by

Exiting the EU by William Bowles

BREXIT Leave

Image by Rareclass via Flickr

by William Bowles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Investigating Imperialism, June 10, 2016
London, England
June 16, 2016

I haven’t written a single word about this non-event, precisely because it is a non event. It’s an artificially created argument, with the mainstream reasoning used on both sides, being equally fallacious. A gigantic deception played out with all the pomp and circumstance of a Royal Wedding and just about as empty.

Nevertheless, as pointless as I know it to be, as the result is pretty much a fait accomplis, I will be voting to leave the EU. And in any case, just like a recent referendum in Ireland that went the ‘wrong’ way, if ours too, goes the ‘wrong’ way then the State will just do it all over again until it gets the ‘right’ result.

Others have summed up the many reasons why, so I’ll leave it to them to explain. But here’s an apposite quote from one of the only two, yes two articles I’ve read on the subject which make any sense to me as a socialist:

In effect, the left-wing Remainers will have given the establishment (in particular the Tory party) a firm helping hand in supporting the EU, and though Michael Chessum and Owen Jones will cry out about how the EU needs to be reformed and challenged on its own terms, the dominant forces of parliamentary reaction will simply argue (correctly) that the majority of the political establishment and a large number of progressive campaigns from a number of distinct causes and sectors gave Britain’s post-referendum EU membership a resounding sign of approval. From that vantage point, Cameron and the right-wing media will simply be able to drown out calls for more radical EU reforms and gloat about how the Remain vote secures their position and augments their authority. With the corporate world, mainstream media, military, City of London, arms trade and the majority of the political Right and Centre supporting Remain, a vote for Leave isn’t just a vote against the neoliberal forces of the Troika: It is also a vote against our own ruling classes. — ‘Another Tamriel is Possible: Brexit Proposals vs Solutions’ by Elliot Murphy

Elsewhere, a less polite voice has spelt out the reasons that underpins the above:

While the European Union tries to “kettle” refugees in Turkey, turn them back to Libya before they reach international waters, struggles to reign in Italy and its navy which has committed the unpardonable sin, according to the EU, of upholding the law of the sea by insisting on rescuing people at risk on the sea, even where and when those people are of darker skin and a different religion than the EU finds admissible; while the European Union contorts and distorts its own refugee policy to deny safe haven to those fleeing barrel bombs, militias, armies, automatic weapons, air strikes waged, supplied, supported in part, by the very same countries that make up the EU; the big worry, apparently, for some socialists in the United Kingdom is that a majority of people in Great Britain might actually vote to leave this confederation of capitalists; this union of exploiters; this common market designed to flatten every particular impediment to the accumulation of capital. — ‘Little Ado About Something’ By S. Artesian

The so-called Leftie Remainers all appear to be suffering from some kind weird delusion about their capabilities to transform the EU but then this is a symptom of the disease that Lenin called Social Imperialism that I prefer to call straight-up opportunism.

Pretty much all the stuff I’ve read from Leftie Remainers about why to stay goes on about ‘uniting the progressive forces of the EU’ and forming some kind of transnational something or other. Talk about delusions of grandeur! And aside from Greece (where even when in government, the ‘Left’ made a complete hash of it and finally capitulated to the forces of Capital, and in the process, sold out the people who voted them in!), the rest, especially here in the UK, couldn’t organise a Garden Party, let alone transnational political movement. And all, as Elliot Murphy above points out, without explaining anything at all about how this state of Leftie Nirvana will be achieved.

So I think these two quotes make it perfectly clear why I will commit the fruitless exercise of voting on the 23 June, in the vain hope that enough people will see sense and tell the European ‘Union’ to, FUCK OFF! Well I can dream can’t I?

Opinions to the contrary are welcome, as long as they’re reasonably cogent and of course, intelligent.

see also:

Why Global Capital Fears ‘Brexit’ by Helena Norberg-Hodge, Rupert Read, Thomas Wallgren

Brexit Violence Deeply Rooted, With Lessons for U.S. by David Swanson

British socialists debate the EU referendum

Why socialists should support a British exit by Neil Davidson

from the archives:

Noam Chomsky and Yanis Varoufakis: The Neoliberalism Assault on the World

Andrew Gavin Marshall: Who Rules Europe?

The Greek Coup: Liquidity as a Weapon of Coercion by Ellen Brown + Greece is Not the Major Problem – Europe is by Siv O’Neall

12 thoughts on “Exiting the EU by William Bowles”

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    • Thanks for the links to these articles Lo. Helena N-Hodge and her colleagues pose significant and relevant questions. I’d say the argument for localism is a good one, but if you live in the UK, nowhere is more local than the EU.

      Really, what we are expected to vote for is a world order that puts corporate interests above indigenous realities. So either way it’s a sick fix. I am of the opinion that the most authentic path to a multi-polar world, is through a type of federated localism that respects territorial sovereignty, and refuses to cave in to international financial tyranny.

      “Leaving” Europe, will only postpone the inevitable ~ the eventual confrontation with hegemonic capitalism on the part of those who take their right to self-determination seriously. Whether this occurs first in Brussels/London, or in Wall St & Washington rather depends on this result in the UK.

      Whatever the outcome, those here in the UK who have irrational faith in the American neoliberal fantasia model of full-spectral control, are in for a rude awakening, when that candy-castle of seething corruption and debt finally disintegrates.

      • I agree with David Swanson’s concluding remark:

        “…So, the United States needs to re-federalize by de-concentrating power. It also needs to pull its nose out of every region of the earth other than North America. Britain could give the U.S. a helpful kick out the door by voting to stay in the EU and to declare independence instead from the U.S.A.”

  8. “I will commit the fruitless exercise of voting on the 23 June, in the vain hope that enough people will see sense and tell the European ‘Union’ to, FUCK OFF! ”
    Agreed……
    😉

  9. Well I’m sympathetic to William’s position, but I respectfully disagree ~ not because of the conjectured consequences, but because of the terms of the referendum itself, that are both misleading and divisive.

    To begin with, the EU is a lot more than the institutions that purport (& in some instances, presume) to govern its affairs; it is also about the populations of the member states and the deep heritage of their regions.

    We’ve heard all the usual arguments ad nauseam; but I think there is a strong case for solidarity to be made, born of an urgent need for reform ~ not just of the inefficient bureaucracy, but of the international order that governs the governors.

    We are at an unprecedented cusp in global affairs, that simply cannot be broached without taking into account the all-inclusive complexity of the international situation. Churchill as we all know envisaged a future US of E, and of course his mother being American, he had a certain loyalty to the American idea; moreover, he had already collaborated with FDR on the Atlantic Charter, to sketch out a viable post-war open society built upon a Western precedent of freedom and accountability.

    Turning our backs on the 500 million or so Europeans, who make up the constituency of the European area, will not help Britain. My view is we should be leading the reform movement, and the complete overhaul and redesign of how the EU is conceptualized.

    My own solution would be to implement a nested system of tiers, incorporating a combination of carefully evaluated, cultural, environmental and economic factors that would include bioregional and monetary realities.

    Our diversity should be our strength. The biggest problem in the world today is that those who wield the most influence, display the greatest lack of true knowledge; and only exercise a very limited, limiting and narrow understanding of the more complex and nuanced facts of evolving life ~ most especially in its biological and mutually interdependent emergence on all planes of being.

    As the the founder of the Transition Town initiative, Rob Hopkins has made abundantly clear, we are suffering from a crisis of imagination. The old reflexes will not serve us, we must think in an entirely new way about realities that are now so far removed from our predecessors’ experience.

    So I would suggest we need less same-old, same old-school politics and turn toward more pragmatic creativity; let’s heed the youthful generations, many of whom do not even bother with the superannuated nostalgic drivel of the their “elders and betters’ ” media saturated prejudices and tired logic; for very sound reasons….not the least of which is they see & engage the world very differently.

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