Is this the end of the remain campaign?

 Progressive European Party

An email came to me today from the Peoples vote campaign

“Hi philip,

We want to pay tribute to the millions of People’s Vote supporters who have worked tirelessly to demand that their voices are heard.

Since the election was called, tens of thousands of grassroots campaigners have mobilised all over the country. With record donations and hundreds of People’s Vote events in the last six weeks alone, it is clear that millions of people remain committed to fighting Brexit-fuelled injustice.

The People’s Vote will now refocus its campaign to concentrate on vital social issues that this government must urgently prioritise in its Brexit negotiations. We will remain a grassroots campaigning group who will act on issues of social inequality. We will put pressure on the government to stop them sacrificing opportunities for the poor and vulnerable, removing citizens’ rights, undermining the NHS and reducing job security in pursuit of a destructive Brexit driven by a hard-right minority.

We urge the government to avoid a hard Brexit that will be a disaster for our country and instead work with our European partners to get the fair deal that British people deserve. The poorest and most vulnerable will be further marginalised if Boris Johnson’s government crashes us out of the EU with no deal.

We will now redouble our efforts to make Johnson’s government accountable to the people, to give assurances that protect the weakest in our society and put the needs of the people above political ideology.

Early next year the People’s Vote campaign will rebrand and reorganise to campaign for a fair deal for Britain.

Kind Regards,

Stuart Hand

Campaign Director, People's Vote”

Not very promising is it, where did it all go wrong, I have, I believe, a clear understanding of why we have failed. At least failed so far in our endeavours to stop Brexit. And unless we change tack soon all that flag-waving speech-making and marching will soon be forgotten. As will the MPs who changed parties or stood as independents, not one of them were re-elected.

Recent history has shown that having a million people march on Parliament (unless they burn it down when they get there) has no effect. The stop the war Coalition did not stop the war and our efforts did not stop Brexit or get a confirmatory referendum

Unless a movement has political representation it will not move anything. 

So far the great opportunity that Brexit offered us has been wasted. Brexit has clearly thrown into great relief the failings of our current political system. It not only exposed the imperfections of our failing democracy it also pointed us in the direction of how it could be changed. 

We came up with the concept of a new Progressive party that would not only keep us in the EU but would also transform society to end the causes of discontentment that the “forgotten” in our country have suffered.
Why not stick with existing parties that want to remain? Because they are a part of the problem. It is easy to forget now that the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party both campaigned for an in-out EU referendum before Cameron put the idea forward. 

If the enormous amount of work campaigning and the not-insignificant amount of money raised had been put into our new movement then maybe we would have made some real progress. Or if we had been waving our flags and celebrating our EU citizenship before 2016 then maybe it would not have happened in the first place. But we can not put the clock back.  

Listening to this https://youtu.be/kVaE61crZDg recent speech by Madeleina Kay you would think that she is singing directly from the Progressive Party’s songbook. But unless Madeleina and people like her are leading members of a Political Party that has representation in Parliament it matters not how brilliant her speech is. The people in power will just ignore her. 

Coming up with the solutions was for us the easy part. The hard bit, convincing the general public, has so far eluded us. And because the biggest names of the remain campaign have made the decision that they and the movement should be apolitical we have not persuaded them either. 

All may not be lost but we are in a far worst place than we were before and the opportunities are far more limited. New opportunities will present themselves, I just hope that this time when they do we can take advantage of them and make it work. 

The phoenix can still rise from the ashes 

Philip Notley

Tonnes of British-grown fruit wasted over shortages of EU workers

 Progressive European Party

One of the, what will be many, I told you so moments.

The Government has put itself in a quandary. Many of the leave voters voted out because they are bigoted racists who want to stop the flow of migrants coming into the UK. Making little point in replacing the workers from the European Union with ones from, for argument's sake Bangladesh.

We could easily replace the EU migrant workers by issuing short term work visas to countries outside the EU. But what would the purpose in doing so be when the Governments #Brexit supporters want a slow down of all migrant workers? 

The really big problems will no doubt come from losing the more permanent workers who teach in our schools, work in our health service, manufacturing, infrastructure, building industries, banking and the rest. 

The Japanese, who have traditionally not allowed foreign workers into their country, are having to change their immigration practices to allow them in to support their industries because they are faced with an ageing population. 

Even little Liechtenstein which is not in the EU but is a member of the EEA and Schengen, have 50% of their residents from outside of their country.  

No successful Western state can hope to compete in the world of today without a steady influx of workers. 

Even if we leave with a deal and then make a trade deal with the EU it is never going to be like it is today. We will have to downsize considerably, wages will continue to stagnate, the cost of living will increase and there will be a fire sale of our assets to foreign investors. 

We will have our ‘independence’ but at what cost. 

The Conservatives/the Brexit party and Co. are still saying that we can have a point-based immigration policy like Australia. Julia Gillard who was Australia's Prime Minister from 2010-2013 pointed out on television last week that their immigration policy is designed to increase immigration. Whereas what the Conservatives are proposing is clearly designed to limit it as much as possible. Trying to use the same system to fix opposing ‘problems’ is bound to fail. 

Our EU workforce is self-regulating, if they do not have a job then they go home. There is no need for a points-based system to fill what vacancies there are. 

You may have seen homeless eastern Europeans begging on the streets in London. This is purely a failure of Government in not imposing the regulations that say we can send home anyone who has been out of work for three months. 

All the problems we now have are in fact a failure of Government. Homelessness, food banks, low wages, an underdeveloped infrastructure, the destruction of the high street, the decline of our wildlife and many more. None of these things will be solved by exiting the European Union. In fact, many of them will most likely be exacerbated by it. 

What hope do we now have? It is looking like the only real way out of our steadily deepening political quagmire is a short sharp shock. And Brexit will certainly give us that. Then the false promises of the Leave campaigners will be exposed once and for all. We will have the sovereignty that they have promised us but it will soon be shown to be something completely intangible. Something of no substance at all. Sovereignty will not put food on the table, educate the young or provide jobs. In fact, it will do the opposite of everything promised in the referendum. Then we can be sure that the groundswell of public opinion will take us back into the EU a lot faster than we came out of it.

I am of course fully aware that this is not the kind of rhetoric that you would expect from a pro-European political party. I am not however suggesting that we stop campaigning to remain. There is still, at this late hour, hope that the tables can be turned in our favour. But we have to face the facts, our Government has been taken over by extremists who will use any means fair or foul to get us out without a deal and then ride out the disruption that will follow. 

Brexit is its own worst enemy in that it can never fulfil any of its promises if it should succeed. We have to be prepared to move once this disaster has happened and hopefully make even bigger changes to our system to benefit all citizens, not just the rich and politically elect. 

In the long term, the worst-case scenario is to get a deal, this would give us two years to make a trade deal with the EU and everything else will stay as it is now for those two years. This will mean just a slow decline, whereas a no-deal will bring about an immediate tangible result which will be 100% negative. If we can not swing a remain campaign then a no-deal is the best option. Let Brexit destroy itself and discredit all of its supporters then we can move on to a brave new world of international cooperation and shared values. 

Something I hope every citizen would support and believe in 


Philip Notley

One million plus citizens march for democracy 23 March 2019

 Progressive European Party

What is Progressive politics?

 Progressive European Party

I am asked on occasions what is the definition of Progressive politics. It is a good question and deserves some clarification. The word progressive in a political sense is easy to define. “improvement of society by reform. As a philosophy, it is based on the idea of progress, which asserts that advancements in science, technology, economic development and social organisation are vital to the improvement of the human condition.” To quote Wikipedia. 

The labour party in its origins of campaigning for the political representation of workers was very progressive in its day. Similarly, the movement for women to have the same voting rights as men were of equal importance. In today's political system the only party with an MP that could be called progressive are the Greens. 

The Lib Dems on the other hand just offer improvements to the political system that we have now. Just sticking plasters on a system that is now outmoded.

The Labour party is sometimes called a Progressive party when really they are offering a socialism which is a throwback to the politics of the past. Important in its day but no longer Progressive in its outlook.

Our party advocates amongst other things the introduction of a Direct Democracy. Direct Democracy is not a progressive idea if you live in Switzerland or Liechtenstein but it is here. It can be said that proportional representation, which I believe is supported by the Lib Dems and the Greens is a progressive policy, it is, but really it is just another way of electing MPs to the same system that we currently have without any real change. 

To be really Progressive our system of democracy needs to be transformed. What we currently have has had its inadequacies exposed since the referendum result that shows how inadequate it is for the modern world. 

So I would say that Progressive politics from the point of view of pEp would be the transformation of society and our political system to be something fit for purpose in the twenty-first century. 

Philip Notley

#FBPE

 Progressive European Party

We have dropped the #FBPE from our FB group and Twitter. We think they have served their purpose and we now need to get down to more serious things. The Progressive party is not only about stopping #Brexit. We need to change the broken system that caused Brexit in the first place

The Peoples Vote March 20 October 2018

 Progressive European Party

Brexit, who should have the final say?

 Progressive European Party

It will not be easy to persuade parliament to agree to another referendum on our EU membership. Parliament is sovereign, to give the vote to the people takes sovereignty away from parliament and gives it to citizens. This is unconstitutional. The last referendum result is being enforced because David Cameron made the promise that it would be, but constitutionally it is only advisory.

There would never be a second vote in any case just because remain voters did not like the first result. What the so-called second referendum, if it happens, should be is not a second referendum at all but a new referendum on how we should now proceed.

For it to work it would have to be multi-option,

Stay in the EU

Leave the EU but stay in the customs union and single market

Leave the EU but stay only in the single market

Leave the EU but stay only in the customs union

Leave the EU without a deal

Leave the EU with the deal that has been agreed with the EU (when there is one)

Leave the EU but reject the deal and negotiate a new one

Complex yes and highly unlikely to happen that way. So should we be campaigning for a new referendum at all or should we only be campaigning to stay in the EU?

The position of the Progressive Party is simple, one of the cornerstones of Progressive policy is to replace Parliamentary sovereignty with a Direct democracy. Therefore we are supporting the call for a new referendum because that is as close to Direct democracy we can currently get until there is a Progressive administration in power.

Philip Notley