Weeks into Trump’s border wall tantrum “talks were due but as the nation digested the president’s rambling, contradictory and combative remarks at a White House press conference on Friday, potentially devastating effects of the shutdown were coming into focus. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides dietary assistance to 38 million low-income Americans and is colloquially known as food stamps, will soon face cuts and will run out of funds in March. Tax refunds totalling billions of dollars and due in April to millions may be delayed. And, CNN reported, Transportation Security Agents vital to the operation of major airports are beginning to call out sick, after being forced to work without pay.” The Guardian
Sounds familiar?
Apart for the obvious risks to food, health, transportation, etc of a no-deal or bad-deal Brexit what both situations have in common is the total disregard of some politicians for the livelihood and well being of the population. Trump will blackmail the Democrats into giving him his Wall even if that means that 800,000 workers do not have their pay, and the knock on effect reaches out into the wider society. No time limit. Immigration is the excuse. Absolute power is the real target, as this means going on without any controls giving money to the rich and destroying the lives of the “undeserving” poor.
Brexit follows similar lines. Immigration is the bogeyman, extreme neoliberal policies the real target: privatisation, deregulation, shrinking the state, concentration of wealth and destruction of services, leaving the less well off at the lack of mercy of the private sector.
Trump is showing Britain a taste of things to come if the sides in the conflict do not manage to open dialogue and realise it is impossible to “leave” Europe at this stage without creating unspeakable upheaval, in particular to areas of health, food supply and some othe services, which will hit the hardest the more vulnerable.
