Although I'm not a member of any party, I went canvassing in Wakefield for Labour yesterday alongside the MP Mary Creagh, in what I assume was originally a council estate not dissimilar to the one I knew as a kid in Nottingham. She is very nice, very down-to-earth by the way. It was pretty positive but we did meet people who were going to vote for the Brexit party and others who usually voted Labour but weren't going to vote at all because of the Brexit "débâcle" as one man put it.
The day was dry but overcast and the estate felt run down, intimidating and spirit draining. You could become depressed just walking through it, never mind living there permanently. A few houses were neat and well cared for. Most were not. Overgrown hedges, unkempt communal grass verges, broken gates and fences, peeling paint and shabby faded net curtains. Shops with steel shutters and graffiti. All the hopes of Margaret Thatcher's 'property owning democracy' (which my own mother took advantage of) ground down by the cost of maintaining an asset sold off without a thought for the future.
It was desperately sad stuff. I imagine all of the houses are now privately owned as are those on most council estates up and down the country. Every house was different and mismatched in almost every way possible way, as a constant reminder of the lack of social cohesion and community. The sell-off policy might have worked had governments been able to provide employment in well paid jobs so the home owners could afford their upkeep - but on that Wakefield estate it looked to me as if many people were existing on benefits of one sort of another.
And yet amazingly, a few were intending to vote for Nigel Farage.
He and The Brexit Party have already damaged the economy and Brexit - assuming it goes ahead - will impact areas like Wakefield particularly badly but, and I'm shocked to be saying this, I could almost understand why Brexit is attractive to them. They are helpless and hopeless. Nobody is going to give them a hand and they know it. Perhaps for them it was a last roll of the dice.
These estates need money. Had they remained in council ownership the council would have been obliged to modernise the properties and improve the housing stock instead of burdening people with the cost of maintaining an asset they can barely afford and don't seem to care about anyway. Private landlords also tend to be reluctant to invest, they are sucking money out instead of putting it in.
A council owned estate is a council controlled estate. They can evict tenants, provide or organise community services like grass or hedge cutting and generally make the area a decent place to live rather that a soul crushing experience.
Nottingham City Council in the 1950s and 60s maintained their houses well with a whole department responsible for repairs, painting and so on. They would even caution tenants if the gardens weren't being properly tended. The houses were neat, clean, bright and they were certainly not dispiriting in any way. Doors were left unlocked and you felt you could trust any of your neighbours.
I don't pretend to know what the answer is but I have to say only the Labour party could do it - but I don't see any long term plan to give people a bit of hope.
On another topic entirely, the man who replaces Donald Tusk as the President of the Council, Charles Michel has made it clear that his priority in any forthcoming trade talks will be maintaining a level playing field.
No doubt there will be many difficult choices facing Johnson's government, assuming people in this country are daft enough to give him a majority, but agreeing LPF rules is probably at the top of the list. The EU side has already talked about the balance of rights and obligations and the less inclined we are to abide by fundamental EU rules on social, employment and environmental rights, the poorer access to the single market we will enjoy.
Paragraph 4 of the political declaration is key:
The future relationship will be based on a balance of rights and obligations, taking into account the principles of each Party. This balance must ensure the autonomy of the Union's decision making and be consistent with the Union's principles, in particular with respect to the integrity of the Single Market and the Customs Union and the indivisibility of the four freedoms. It must also ensure the sovereignty of the United Kingdom and the protection of its internal market, while respecting the result of the 2016 referendum including with regard to the development of its independent trade policy and the ending of free movement of people between the Union and the United Kingdom.
This is word for word the same as Mrs May's deal
The first sentence is written as if the two parties are equals. Anyone who has followed the tortured machinations of the last three years will appreciate how transparently ridiculous this is. Whenever two sides come together to negotiate they arrive with 'principles', the question is which side's have to be jettisoned when push comes to shove? The path we have taken so far shows how unequal the relationship actually is.
M Michel was marking Johnson's card. If we want a free trade deal anything like that we have now, we will be following EU rules. You can bet on it. If we don't want to be a vassal the choice is clear - reapply for membership or junk huge sectors of the economy.
I'm now off with four other volunteers to Keighley to canvass for John Grogan where he's defending a majority of less then 500 votes.
Every little helps.
