Letter to the Editor

The interesting article by Nicola Ferronato (Current Concerns No. 29/2019) interprets in detail the electoral decision of the citizens of Great Britain in the House of Commons election of 12 December 2019. In addition to this and with reference to his opinion, I would like to raise a few questions here. First of all, it should be noted that the majority of the citizens of Great Britain did not vote for Boris Johnson’s party, but for the four-party alliance that lost votes in this election, in fact 50.4% of votes.1 It therefore takes some daring to say that the majority in the House of Commons has come about by a clear expression of the will of the people, when in fact it can only be explained by the questionable electoral democracy. Nevertheless, Johnson’s victory is undisputed. The article mentions that the economic indicators have developed positively since Boris Johnson’s victory and suggests that this is due to the Brexit. This may be the case, but it is not necessarily so, because due to the announcement that a free trade agreement with the EU will be negotiated very soon this is not a real Brexit. Anyone who has studied the various transatlantic free trade agreements that have been discussed and in some cases already implemented will agree that they always involve the surrender of large parts of national sovereignty. It is precisely the announcement of the free trade agreement with the EU that explains why the EU has agreed to the backstop, which will under these circumstances no longer be an obstacle to the free movement of goods. However, the UK will win in one respect: It can now decide autonomously who enters or settles in the country. The author of the article downright welcomes the downfall of the upright and honest Social Democrat and peace politician Jeremy Corbyn and also the fact that the recommunalisation of common property intended by Corbyn, and described as devastating by the author, is no longer an issue with Johnson. Let us be clear about one thing: what really wreaked havoc with Britain was Margaret Thatcher’s privatisation policy, later continued by Anthony Blair, as shown clearly by the series of terrible rail accidents after privatisation from 1996 to 19972, to take just one example. When looking at the Brexit as a whole, it should not be forgotten that a move away from the transatlantic “defence alliance” was never even considered; in the person of Mr Johnson a hardliner of NATO policy was confirmed in office.

Peter Erhard, Bremen

1    www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=57074
2    https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schienenverkehr_in_Grossbritannien#Historischer_Überblick