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Why I'm supporting a People's Vote
February 11, 2019
For me, the EU is about much more than economics, even though this too is important. The foundations of the EU were laid after the war, at a time of destruction, chaos, forced mass migrations, revolutions, civil wars, retribution and starvation. Leaders at the time realised that Europe needed to come together to end centuries of war by building cooperation, at first through trade and economic prosperity.
This made Europe the most stable and rich it had ever been, raising living standards for hundreds of millions of people. I remember when we joined the Common Market in 1973, the UK was a weaker, poorer country than its neighbours; since then we have caught up and have been able to contribute - for example, by leading the drive towards the single market and free movement that Brexiteers now want to abandon.By 1990, the EU was crucial in supporting former Communist countries in Eastern Europe as they democratised and I have discovered recently how much the EU backed peace in Ireland too when the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1997. This work involved more than trade and economics.
Safeguarding our future
February 11, 2019
With our politicians in continuing disarray - surely it is time to ask the people if this is what they voted for. And before anyone says that another referendum would 'betray the will of the people', they should ask themselves, "How can 'the people' betray 'the will of the people'?" It's a logical impossibility. The people's votes are 'the will of the people' at the time that they are cast. And 'the people', Remainers and Leavers alike have the right to decide their future based on facts not fiction.
A committed Labour voter backs a People’s Vote
February 09, 2019
I am what I believed until now was a lifetime Labour supporter; but with less than 50 days to go until March 29th, the sense of my own powerlessness as a 76-year-old pensioner in Jenny Chapman’s Labour constituency of Darlington in County Durham is almost overwhelming.
I spent a decent chunk of my professional life living and working in Hackney as a teacher of English and ultimately as the first headteacher of Stoke Newington High School, where 27 languages were spoken as mother tongues and Bengali and Turkish were taught to GCSE level. I have therefore had a lot of experience fighting to create and maintain the highest possible educational standards in a richly multicultural but very stressful social services area of the country. I was there when Diane Abbott first became Stoke Newington’s MP.
I believe that the EU is one of the most successful peace projects there has ever been. As a nation, we should be supporting it. The very best way for us to do that is, of course, for the UK to remain a full member of the EU. My MP knows as well as I do that the evidence is overwhelming: no version of Brexit will ever come close to the benefits this country has enjoyed as a full member of the European Union. Just as importantly, the EU is significantly stronger with the UK as a full member working with the other 27 countries to address the issues we Europeans must face in the challenging times that lie immediately ahead for the whole planet.
I know that there is little, if any, chance of calling to account those who promoted the lies and fantasies at the heart of the Leave Campaign: shamelessly beguiling the educationally and economically most deprived in areas hit deliberately hardest by the Tories’ calculatedly disastrous policy of ‘Austerity’. The hard right is still at it in the tabloid press: demonising the EU and spewing pointless, irrelevant guff about sovereignty, freedom and being in control of our own destiny again, when their real aim is to grab even more power and further enrich the already rich at the expense of those they claim to champion but actually don’t give a stuff about (except when they need their votes).
A short piece on the importance of volunteering
February 08, 2019
Why everyone should campaign for a People's Vote
February 08, 2019
I’ve been optimistic about our chances of getting a People’s Vote for over a year. I’ve always believed Brexit would lose its popularity once it hit reality.
However I have many friends who very much want to Remain, but don’t believe our campaign will work.
I’ve been thinking about why, for me and other Remainers, it’s worth supporting the People’s Vote campaign regardless of whether we succeed.
Repairing our reputation as a country
Assuming we do leave the EU, there will be new trading relationships to be organised with the EU and other countries.
Our country’s long reputation as a sensible & reliable trading partner is being severely damaged by how our government is behaving,
The current chaos in our Parliament, and the dishonesty of the Brexiter MPs is being covered by newspapers around the world.
Four cemeteries and an EU trip
February 06, 2019
War: such a waste of young lives. The EU helps to bring peace.
London4Europe Vice-Chair Nick Hopkinson reflects on the purpose of the EU on the back of a visit to war graves: 'It makes me realise how lucky I am - how lucky our generation is. My great uncle was sent to Italy to fight; he was killed. I was awarded a place to study in Italy and it changed my life.'
I was recently reminded of a poster from the 1975 referendum campaign: “Forty million people died in two European wars this century. Better to lose a little national sovereignty than a son or daughter. Vote Yes to keep the peace. Keep Britain in Europe.”
Although we pool sovereignty, rather than lose it, I accept the overall argument. The European Union (EU) does underpin peace in Europe. It is said this argument does not have resonance amongst the young, who may take the peace dividend for granted. If so, that is a testament to the EU’s success. Strangely, the peace argument now seems to be lost on most of those over 59, two thirds of whom voted yes in 1975.
The Leavers argue NATO, not the EU, keeps the peace in Europe. NATO is indeed the cornerstone of our military security. However, there can be no peace without prosperity. Post war Western policy-makers knew Marshall Plan aid and NATO alone could not deliver economic growth in Western Europe, make another war in Europe impossible nor stop the advance of Communism. Pan-European economic integration was also needed. And wars are fought by countries, not by armies. NATO is a military alliance. It needs political cooperation for it to work. Amongst European countries, that comes largely through the EU.
Laura Urquhart Prieto: Why I support a People's Vote
February 06, 2019
As a young woman, I want to be able to give the best future to my future children. Young people today are much more connected to other young people across the world, in ways that were not the case even a few decades ago. The June 2016 referendum reflected this, with young voters overwhelmingly choosing to remain in the EU (Goodwin and Heath, 2016: 227). I want my future children to be participants of the globalized and interconnected world we now live in as much as the children of other European nations.
Taking back control - Some facts
February 05, 2019
WTO rules debunked
February 01, 2019
Internet entrepreneur and domain name expert Edwin Hayward explains what “trading on WTO terms” really means…
As EU members, we participate in over 750 international treaties. Many relate to trade, enabling us to trade freely with the EU, the EEA, and 40+ other countries.
Other treaties cover non-trade issues, from airworthiness certificates to drivers' licences, UK and EU citizens’ rights, food safety, environmental protections, workers rights, etc.
On Brexit Day, we leave the EU. That means we lose all the benefits of its treaties. Those treaties are gone in a flash, as if we’d fed them into a shredder. (That’s not the EU being vindictive, it’s just how the Article 50 process works.)
Even IF we have a transition period, the treaties will already be gone, but we will be shielded from the immediate shock by the transition arrangement.
Right now, we share in trade deals with 78 countries (22 more pending). These deals cover 60.7% of all our of all our goods imports, and 66.9% of our exports. Overnight, we will lose them all, wave goodbye to the painstaking gains of over forty years of trade negotiations.
In the absence of trade deals, we will be reduced to trading on WTO terms. WTO is a complicated system of tariffs and quotas, plus a baseline set of rules designed to make trade a little less painful and a little smoother than it otherwise would be.
WTO provides a baseline for trade, but it is the absolute minimum that all rational countries seek to improve on. That's why everyone's trying to sign trade deals all the time. The whole point of trade deals is to improve on the basic terms offered by WTO.
In trade terms, WTO can be likened to fourth division football: it's definitely a step up from a kick-around in the park using jerseys as goalposts, but it's by no means a high standard.
Addressing skills shortages critical to the future of UK science
February 01, 2019
The UK must plug science skills gaps to maintain its world-leading position for medicines and vaccines research and development.
The UK must plug an increasing number of science skills gaps to maintain its world-leading position for medicines and vaccines research and development, says the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI).
The UK is falling behind Europe and the rest of the world in terms of numbers of students studying many STEM subjects vital for discovering the advanced treatments and technologies of the future.
The ABPI warns that these highly-skilled scientific roles – vital to the UK’s successful pharmaceutical and biotech sectors - could move to other parts of the world if the situation is not addressed as a matter of urgency.
Despite the number of UK undergraduates studying STEM subjects increasing by 16% over the last decade (compared to an overall increase across all subjects of 13%) undergraduate numbers for EU students increased by 52% and non-EU students (worldwide) increased by 63%.
The figures come from the ABPI’s latest biennial survey of member pharmaceutical companies, looking at the challenges of recruiting suitably qualified and experienced staff. Bridging the skills gap in the biopharmaceutical industry (2019).
The new evidence comes as the UK seeks to protect its position as a hub for global life-sciences as it addresses the ill-advised step of leaving the European Union. Along with the skills shortages, respondents identified Brexit as the most critical threat to job growth in the UK, in an industry which invests significantly more in R&D than any other sector.
The report shows areas of significant concern, as identified by over 30 companies:
- Genomics – sequencing and analysis of the human genome to understand how to develop new treatments for diseases
- Immunology - the study of disease caused by disorders of the immune system, vital for the protection of infectious diseases
- Bioinformatics and Chemoinformatics – the science of using software tools to understand biological and chemical data to help develop new treatments
- Clinical pharmacology - experts working at the cutting edge of real-world data and clinical trials to help maximize the positive effects of a medicine and minimize the unwanted side effects
To help future proof the UK’s medicines R&D workforce, the ABPI is:
- Working with allied organisations, including the British Science Association, to inspire more young people to pursue STEM careers, such as through the content we are delivering to support a new government-funded competition for young people.
- Recommending to the Home Office that Clinical Pharmacology be added to the shortage occupation list, and that the Home Office review the shortage occupation list more frequently to be able to react quickly to the fast-moving science landscape.
- Actively involved in the development of standards for a new high-level Clinical Pharmacology Scientist apprenticeship.
- The pharmaceutical industry remains by far the industry with the highest investment in R&D in the UK at £4.1 billion per year (in 2016), but this fell 22% in real terms between 2011 and 2016 – the most recent figures available. The UK pharmaceutical industry currently employs 63,000 – down from 70,000 in 2015 - with 24,000 devoted to R&D. Apprenticeships in the pharmaceutical industry are up 169% since 2013.