Try looking at Brexit another way - Phil Hall

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After making the less than intelligent decision to placate the right wing of the Conservative party by holding a referendum on Europe, perhaps the party, under Teresa May, will now also decide to organise a vote on whether or not to bring back hanging; the result of such a vote would be just as edifying.

But despite the misgivings of many socialists about the result of the EU referendum we should also remember that we are still living in the same relatively cosmopolitan, multicultural and tolerant society. Those who voted ‘Remain’ should temper their grief and anger. They should restrain themselves and stop accusing all 52% of people who voted ‘Leave’ of being racists. Yes, there were excellent reasons for staying in the European Union, but there are also good reasons for leaving.

Most of the younger generation are infuriated by the result. According to the BBC, 75% of people under the age of 25 voted ‘Remain’. Now, as a result of the vote to ‘Leave’ they will be stripped of the opportunities they might have had to study and work freely in Europe.

But we know that the free movement of labour in Europe also works against the interests of many Europeans. It leads to the exploitation of young migrant labour from poor EU countries and to the formation of pools of cheap labour in the richer countries. It was a conscious strategy of the Blair-Brown governments to use unregulated flows of migrant labour as part of their ‘anti-inflationary’ economic strategy: a strategy designed to bring down wage-lead inflation and make Britain ‘more competitive’. It worked.

Many young people were pressured by unemployment into moving country in search of work. London is full of Spaniards complaining about the weather and the cost of living, and wishing they were home. The beautiful, green countryside of Poland is depopulated. These are hardly achievements of the EU free labour market to be applauded.

The EU, for ideological reasons, has neglected and forbidden Keynesian strategies that might have fomented more regional development. While it was happy to go along with quantitative easing for the banks, it attacks governments for too much public spending, for providing ‘unfair’ subsidies to local industry, and it prohibits nationalisation: all policies which lead to jobs and dignified employment.
 
Those people who are inconsolable because for them the European Union is socially progressive and forward looking organisation should console themselves with the fact that the EU is not quite as they imagine it. The European Union follows neo-liberal economic orthodoxy. To quote the Morning Star editorial published on 23rd June, the day of the referendum:

‘A Labour government determined to take our railways and postal services back into public hands would soon run into trouble with the EU. Italy has been taken to court by the EU for trying to assist its steel industry. Greece’s government was humiliated and ministers elected specifically to carry out a left-wing programme were forced to implement the most extreme programme of privatisation and cuts anywhere on the continent. Acts of mass popular resistance, such as the millions-strong cross-border petition against TTIP, have been simply ruled out of order by the Commission.’

The strongest arguments for remaining in Europe are legal. According to one young law graduate:

‘Our Human rights act is a direct translation into domestic law of the European convention of human rights, the most sophisticated instrument to ensure human rights that exists. The Tory government tried to replace it with a damaging, new bill, but was stopped because we were tied to Europe. Nothing will stop the Conservatives now. Most workers’ rights in the UK are derived from European directives and many of them haven't been to the taste of the Tories. Under the conservative government, after Brexit, there will be few constraints on making fair and transparent work contracts or limiting hours worked. Our right to privacy will be increasingly violated as this government disregards EU legislation and becomes more and more obsessed with combating terrorism.’

And while this view is correct, it is one sided. The European Union is not only a promoter of human rights and the protection of workers, it is also a war-like, reactionary, and risk-taking organisation, in cahoots with NATO. It was Germany, shamefully, that initiated the dismantling of Yugoslavia by its support for Croatian nationalists: the same nationalists allied to it in WW2. Germany’s actions ultimately lead to the breakup of Yugoslavia and the first war in Europe since 1945.

The ‘progressive’ EU is cooperating closely with NATO: currently conducting military exercises in the Baltic so provocative that Vladimir Putin – and this is largely unreported in the western press - warned of the possibility of nuclear war. There are frightening echoes here of the Abel Archer ’83 incident, where a similar military exercises almost triggered general conflagration. This is deeply irresponsible. Countries like Poland and Romania are siting warheads on their territory; warheads which can just as easily be pointed at Russia - with the collaboration and approval of the EU.

Under the guise of combating oppressive governments in Iraq and Libya, EU governments have supported the USA in its wars for oil with disastrous consequences. The EU, with boycotts and covert and overt support, is currently helping the USA destabilise the Ukraine - its own frontier with The Russian Republic. These are not progressive or even sensible policies.

As individuals we will probably regret the loss of EU citizenship. Our lives will be poorer for it. Yes, we should regret the loss of the legal checks and balances on our reactionary establishment that membership provided. Yes, we should also deeply regret the loss of the idea of being a member of a peaceful and progressive community of nations.

But the idea was far from the reality. It was what many of us chose to believe and hoped, but it was not the case. Those of us who voted remain should face up to the fact that the EU is by no means completely benign. There are very good reasons for leaving it. Perhaps now that Britain is committed to Brexit we can examine those reasons for leaving objectively, without dismissing them, and then respond constructively to the plebiscite that David Cameron so unwisely organised. We can deal positively with what comes out of Pandora's Box.

In summary then, it may be easier for us to change political direction as a sovereign democratic country in alliance with other sovereign democratic countries, rather than as a part of a monolithic, aggressively neo-liberal, economic and political block. Certainly, Tony Benn would have agreed with that.

 In the story ‘James and The Giant Peach’ by Roald Dahl, James cannot see his way out of a difficult situation, but then and he remembers his parents saying to him. ‘Try looking at it another way.’ That’s what the socialists who voted remain should be doing now. They should try looking at Brexit in another way.