A Political Strategy for Brexit
The first policy statement for a government or a party hoping to be in government must make must be to reassure business and the people who have real economic power; the so-called super rich or HNWI (High Net Worth Individuals) by stating that investments in the new types of businesses that will be created in the UK by the UK government will have a zero rate of tax on dividends on profits of the new businesses.
These new businesses will have their cash flow protected by the courts and by the national government so long as the businesses are found by the courts to have honoured their contractual agreements. The new forms of Contract Law will protect businesses that act honourably.
The new types of businesses will have a maximum statutory hourly rate differential of 20 to 1 The rate of CT (Corporation Tax) will be linked to the actual Wage Differential paid by the business.
IT WAS A BIG MISTAKE OF THE UK GOVERNMENT TO ARBITRARILY REDUCE CT TO 17%.
If the new types of businesses reduce their wage differential to 17 to 1, then a 17% CT would be acceptable. If the new businesses reduced the wage differential to 8 to 1, then 8% CT would be acceptable. This would create a profit enhancing incentive to reduce the wage differential and to start the end of economically deprived areas of the country and the social (educational, for instance) problems associated with economic deprivation.
Reducing the wage differential would increase/stimulate demand in the economy, reduce the Welfare Bill paid out of taxation AND increase the tax take by moving the lowest paid into the Tax Paying bracket, above £10 000 p.a. The Austerity programme followed by thecurrent government merely reduces Aggregate Economic Demand and is a contributory factor in the demise of our Hogh Streets. People cannot afford to go out and spend money in the shops.
Another Business friendly policy for the new types of business WHICH HAVE YET TO BE CREATED BY GOVERNMENT, is to have an Earned Profits Allowance, equal to a percentage of the Wage Bill of the Full Time (35 + hours) lowest hourly paid employees of the business. The percentage allowance would depend on the economic conditions that apply at the time. It could vary from 1% to 100%.
When it comes to giving International Development aid to other countries, the aid could be paid directly to the lowest paid workforce in the form of wages of the company carrying out the development. This would avoid, I think, the opportunity for corrupt practices by foreign governments and be a step in the direction of ending abject poverty in the Developing Countries.
Of course, business friendly policies must also apply to the employees of ALL BUSINESSES; not just the new types of businesses previously referred to. I therefore think that a policy that would find favour with the electorate as a whole would be to have a STATUTORY OVERTIME RATE of +30% of the hourly rate for any hours worked above the daily and weekly contracted hours. A full time working week could be 35 hours; a full time working day could be 8 hours. Any hours worked above the contracted hours would have to be paid at the STATUTORY OVERTIME RATE. This would have the effect of ending the scandal of ZERO HOURS CONTRACTS, creating Full time jobs that would enable people to qualify for mortgages and able to afford to buy (or rent) their own homes.
To end the scandal of people being forced to live in substandard houses as at present, the law of contract between Landlord, their Agents and Tenants MUST be changed. All properties offered for rent must have a Certificate of Fitness for Human Habitation issued by the Local Council. It will be illegal for Landlords to accept rents from tenants of properties that do not have a valid Certificate; it will also be illegal for tenants of these properties to pay rents to Landlords or their Agents. Tenants will have the right to engage the services of the appropriate Contractors to bring the property up to a legal standard of fitness for Human Habitation. Owners of houses that are not let or otherwise occupied by people will be subject to the highest band of Council Tax for each such property owned. The purpose of these rules is to end as soon as possible the existence of substandard buildings. A consequence of these measures is to stimulate demand and work/employment in the Construction Industry. To be continued.
A Plague on Both Their Parties.
Why do I say that? Becausee they (the Conservative and Labour parties are both part of “the Establishment”).
So what are my priorities? My priorities are 1) the climate emergency. 2) domestic violence and 3) homelessness and economic deprivation.
The climate emergency requires changes. So what can the government do. First is to change the Planning and Building regulations and the law regarding Mortgages. At present, businesses that offer mortgages are reluctant to lend on properties that are of “non-standard” construction. However, by definition, homes that are built to “eco-friendly” standards will be of non standard construction. So the law needs to be changed; Incorporating what I call the “Canary Wharf Clause”.
2) To help bring an end to domestic violence the law also needs to be changed so that victims do not need to testify in court. This could be possible. After all, murder victims, by defintion do not and cannot testify in court. Perhaps high quality video and forensic evidence should be sufficient for the CPS to prosecute an offender.
3) Regarding homelessness and economic deprivation, I think that the Economic Empowerment of everyone to end their own homelessness. To do this, there must be an alternative to the current DLP economic operating system. So I propose the establishment in law, of an Alternative Economic Operating System with which to “dual-boot” the economy.
By doing this, I believe we could double the Wealth of Btitain and therefore reduce taxation for rveryone; perhaps even reduce Council Tax bt 50%!! Of course, this would have to be worked out by bodies such as the ONS (Office of National Statistics).
My Manifesto
I will be standing as an Independent in the General Election on December 12 2019.
As a Democrat, I believe the Referendum result should be respected. I believe in the Sovereignty of the citizen which should over-rule the sovereignty of Parliament. However, we need a Constitutional Convention to codify and create and write a constitution. This is what I would campaign for.
The crisis that exists today in our political system was foretold and warned about in 1970 by a scientist. He was dimissed by the the political leaders of the day as a “Prophet of Doom”. Also Dr. Jeremy Bray, who was a Labour MP in Harold Wilson’s government and wrote a book “Decision in Government”. He rsigned as an MP when he was referred to as “a mad professor”(Source Wikipedia). Science helped to win the Battle of Britain; I will be campaigning for science to win the Battle For Britain.
About wealth and inequality. First of all, the Viv Nichols and Charles Clore kinds of people are always amongst us. By using Systems Thinking and creating Causal Loops as I have advocated in my book published in 2013 which calls for an alternative Economic Operating System. By using Causal Loops, income inequality would be reduced. Back in 1973, the American management/business guru wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Is Executive Pay Excessive” in which he called for businesses to put in the company’s Articles of Association that the after tax wage diferential should be 8% or 8 to 1; I forget which. Since different countries have diferent tax regimes, in my book I have called for a maximum statutory wage/income differential of 20 to 1. I have no objection to a CEO being paid £1 000 000 pa as long as the person who cleans the CEO’s office is paid 5% (1/20th) of that amount, i.e. £50 000 pa. To paraphrase Elwood Blues, “I know all about poverty, I have been in poverty all my life.” A cleaner is traditionally the lowest paid person in a business.
My priority as an independent standing for election is the Climate emergency, tackling the problem of domestic violence, homelessness and poverty. To solve these problems, it is necessary to empower the people to solve these problems for themselves. This involves changing the law regarding tenants and landlords. Changing the the law regarding mortgages. And alsoreplacing the current sexist and bullying benefit system with one that builds self esteem and economic independence. Government bureaucracy should be a stepping stone to fulfilling the citizen’s aspirations; not a millstone round the neck of benefit claimants.
About human rights; if you are a human being, you have a right to life; therefore you have a right (and obligation) to earn a living. Therefore there is no need for governments to issue work permits or to make it illegal to earn a living; however, a government should make it a requirement to pay income tax for 5 or 10 years before a person is eligible for benefits.
Regarding the benfit system; child benefit should be abolished 10 months after a new government is formed and a “parenting skills allowance” of 100 hours at the NMW rate which should make every parent a qualified child minder or foster parent or nursery nurse. A super-nanny in every family! Also job seekers allownce should be abolished and replaced with a “personal development and community involvement allowance” set at 5 x3 hours at NMW rate; a kind of EMA!
A MANIFESTO FOR THE INDEPENDENT GROUP.
I resigned from the Liberal Democrat party after the referendum result came in and Vince Cable went on about the going for a ballot about the destination of Brexit. It is the job of government to lead the country to the best outcome for Brexit; not to try and reverse a democratically taken decision by the electorate.
It seems to me that the independent group came about as the result of the machinations of the Labour and Conservative parties over Brexit and the parties interpretation of the Brexit result. I am a “lay person” which means that my political stance is informed by newspaper reports and tv news programmes as well as TedTalks on the internet and soap storylines, e.g. Coronation Street.
However, an independent party reflecting different views must be cohesive to be successful in a General Election or by-election. This manifesto would be acceptable to both the main parties in some respects and unacceptable in other respects.
What would be acceptable to the Labour party is to advocate the ending of sanctions against benefit claimants. What should be acceptable to both parties is the abolishing of Universal Credit and also Job Seekers Allowance and Child Benefit which is a bullying and sexist benefit system resulting in mental health problems and the stresses of financial hardship.
I believe in Personal Freedom and Personal Responsibility; e.g. in Emerson’s philosophy of Self Reliance. The sovereignty of the individual citizen. Since there are as many different viewpoints, religious and political as there are citizens, it follows that political and economic systems must not discriminate amongst these various viewpoints and be based on that which is common amongst citizens; we are all living human beings with a right to life. If every human being has a right to live then governments should not make it illegal to work and earn a living. Therefore the need for work permits should also be abolished. We live on a single planet; therefore there should be regulated free movement of people throughout the world. To this end, every British Embassy should have a job centre. This would be in conjunction with the establishment of a Fair and Just Economic system which has already been designed and described in a book that is in the possession of Baroness Susan Kramer, who is/was the LibDem Shadow Chancellor at the time she received it at LibDem party conference in Brighton. The book was published in 2013.
A new party must be prepared to act adventurously and experimentally. The name I would give to a party of Independent MPs is the “Yourself Party” because a vote for an independent MP would be a vote for yourself. The song for the Conservative party is “Land of Hope and Glory”; the Labour Party has the “The Red Flag”. The song for the “Yourself Party” would be “Imagine” by John Lennon. The party’s slogan would be borrowed from Nike; “Just Do It”. Implement the economic system described in the e-book “Creating Responsible Capitalism” which was published in 2013 when there was no thought of a Referendum, Britain was part of the EU and therefore the book contains references to the EU and also calls for the EU and the European Central Bank to oversee the creation of this alternative (Economic) operating system. This operating system would be an alternative to the existing economic system and would be freely used by investors and business people because it would be in their self-interest to do so. It is a “Crash Proof” economy that eliminates poverty and increases aggregate economic demand. After all, the UK must remove the beam out of its own eye before it can remove the “mite” of poverty in the developing world. This, in my view, is why some people resent development aid being paid by the UK because of the poverty, food banks and homelessness that exists in this country. Dissolve the problems at home in the UK first. Then we may have some clue as to how to solve the problems faced by the developing world. Perhaps Development Aid should be paid to the lowest paid members of the workforce in one of the new types of company I have advocated elsewhere
About Brexit. The UK has to put its own house in order first. To do this, we need to be sufficiently independent of the EU not to be prevented by EU rules and regulations. First, the income tax and VAT paid by people and businesses within a parish or town must first be paid into that local council’s treasury, then a percentage of that amount should be forwarded up the next tier of government, the district council, then the County Council and then to National Government. The National Government should not be in the business of economically emasculating the people of this country. The N.I. “backstop”. The UK needs to carry on with the process of devolution by devolving sufficient power to N.I. and Scotland and Wales for those countries to remain in the EU. (the Denmark solution). The UK negotiating stance should be to tell Michel Barnier that the whole point of the UK voting for independence from the EU is so that the UK government can “cherry pick”. If the UK government can’t do this then the government should “privatise” the negotiations by handing the job to the CBI to negotiate on behalf of the UK businesses. Perhaps the CBI should appoint a protege of Professor Gavin Kennedy who wrote the book “Everything Is Negotiable”. If the EU businesses say they cannot do what the UK businesses want, even if the EU businesses want to do whatever it is but cannot because of EU regulations then it should be suggested to the EU business negotiators that their own government should invoke article 50 and leave the EU. This would “put the cat among the pigeons” so to speak.
What I have personally against the EU is that it does not follow its own rules of subsidiarity. It is unjust and is financially imprudent because its own accounts have not been passed by the auditors. It is unjust when it would not allow the UK to deport someone to Jordan because of the risk of torture to that person by the Jordanian government. In my view, that is a separate issue. The person should have been deported anyway without the UK seeking “assurances” from the Jordanian government that the person would not be tortured. If there is evidence of torture by the Jordanian government then Jordan should face Justice in the Hague. To me, justice should be reciprocal. Another case was when an EU citizen was jailed for causing death by dangerous driving and faced deportation after he had finished his sentence. He successfully appealed against deportation because he had married and started a family in the UK and he had a “human right” to family life. So did the person he killed! The UK government was remiss by not deporting the person when he left prison, otherwise, the whole family should have been deported back to the person’s own country.
Ending zero hours contracts and economic deprivation. The UK has a statutory National Minimum Wage. The Independent Group must go further and advocate a statutory overtime rate of say, 30% on any hour or part of an hour worked above the daily and weekly contracted hours. A person on a zero hours contract would be legally entitled to the NMW rate + 30%. In my view, the only person who voluntarily chooses a zero hours “contract” is a person who decides on self-employment. The Independent Group must in my view do this and advocate this and also decide on a standard number of hours in a full-time week and a full-time day. Personally, I think an 8 hour day is a full-time day which means that NHS staff on a 12-hour shift would be paid 4 hours at the statutory overtime rate. Regarding economic deprivation, the alternative economic operating system has a statutory wage differential eq PLC’s of 20 to 1, which means that if a CEO earns £1 million pa, the office cleaner who is traditionally the lowest paid would get 5% of that amount, i.e. £50 000 pa. This would ensure that the Board of Directors could not award themselves an excessive pay rise without giving every person in the company a pay rise, thus ensuring “responsible capitalism”. Why should an HNWI invest in such a company?; because it would be in their financial self-interest to do so; a zero rate of tax on dividends paid by such a company. This could be done because the people working in the company would not need to be on benefits. It broadens the tax base, reduces government bureaucracy and makes the UK and eventually the whole planet a “tax haven”. This would be anathema to the Labour Party activists who hate “Capitalism” However, even capitalists can be “socialist”. Henry Ford of Model T Ford fame in the 1930s increased his workers’ wage to 5 dollars a day and also reduced the working day from 9 hours to 8 hours and thought that was the best thing he could have done because he doubled his profits from $3 million to $6 million the following year. Also during the US Great Depression, he increased his workers’ wages. When asked by his business friends why he did not sack workers and invest in more efficient machines, he replied that “Machines don’t buy cars/automobiles”. I read this somewhere; I forget where. Who would have thought it? Henry Ford, an anti-austerity Capitalist. Unfortunately, he was also a virulent Anti-Semite. Which I totally disagree with.
A BREXIT BRITAIN
I was a member of the LibDems and I voted to remain in the EU. However, since the referendum result, the LibDem party has become a pressure group with the aim of reversing the Referendum result. I therefore resigned from the party.
On the night before the Referendum, I attended a Referendum debate. My written comment to the chairperson before the debate stated that leaving the EU was like “tombstoning” or leaving a secure job with a steady income to go “self-employed” without knowing what work you were going to do, no business plan or cash flow forecast.
It seems to me that the “tombstoning” option is the only one available to the government. There is, of course, a number of problems with the Brexit negotiations. The most important is the Northern Ireland border issue. The UK government has begun a devolution process which needs to go further even if it means re-writing the constitution of the UK. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay in the EU. Either Therese May must tell the DUP that if they have to choose between the EU and the UK even if it means the break up of the UK as it is presently constituted. If they choose to stay with the UK then there will be a hard border. Otherwise they become an independent country and fight their own battles. This includes negotiating with the EU to stay as a member if that is what they want.
Regarding the UK, the government should walk away from the EU and its negotiating team; tell the CBI and the FSB to negotiate their own deals with the businesses in the EU member states which the UK government will support. If the businesses in the EU can not agree contractual terms with British businesses because of EU regulations, British business should tell them that their government should also trigger Article 50.
Britain should establish its own customs union and Free Trade Area with the African Union, ASEAN and the Gold BRIC countries. Britain also needs to establish an Alternative Economic Operating Sytem that eliminates poverty. That is another issue, however.
A Brexit Business Plan
In the absence of a government Business Plan for Brexit, I think that the plan described here would find favour with the electorate.
1 The first step is to trigger Article 50 for the formal exit from the EU.
2 Cease our subscription/membership payments to the EU immediately.
3. Enact in to UK law the components of a fair and just economic system as described in the e-book “Creating Responsible Capitalism”.
4 Tell the EU Commissioners and MEPs that the existing trading/business arrangements will continue until such time as the EU decides to end those arrangements. It will be the responsibility of the parties to the business arrangement/contract to then, with the relevant UK government officials, to re-negotiate that arrangement.
5 People from anywhere in the world can work in the UK if they have a job/employment already offered to and accepted by them.
6 UK embassies throughout the world will have a list employment opportunites in the UK. All applicants will have to have the UK equivalent of a CRB check. No person with an “unspent” criminal record will be allowed to come to the UK. Citizens of countries other than the UK wll need to have the relevant NVQ for the job they are applying for. Foreign nationals will be allowed to take the NVQ test/examination, IN ENGLISH, at the UK embassy in their own country. This will create a “level playing field” for jobseekers in the UK and the rest of the world.
My comment on MMT site
This was my reply to a post entitled “Boots ….. etc. For some reason this comment could not be posted on the Modern Monetary Theory blog site on WordPress.
Quote,”All businesses …want a healthy demand for their goods and services. They want paying customers, with money to spend in their pockets.”unquote.
Too true but the economic system as it is currently constructed does not deliver this ideal. The system is a dysfunctional operating system. Minimum wage legislation, pupil premiums for schools that are in deprived areas are merely “patches” and “bug fixes” that attempt to put right an economic system that has economic injustice and unfairness built into its structure. It is an inexorable output of the (economic) system.
What is needed is an economic system that delivers to the lowest paid person to have sufficient disposable income to enable them to pay affordable rents or mortgages and have sufficient income over and above this to remove the stress of struggling to pay the bills.(And remove a contributory factor in the causes of mental illness?)
I have already published my design for an economic system that delivers fairness and economic justice. Perhaps the learned people in MMT should try and design such a system. However, (economic) justice is universal in my view. Economic fairness and justice must apply to billionaires and benefit claimants alike.
De-criminalising Parents. Changing Educational Realities.
It is absolutely appalling that parents are fined for taking their children on holiday in term time. This law does nothing to improve educational standards. What it does do is to rip off responsible parents with fines or otherwise force them to take holidays at the most expensive times of year. This law is more about rigging the market in favour of the holiday industry than improving educational standards.
If the need is to have high standards of excellence in teaching and also educational attainment, there are much better ways to achieve this end.
1. Every school’s website could be required to video the lessons for each subject taught. Universities publish MOOCs on the web. MOOCs is an acronym for Massive Open Online Courses. School lessons could be mini MOOCs. These lesson could be accessed by pupils at any time, not just during term time. Thus the law mentioned above could be repealed.
2. Since the website lessons could be accessed by parents, the fellow teachers at the school, best teaching practice could be adopted by those teachers who are always looking for ways to improve their teaching skills. As a result of peer pressure improvements, Ofsted and its associated bureaucracy and cost could be abolished.
3. In time, the complete Year 7 to Year 11 lessons for every subject could be online. The gifted pupils could reach Year 11 standards by the time they reach year 9 or 10. Pupils who struggle could repeat lessons as often as they wished until they understood the subject being taught. Questions could be sent directly to the teacher of the subject.
4. It could also be possible to make reaching an educational standard a requirement before being able to leave school. Also those who achieved “A” levels at the age of 14 or earlier would be entitled to a free university education. These two measures would establish an incentive for pupils to study and stretch their teachers.
5. Since the mid 1970s, technology has been able to do anything that can be precisely specified. So therefore the following scenario is possible. The school hall could be used for “A” level examinations every month. Pupils who feel they are ready to take an “A” level examination would go into the hall and insert their Smart Card into a machine similar to an ATM/Cash machine. The display screen shows a menu of the “A: level subjects that the student has elected to take. The pupil selects the subject and an examination paper is printed out. Simultaneously, the same examination paper is sent to the person who will mark the examination paper along with a model answer paper, Even if two or more students choose the same subject on the same day, their examination papers will have different questions; eliminating the risk of copying.
This change of educational reality (stage 1) would incentivize (if that is a real word) the pupils to work hard in order to either to gain a free university place or to leave school as soon as possible.
Winning the 2015 General Election
There are a number of things that the incoming government can do that will encourage the electorate to vote for them en masse.
1. Cancel the debt of benefit claimants that have been inadvertently overpaid benefits.
2. No retrospective claims for tax from businesses by HMRC as a result of new rulings by the courts.
HMRC are retrospectively trying to reclaim VAT that they had previously repaid back to businesses. HMRC should not have repaid the VAT until they had the result of their appeal. If I was a business I would be tempted to tell them to “go swivel”. However, being rude doesn’t wash with bureaucracies.
3. Instant (within 3 rings) contact with a human being when telephoning a government department. The menu option numbers can be published on the departments website. Waiting on the phone for 25 minutes with no answer is no joke. But the system is (a joke)
4. If not already, telephone numbers for all government departments will be freefone numbers.
Postal contact with government departments should be freepost (OHMS) as it was a few years ago.
5. Allow pubs and restaurants to have smoking rooms. There are problems with “red light” areas. Now the government has created problematic “blue smoke” areas outside pubs and restaurants.
6. Benefit calculations will be based on the contracted hours of the claimant. This would be difficult with the existing economic system because of the existence of zero hours contracts. These would be eliminated by my design of the new economic system. It would not be in the economic self-interest of businesses to have zero hours contracts
I hope the Liberal Democrats will adopt these proposals as an election strategy. They are, I think, consistent with Liberal principles. However, any other party that adopted these proposals would, I think, enhance their chances of electoral success
UKIP and the Liberal Democrat party.
It is the aftermath of the European elections. UKIP has given the established parties a metaphorical kick up the backside. And the LibDems have been kicked the hardest. However, this is not just a UK phenomenon; eurosceptic parties all across the European Union have made major gains. The people of France has voted for the Front National(e?). They presumably got in because of a perceived migrant problem and their anti immigration policies. In this regard, they are similar to UKIP. From a cursory examination of the name “Front National” it is similar to the UK’s BNP. The people of Greece voted for a neo nazi party that campaigned against the austerity measures imposed by Brussels.
If I remember my university studies correctly, the Nazi party of Germany gained power because of the austerity imposed on Germany by the punitive reparations required by the Allied Powers after defeating Germany in 1918. Adolf Hitler just disregarded the terms of the treaty and built a massive navy and air force. If we are to learn from history so as not to relive it in this century, the EU, which began as union of nation states to prevent such wars, must follow its principles of subsidiarity. It must not take over the powers of the nation state that exist to protect its people. States should be able to remove/deport people who pose a threat of violence and death to the people who are living in a country.
However, the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights judgements which stated that it was illegal to deport a person because of what MIGHT happen to a person when sent to another country, is in my view, a wrong decision. Justice is blindfolded on the Old Bailey. This has nothing to do with the European Union of course but in many eyes its all EUROPE and contributes to the anti European feeling in the country. The UK government can end its commitment to the European Courts of Human Rights without affecting our membership of the European Union.
The Liberal Democrat party. An internationalist party with liberal principles that is against the enslavement of people by poverty and ignorance. And I should hope, enslavement by people, governments and dictators. The Liberal Democrat party campaigned as the party of “In” As an internationalist party of principle championed by Nick Clegg, the party was crucified on the cross of public opinion. That is why some people want Nick Clegg to resign as leader. The “problem” with the Liberal Democrat party is that it is a party of principle; not a party dedicated to gaining power. It was principle that led the Liberal Democrats into coalition with the Conservative party for the perceived national interest. However, being in coalition led to the Liberal Democrat party and Nick Clegg to compromising on principles, if a manifesto pledge can be deemed a principle, i.e. no tuition fees.
I do not believe in “scapegoat politics” which see the only way to resolve human problems to remove humans. Let us remove the problem. The first step is to actually identify what the problem is; to say “the EU” and get rid of it or dissolve it would not stop or prevent the problems of an economic system that is inherently unstable and prone to “bust” and cause massive poverty and hardship for millions. Nor would it stop economic migration by millions attempting to escape that massive poverty and hardship.
Every country in the EU has the problems of poverty and migration. Let us charge the EU with the job of researching and implementing the solution to these problems; and leave it up to the member states to implement these solutions if they so wish.
POSIWID; The Purpose of a System Is What It Does. 