Comrades whom I respect continue to share the views I held a generation ago and therefore believe that workers in the UK (United Kingdom) should vote to leave the EU (European Union).
They are wrong.
In the 1980s it was possible to believe that it could happen that a socialist Labour Government would come to power which would be constrained by the UK's membership of the European Economic Community (EEC) (as it then was).
Now that belief - in respect of the EU - is absurd. It is not that the EU would not impose constraints upon a socialist Government of the UK (far from that) - it is that the globalisation of the world (capitalist) economy now imposes constraints upon all its constituent parts compared to which any requirements of the EU are insignificant.
Those who believe themselves to be Marxists and who have been active in defending the "national" self-determination of the (imperialist) UK economy badly need to sit back and think about their politics before they do anything else.
The EU is not more reactionary than the UK.
If the petit-bourgeois far-right advocates of the departure of the UK from the EU get their way then this will not be a moment to be celebrated by any workers.
The handful of post-Stalinists who believe that this would be a moment to be celebrated are variously wrong or very wrong.
I won't be polite to these comrades any longer. This is too important.
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.
So when exactly was your damascene conversion Jon. This is , first and foremost about democracy, the ability of people to vote out governments, and fettering the ability of any government to bind future governments to irreversible policy decisions. The Lisbon treaty handed unfettered power to a commission, council of ministers and ecb; has bound in perpetuity all member states to neoliberalism and austerity. It is a failing project whose days are numbered. As socialists we have the choice of playing a role in building a better Europe, which requires the dismantling of the EU as a prerequisite or face handing the initiative to the little englanders and the fascists. You're right, this is too important but rehashing the 4th international is not going to win the working class to the cause
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