The decades-long scandal of Bognor's 'invisible' poverty

One in four Bognor children living in poverty in 2016, in one of the most affluent shire counties in the country.   If that doesn't make people sit back and take a long hard look at this Town, nothing will.

A new problem, caused by Austerity, the 2008-crash, Labour overspending?    Not a bit of it -  the problem has been here for decades, at least since 1980 when I first moved here.    Within 3 years I had started with others the Bognor Fun Bus, based on work over years by a playscheme summer programme, and all sessions in what we saw even then as areas with marked deprivation amongst families and children.

No evidence then, except what we saw.   Cyclical poverty, poor educational outcomes, low health - parts of Bognor, Bersted, Barnham, Yapton and Littlehampton.    We saw first-hand that people were struggling where the general area seemed less affected than most by Thatcher's ravages.     It showed in odd and surprising ways - noting our boys in rugby teams were smaller for age, less well-fed than from ....  Chichester, Haywards Heath etc.   "You noticed that too" as Mr Francis, one-time games master at Felpham CC, and he could find nothing in County stats etc.

As the information age kicked in, we began to see other, statistical confirmation - poor school, GCSE results, BR school taken into Special Measures, poorer health stats and, perhaps most defining of all for me as a then-Arun Councillor for Pevensey, the discovery that between an Aldwick  ward the other side of West Meads drive and my Ward there was a 15 year difference in average life expectancy.   Truly shocking, as I termed it, 'Third World Bognor' and got a lot of flack.

What WAS West Sussex Council doing that the educational malaise had to await a Labour Government acting to begin CHANGE and to invest £35 million in the Regis school, let alone Sure Start and all the other local examples of that investment in a better society?   Venal, smug, and sowing the seeds of the current crisis.  Don't put it all down to cuts, the sickness was there well before.

Nothing this Government has done has gone anywhere near recognising the issue, our MP, a Minister, silent, and supporting cuts which make life harder for those already in poverty and hardship or near the line.

An-almost criminal neglect of affordable housing, a regeneration which so far has got nowhere, no recognition that The Regis School is a decent outcome of previous investment by a Labour government.

Young people are disengaged from society and the political system, and the recent Referendum saw them not voting and not helped at all by the voting registration changes - surely, as they are at school and college until 18, the institutions should and could mount efforts within student attendance hours to get them registered at 17?   Plus elementary education that we vote for MPs to make decisions in Parliament, not by referendum, like that or not, that's  the system.

That is as important in their lives as being VACCINATED, the power to be engaged and have a voice.    Especially those on the bottom of the pile.  

Bognor will see no meaningful Revival (those words 'regeneration' and 'redevelopment' are now devalued in this town) until we recognise the need to raise those in poverty, and especially their children, onto a basis of equality.   Economics demand this - low earners and low spenders are unhelpful in the economy; social cohesion, public health, education for the technical age - all those depend on it also.

Until we raise Bognor from the third-world status some experience, and until we look to our young people's futures, this Town will languish.   Those who have the vote have a duty to act beyond the selfish and the personal, beyond fear of the stranger and of change, to drive this town's future forwards.   There's been too much 'what about me?' and we need to see more 'what can we do to make things for the better?'

Austerity NEVER was "we are all in this together" whilst the few benefitted and the majority did not, especially in this Town those who have been made invisible by negligence in housing, education, employment and health.   One is reminded of the Arun Councillor, "there are empty homes in Wigan" so let them eat (Eccles) cakes ....

It's a Parliamentary Democracy, Stupid

One of the reasons I decided, on the morning of the Brexit referendum, to vote to Remain, was that, looking at the Leave case, it was clear they HADN'T THE FOGGIEST OF WHAT TO DO IF THEY WON.  (There were other reasons, one being that though leftwards sympathetic to leaving a capitalist club, I wasn't going to be in the company of those who, be frank, voted to get the wogs out and the Poles and anyone strangely brown etc.   Oh, wait for the howls of denial.)

Events, sadly, have borne that out manyfold times.   Boris the Bold (or is it Two-faced, as in looking both ways) slunk out of view and into the post of Foreign Secretary where he is stymied by May and the real Brexiteers.   

Farage simply buggered off.  No kinder way to put it, off to serenade a Trump and also see UKIP descend into unedifying panto farce.

Not much better on the Remain side, they all scurry around saying they will observe the "will of the people" forgetting that it is Parliamentary Election, secured and extended through struggle and oppression over several hundred  years, which determines that Will and that the whole EU issue was, as claimed by Brexit, the Sovereignty of Parliament.   "Get decision-making back to Westminster" was the ostensible call.    

Now, if it wasn't really that at all,what WAS it? Well, Farage made it clear from the outset of the campaign, it was immigration that would do the trick and if anyone dares to claim that xenophobic fear was not a major driving force of the Leave campaign, they are deluded or lying or both.   I don't care how many times we hear "Oh that's not fair" now when we look at all the racist abuse and worse heaped upon Poles and others since.

There seems to be also amongst many Leavers an expectation that Brexit just 'happens' or even that it has happened.   "Well, we voted out so we're out."  Well, actually, er ....  No.   That's what all the fuss is about and we should be really grateful to the lady who used our law courts to haul us and Mrs May back into the cold daylight of constitutional reality.

The judges made it clear.   It is simple. We have an unwritten constitution based on interpretation of statute and common law over centuries.   That in turn is based on another reality,   We had a struggle including a bloody civil war (or 2), a period of dictatorship under Cromwell, before, ignoring James II, we finally arrived at the Supremacy of Parliament.    Not of Referendum, note.    They always will be advisory.   WE ELECT OUR MP's TO MAKE DECISIONS FOR THE NATION, whatever we say via referendum is not a decision, it's a view, is all. 

The irony is that Brexiteers, who pushed their legitimate case re that sovereignty ('decisions at Westminster not in Brussells'  blah blah spout&sprout), they now are squealing like piglets in case those awful MPs we all elected go and do something else other than Brexit.

Probably, no worries on that score, the elite all seem to be queuing up to say the vote must stand, 17.5 million etc.   So, may be I so bold as to ask what about the 16.5 million who voted against (nearly half)?   What about those who did not or could not vote, such as those Brits in Europe whom we appear to have told you can go and stuff yourselves.   Nice if it all goes tits-up and they are forced back?   Hey, got a spare area in Calais?    "I have a right to return and Bognor looks just the place for old folk like me".  "Sorry, mate, the Syrian refugees have finally moved out of the Reception Centres, off you go now."    (Luckily they won't  have to measure age from their teeth, however.  "Er I got these on the NHS around 20 years ago.")

There are SERIOUS issues and if they are not resolved in a way that will not seriously harm the people of this country and the unity of the UK, are Brexiteers really insistent we leave come what may?

So:

• no access to the Single Market - all serious folk say this HAS to happen, it WILL happen, and never mind johnny EU foreigner saying we also have to have freedom of movement of people
  
• the UK breaks up, Scotland leaves, because its people want to stay in the EU and that will help the SNP when, not if, there is another independence referendum
  
• we don't go back to the people either via a General Election  or a 2nd Referendum if the negotiations produce a result which looks bad for the UK
  
• the situation in NI with the common border issues 'develops' so as to make community and cross-border relations problemmatical
  
• the country's economic situation takes a downturn for the very worst based on global reaction to the ongoing situation.

I would say that in the above circumstances, we ought to be glad there are 600+ MPs charged with ensuring the good and safe government of the country.   All of them should be very clear about the outcome of the Referendum:   for every 35 to leave, 33 to stay and 60 not heard.   There is also the age divide - I am not the only one who is worried not only about low turn-out amongst the young but also the significant changes to voter registration which guaranteed an outcome that many would be left voteless.   It is THEIR future.  This was a vote by the old about the future for the young.

I am also asking, what is it that is NOT BEING DONE in our education system to teach about the importance of voting?   Also, we have them in one place in their final years in secondary education - so, use that to REGISTER them for goodness sake.   It is as important as being VACCINATED....

No MPs will read this, BUT, if any should, or anyone reading this happens to pop across one anytime soon, DO REMIND THEM THAT IT'S THEIR JOB TO MAKE DECISIONS, NOT A BLOODY REFERENDUM OF THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND HELPED BY SOME MADMEN.