This is a blog asking left wing Brexiters to reconsider voting to leave the EU. I understand why some of us we believe we should, but I fear leaving the EU will prove to be the worst error the UK has made in modern history.
How wrong can we be?
The Independent reported a poll on June 10th which suggested the British public had "almost everything wrong about the EU".
Here's a little example of just how wrong we get it:
"In a survey of 1,000 people, weighted to represent the nation’s demographic profile in terms of age, gender, ethnicity and other factors, respondents claimed that, on average, 15 per cent of the UK population are EU immigrants. That would be 10.5m people. The correct figure is 3.5m. Those who intend to vote Leave in the referendum put the figure at 20 per cent. ‘Remainers’ put the figure at 10 per cent."
It's worth reading the whole article just to get an idea of the way in which we are going to make one of the most important decisions of out lives on the basis of utter misunderstanding.
In the public eye the Brexit case seems to revolve around two issues, economics and immigration.
The economic case is a non-starter - it's clear that we will be worse off outside Europe than in. Even the Brexit campaign have virtually conceded this, admitting "there will be short term effects". Exactly how short term they might be is unclear, but any path that delivers a deep economic shock to a country that's not fully recovered from the worst recession in history is more than risky - it's profoundly stupid.
The truly dark and fearful aspect of Brexit's campaign, immigration, is another non-starter.
Leaving aside Farage's shocking xenophobic rantings, nauseating even to high profile supporters of the leave campaign, leaving the EU will not stop immigration.
There are more non-EU immigrants arriving each year in Britain than EU citizens, and most arrive to fill genuine skills shortages. One small example, 28 percent of NHS doctors are foreign. In an ageing country we need the youth and the skills immigrants bring with them.
There's no doubt that in some places rapid growth of immigrant communities create issues, but they are not issued created by the EU membership.
Austerity, long term failure to invest in housing, education and health care, a fear of political incorrectness creating taboo areas of public debate: all have a role to play in both the genuine and perceived problems immigration bring. Quitting the EU to solve these issues is a bit like closing down the entire rail network because of a broken down train. The train will still be stuck on the tracks, passengers trapped in the middle of nowhere, and with no trains the roads will become unusable.
It's not all good
It's always easier to spot what's wrong with big complex organisations than to recognise the good they bring. The NHS doesn't make the headlines for "hundreds of thousands of people safely and efficiently treated every day for free", but one failing hospital will run and run.
Lets be clear, like any big institution, the EU has lots wrong with it - but is it so wrong we should leave? George Monbiot blogs:
"The European Union is a festering cesspool of undue influence and opaque lobbying."
but, he goes on to say:
"By comparison to the British system, however, this noxious sewer is a crystal spring. Every stream of corporate effluent with which the EU poisons political life has a more malodorous counterpart in the United Kingdom...
...Britain has become a powerbase for a legalised financial mafia, which strips the assets of healthy companies, turns the nation’s housing into a roulette table, launders money for drug cartels and terrorists, then stashes its gains beyond the reach of police and tax inspectors."
but there are worse things in....
There's a clue about the true nature of the leave campaign in George's blog. Britain really has become "a powerbase for a legalised financial mafia".
"By comparison to the British system, however, this noxious sewer is a crystal spring. Every stream of corporate effluent with which the EU poisons political life has a more malodorous counterpart in the United Kingdom...
...Britain has become a powerbase for a legalised financial mafia, which strips the assets of healthy companies, turns the nation’s housing into a roulette table, launders money for drug cartels and terrorists, then stashes its gains beyond the reach of police and tax inspectors."
but there are worse things in....
There's a clue about the true nature of the leave campaign in George's blog. Britain really has become "a powerbase for a legalised financial mafia".
It's the end product of a 35 year old neo-liberal capitalist political revolution which has seen many of the concessions won by 20th century working class struggle marginalised or eliminated. The people behind the leave campaign, Johnson, Gove IDS and their shadowy financial backers want to see this revolution reach it's endgame. "Charged for" health services, education an elite privilege, scrapping employment protection and the "tiresome regulation" that protect our health at work and our environment.
Make no mistake, these guys don't give a shit about the fate of the people they are seducing into a leave vote. Their motivation is to escape the "post-WW2 European settlement", a social-democratic world view that's been central to the "British way of life" since the 1940's.
In his article "Brexit is a fake revolt – working-class culture is being hijacked to help the elite", Paul Mason writes brilliantly about the way the UK left is being duped.
His opening two paragraphs sum up the essential point - the elite don't lead revolts - they head for the hills in terror.
"I love fake revolts of the underclass: I’m a veteran of them. At secondary school, we had a revolt in favour of the right to smoke. The football violence I witnessed in the 1970s and 80s felt like the social order turned on its head. As for the mass outpouring of solidarity with the late Princess Diana, and by implication against the entire cruel monarchic elite, in the end I chucked my bunch of flowers on the pile with the rest.
The problem is, I also know what a real revolt looks like. The miners strike; the Arab spring; the barricade fighting around Gezi Park in Istanbul in 2013. So, to people getting ready for the mother of all revolts on Thursday, I want to point out the crucial difference between a real revolt and a fake one. The elite does not usually lead the real ones. In a real revolt, the rich and powerful usually head for the hills, terrified. Nor are the Sun and the Daily Mail usually to be found egging on a real insurrection."
He goes on to say:
In the Brexit referendum, we’ve seen what happens when working-class culture gets hijacked – and when the party that is supposed to be defending working people just cannot find the language or the offer to separate a fake revolt from a real one. In many working-class communities, people are getting ready to vote leave not just as a way of telling the neoliberal elite to get stuffed. They also want to discomfort the metropolitan, liberal, university-educated salariat for good measure. For many people involved, it feels like their first ever effective political choice.
I want to have one last go at convincing you that leaving now, under these conditions, would be a disaster...
I want to have one last go at convincing you that leaving now, under these conditions, would be a disaster...
... a Brexit led by Ukip and the Tory right will not make any of these things better(immigration, low wages etc): it will make them worse. Take a look at the people leading the Brexit movement. Nigel Farage, Neil Hamilton, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove. They have fought all their lives for one objective: to give more power to employers and less to workers. Many leading Brexiters are on record as wanting to privatise the NHS. They revelled in the destruction of the working-class communities and cultures capable of staging real revolt. Sir James Dyson moved his factory to Malaysia, so much did he love the British workforce. They talk about defying the “elite”. But they are the elite.
I'd really urge you to open the link and read the whole piece.
I'd really urge you to open the link and read the whole piece.
Other Lies
This blog began by saying "the British Public have almost everything wrong about the EU". The Brexit campaign have used immigration and schoolboy claims about "the money we will save by leaving" to inflame anti EU feeling. Here's a few more big lies/misunderstandings.
Sovereignty - and getting it back. Heres the big news - we haven't lost it. We are not run from Brussels and they don't make most of our laws. I've seen statements like "we need to leave to get our common law back" - Common law is largely used in criminal matters and the EU has absolutely no say so at all in criminal law - its so wrong its laughable. The EU exists to coordinate a free trade area with common rules for all members. It designs regulations and rules, often for complicated details of products and production methods, and yes, sometimes it can be stupidly officious, but most of the regulation is about dull technical stuff. It certainly has no impact whatsoever on criminal law or most law that affects our lives on a day to day basis.
The EU "isn't democratic". Well, yes and no. Our sovereign parliament agreed to join the EEC, as it was in those days. We held a referendum, and we voted "yes".
What did we vote for?
A treaty with the other members to abide by certain rules to give us Europe wide standards in certain areas and a number of institutions to manage that agreement.
Those institutions include
From misunderstanding and lies to outright weird
One of the most bizarre left wing fears recently seen on social media is the post: "We need to leave because there is a risk that in 50 years time the EU will become a fascist superstate". Have to admit this had me scratching my head.
I traced it's source to a New Statesman article written by John King, the guy who wrote the "Football Factory". King is a fine writer... ...of fiction. The article was a "justification" of working class reasons to leave the EU. At its heart was the notion that it could become a fascist superstate at some point in the future.
Now, this is another argument more full of holes than an an EU regulation Gruyare cheese. Leaving aside the obvious, that no one can accurately predict the state of the world 5 years ahead, let alone 50 years in the future, what difference would it make if it happened?
If we leave, giving up any chance to influence the shape of the EU in the future, we'll have a Fascist superstate on the other side of the English channel. If we remain, and can't use our diplomatic skill, influence and power to guide the EU away from this nightmare scenario we'll leave and have a fascist superstate on on our doorsteps.
Its another irrational and flawed bit of thinking that's got hold of the left - and I'm seeing more and more "left-wing reasons to leave". It really frightens me. There seem to be a plethora of half arsed arguments for a left "no" vote, much of based on a clever campaign to attribute far more power to the EU than it really has.
These include laying unique responsibility on the EU for the impact of globalisation , the impacts on the developing world of global trade agreements like GATT, responsibility for all western action in the middle east, failure to deal with Bosnia and responsibility for civil, war in Ukraine. I'm not suggesting for a second that the EU has no responsibility for any of this stuff, but it's role has never been central, and frequently non-existent - and it's always been driven by the council of ministers and the wishes of it's member states.
and on the plus side?
Leaving aside the fact that the leave campaign is elitist and dishonest in it's intent, seeking to dupe the very people people who will suffer most in the kind of country they want post-brexit, what are the positives of Europe?
The thinking behind the EU's creation was to put an end to war in Europe. The Schuman Declaration aimed to create more than a treaty - it wanted solid institutions that would provide practical ways of resolving issues - and we've had the longest period of peace in Europe for a thousand years. If we are counting its economic benefits against its costs, the benefits of not turning entire countries into heaps of rubble probably counts for a lot.
The EU has been about far more than trade agreements and regulations about working hours and the wattage of vacuum cleaners. Millions of people have lived and worked in other countries, learned other languages and come to appreciate other cultures. Those friendship networks are perhaps one the best indirect benefits of freedom of movement. We've imported cuisines, music, and culture along with Polish plumbers and Portuguese farm-workers. Two and a half million Brits live in other European countries. These little things mean a lot - they mean that understanding other cultures is no longer a privilege of a tiny elite, there's a broad based understanding of the advantages and the difficulties other countries face, far harder to engineer hatred and propaganda for war when we know the place we are proposing to bomb is the place we worked for a few years.
and the real issues?
Most of all, the EU is an organisation for international cooperation - it isn't just an agreement of principle but a functional administration to allow genuine cooperation across languages and borders.
This really matters. The problem with capitalism is that it's doomed. It's a dinosaur in it's death throes, gasping desperately for air with no concern for the havoc its flailing limbs wreak on "all us ordinary people". While we are distracted by the lies and myths of "in or out", the truely giant issue facing humanity, how we create a world that isn't being led headlong to environmental chaos by out of control capitalism, lies in abeyance.
The recessions, the banking crisis, the refugees, the middle east wars, are all "limbs of the dinosaur". Capitalism is being forced to consume itself, asset stripping it's own people an endless quest to make its money deliver returns. It's search for oil is even more desperate. Capitalism depends on feeding energy in and crapping out ever less durable consumer junk to sustain itself - an economic model that's destroying our climate. Even the outers haven't tried to blame our increasingly bizarre weather on the EU.
The huge unspoken challenge we face is climate change. To deal with it we have to decarbonise our economies, something that will take more international co-operation - not less. Don't underestimate the climate crisis. We've been like the villagers ignoring the rumblings of a volcano for years because evacuation is to big a prospect to contemplate. The lava is flowing down the mountainside now, and it's heading for us. It's already almost too late - do we seriously throw away an organisation for international cooperation because we've been pointed to problems it doesn't even create by a ruthless group of predatory capitalists?
If we vote leave tomorrow, we might think we are poking the establishment in the eye, but we will be shooting ourselves in the foot. It won't just be our own prospects that are damaged.
I've been in France for the last 10 weeks. People there regard the Brexit campaign with mingled bemusement, genuine fear for the future and real anger. Bemusement because they can't see why we would do this to ourselves. Fear for the future because we underestimate how highly regarded the UK is within the EU, and that our leaving could create a cascade of instability. Anger because we appear prepared to put so much at risk with no good reason - and with Cameron, for promising an unnecessary referendum to save his own electoral skin.
So if you are thinking of voting leave for lefty reasons please think again. If this referendum has highlighted issues with the EU let's fight the issues, but don't throw away cooperation, freedom of movement, collective security and friendship it brings - it's not the EU that lies at the heart of all our troubles, its a self centred heartless elite, and they are they guys pressing for Brexit.
Sovereignty - and getting it back. Heres the big news - we haven't lost it. We are not run from Brussels and they don't make most of our laws. I've seen statements like "we need to leave to get our common law back" - Common law is largely used in criminal matters and the EU has absolutely no say so at all in criminal law - its so wrong its laughable. The EU exists to coordinate a free trade area with common rules for all members. It designs regulations and rules, often for complicated details of products and production methods, and yes, sometimes it can be stupidly officious, but most of the regulation is about dull technical stuff. It certainly has no impact whatsoever on criminal law or most law that affects our lives on a day to day basis.
The EU "isn't democratic". Well, yes and no. Our sovereign parliament agreed to join the EEC, as it was in those days. We held a referendum, and we voted "yes".
What did we vote for?
A treaty with the other members to abide by certain rules to give us Europe wide standards in certain areas and a number of institutions to manage that agreement.
Those institutions include
- The Council of Ministers, with one minister from each member state having a vote and a right of veto in key areas. So if our minister, who's very definitely part of the democratically elected government, really didn't agree he could stop a proposal just by saying "no" - not very democratic I agree but it does give our national wishes huge protection.
- The EU Commission - one Commissioner appointed by each member state - usually a high ranking senior politician. They have the power to suggest new measures and run the EU's administration - they have to agree proposals with the council of ministers and the EU Parliament before they become law and the UK has a right of veto on key issues - so not very democratic - but in a way that gives us a lot of control over what the EU does.
- The European Parliament - which is actually elected by PR - much more democratic than our parliamentary system where first past the post rules mean that we are being subject to a very right wing government on the vote of 38% of the electorate - It's true that we don't control the European Parliament -but it wouldn't really be democratic if we did!
From misunderstanding and lies to outright weird
One of the most bizarre left wing fears recently seen on social media is the post: "We need to leave because there is a risk that in 50 years time the EU will become a fascist superstate". Have to admit this had me scratching my head.
I traced it's source to a New Statesman article written by John King, the guy who wrote the "Football Factory". King is a fine writer... ...of fiction. The article was a "justification" of working class reasons to leave the EU. At its heart was the notion that it could become a fascist superstate at some point in the future.
Now, this is another argument more full of holes than an an EU regulation Gruyare cheese. Leaving aside the obvious, that no one can accurately predict the state of the world 5 years ahead, let alone 50 years in the future, what difference would it make if it happened?
If we leave, giving up any chance to influence the shape of the EU in the future, we'll have a Fascist superstate on the other side of the English channel. If we remain, and can't use our diplomatic skill, influence and power to guide the EU away from this nightmare scenario we'll leave and have a fascist superstate on on our doorsteps.
Its another irrational and flawed bit of thinking that's got hold of the left - and I'm seeing more and more "left-wing reasons to leave". It really frightens me. There seem to be a plethora of half arsed arguments for a left "no" vote, much of based on a clever campaign to attribute far more power to the EU than it really has.
These include laying unique responsibility on the EU for the impact of globalisation , the impacts on the developing world of global trade agreements like GATT, responsibility for all western action in the middle east, failure to deal with Bosnia and responsibility for civil, war in Ukraine. I'm not suggesting for a second that the EU has no responsibility for any of this stuff, but it's role has never been central, and frequently non-existent - and it's always been driven by the council of ministers and the wishes of it's member states.
and on the plus side?
Leaving aside the fact that the leave campaign is elitist and dishonest in it's intent, seeking to dupe the very people people who will suffer most in the kind of country they want post-brexit, what are the positives of Europe?
The thinking behind the EU's creation was to put an end to war in Europe. The Schuman Declaration aimed to create more than a treaty - it wanted solid institutions that would provide practical ways of resolving issues - and we've had the longest period of peace in Europe for a thousand years. If we are counting its economic benefits against its costs, the benefits of not turning entire countries into heaps of rubble probably counts for a lot.
The EU has been about far more than trade agreements and regulations about working hours and the wattage of vacuum cleaners. Millions of people have lived and worked in other countries, learned other languages and come to appreciate other cultures. Those friendship networks are perhaps one the best indirect benefits of freedom of movement. We've imported cuisines, music, and culture along with Polish plumbers and Portuguese farm-workers. Two and a half million Brits live in other European countries. These little things mean a lot - they mean that understanding other cultures is no longer a privilege of a tiny elite, there's a broad based understanding of the advantages and the difficulties other countries face, far harder to engineer hatred and propaganda for war when we know the place we are proposing to bomb is the place we worked for a few years.
and the real issues?
Most of all, the EU is an organisation for international cooperation - it isn't just an agreement of principle but a functional administration to allow genuine cooperation across languages and borders.
This really matters. The problem with capitalism is that it's doomed. It's a dinosaur in it's death throes, gasping desperately for air with no concern for the havoc its flailing limbs wreak on "all us ordinary people". While we are distracted by the lies and myths of "in or out", the truely giant issue facing humanity, how we create a world that isn't being led headlong to environmental chaos by out of control capitalism, lies in abeyance.
The recessions, the banking crisis, the refugees, the middle east wars, are all "limbs of the dinosaur". Capitalism is being forced to consume itself, asset stripping it's own people an endless quest to make its money deliver returns. It's search for oil is even more desperate. Capitalism depends on feeding energy in and crapping out ever less durable consumer junk to sustain itself - an economic model that's destroying our climate. Even the outers haven't tried to blame our increasingly bizarre weather on the EU.
The huge unspoken challenge we face is climate change. To deal with it we have to decarbonise our economies, something that will take more international co-operation - not less. Don't underestimate the climate crisis. We've been like the villagers ignoring the rumblings of a volcano for years because evacuation is to big a prospect to contemplate. The lava is flowing down the mountainside now, and it's heading for us. It's already almost too late - do we seriously throw away an organisation for international cooperation because we've been pointed to problems it doesn't even create by a ruthless group of predatory capitalists?
If we vote leave tomorrow, we might think we are poking the establishment in the eye, but we will be shooting ourselves in the foot. It won't just be our own prospects that are damaged.
I've been in France for the last 10 weeks. People there regard the Brexit campaign with mingled bemusement, genuine fear for the future and real anger. Bemusement because they can't see why we would do this to ourselves. Fear for the future because we underestimate how highly regarded the UK is within the EU, and that our leaving could create a cascade of instability. Anger because we appear prepared to put so much at risk with no good reason - and with Cameron, for promising an unnecessary referendum to save his own electoral skin.
So if you are thinking of voting leave for lefty reasons please think again. If this referendum has highlighted issues with the EU let's fight the issues, but don't throw away cooperation, freedom of movement, collective security and friendship it brings - it's not the EU that lies at the heart of all our troubles, its a self centred heartless elite, and they are they guys pressing for Brexit.
No comments:
Post a Comment