Re: Brexit is not progressive

I don't know where to begin with this. I don't even know whether I want to continue this thread, since I scarcely understand your position. To me it seems bizarrely reactionary. I do not see at all why recognising that Zionism is racism or being an explicitly anti-Zionist party entails that the "historical role of British imperialism in the process is denied". It does not entail that in the slightest. On Europe, there is much to say. You write "To recognize that EU membership offers practical advantages is rational, even if it comes at the price of local democracy." Where to begin? When you talk of “local” democracy”, I don't suppose you can actually mean that the functions currently discharged by the EU could be devolved to local authorities. Such matters as minimum standards in safety, animal welfare, consumer protections, workers' rights, and so forth, not to mention trade agreements with other blocs, cannot be determined at the local level. To do this would create a chaos of tiny territorial fragments, each with its own trade barriers, creating massive trade friction and leading to very serious economic collapse. So by “local” I assume you mean “national”. I suppose that the left-wing argument for opposing transnational organisations is, at the most general level, something as follows: national identities are the most powerful collective identities that we have, and it is only on the national level that there is sufficient solidarity between individuals who otherwise are strangers to each other to enable transfers of wealth from rich to poor. Therefore, nations should be unhampered in their economic policies by transnational organisations, especially when the latter embody neoliberal ideology. Now, it is certainly the case that national identities are for many people the most important tribal identities they have. But I do wonder whether this is as true now as it used to be, particularly among the young. I think it is far more usual among the young to find multiple identities, and being “European” is one of those identities. For this reason, I wonder if the above argument rests on premises that are out of date. Solidarity between working people across the continent is not impossible. Right now, from Albania to Portugal, we are seeing popular uprisings representing both a revolt against neoliberalism and a revolt of the young against economic conditions imposed by the old for the latter's sole advantage. The task is the difficult one of translating these revolts into success at the ballot box. Ultimately, the Commission reflects the ideology of the elected national governments, and must bend to their will. But I want to make a further point. When it comes to membership of any political group, membership should not depend on the institutions of that group being ideal. It is enough if the benefits outweigh the advantages. We can accept that membership of the EU would be desirable whilst admitting that the institutions are not ideal and that they need reform; this is the position of many of the genuinely left wing parties in Europe, and it is perfectly respectable. But each decision must be taken in the light of the particular circumstances of the country concerned. Take Greece. You referred earlier to the sovereign debt crisis. This revealed that there was a lack of fiscal solidarity in Europe, which is a polite way of saying that northern Europeans were not prepared to pay more in taxes so that Greek grannies should avoid poverty. Should they have been? Absolutely. Should Greece have stuck to its guns and left the eurozone in order to avoid the terms imposed on it by the Commission, only agreeing to return if a more solidaristic financial structure had been put in place? Quite possibly, though this would not have been a pain-free option, and it is not for me to make that decision on the part of others. But each of these decisions must be made in the light of the individual country concerned and its particular situation. The balance of costs and advantages is different for a country like Britain. Britain is not facing a sovereign debt crisis, for example. The benefits we lost by leaving the EU were real and concrete; the supposed advantages are vague, abstract, and largely hypothetical. I remember that Tariq Ali, who I have a great deal of respect for, was one of the left-wing political figures at the time of the referendum calling for a Leave vote. His reasoning was that it would punish the EU for its treatment of Greece. I remember at the time thinking that the reasoning was clearly very dubious, since it depended on the result being interpreted as a judgement of the Commission's treatment of the Greek sovereign debt crisis, when in fact issues like immigration from eastern Europe played a far more prominent role in the Leave campaign. Greece was nowhere. I also remember John Pilger, after the vote, hailing it as a blow against neoliberalism. He was aware that immigration played a large part in the Leave campaign, but his reasoning was that immigration was also an effect of neoliberalism, and that therefore by voting to pull up the drawbridge Britons were indicating that they were fed up with the neoliberal system as a whole. Again, this relied on a dubious political interpretation of the vote. Certainly the vote can be taken as an effect of neoliberalism, in that years of austerity and neglect of working class communities (which the EU was not responsible for, but was entirely a product of the elected national government) caused voters to vote Leave as a way of kicking against the Establishment. The reasoning was something like: 'the establishment is our enemy, but they seem to love the EU; the friend of my enemy is my enemy; therefore, the EU is my enemy'. What this neglected was that there was a portion of the Establishment which also wanted to leave the EU because it wanted policy to be even more neoliberal. So I must come back to my original point. When Britain left the EU, my EU citizenship was taken from me, and taken against my wishes. With this EU citizenship came various rights and freedoms, many of which were instantly revoked, and others are now vulnerable to erasure in a way they would not be if we were in the EU. The economic consequences are now universally recognised to have been disastrous, and have enabled the right to turn working class resentment towards migrants. As an ecosocialist, I would argue that nothing in single market rules prevents the implementation of a fairly radical ecosocialist programme. Some things require workarounds, but nothing prevents a very significant reshaping of the economy so that it meets the needs of ordinary people. The housing crisis, for example, requires government action which is in no way contrary to EU rules. Similarly for the climate crisis, or any other crisis that we are facing. The challenge for those left wingers like Fazi who oppose EU membership is to explain how being outside the EU benefits working class people in Britain. All it has done so far is make them poorer.