BREXIT REFERENDUM IS NON-BINDING

Photo: Global Research

UK PARLIAMENT NOT VOTERS HAS FINAL SAY

Prime Minister CAMERON has announced his resignation effective in October, a new Conservative Prime minister is to appointed following the Conservative Party conference.

Among the contenders for the Conservative Party leadership are former London Mayor BORIS JOHNSON and Justice Secretary MICHAEL GOVE, both of whom were firm supporters of the BREXIT campaign. Home Secretary THERESA MAY is also a potential contender.

The implementation of BREXIT is in part dependent upon the new leadership of the Conservative Party. There are divisions in both Conservative and opposition parties with regard to BREXIT.

At this stage, there is, however, no assurance that the Brexit proposal will be ratified by Parliament.

Moreover, CAMERON’S decision to resign in October contributes to delaying the process.

EXAGGERATED TURMOIL REGARDING BREXIT

All the fuss and bother about BREXIT largely ignores its non-binding status – parliament, not voters deciding if BRITAIN stays or leaves the EU, the latter extremely unlikely.

Writing in the Financial Times, BRITISH lawyer DAVID ALLEN GREEN explained BREXIT voting is “advisory,” not “mandatory.” Parliament has final say.

MPs can legally disregard the public’s will either way, they alone empowered to decide the path BRITAIN chooses.

What happens ahead is “a matter of politics not law. It will come down to what is politically expedient and practicable,” said GREEN.

Various options exist, including supporting Thursday’s outcome, ignoring it, or “re-negotiating another deal and put (ting) that to another referendum” – repeating the process “until voters eventually vote the ‘right’ way,” what’s best for monied interests, not them.

Invoking Article 50 of the LISBON Treaty is another matter entirely, legally binding, unlike Thursday’s vote. It states as follows:

“1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.

2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the EUROPEAN Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the EUROPEAN Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union.

That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EUROPEAN UNION. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the EUROPEAN Parliament.

3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the EUROPEAN Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the EUROPEAN Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the EUROPEAN Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.

A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EUROPEAN UNION.

5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.”

POLITICS ALONE WILL DRIVE WHAT HAPPENS AHEAD, NOT THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE

GREEN highlighted key points. Member states can choose how to vote on withdrawal – by referendum, parliament or other means.

The withdrawal process begins with formal notification. Once “given, the member state and the EU are stuck with it.”

Member states wishing to withdraw have up to two years maximum to complete the process “unless this period is extended by unanimous agreement.”

Once withdrawal intentions are announced and initiated, there’s no going back. At the same time, what’s “created by international agreement can be undone” the same way.

BRUSSELS could “come up with some muddling fudge which holds off the two year deadline,” or a new treaty amendment could be adopted.

Politics alone will drive what happens ahead, not the will of the people. BRITAIN is no more democratic than AMERICA – nor are any other EU countries.

Special interests decide things. Whatever they want they get. However voting turns out, government policy “is to remain in the EU,” said GREEN.

Leaving would require Prime Minister DAVID CAMERON invoking Article 50, unlikely given his vocal opposition to BREXIT.

By Stephen Lendman via Global Research

ARGENTINA AND ITS NOTORIOUS ILLNESS - CORRUPTION

THE DOWNFALL OF ARGENTINA - 

CORRUPTION

By Carlos Aznárez

Every newspaper in ARGENTINA is reporting on facts that seem to have no connection with each other but, actually, are part of the same scheme. On the one hand, a President, in this case MAURICIO MACRI, affirms he will repatriate 18 million pesos from the BAHAMAS (one million 304 thousand dollars), to invest it in local bonds that his own administration will issue. This initiative was announced as the President’s “great gesture” — the same President who was denounced in the PANAMA Papers—, since he is showing everyone he has confidence in the country’s’ new era, and it will also be accompanied by a tax amnesty bill that must first be approved in the National Congress.

IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD THE HEAD OF STATE WOULD BE INDICTED – NOT SO IN ARGENTINA

This situation, which in any other part of the world that adheres to the basic foundations of legality and where there are at least a little ethics in the government’s actions, would be considered a crime (worsened due to the fact that the people involved are civil servants).

But under MACRI’S rule this has become an honest gesture while receiving the applauses of the hegemonic media, the same media that constantly attacks VENEZUELA and doesn’t hesitate to praise the Presidential decision. Businessmen welcomed the measure for considering it “healthy” and, at the same time, because it opens the possibility of laundering dirty money, which comes mostly from kickbacks or other “benefits” provided by businesses that usually gestate at the high levels of power.

But, of course, MACRI is not the only one. Some officials of his cabinet are following in his steps. CARLOS MELCONIÁN, President of the National Bank, who has made clear that he is partial to these practices as well (1). He confessed, without fear or shame: “As many ARGENTINES, I have money stashed abroad. Of course, I will bring some of it back”, and he will repatriate the rest as soon as investors “regain confidence” in the local economy. (In six month of ruling the new administration was unable to curb in inflation which stands at a staggering 48 %!)

NO FAITH IN THE COUNTRY AND ITS POLITICAL SYSTEM

“Then, I will bring the money”, he shamelessly concluded. It seems to be a joke but in fact, it’s true: if the President of the main Bank in ARGENTINA has no certainty on the effects of his own administration, what can he ask of the 40 million ARGENTINE people, who are suffering layoffs, increments in services fees, hunger and, as in the 90s, are seeking a way out of the hopelessness of the situation.

This is what “MACRISMO” represents: the right-wing, the neoliberal model and the foreign policy of the US on the continent. The great problem is that, on the other side of the ring, things are not better. Or, in worlds of a Peronist leader: “You suck”. Every illegal activity that comes to light operates in service of a sector that wants to hide other illegal activities, and so on. Now, we could state once again: “they are all thieves”.

As happened in BRAZIL with some of the higher officials of the Workers’ Party, it’s evident that here too the former cabinet has also had some undesirable characters who didn’t hesitate to steal, become corrupted and promote that attitude with impunity. If the treasurer of the Workers’ Party, JOACO VACCARI (imprisoned) pocketed 70 million dollars of bribes and DILMA’S publicist, JOAO SANTANA (also imprisoned) payed himself extra wages of various million dollars as a price for the corruption scheme of Petrobras, then here some people have not fallen behind in terms of high-level corruption.

THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY IS THE MOST CORRUPTED INDUSTRY  IN THE WORLD

The recent example of former Secretary of Public Works, JOSÉ LÓPEZ, throwing bags full of money up the walls of a Convent after having unearthed them from another hiding place when he was notified that he was being persecuted. Nine million dollars seem to be an exaggerated amount of money for a saver, but this is actually only a small portion of the actual number of pesos, dollars, euros, etc. that he and other officials have been receiving in the past years as investments for public work.

SHARE OF THE CAKE – PLUNDER OF THE COUNTRY CONTINUES…..

In fact, it was well-known that on both the national and local level, some officials have asked for bribes of up to 60% to carry out projects. Another Secretary, from Transportation, in the past government called RICARDO JAIME had been caught in a similar transaction and is now imprisoned with several judicial cases against him. A long list of MACRISTAS officials are charged with similar “achievements”, but are not imprisoned because it is time for them to rule and the roles have changed now.

 “Disgust” is the proper world but it doesn’t seem to be enough to express the anger generated by this situation, in which both the progressive and neoliberal agents are unified in the plan to plunder the country, generating more hopelessness in new generations, who feel embarrassed when looking at these politicians of the bourgeois democracies as they build a system of impunity to continue earning dirty money.

What happened with JOSÉ LÓPEZ is not a coincidence but part of a scheme in which corruption is naturalized in a sector that allegedly raised the “national and popular” flags, but who in fact (not all of them) wanted to fill their pockets with the brutality of the capitalist thinking. As they collected more and more money in their bags or off-shore bank accounts, the more powerful they felt when “doing politics”. LOPEZ is JULIO DE VIDO’S man. Both of them were part of the permanent staff of the KIRCHNER era. The lack of utterance makes us wonder. And the main explanation to this is not related to loyalty or efficiency but to operative groups in administrations that were not always fully legal. What happened this time can’t be allocated to media campaigns nor conspiracies, but to those who raised flags that didn’t belong to them, soiled with the blood of real men and women of the country, and now tainted with dirty money.

CAN’T HIDE DIRTY MONEY? – SIMPLY IMPLEMENT A TAX AMNESTY

MACRI and his friends can’t hide their illegal activities and that’s why they are trying to approve the tax amnesty —with help of forces from the opposition who vote together in the National Parliament and the BUENOS AIRES legislature— just like LÓPEZ, JAIME and others are now being chased by their same colleagues, with different political colors but actually in a similar situation, and all with the same aim of maintaining the system. This is what we should repudiate and fight, in this complex scenario, which looks a lot like BRAZIL—. These are, with little differences, the facilities with which the regional right operates comfortably in each country. 

Regardless of this situation, the common people (no matter their ideology), the working class, do not earn enough to feed their own families, those who study and then have no place to work in, those who fight against layoffs and the increase in services’ rates, those who take up the fight of militants from the past, who believe that politics have nothing to do with stealing for them. Women and men that have not given up on their dreams, who hope ARGENTINA will someday be freed and will end the era of white-collar criminals

EUROPA: WIR SIND SELBST SCHULD AM RECHTSRUCK!

EUROPA BRAUCHT EIN NEUES DESIGN, DAMIT SICH DIE GESCHICHTE DER NATIONALISMEN NICHT WIEDERHOLT.

Anfang vergangener Woche blickte die europäische Öffentlichkeit gespannt auf unser Nachbarland. Nur ganz knapp ist Österreich an einem rechten Staatsoberhaupt vorbeigeschrammt. Mit 50,3 Prozent gewann Alexander van der Bellen, Bundespräsidentenkandidat der Grünen, die Wahl. Dieses Mal ist es gerade nochmal gut gegangen. Aber wenn sich die Hälfte der Österreicher einen Rechtspopulisten zum Stellvertreter ihres Landes wünscht, ist das noch lange kein Grund, um aufzuatmen, sondern vor allem eines: Ein Zeichen dafür, in welche Richtung Europa sich entwickelt und ein Alarmsignal: Es muss sich dringend etwas ändern.

Europa produziert die Krise selbst

Der sich abzeichnende Rechtstrend scheint nicht nur ein gemeinsames europäisches Problem, sondern auch auf eine gemeinsame Ursache zurückzuführen zu sein: Ein Mangel an Gemeinwohl und Mitbestimmung in der Europäischen Union. Dadurch würden sich Teile der Bevölkerung abgehängt fühlen und das Vertrauen in die „politischen Elite“ in Brüssel verlieren, schreibt Ulrike Guérot in ihrem Buch „Warum Europa eine Republik werden muss.“

Schuld an der derzeitigen Misere sind nicht einzelne Parteien wie die SPD oder CDU, sondern vor allem das Konzept Europas an sich. In der Kritik steht nicht die einstige Idee zur Gründung Europas, die Nationalstaat zu überwinden. Europa, so Guérot, wird immer noch von einem Großteil der Bevölkerung gewollt. Vielmehr ist es das derzeitige Umsetzung des gemeinsamen Projektes. Es bringt Designfehler mit, die dringend begradigt werden müssen. „Damit sich die Geschichte der Nationalismen nicht wiederholt“, warnt die Politikwissenschaftlerin. Denn wir befinden uns in einer Art „vorrevolutionärem Zustand“, der sich anhand antieuropäischer und populistischer Haltungen zeigt und fast vor keinem europäischen Land Halt macht. Guérots These: „Nicht der Populismus bedroht die EU, sondern die EU produziert den europäischen Populismus.“ Europa habe also selbst Schuld am Erfolg der Rechtspopulisten.

Soziale Umgestaltung des Kontinents

Was also tun, um diese Entwicklung, deren Ernsthaftigkeit uns am letzten Wochenende in Österreich ganz deutlich vor Augen geführt wurde, aufzuhalten? Guérots Utopie schlägt eine Republik vor. Res publica, das heißt soviel wie Gemeinwohl. Eine Besonderheit, welche diese „Herrschaftsform“ mitbringen würde: Es gebe keine Nationalstaaten. Die taten Europa ja ohnehin noch nie gut. Schwer, sich ein Europa ohne Nationen wie „Frankreich“, „Deutschland“ vorzustellen. Vor allem, weil sich doch gerade jeder in seinen Nationalstaat zurückzieht und am liebsten eine Grenze herumziehen würde. Zumindest wirkt es so.

Nicht nur der Populismus bedroht Europa

Guérot glaubt, das sei nur eine Folge von einem europäischen Konzept, das seinen Bürger ihre Souveränität entzieht. Die Republik dagegen basiert auf den Bürgern und würde ihm wieder mehr Mitbestimmung einräumen. Dass die Bürger unzufrieden mit dem heutigen Bauplan der EU sind, zeigen aktuelle Entwicklungen wie Brexit, Flüchtlingskrise, TTIP oder eben jenes knappe Wahlergebnis vom letzten Wochenende. Deshalb müsse der Bürger dringend seine Selbstbestimmung wiedererlangen. Für ein Europa der Bürger und nicht der Banken, der Arbeitnehmer und nicht der Industrie.

Entwicklung zeigt sich in Gewinnern und Verlierern

Seit der Wirtschaftskrise würden EZB und „Institutionen“ über Europa regieren – „Die EU hat viele Verlierer produziert in den vergangenen Jahren und nur wenige, aber große Gewinner“, so Guérot. Deshalb bräuchte die EU auch dringend eine fairere Wirtschaft. Was die Politikwissenschaftlerin prognostiziert, schlägt sich nun auch in den Wahlen nieder:

Ganze 81 Prozent der Österreicher, die van der Bellen gewählt haben, sind Akademiker. Laut einer Befragung, welche Die Zeit) zitiert. Dagegen stimmten in der ersten Runde der österreichischen Präsidentschaftswahlen 72 Prozent der Arbeiter für den Kandidaten der rechtspopulistischen FPÖ, Norbert Hofer. Bei den Angestellten waren es immerhin 37 und bei den Pensionären 34 Prozent.

Auch im Nachbarland Frankreich gibt es kaum noch Arbeiter, welche die Sozialdemokratische Partei wählen. Um genau zu sein: „Null“, um Dirk Schümer, Europa-Korrespondent der WELT bei seinem Auftritt bei Anne Will zum Thema „Die Krise der Volksparteien – Wo führt das hin?“ zu zitieren. Auch in Deutschland zeichnet sich dieser Trend ab – auch wenn noch nicht so extrem wie bei unseren europäischen Nachbarn. Glaubt man Schümer, dann hat die SPD ihre Basis verloren. Parallel dazu verzeichnet die AFD den größten Rückhalt unter Arbeitern und Arbeitslosen – Wählern, die vor 10 bis 20 Jahren noch treue SPD-Anhänger waren.

Gemeinwohl und Demokratie für ein Europa der Bürger

Damit die „Verlierer“ Europas, die sich von Brüssel bevormundet und sozial benachteiligt fühlen, wieder zu Gewinnern werden, muss sich das Design Europas von Grund auf ändern. Europa braucht mehr politische Teilhabe. Zum Beispiel indem die Brüsseler Triologie aus Rat, Parlament und Kommission endlich auch dem Prinzip der Gewaltenteilung unterstellt wird – auf nationaler Ebene längst eine Selbstverständlichkeit. Auf diese Weise könnten die Bürger und nicht die einzelnen Nationen darüber entscheiden, ob Beschlüsse wie TTIP durchgesetzt werden sollen, oder nicht. 

Auch die Idee einer europäischen Arbeitslosenversicherung trifft bei den Bürgern auf Zustimmung. Doch der EU-Rat hat das bisher ignoriert. Ebenso müssten die europäischen Bürger politisch gleichgestellt werden. Zum Beispiel wählen Franzosen das europäische Parlament anders und zahlen andere Einkommenssteuer als wir Deutschen.

Die Ursache für Brexit und antieuropäischen Haltungen sieht Ulrike Guérot in der derzeitigen Fehlkonstruktion der Europäischen Union. „Auch Rechtspopulisten wie Marine Le Pen sind für Europa. Sie wollen nur nicht die EU, wie sie jetzt ist“, sagt die Politikwissenschaftlerin. Selbst wenn die Briten sich Ende Juni für den Ausstieg aus der EU entscheiden, ist das eigentliche Problem damit noch nicht behoben. Auch wenn es nur eine Utopie ist, die Guérot beschreibt, sollte man ihre Ideen als Impuls dafür verstehen, dass sich die EU ändern muss. Mit einem demokratischeren und sozialeren Konzept von Europa könnte der Rechtsruck gestoppt werden. Damit sich die Geschichte der Nationalismen nicht wiederholt.

von Lena von Holt