Subject: [permaculture] Fwd: So Much For Sovereignty - monbiot.com
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2016 21:06:05 +0100
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: So Much For Sovereignty - monbiot.com
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 07:50:49 +0000
From: George Monbiot <noreply+feedproxy@google.com>
Reply-To: George Monbiot <news@monbiot.com>
To: dhondt@eircom.net
To this government, “taking back control” means handing Britain to a
different set of foreign powers
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 27^th July 2016
What does it mean to love your country? What does it mean to defend its
sovereignty? For some of the leaders of the Brexit campaign, it means
reducing the United Kingdom to a franchise of corporate capital,
governed from head offices overseas. They will take us out of Europe to
deliver us into the arms of other powers.
No one embodies this contradiction as much of the man now charged with
determining the scope of our sovereignty: the new international trade
secretary, Liam Fox. He explained his enthusiasm for leaving Europe thus
<http://www.conservativevoice.co.uk/long-read-in-the-hot-seat-with-liam-fox-transcript/>:
“We’ll be able to make our own laws unhindered by anyone else, and our
democratic parliament will not be overruled by a European Court.” But of
all the people Theresa May could have appointed to this post, he seems
to me the most likely to ensure that our parliament and laws are
overruled by foreign bodies.
In response to the Philip Green scandal, Theresa May says she wants to
<http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/25/theresa-may-reform-capitalism-philip-green-bhs-scandal>
“tackle corporate irresponsibility” and “reform capitalism so that it
works for everyone not just the privileged few.” We have no idea what
she means, but here’s where it should begin. Before her government
starts negotiating any new trade treaties, it should open a public
consultation about their purpose and scope. The UK’s trading
relationships should be debated in parliament and the people of this
nation should be allowed to determine how much control over national
life our representatives should retain, and how much should be ceded to
international agreements and international bodies.
Does this mean a referendum? If we can be trusted to decide whether or
not to share our sovereignty with Europe, should we not also be trusted
to decide whether or not to share it with transnational capital?
But the Conservative vision of sovereignty is highly selective. People
like Dr Fox appear to hate much of what others love about this country:
the NHS, our public broadcasters, our social safety net, the protection
of the countryside, the notion that power resides in the people, rather
than in corporations and their shadowy lobbyists. There are traitors in
our midst, who would rip down our most treasured institutions on behalf
of the transnational elite and its offshore holdings. This, it seems, is
what they mean by taking back control.