GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

green new deal and I have tried to float some ideas in my column, but there

has been very little from the trade union movement or from the wider leaver left

to say, “Here is our plan”, but nor has there been a plan from the remainer left.

That, I think, has been an even bigger problem, because if you are saying to

people, “Do you know what, you came up with the wrong answer three years

ago, have another think”, it is not that attractive to people to be told they came

up with the wrong answer if there is no plan for dealing with their genuine

grievances and there are genuine grievances in those parts of the country that

voted heavily for leave and just saying we are going to turn the clock back is

not, to me, the most sensible of solutions, because in five years’ time if, as I

think is most likely, none of those grievances have been seriously dealt with,

you are going to find the most incredible anger building up in those parts of

Britain and we will see a sort of variant of politics I do not really want to see.

The Government has completely botched these negotiations, such as the

Government is. It should have planned for a no deal outcome from day one,

partly because if you do that you are going to get a better deal and make it

known you are planning for it, you are going to get a better deal, but it is a real

dereliction of duty not to have planned for all outcomes. The Government has

come up with a sort of dog’s dinner of a proposal for the withdrawal agreement

which is neither supported by leavers nor by remainers, which is the worst

possible outcome.

BRO RONNIE DRAPER (Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union): I just want to ask

you a question about what we do in the future. In 2010, I am sure it was,

George Osborne stood up at the Tory Party Conference and said, “No longer

can we leave future generations in debt”. I spoke to Roy Rickhuss, so he told

me this actually happened, but just after the War where we built the welfare

state and all that we did not finish paying for two World Wars until 2005.

Nobody ever complained. Do you believe that a future Labour Government

should borrow to invest in jobs, housing, education, health rather than doing

what the Government does not, the austerity that we have had and tax cuts

that I believe has just stagnated everybody? Do you think that any Labour

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