I’ve been following the crisis in Greece with interest. I’ve noticed that every time a rescue package, or a change in political personnel is discussed, the concern is ‘How will the market react?’.

And therein lies the problem – it’s not the EU or the Euro that are causing all this turbulence – it’s the fact that all of our currencies, and livelihoods, are simply gambling chips in the game of global capitalism. The Euro is struggling – yet it’s at its highest level against sterling for a long time – possibly the highest level ever.

We often see Euro-sceptics warning us, with a certain amount of glee, that we are in danger of going the same way as Greece. Of course we’re not – Greece’s problems have been that hardly anyone in their country has been paying tax properly, with their government turning a blind eye. As a result they’re in financial difficulties, but they would have been even if they’d retained the drachma – the sharp reduction in money supply caused by the banking crisis has meant that they could no longer disguise their debt.

In the UK, most people, with the exception of the wealthiest, do pay their fair share in tax.

The rich continue to be protected, via many tax loopholes, and it’s ironic that many of the anti-European political groups, including UKIP and the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance, are in favour of keeping such concessions for the wealthy, whilst removing important legislation which protects ordinary workers from exploitation in terms of pay and long hours.

In terms of the debt of the UK – it’s worth remembering that half of our debt was caused directly as a result of the greed and incompetence of the international banking, system – I’ve still not seen any plan by the current government for these banks to pay back our ‘loans’ to them – instead they are loading the cost on to ordinary workers in both the public and private sectors.

Despite the propaganda we have thrown at us, we still have amongst the lowest debt in terms of GDP of any of the Western nations, but it would be extremely foolish and naive to think that we can run and hide from the crisis with the Euro – no-one is immune from the excesses of global capitalism I’m afraid, and increasingly governments – even combined in large trading blocks, have little real influence over the greedy gangsters running the financial markets.

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