Taking back control from Stoke on Trent to Port Talbot ..

Three generations ago my family left North Wales and moved to the Midlands. I was born in Burton upon Trent near Stoke on Trent . I went to school nearby . I was 10 at the time of the Rivers of Blood Speech. I remember at school hearing the racism, the narrow nationalism. I asked my father about it. He was a long term anti racist and would not accept it. Nearly fifty years later someone sends me a Labour party leaflet from Stoke on Trent. It has all the hallmarks, of what I heard then and hear again now. Last year I wrote a piece about Port Talbot and the Steel Works. If you amend “Kinnock” to Tristram Hunt and South Wales to the Midlands the logic of the piece runs true. It uses the phrase “taking back control ” ugh

I feel sick looking at the leaflet. Traditional Labour is running scared of UKIP only a real alternative can confront UKIP not a pa;;id UKIP lite leaflet. I feel sick at the text brought in using an implied British nationalism even down to that well known Muslim Kurdish St George. This what I wrote

“Port Talbot is dying. Tinsel Town is on the edge. And we have as its MP a high priest of neo-liberalism. I watched Stephen Kinnock at a hustings meeting last April make the claim that he and only he had the experience and knowledge to attract the large multinational companies to the area. He had the contacts, the experience, the finesse to do so.

Stephen Kinnock is of the political elite, he worships at the shrine of globalisation, yet he can do nothing to help the ordinary people of the Sandfields and the surrounding area of Port Talbot and Neath. Yet it is Stephen Kinnock and his ilk who have promoted the values of free trade of globalisation. This is why the death of Port Talbot and its Steel works becomes inevitable and there becomes nothing that such a representative can do, his world view, his outlook and his beliefs prevent it. Stephen Kinnock and his globalist followers have created a world where 62 people have the same wealth as the bottom 3.5 billion where the top 1% own more wealth than the other 99%.

For many years the old Port Talbot Borough Council did nothing to hold the Steel Industry accountable for the pollution of the area. Of Steel towns around the world Port Talbot was one of the most polluted and the dominant family that controlled the council had neither the ability or the understanding or courage to challenge and raise the issues required and the actions necessary. I remember seeing on the window sills and in the classrooms of the schools, the rows of inhalers.......We need politicians that are anti globalist, that promote local businesses and suppliers, that understand that that if each small and medium business took on more workers we would have stable more sustainable communities. Politicians who understand that we must stand up to the large multi nationals that imprison, control and hypnotise us. Politicians that do not use the migrant crisis to hide their real intentions. Politicians who build united communities that are inclusive, tolerant and freethinking.

Then we have the coming of Stephen Kinnock and his acolytes, the voting figures drop, the communities wilter, we have the rise of austerity and then we have the Pied pipers of UKIP called successfully for us to leave the European Union. Leaving Europe will speed up the decline of the Steel Industry. However bad Europe is, the North Atlantic Free Trade association is worse. The Rust belt will learn the implications too and finally wake up.

Now outside of Europe, we will have no environmental protection whatever Theresa may says . Workers rights will be less and all of us will be more at risk more vulnerable. Ukip is leading those who will be most damaged most exploited away from the limited protection that we have they have given us Brexit and we will inherit the wind . Last years debate between Carwyn Jones and Nigel Farage showed the gap between the political elite and ordinary people. Nigel Forage's background is a Public School Educated Stockbroker from a Tory Southern English background and he has nothing to offer the people of Neath and Port Talbot “ and Stoke on Trent except the whiff of Weimar..........when Mr Kinnock calls for the abandonment of free movement he becomes UKIP lite..why vote for a UKIP lite labour when you can vote for the real thing? We do not campaign against UKIP by being like them.....