Leaving from the Left: Why those on the left should vote to leave the European Union.

In decades recent, the left has taken it upon itself to be the torchbearer of the UK’s continued participation in the European Union, as if those who have historically claimed responsibility to understand history have suddenly developed a collective memory of 6-years. We seem to have forgotten the fact that it was once the left who opposed what was called “the common market” and the Thatcherites who campaigned vehemently to enter into it.

What appears to be the primary and most dangerous view that impels this instinctual reaction from the left to preserve the EU is the picture of the “social Europe” - the idea that the European Union is a unifying paragon of social virtue, the very backbone of which the continents oh-so impeccable workers rights, environmental protection laws, human rights assurance, protection from cruel and unusual punishment, and social safety net are built on. These are the reasons why so many EU organisations can apparently without shame refer to themselves as “socialist”. They are also entirely false.

The European Union from it’s embryonic stage was based on the solidification of trade agreements and the free movement of capital and labour, dreamt up by the European Steel and Coal Community, large banks, and the European Economic Community. Of course, this meant “free movement” with the exception of competition from outside of Europe or from potential emerging markets in individual European countries.

Staying true to its neo-liberal foundations, the EU will soon be the bureaucratic basis through which TTIP is passed. Brought in secretly and swiftly by EU and American officials and hidden from the public eye, TTIP is a bi-lateral free trade deal between the EU and the US that would make it legal for corporations to bypass environmental regulation, not adhere to safety standards, open up national services to private penetration (including the NHS), loosen banking regulations, ease data-privacy laws, and even sue nation states. This is perhaps one of the biggest threats to working people in the Western world and no defense or alternative has been offered by pro-EU left.

Despite the EU’s claims that its foundations are assembled from the sincerest of non-aggression philosophies, it has consistently campaigned to encircle and develop an aggressive police against the Russian Federation. Forbye, Vladimir Putins support for the Brexit campaign has been thrown around as a trump card by the stay camp. Because of course in typical Western fashion, if Russia is for something, we simply have to be against it.

It has been the EU’s prerogative to develop and give rhetorical and diplomatic encouragement to far-right and overtly Nazi elements in Ukraine to take power through violence. These groups forcibly removed the president, banned the Russian language, alienated entire portions of the ethnically Russian population and referred to the ousted president Yunukovych as running a “Moscovite-Jewish Mafia”. This illegitimate government, riddled with ultra-nationalists and Christian fanatics are trying to pander to and eventually join the EU, an organisation supposedly built to prevent the rise of fascism.

On a purely democratic note, even if one saw the provocations against Russia as necessary, why should the EU decide for the UK what it’s foreign policy should be? Surely, it should be up to us to decide for ourselves whether we think overt aggression against one of the largest and most popular countries in the world; with a supreme military, is a good idea?

In regards to the economy and the democratic front, the European Union mandates the form our economy can take. It tells us what our fiscal policy should be, what our productive output has to be, how much we can import from other countries outside the EU, who can come in, who we can deport, what our levels of public spending can be, what we can tariff and so on. Not only has the EU forced wealthier countries like the UK to abide by its political and economic criteria. It has forced poorer European countries to accept crippling economic policies akin to the austerity policies in our own country.

Greece’s own anti-EU left party sold out it’s country against the wishes of it’s own people and continued to pay back the unjustly imposed debt through cutting public services, policies promoted by the EU Commission and Goldman Sachs, which have devastated the Greek economy. In Portugal, the anti-EU coalition of Socialist and Communist parties won the election, and the European commission, Central bank, and the IMF refused to even recognise the decision. This blatant rejection of democracy by monopoly capital is only made possible with a centralised European Union ran by and in the interests of finance capital and big business.

Yet somehow the movement which secures its historical appeal by it's critical stance of unaccountable authority and rule of private accumulation has stepped in as the guardian of this system. The fight to revive national industries, the loss of which devastated communities and working class power all over the country, will all be in vain if we don’t vote to leave. If we want to repair the damage done by Thatcherism which has enforced a neo-liberal project on all of Europe, it can only be done by breaking up the hold of monopoly power over the UK.

In contrast, the sun is only rising in the East. Countries like China, India, Brazil, and Vietnam that we cannot currently form trade-negotiations as we'd like to, will offer us far more opportunity than a “common market”. Rather than cut ourselves off from the developing world, we could leave the cage of Europe and open ourselves up to trade with the emerging economies of 100’s of millions strong, some of which are developing socialist countries. That’s the real internationalist position.

Given our loss of perspective on this issue, who in our stead has come baring the torch of sovereignty? The nationalist right – a phenomena arising all over Europe as a reaction to the weakness of libertarians, neo-conservatives, and the left alike to properly appeal to any working class sentiment.  Referring specifically to groups like UKIP, the National Front in France, Law and Justice in Poland, the Swedish Democrats, the NDP in Germany and so on. To our shame, we have allowed this movement to lead and subsequently become the face of the fight for a referendum on the European Union and against monopoly capital.

It is imperative that the left re-thinks its position on this matter. Not only for the sake of our historical reputation but because we risk our position as the defenders of the rights of ordinary people to be usurped by a much worse beast. The working people of Europe have felt the stranglehold of German finance capital via the EU and they are standing up, we should be the ones at the political forefront alongside them. We should revive the days when the left stood staunchly against all forms of unjustified authority and oligarchic rule.

As the late Tony Benn said in 2013: “The way that Europe has developed is that bankers and multi-national corporations have got very powerful positions and if you come in on their terms they will tell you what you can and cannot do and that is unacceptable”.

I am not hostile to people from other countries. I am as far away from UKIP and the nationalist right as can be. I am an internationalist. I believe in the eventual disintegration of borders and national identity entirely. I believe the people of the world are commonly united by one flag, shaded in a colour of the blood we all hold in common. I believe the 196 national banners in their infinite colours are falsehoods, lines in sand. That is a cause that I am unashamed to say I am a combatant in and I plan to believe in it for the rest of my life.

It's the same reason I believe that the fall of the USSR, the partition of Korea, the break up of Yugoslavia, and the break up of Czechoslovakia were ultimately negative. It’s the same reason why I was against Scotland leaving the UK in 2014. But I cannot believe in this EU, which puts the interests of money and power before all else and remains completely unaccountable and undemocratic. This is why I believe those on the left should vote to leave the EU when the referendum comes around.