This huge Commission building in Brussels, in the shape of a cross, is absolutely un-British. I felt as if I were going as a slave to Rome; the whole… - Tony Benn
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This huge Commission building in Brussels, in the shape of a cross, is absolutely un-British. I felt as if I were going as a slave to Rome; the whole relationship was wrong. Here was I, an elected man who could be removed, doing a job, and here were these people with more power than I had and no accountability to anybody...My visit confirmed in a practical way all my suspicions that this would be the decapitation of British democracy without any countervailing advantage, and the British people, quite rightly, wouldn't accept it. There is no real benefit for Britain.
Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British Labour Party politician and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. He was the Member of Parliament for Bristol South East and Chesterfield for 47 of the 51 years between 1950 and 2001. He later served as President of the Stop the War Coalition from 2001 to 2014.
The violence of the press attacks on Aslef, and the sustained and bitter hostility of the media towards the Labour movement is responsible for the refusal to handle some newspapers on the railways. Day after day Fleet Street conducts its campaign against working people, ignoring their interests, distorting their arguments and abusing their representatives. Working journalists can no longer evade their moral responsibilities by shielding behind their editors, nor editors by shielding behind their proprietors. Nor can arguments based on the freedom of the press be used as an excuse to deny freedom of expression to millions of people who have lost their jobs, suffered cuts in living standards or in essential health and education services.
North Sea oil could be a mask which conceals the decline of our economy. Don't think it will necessarily solve our problems. Britain was in a process of de-industrialization and it was essential that the revenue from oil should be used for reinvestment in industry. I have seen industry after industry in this country upon which our living standards rest going down because of the lack of investment. I have seen it in shipbuilding, aircraft, machine tools, the motor industry, motor cycles and electronics. Public investment and ownership were critical parts of the recovery of a society whose living standards and public service rested upon manufacturers.
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