BREXIT, O VOTO DOS MAIS VELHOS E DOS POBRES - THATCHER E AS INIQUIDADES EM SAÚDE

Nos últimos dias a opinião pública e a imprensa europeias deram mostras de terem sido surpreendidas pelo voto de 52% dos britânicos a favor da saída do Reino Unido da União Europeia, apontando-se entre outras razões para esse resultado: o voto dos mais velhos e dos mais pobres, as questões da imigração, da crise dos refugiados, da identidade cultural e do retomar do controlo da soberania contra uma integração política que os britânicos nunca tinham votado. (aqui)(aqui) (aqui)

Talvez valha a pena então recordar algumas das possíveis razões para que os mais velhos e os mais pobres tivesse votado pelo “Leave” relembrando ou dando a conhecer algumas das consequências sociais das profundas transformações que o Reino Unido sofreu nos últimos 35 anos, com a chegada de Margaret Thatcher ao poder. 

Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013) primeira-ministra do Reino Unido de 1979 a 1990, conjuntamente com Ronald Reagan, desempenhou um papel crucial na promoção da agenda neoliberal a nível internacional. Rompendo com o consenso keynesiano do pós-guerra, em torno do “ social wage”, do pleno emprego, do tamanho e do papel do sector público, das grandes empresas públicas como a British Steel, a British Rail, e a British Airways, Thatcher, responsabiliza o Estado de Bem Estar, os salários altos, a falta de produtividade e o poder dos sindicatos pela crise económica e financeira dos anos 70, critica o seu ex-primeiro-ministro Edward Heath (1970-1974) de quem tinha sido secretária de estado educação pelo chamado U-turn, isto é por ter voltado atrás nas medidas que tinha implementado e que levaram ao maior crescimento no desemprego desde 1947 (1 milhão de desempregados).

Em Outubro de 1980 em Brighton no seu discurso “the lady's not for turning" na Conferência do Partido Conservador, lança as bases do seu programa que podemos resumir aqui:

•  deregulation of the labor and financial markets (including the “Big Bang” deregulation of the City of London in 1986);
• privatization and marketization of the main utilities (water, gas, and electricity) and state enterprises ( British Steel, British Rail, and British Airways); 
• promotion of home ownership (including the widespread sale of public housing stock under the “right to buy” scheme); 
• curtailing of workers’ and trade union rights; 
•  obligatory membership ballots before any industrial action; 
• restrictions on the right to picket, including a ban on secondary picketing; and removal of trade union immunity from damages;
•  promotion of free-market ideology in all areas of public life (including health care and the civil service);
•  significant cuts to the social wage via welfare state retrenchment ( a 7% reduction in state expenditure on social assistance between 1979–1989; removal of 16- to 18-year-olds from entitlement; reductions in state pensions; abolition of inflation-link for welfare benefits);
•  acceptance of mass unemployment as a price worth paying for the above policies;
• large tax cuts for the business sector and the most affluent (during Thatcher’s premiership, the rate of income tax for the top tax bracket was reduced from 83% to 40%)

Nos anos seguintes, a desregulação financeira, a liberalização do comércio e a privatização de bens e serviços públicos, provocaram na sociedade britânica grandes mudanças.

Chamamos aqui a atenção para duas delas, talvez as mais relevantes, a desindustrialização e a privatização das casas municipais.

Com a desindustrialização, justificada pela reorganização industrial, levando à privatização das grandes empresas públicas e ao encerramento daquelas que não eram viáveis “lame ducks”, milhares de trabalhadores perderam o emprego, perdendo a esperança de voltar novamente ao mercado de trabalho, passando a ser considerados como doentes ( situação denunciada pela própria BMA) “ The consequences of deindustrialisation hit huge swaths of the UK, particularly Wales and northern England, hard. Unemployment soared from 5.3% in 1979 … to peak at 11.9% in 1984. In 1990, the year of Thatcher's departure, it stood slightly higher than when her era began, at 6.9%. In 1981, 772,000 people classed themselves as being out of the labour force because they were "permanently sick". A decade later, this figure had risen to 1.6 million. In numerous towns across the country, the increases were markedly higher – with those signed off sick tripling or even quadrupling in a decade. Twenty years later, in the 2011 census, the figure remained largely unchanged, despite the UK's growing population: 1.7 million people were classed as long-term sick or disabled.” (aqui)

Fonte: Guardian

Com a privatização das casas municipais, (esta foi uma das mais emblemáticas medidas do thatcherismo, transformar os inquilinos das casas municipais em proprietários, fazer com que os britânicos tivessem casa própria) milhares de pessoas passaram a ter a sua própria casa, criando  um florescente mercado da habitação, que levou a que a população mais favorecida viesse a beneficiar  com a especulação imobiliária ao mesmo tempo que a população mais desfavorecida acabou por perder as suas casas, por não conseguir pagar as suas hipotecas, ou por ter de vende-las para não terminar na miséria extrema na falta de emprego e apoios sociais “ In England alone, more than 970,000 local authority-owned houses were sold through the scheme during Thatcher's premiership, more than have been sold in the two decades since. Such changes clearly came with a cost, and one of the most direct costs was the gradual decrease in the amount of social housing – and the resultant long waits on housing lists today – from a country with a growing population and atomising households (the number of people per household in the UK is slowly but steadily falling, as more of us live alone).

In 1981, England and Wales had 5.4m households in social housing. By 1991, this had dropped by 900,000 to 4.5m. In the post-Thatcher years, this gradual drop-off has endured, with 4.1m households living in social housing at the last census. That was only the most direct effect. In addition, many of the first people to buy their council homes through right to buy almost immediately started to struggle with their mortgages.” (aqui)

Fonte: Guardian

Ancorando-nos nestes dois exemplos e nas conclusões de um estudo recentemente publicado no International Journal of Health Services “THE IMPACT OF THATCHERISM ON HEALTH AND WELL-BEING IN BRITAIN” onde os autores confirmam o aumento das iniquidades em saúde durante o período do thatcherismo.

 “… the combination of policies implemented under Thatcher led to a rapid rise in unemployment rates. Since 1980, the number of unemployment claimants rose from approximately 1 million to 3 million in 1983; a further peak was seen in the early 1990s. Meanwhile, there was a steady rise in the number of claimants of long-term sickness (disability) benefits. The rise in the number of disability benefit claimants has been attributed to a government desire to move people off the unemployment register and to the lack of jobs in the economy. Figure 3 also shows that the 1980s saw a rapid increase in income inequalities and poverty rates. By the 1990s and 2000s, these new high levels became normalized. The rises in cause-specific mortalities such as alcohol- and drug-related deaths, suicide, and violence, and the widening health inequalities, occurred during the same time period in which unemployment, poverty, and income inequality all rose …  Given what we know about the impact of Thatcher’s neoliberal reforms on the social and economic landscape of Britain, it seems clear that Thatcher’s legacy includes the unnecessary and unjust premature death of many British citizens, together with a substantial and continuing burden of suffering and loss of well-being. “

Fonte: Experian’s poverty map of England

Talvez agora se perceba porque é que para alguns o “ Brexit was no surprise”