GE 2019 - Notes From the Late Great Harry Leslie Smith (Part 2)

Sadly Harry Leslie Smith died late last year in his mid-90s.

But his wise words live on.

I want to pay tribute to him in these blogs by quoting from his last book 'Don't Let My Past Be Your Future.'

"The political discourse Jeremy Corbyn has started in the Labour Party about the benefits of migration is good for this country. Corbyn believes that the real problem Britain faces isn’t migration because newcomers to our country can add to its wealth through the valuable skills many bring here, through the taxes they pay and through the businesses they build. To Corbyn, the real issues that are destroying the prosperity of workers can be laid squarely at the feet of an establishment that encourages wage suppression, contains the rights of trade unions, adopts the use of zero hour contracts, pays a ‘living wage’ that no one can live on and dismantles many social services that people depend on. Naturally, Corbyn and Labour also understand that migration has affected marginalised communities that were gutted by austerity, which is why they have called for the migrant impact fund suspended by the Tories to be reinstated as it helped vulnerable areas shoulder the burden on services that can arise from an influx of low skill migrants...

I’ve seen the mob call out many times throughout my life that it’s migrants that are ruining Britain. I remember the signs that said ‘No blacks. No Irish. No dogs’ in both good times and bad. But we must remember what my generation learnt in the 1930s: it’s not migration that is eroding the fabric of our civil society but issues like low wages, lack of job protection, insufficient or too expensive housing, lack of opportunity and the state taking too little tax from either the elite or giant corporations.

Xenophobia and bigotry always increase during uncertain economic times because racists and right-wing elements in government and society know they can divide us through spreading hateful falsehoods about minorities. Too many people in this country view the worsening refugee crisis that is overwhelming Europe as something that we should stay well away from, and excuse the callousness by claiming that those who arrive on Europe’s shores are not authentic like those in the 1930s who fled Hitler’s Germany. The sad irony is that the middle-classes in Britain in the 1930s, abetted by tabloids like the Daily Mail portraying Jews as vermin or Communists intent on destabling our way of life, used that same excuse to turn their back on refugees who were subsequently gassed In the Holocaust. The tactics used by UKIP, and unfortunately now large swathes of the Conservative party, to portray Muslim refugees as either terrorists or welfare scroungers are little different from what was employed in the 1930s against Jewish refugees....

At every turn, good people in Britain are given an opportunity to excuse or reinforce their prejudices against the marginalised because most of the media is feeding into a narrative that says that poverty is a character defect rather than a failure of society to adequately protect its less fortunate. The Conservatives and UKIPs entire ideology is based upon wedge politics. The migration of war weary individuals from Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan or a dozen other countries that are plagued by war or civil unrest fails to elicit sympathy In us because our politicians would prefer to deflect the blame onto the victims rather than our arms industry or our foreign policy. Both now and in the 1930s, refugees are dehumanised by language. It’s cheaper in the short term to paint victims of war as criminals, rapists and fifth columnist Islamic fundamentalists rather than seek a solution to the conflicts from which these refugees have fled or to help them resettle. 

Those on the left must counter the propaganda being churned out by the right-wing that benefits recipients are cheats and that the working-class has been betrayed by a membership of the EU or by the free movement of labour. The enemies of wage earners and immigrants or those in receipt of benefits; the mortal foes are the corporations that suppress wages and hide profits offshore by legal means. People have to use their time in shop queues, church meeting halls, mosques, synagogues, temples, lunchrooms and on the train ride home to talk about the real abuses working people face each day because of Tory induced austerities, not to chat about the match of the day

At home the Daily Mail complained about the scourge of Jewish refugees from Germany, and politicians wanted Britain to believe that they were desperate to get to Britain not from fear of Hitler but out of desire to subvert a way of life through the foreign ways and Bolshevik tendencies. If that doesn’t remind you of Donald Trump, then you have not been paying attention to his speeches for the last two years..."

'It is a vital and powerful voice speaking across generations about the struggle for a just society' Jeremy Corbyn

THIS A CALL TO ARMS FOR THE MANY, NOT THE FEW: DON'T LET THE PAST BECOME OUR FUTURE

Harry Leslie Smith was a great British stalwart. A survivor of the Great Depression, a Second World War veteran, a lifelong Labour supporter and a proud Yorkshire man, Harry's life straddled two centuries. As a young man, he witnessed a country in crisis with no healthcare, no relief for the poor, and a huge economic gulf between the North and South. 

Britain is at its most dangerous juncture since Harry's youth - the NHS and social housing are in crisis, whilst Brexit and an unpopular government continue to divide the country - but there is hope. Just as Clement Attlee provided hope in 1945, Labour's triumphant comeback of June 2017 was a beacon of light ...Britain has overcome adversity before and will do so again - a new nation will be forged from the ashes of grave injustice.

Moving and passionate, Don't Let My Past be Your Future interweaves memoir and polemic in a call to arms. Above all, this book is a homage to the boundless grace and resilience of the human spirit. (From Amazon)