Making the Leftist Case for Brexit

First-Person article published earlier today in the Leicester Mercury.

Xenophobes and racists were always going to vote to Leave the EU; so should you let this affect how you vote on Thursday? If, like many people, you are worried that a vote to Leave will provide a victory to racists and murderers then a more thoroughgoing examination of the track record of each of the main parties may be necessary.

All of the mainstream political parties are tarnished with toxic record of supporting cuts, austerity, and the needs of big business. And each of these parties are now attempting to use fear to guide our vote in the upcoming EU referendum. The official campaigns of UKIP, the Tories, the Lib Dems, and the Labour Party are all guilty of this.

Although in 2015 workers voted overwhelmingly to elect a democratically-minded individual as the leader of the Labour Party, this has tragically not altered the fundamentally right-wing nature of the rest of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Labour remains beholden to the interests of big business.

In fact, it is the entrenched Blairites who are driving support for the Labour Remain campaign.

In lieu of a principled Labour Leave position, the more vibrant and militant socialist-led trade unions, like the Bakers Union, RMT, ASLEF, and the largest public sector union in Northern Ireland, NIPSA, have had to carry the torch of Euroscepticism.

The deluge of misinformation on immigration is particularly virulent and problematic because, in recent decades, the Labour Party has done little to counter the racist lies spouting forth from the mainstream media, the Tories and UKIP.

Labour supporters may now be wringing their hands over the racist nature of the official Leave campaign, but the Parliamentary Labour Party has been instrumental in steering the debate in this direction. Moreover, Labour’s continued support for cuts and austerity has created a political vacuum on the left, which, unfortunately, we are now seeing filled out by the right.

What is needed is to build a clear socialist alternative to the austerity of the EU and of the mainstream political parties.

There are many good non-racist reasons for voting to Leave the EU, which is, without a doubt, an anti-democratic Employers’ Union that enforces the hopeless politics of austerity across Europe. It is after all the politics of austerity — that are so central to the EU project — that provides the fuel for racists and the far-right to grow in the first place.

So vote Leave on the 23rd and fight for a socialist, democratic future for Britain, for Europe, and for the entire world.