It is quite telling that economically both sides of the debate argued for the same thing, the continuation of neo liberalism.
The question posed by the ballot was a simple “In or Out”. But, as with most instances within democracy, this could not be answered so straightforwardly. What the ballot really asked is this: would we prefer to be in a capitalist Britain inside the capitalist EU; or a capitalist Britain outside the capitalist EU?
When Britain voted to remain a member of the European Economic Community in 1975, the trade union movement and Labour Left campaigned against membership. They argued, correctly, that the EEC was a “bosses club” that would benefit European big business and banking interests at the expense of European workers. This appeared very plainly to the British Left, as the EEC was essentially a free-trade area established to integrate the European economy into a single bloc that could rival the United States and the Soviet Union. In the game of inter-imperialist competition, the workers always lose. I do not think anyone can argue that the workers lost since joining the EU, yes there were some sops but inequality has rose exponentially. There is no doubt in my mind that since the beginning of the capitalist crisis in 2008 the institutions at the heart of the EU – the European Commission and the European Central Bank – have shown their true colours by imposing capitalist austerity across Europe. Look at how they destroyed Greece for instance. Its a capitalist club.
Above all else, we need a socialist transformation of society by the working class. The EU is just as much of a corrupt, big-business-run institution as our very own government of the rich. Socialism will not come from internal reforms. Neither will it be any closer with Britain's withdrawal from the EU. Breaking with the EU was not the goal , its the break with capitalism. The red wall seats saw this, they were not the racist xenophobes the liberal remain camp extolled them to be, they just wanted fairness. I will say though that the far right did indeed play on peoples fears about immigration and Farage's disgusting poster may have been pivotal in gaining the small percentage of racist halfwits.
Remain fucked up because of the arrogant notion that capitalism knows best, they never challenged the status quo.
Interesting, but do you not think our membership of the EU prevented the worst excesses of far right policies being foistered on us?
I think Europe is more socialist in its outloook than here in the UK, especially now the tory party has been hi-jacked by far right refugees from the BNP and UKIP, and my argument for our continued membership of the EU was based on it safeguarding our basic rights like the NHS, environmental, consumer, and employement protections.
Those protections are now being discarded by the supposed bonfire of EU laws by our government. It's not clear at the moment if those acts of parliament will succeed in passing into law as they weren't in the last manifesto and the House of Lords might block them, but the reform bill regarding the NHS, which our membership of the EU guaranteed as a free at the source of need healthcare system was voted away last year. It's something the tories have always begruged us, and it's a bill that couldn't have been passed if we had still been members of the EU.
I always thought the EU was a safe community and I enjoyed the benefits it brought us.I failed to understand why we in the UK, or sections of it at least, were so opposed to it our soverereignty was being compromised. I never heard those arguments from the French, Gemans, or any other nationalities that are presumably just as patriotic about their countries as we are but haven't had their heads turned sideways by a lifetime of anti EU rhetoric from a right wing press owned by billionairs.
I remember talking to a German guy a few months before the referendum, and I asked him what he thought membership of the EU brought. 'Look', he said, 'We all know the history of Europe in the last century, and if it prevents that from happening again, to me, that is priceless'.
The big red bus was running around at that time promoting £350 million a week to the NHS, and Farage was proudly standing in front of his poster showing lines of immigrants supposedly heading for the UK.
I'm not anti profit, we all have to make money, but I do have a sense of loss a fairer vision of the world has been taken from us for no gain whatsoever other than the rich getting richer. The EU isn't perfect, our political system at the moment is dreadfully corrupt and dishonest, but we did have the backing of EU laws which myriad governments around the continent regarded as being fair and proper.