A Radical PROUT Brexit
I have seen a lot of comments saying that Brexit is the issue that broke Labour's back in the last general election, however, I believe the real issue was Labour's inability to come up with a radical Brexit policy. Their manifesto beautifully dealt with the old issues - NHS, education etc etc, but nothing to add really to the Brexit debate. If all those Labour voters in the North who voted for Brexit and did not want another referendum, had a radical Brexit to back - things may have looked a little different for Labour right now. But what would a radical Brexit look like? PROUT's Radical Brexit might include
- Free Movement of People, but Limited Movement of Money
- PROUT's radical Brexit would turn conventional thinking on its head and make the free movement of people across Europe a reality. However, there should be no free movement of money. Wherever labour is performed - that wealth or surplus needs to stay in that local area to benefit the local community. So, people should be free to move, but not free to extract wealth from the area in which they perform the labour, thius draining the local area. Migrants need to contribute to local communities with more than just work - for a start, they need to be able to speak the local language, and merge, what Prout terms their socio-economic sentiment with the local culture (i.e have a desirre to improve the community in which they work). If we take this approach, no-one in a benefiting local community could argue against the benefit of migrant labour. Of course, Prout would ensure a decent minimum wage (pegged to a maximum wage) for the local community so that no migrants could be accused of "stealing" jobs for lower than a decent pay.
- Economic Decentralisation, but Political Centralisation
- Yes - the UK needs to be Economically independent from the EU! The UK needs to be able to decide how to spend its customs and taxation revenue, but also needs to stop wealth leaving the country by restricting the free movement of capital out of the country. As far as possible, the UK would strive to produce the goods it consumes, and so benefit the local manufacturing industry, which has all but been decimated. So protections need to be introduced for local industry through duties on imports of goods which have locally produced alternatives. Trade agreements with European countries could work on the basis of barter around UK produced goods vs EU produced goods of a different nature.
- Here's the rub - Prout's radical Brexit would bind the UK to a central European law making body - providing it had no economic power over the UK and was insulated from economic and big business influence. This body would be able to set regulatory codes, but not benefit economically for policing them. The European parliament, in its current guise, would need to be radically overhauled to separate itself from Economic power.
- Common Penal Code and Bill of Rights
- There should be a common pan-European penal code with a single court of Human Rights that can oversee important judgments on Human Rights Violations.
- There should be a common ecological policy, based perhaps on a Bill of Nature's Rights.
- Shared European Militia
- Yes, this is certainly not the age of small countries! Europe needs to protect itself from large aggressors (like the US, China or Russia). Pooling militia's into one European force would lessen the burden on each European citizen to support this, but still give Europe some military protections. The UN and Nato has proven toothless in preventing European conflict, so Europe needs a military force. The UK would subscribe to contribute to and benefit from this. This militia would be under the control of a central European body, on which the UK would sit, and that was free from the influence of Economic or Business interests.
- Guaranteed Free Medical Care
- Medical care is a basic human right. Just because someone comes from another European country, does not make them any less human or deserving of medical care. The UK would provide free medical care for all Europeans under this radical Brexit, but expect the same in a reciprocal medical agreement with the EU. The supply chains for NHS and reciprocal bodies across Europe should all come from within Europe and should not be sold to bodies outside of the new European Confederation.
Those are a few ideas for a radical Brexit. What of the question of the backstop? Prout would sidestep that one by making Northern Ireland an economically independent region, along with Scotland and Wales, with each region being able to choose its own border arrangemenmts with its neighbours. To boot , Prout would invite Ireland into this new Anglo Confederation of Democratic Countries.... (yes ACDC is back in black!)