North Staffs No2EU Leaflet

It's been another busy weekend for No2EU supporters in Stoke. Teams have been out leafleting all week and speaking to hundreds of people on city centre stalls. Our boards have been highlighting the issues of MP's expenses and Dave Nellist's pledge to take the average wage should he be elected. Unsurprisingly the response has been very positive.

Brother J spoke to one woman who said she'd already had sent a postal vote in for the BNP, but if she knew what we were about she would have voted for us instead. In penance she took a load of leaflets to dish out around her local working men's club. Understandably most people we spoke to were disgusted and most rightly stated that if "ordinary" people had fiddled expenses they'd either be sacked or face a visit from the fraud squad. Another woman (without prompting) said we could do with more representatives like Dave Nellist, another spoke about her time campaigning for Terry Fields when she was in Militant in Liverpool. Even one of Stoke's awkward squad, who's always made a point of coming up to previous Socialist Party stalls to either disagree with us or tell us we're wasting our time seemed impressed with the arguments we put forward for No2EU.

Below is the text of one of the local leaflets we've been handing out in North Staffordshire.

All 3 major parties want to privatise Royal Mail

Party:               Supports Postal Privatisation?
Labour                              Yes
Conservative                     Yes
Lib Dem                            Yes
NO2EU                             No!

Vote No2EU for a public postal service!

On June 4th tell them NO! by voting for:

No2EU - Yes to Democracy!

Stand up for all workers' rights
The use of exploited foreign workers in Britain is being carried out under EU rules demanding the "free movement of capital, goods, services and labour". EU directives and European Court of Justice decisions are used to attack trade union agreements, the right to strike and workers' pay and conditions.

The Single European Market, created by the Tory government with the Single European Act in 1987 creates a pool of working people to be exploited and treated no better than a commodity. These EU rules allow employers to escape from national collective bargaining and employment legislation and impose lower wages and worse working conditions, creating a race to the bottom.

These EU rules, which no one asked for, have been behind some of the most bitter industrial disputes in recent years, like the Irish ferries dispute, the strike of Gate Gourmet workers at Heathrow, and the Lindsey oil refinery workers' strike. The European Court of Justice has even decreed in the Laval and Viking cases that union agreements that protect workers' conditions contravene the "free movement" of labour in the single market.

The recent protests at Lindsey, supported by workers across Britain, were not against foreign workers or xenophobic. They were simply defending the fundamental right to work under union agreements - a right denied by the EU.

The so-called "free movement" of labour will increasingly undermine wages and working conditions. To ferry workers across Europe to carry out jobs that local workers can be trained to perform is an environmental, economic and social nonsense. If food miles represent an unacceptably large carbon footprint, then 'labour-miles' clocked up for the pursuit of profit is even more damaging.


Keep your PUBLIC services PUBLIC!
The Lisbon Treaty and the EU's privatisation agenda represent a significant threat to our communities and to the services we rely on.

The renamed EU constitution forces governments to hand public services over to private corporations - that means handing fat cats control of the railways, schools, postal services, energy and even social services across Europe.

the commitment to hand over public services to big business in successive EU treaties was the main reason the Conservtaive party originally supported the EU.

Now services suffer and those providing the service face attacks on their pay and conditions as profiteers seek to maximise their profits. Once again the only ones who benefit are big business, the banks and politicians on the make!

The current economic crisis was created by discredited neo-liberal policies, yet under the Lisbon Treaty they become constitutional goals. We should be defending public services in Britain, not allowing bankers and eurocrats to take them over in order to make money for big business in Europe.

On June 4th Vote No2EU - Yes to Democracy to defend public services such as post offices and the NHS. To renationalise our railways and develop manufacturing in Britain.


This little piggy went to Parliament!
MPs currently take home a salary of £64,766. However on top of this generous amount our elected representatives are further enriching themselves playing the property market with our money!

Here are just a few highlights. MPs from all three major parties are involved:

Elliot Morley (Labour) - Claimed £16,000 for a mortgage he had already paid off! Total claimed last year: £145,373 (+ £64.766 in salary)

Andrew MacKay and Julie Kirkbride (Conservative) Husband & wife MPs - Used his second home allowance to claim more than £1,000/month in mortgage payments on their joint flat near Westminster. She used her expense allowance to claim over £900/month for the mortgage on their family home near her constituency. Joint claimed last year - £283,404 + £129,532 in salary)

Andrew George (Lib Dem) - Claimed £847/month for a riverside flat in London used by his daughter. Total claimed last year - £170,367 + £64,766 in salary

The BNP are no better. For years leader Nick Griffin has been using BNP funds as his personal piggy bank. After helping himself to members' donations to build an extension to his Mid-Wales farmhouse Griffin was forced to sack the then BNP treasurer Mike Newland over the affair. Griffin can't wait to get his racist snout in the massive EU trough, don't give him the chance!

No2EU - An Honest Choice!
When No2EU candidate Dave Nellist was a Labour MP ('83-'92) he took only the wage of a skilled factory worker (40% of what he could have earned), which is less than half of what other MPs took for themselves. The rest he donated back to the labour movement and charities.