Writer Neil McLeod offers his thoughts on the EU referendum
THE prospect of choosing sides in the EU referendum vote may seem as attractive a proposition and as important a life decision as a voting in the final of the X Factor for two very similar versions of a sickly power ballad sung by two equally unappealing ageing boy bands.
A rather saccharine Eurovision pop confection sung by 'Disco Dave' Cameron and a union flag waving anthem belted out by Boris (and probably penned by tax-dodging Tory lickspittle Gary Barlow), or perhaps the unwanted quandary of choosing which foot to have amputated, either decision leaving you unstable and limping.
This was largely my feeling until a few weeks ago and a campaign where facts and genuine debate were obscured by increasingly unseemly bouts of mudslinging and negativity from both sides did little to alter my ambivalence.
The EU is far from perfect and at some point in the future it will probably have to be dismantled or reformed beyond recognition in order to deliver true European democracy, but that project would have to be carried out multilaterally, in solidarity with other nations.
It was, as George Monbiot observed, "a contest of autocracies". There seemed little in the way of genuine, positive reasons to nail a colour to the mast for either side. But gradually, before the staggering new depths were plumbed by Farage and his Third Reich-echoing 'Breaking Point' poster campaign, it began to become clear that this really wasn’t a contest on which you could sit on the fence.
The Scottish independence referendum brought us plenty of fear and the EU campaign brought us another helping of that, on both sides, but it’s the Leave campaign's additional ingredients of hate and ignorance that inadvertently contributes to the case for Remain.
The EU is far from perfect and at some point in the future it will probably have to be dismantled or reformed beyond recognition in order to deliver true European democracy, but that project would have to be carried out multilaterally, in solidarity with other nations, not from the unilateral isolationist perspective of the Leave campaign.
This exit is being led by and dictated by Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Nigel Farage. Even if one accepts that the EU should be exited, it should not be exited stage right, headlong into a neo-liberal pantomime that’s no laughing matter and full of villains.
A Tory exit is one of xenophobia, public sector cuts, erosion of worker protection and an end to even tokenistic attempts to pursue tax dodgers. This isn’t fearmongering, just a repetition of the stated agenda of those leading the charge.
"Taking back control" is the mantra of Johnson and Gove. But taking back control for themselves and their ilk is their intention, not to take greater control for or on behalf of the masses.
"Taking back control" is the mantra of Johnson and Gove. But taking back control for themselves and their ilk is their intention, not to take greater control for or on behalf of the masses, nothing so dangerously democratic, just a calculated manipulation of a real and frustrated desire for democracy from a huge number of the English white working class who rightly feel disenfranchised.
But it wasn’t European Union bureaucracy that disenfranchised them. It’s not migrants and the EU that caused the shortage of housing, the death of the High Street, wage stagnation, job insecurity, NHS cuts; it was successive Tory and Labour administrations at Westminster. The anger directed at Brussels would more justifiably be aimed at London.
If those advocating 'taking back control' truly sought democratic control, would they really be content with a democracy where a party that 24 per cent of the electorate voted for formed a government with an unelected second chamber and a hereditary monarch as head of state?
No, but those supposedly radical 'Brexiteers' wouldn’t take aim at anything truly establishment. It’s not a real revolt. Real revolts aren’t led by old Etonians and backed by the Daily Mail.
It’s a largely imagined or at least exaggerated, clichéd view of dictatorial bureaucratic Europe that’s become the primary bete noire (you see, you struggle to even find an English word for it now – another EU conspiracy…) of every golf club bore epitomised by Ukip, whose arguments seem to be: "I don’t care if the EU helped provide my rights to paid holidays, a Polish builder built my house extension and a Lithuanian doctor carried out my hip replacement operation, I won’t have a Belgian telling me what shape a banana should be."
If those advocating 'taking back control' truly sought democratic control, would they really be content with a democracy where a party that 24 per cent of the electorate voted for formed a government with an unelected second chamber and a hereditary monarch as head of state?
Meanwhile, the voices on the left in favour of leaving seem dangerously naïve. Even in the case of veterans like Dennis Skinner who, while acknowledging that the EU may have played some useful role in assisting enshrining workers' rights into UK law, stated that now they were on the statute books it was mere scaremongering to suggest that even a Boris Johnson-led government would repeal them even if theoretically free to so do.
"They wouldn’t dare," he said. Really? In an age of austerity and a climate of attacks on the most vulnerable, a decline in union membership and orchestrated attacks on union power, Skinner doesn’t think that the most archly rightwing element of the Tories, already brutal and then emboldened by the referendum victory would take aim at pesky worker’s rights?
This epitomises a staggering lack of perspective and a hazy relationship with reality. It’s certainly fair to say that the EU, like its antecedents in the EEC and the Common Market, marches to the beat of capitalism and employment rights and social benefits are a compensatory by-product.
The EU treatment of Greece and the possibility of the united acceptance of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) show where the priorities lie, and undoubtedly as an organisation the EU would stifle any genuine socialist member government just as it took the edge off many of French President Francois Hollande’s most progressive manifesto promises in France.
"It is time for democratic governments to reclaim power from Brussels and begin again to represent the real interests of their peoples and move in a socialist direction," wrote Kelvin Hopkins Labour MP for Luton North in the Morning Star.
From a Scottish perspective, we have a socialist movement so weak it has yet to recover from the fallout of the Sheridan perjury trail. I’m pretty sure the existence or otherwise of a bureaucracy in Brussels is not what’s preventing a new red Clydeside.
It might sound like a very good idea in theory but I have yet to see any viable explanation of how this scenario would actually transpire. The idea that the EU as "the bosses" of Europe is the major impediment to the growth and success of socialist and progressive movements seems overly simplistic.
If the social and economic conditions for the growth of a popular socialist party existed in the UK it would not do so in isolation, it would be a pan-European situation and would only succeed with cross border solidarity that the EU could actually, albeit inadvertently, assist in conducting, not stalling.
From a Scottish perspective, we have a socialist movement so weak it has yet to recover from the fallout of the Sheridan perjury trail. I’m pretty sure the existence or otherwise of a bureaucracy in Brussels is not what’s preventing a new red Clydeside.
The prospect of EU acceptance of TTIP is a common argument from those on the left seeking an EU exit. Maybe, however we are best served by fighting that together with the three million who have already petitioned and marched against it in the EU. Already in isolation from the EU, the UK passed the Deregulation Act with little fanfare on 26 March 2015 which, like TTIP, can amend or circumvent other laws if they impair business growth.
Anything of environmental or societal worth is already threatened by this capitalist diktat. Since nation states first existed they have sought alliances. Not only is no man an island. No island is truly an island either. The chief Leave campaigners don’t really want sovereignty or to 'go it alone' economically.
Not only is no man an island. No island is truly an island either. The chief Leave campaigners don’t really want sovereignty or to 'go it alone' economically.
They want to tie the UK closer to the USA, and the North Atlantic Free Trade Association. They scapegoat immigrants and play the race card to instil a phony rebellion from those who want to 'take their country back' while all the time emboldening the elite who oversee the inequality that stops the country being 'theirs' anyway.
Clearly, a vote to Remain isn’t in itself progressive so isn’t as enticing as the Scottish independence vote. Nothing will change if we wake up on 24 June still in the EU. It’s just voting for the status quo so as not to weaken ourselves further for the battles still to come.
As Green MP Caroline Lucas stated: "It’s time to get real, hold your nose and forget about who is on your side."
There may be an unpleasant whiff from being on the same side of a fight as David Cameron but it’s nothing compared to the stench of the Johnson and Farage camp and the fetid, rotting future that their neo-liberal dystopia would bring.
Picture courtesy of Blondinrikard Fröberg
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