brexit | Westminster Confidential

Thursday is referendum day. Pic Credit:BBC

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Tragic and horrible as the murder of Jo Cox was I was relieved this weekend when there was a pause over campaigning for Thursday’s EU referendum.

I have covered politics for many decades and actually voted in the last referendum to join the Common Market

Bur the standard of debate on both sides of the argument this time has been abysmal and exposed the poverty of argument. And it suggests the calibre of politicians leading Britain has plummeted to a new low.

I don’t believe for one moment the claims from Cameron and Osborne that Britain is going to have huge tax hikes, even more austerity, plummeting house prices and a further squeeze on the NHS if we vote to leave the EU. It seems to be hyperbole gone mad.And anyway with the exception of house prices they have made a good job of doing this while we are a member of the EU.

But nor do I believe that the figures from Leave that the NHS will gain an extra £350m a week if we vote to go, that only immigrants rape people or that the whole of Europe is going to settle in the UK unless we take control of immigration.

Certainly if Farage is right it is going to be a funny old Europe, 364 million new immigrants in the UK and countries like Turkey, Roumania and Bulgaria with populations down to a couple of people who decided to stay. This is the politics of fear gone mad – one side of Europe being totally depopulated and the other side full to the brim. It will never happen.

The truth is neither side really knows what will happen. The pro Europe campaigners can’t be certain how a 28 country Europe will develop and those predicting a new Shangri-La if we leave haven’t a clue how Britain will develop outside a big trading bloc.

So it comes down to gut feeling and a basic set of beliefs.

For a start my ancestry is against Leave. I am British born but my ancestors are Dutch, German and Norwegian on my father’s side. I am Lithuanian, Polish, South African, and Russian on my mother’s side. I am Protestant on my father’s side, Jewish on my mother’s side. Two of my grandchildren are Kurdish.

Frankly I am rather proud to have such a diverse heritage and an even more diverse future I have no time for little Englander faux patriotism ( except probably at sporting events!)

But there is a wider issue about Europe. Yes some of the laws -particularly on employment, access for the disabled, and safe goods, clean beaches and climate change – are driven by the European Union.. And that is a good thing.

And one only has to go to Russia – as I have been recently – to see how countries outside the EU – are not disabled friendly.

I am also highly suspicious that the key pro leave campaigners – Chris Grayling and Iain Duncan Smith – are te very people who have been driving policies to deprive the disabled, cut benefits, put up the price of justice and destroy public services. Migrants make a great scapegoat for those dissatisfied with schools, housing and other public services.

And I am little tired of the cliche Brussels bureaucrats. Why has nothing been said about the increasing role of the European Parliament in holding the European Commission in check or the idea that some of these top bureaucrats are going to face Europe wide elections for the first time.

Yes there is a lot wrong with Europe _ I am sceptical about whether the Eurozone can survive in its present form – and I certainly dislike plans for new international trade agreements which take away powers from elected governments and use workers as commodities. But I am not convinced that the UK by itself can fight them any better by standing alone.

I also resent the idea that we have no control in Europe when as the fifth largest world economy we have a major say in all new EU initiatives outside the Eurozone.

So I will vote for Remain to continue sharing the government of Europe – home to my ancestors- and reject the Boris Johnson ego trip of a faux Independence Day on Thursday.

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The scandal of the mis-selling of Personal Protection Insurance is well known as one of the worst financial scandals in history.

Some 12 million people have received £22.5 billion in compensation from unnecessary Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) schemes sold to gullible people.

And to compound it a National Audit Office report (NAO) last week highlighted how cold calling claims management companies had ripped off £3.8 billion and £5 billion of the compensation paid for work which could be done by claimants for free.

What might also shock people – particularly in the current debate over whether we should quit the European Union – is the revelation by the NAO that it could not complete the investigation to its satisfaction because a European Union directive banned Parliament from getting confidential information. I have written about this in this week’s Tribune magazine.

The situation is this. As well as finding out the scale of the problem the NAO wanted to know -on behalf of you the taxpayer – whether the public watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority had done its job its ensuring the many banks and financial organisation had smartened up their acts to prevent a repetition.. Particularly as they are fears that there could be a new scandal involving the mis-selling of annuities and pension schemes.

The FCA had collected this information but refused to hand it over to Parliament’s watchdog.. The reason it turned out is that the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 combined with EU law restrictions prevents them obtaining the information from the FCA.

As the NAO said: “ This limits our ability to reach a judgement on the FCA’s value for money, as we could not carry out a full assessment of the effectiveness of the FCA’s actions…. we have only limited evidence on how the FCA’s actions have changed firm behaviour, and how effective its redress schemes have been in providing compensation to consumers.”

The NAO tried to get around this by contacting some 20 banks and financial companies and asking them to volunteer to disclose the information. Fifteen did reply but five including two of the companies with the largest number of complaints, Barclays and British Gas Services, declined to provide any information.

The 15 who did reply included HSBC Bank plc; Lloyds Banking Group; MBNA Limited; Nationwide Building Society; NFU Mutual Insurance Society and Santander UK plc.

But a NAO spokesman said: “The information we got from the others while helpful, didn’t enable us to carry out a full assessment of the effectiveness of the FCA’s actions.”

What is the EU doing putting the interests of banks above people and Parliament. The NAO is now asking the Treasury to pass a law allowing it some access to this information but it will have to bow to EU law on how much can be revealed.

I am not a supporter of Brexit but it seems to me there is something very wrong here that needs changing. I am surprised that the vociferous campaigners for a No vote have not latched on to this – even if it is in the small print of the report. The NAO is obviously an independent source with no axe to grind over Europe. But it has provided campaigners who say we are not in control of our country with a very potent example on a very serious issue.