’s the Prime Minister, Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, John Major or the almighty Margaret Thatcher, they all played the same game that benefits the same people over and over and over. Laughter at the parliament seems to be more important than the country itself, and they always get away with it. The Prime Minister questions are unfortunately, a popular comedy show. It is not too far from “Live at the Apollo”. They play comedy with the future of this country. They play comedy with the future of British people, and they do it because they have been praised for it by the us. It must stop! British people deserve to be heard and to be taken seriously by those elected to represent them. But, for that to happen, we need to stop praising politicians for being funny and cool. Mr Corbyn in the other hand, despite the mockery, the bully and abuse coming from the conservative bench, always keep his calm and keep on asking important questions without falling for despicable provocation. The others are happy to go on national TV after the comedy show to say, without any shame, that Theresa May destroyed Mr Corbyn on PMQs. I think they let the country down again.
Despite all the claims that Mr Corbyn lacks the abilities and the leadership to implement the important changes in our political culture, one thing is certain; most of Mr Corbyn opposition comes from politicians whom don’t want to lose their privileges and are afraid that Mr Corbyn will put an end to these privileges they enjoy today.
I am not sure whether Jeremy Corbyn would be a good Prime Minister, right now I would doubt, but who knows? One can only speculate. Looking back to the last two elected Prime Ministers we had; one, has taken this country to an illegal war that caused a genocide in Iraq, and made the whole world less safe; The second, has taken Britain out of the European Union and risks to be forever remembered for breaking-up the United kingdom as well as the EU. Watching how the media and the establishment hate Mr Corbyn, I can only think; This man might deserve a chance.
Michaell Lange 