Brexit from the Left
It’s hard to say anything new about Brexit; over the last two and a half years it’s been hard to avoid the deluge of every possible shade of opinion. But there’s a particular aspect I’d like to address, that of support (or otherwise) for the EU from the left.
In the last ten years or so it seems like the opposition to EU
membership has been monopolized by the right, most notably UKIP. It
therefore seemed to come as a shock to some on both the centre-left and
centre-right when left-wingers like Jeremy Corbyn were lukewarm in their
support for continued EU membership. It shouldn’t be a surprise, though;
in the previous referendum for membership of the EC, the Conservative
and Liberal parties supported membership (though the Conservative
membership in particular was divided), while the Labour party did not
take an official position, having voted slightly against membership at
conference (a ⅔ majority would have been required to take an official
position either way). Within Labour, some of the most prominent
left-wingers, including Tony Benn and Michael Foot, opposed EC
membership.Of course, then as now, the right also opposed
membership, including the National Front and Enoch
Powell.
It’s only since the 1990s, with the Labour
right in ascendancy under Blair and Brown, that the ‘left’ became so
strongly associated with support for the EU. Of course, it’s not that
the left changed its position, but that the Overton
window moved sufficiently
to change the general perception of the ‘left’.
The problem now facing both the pro-EU and the anti-EU left is that their position, in each case, involves a tradeoff, but one which they attempt to resolve by denying rather than acknowledging. Supporters, for example, must draw attention to the positive aspects of the EU (the freedom of movement, the internationalist ideal) and overlook the economic policies that have done so much harm in Greece. (This is easier for the centre, of course, for whom free-market economic policies are not a significant flaw.)
I find myself much more sympathetic, in theory, to the socialist
critique of the EU. It was founded as the European Coal and Steel
Community in quite open pursuit of free-market goals, in the belief that
this would reduce conflict. While the goal of free movement of people is
an important one,And one from which I personally benefit quite
considerably in its current form.
there are valid
criticisms of its current implementation: namely, that increased freedom
within the EU comes hand-in-hand with increased restriction at its
border. Moreover, it has been this which the centre-left has been most
willing to compromise on—for the Labour right, internationalism means
using allusions to the International Brigades to advocate for bombing
Syria,
rather than providing a safe haven for the refugees created by that
bombing.
The remaining three of the ‘four freedoms’ of the EU are even harder to
defend from a left perspective. While there has been debate over the
extent to which EU membership would prevent the implementation of a
left-wing manifesto (for example, around nationalization of rail and
industry), there can be no doubt that in many cases they have been
interpreted in ways unfavourable to the left. For example, a Finnish
trade union, striking against a company’s threat to relocate from
Finland to Estonia in order to cut wages, was found to be violating the
company’s right to freedom of establishment;Case C-438/05 International Transport Workers’
Federation and Finnish Seamen’s Union v Viking Line ABP and OÜ Viking
Line Eesti [2007]
I-10779
according to a recent article in
Tribune, similar
issues have faced Norwegian unions, suggesting that membership of the
EEA would be no better.
And yet, I voted to remain in the EU, and if another referendum was
heldI don’t foresee this happening, however, and if it did,
it seems likely merely to galvanize the right—another thing that tends
to be hand-waved away by Europhile centrists in
particular.
I’d still vote to remain. Despite all
the genuine issues with the EU, the pro-Brexit left, supposedly good
Marxists, continually falls into the trap of thinking in terms of
abstract principles rather than concrete historical circumstances. The
EU, they have concluded, is Bad; therefore opposition to it is Good. All
it would take, according to this line of reasoning, is for the UK to
leave the EU and elect Jeremy Corbyn to establish a golden age of
socialist utopia. The relative strengths of right and left in the UK at
present are ignored; Labour’s chances in a general election, while not
negligible, are far from certain; indeed, it is not unreasonable to
think that leaving the EU will be perceived as a victory by, and further
embolden, the far right—as can be seen by the increase in hate crimes
immediately following the 2016
referendum.
Moreover, Labour’s own internal conflicts make it far from guaranteed
that a Corbyn-led government would be able to implement all the policies
favoured by the left of the party. Even if, by some miracle, the party
did unite behind Corbyn, McDonnell, and Abbott, it would then have to
face significant opposition within the country from those with vested
interests in the status quo (a point which should have been clear since
the
1970s,
if not before). And assuming these (very significant) issues could be
overcome, the UK would still have to address its role in the world as,
in the best-case scenario, the junior partner in a trading arrangement
with the EU or the US. In the worst case, it would mean WTO rules—and
once again, this is something the left should be well aware of the flaws
of.
Where does that leave us? While I share the goal of a socialist republic, and doubt very much that this would be possible within the framework of the EU, that does not mean that it’s any more possible outside of the EU at the current time; sometimes, things just aren’t possible under given circumstances. To a significant extent, the problems that faced the Soviet Union arose out of its isolation; in the absence or failure of the predicted pan-European socialist revolutions at the end of the First World War which would have provided allies and trading partners, it was forced to industrialize rapidly, becoming inward-looking, paranoid, and nationalistic. This is not to say that the desire for a socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 was misguided—but desirable is not the same as probable or even possible. The Russian left in 1917 was forced to make the decisions it did by the circumstances of the war; the British left, on the other hand, is significantly weaker than the Russian left was; nor is it in circumstances that force it to gamble. Support for Brexit by the left, in the current climate, is utopian, and any gains made by the left will be more likely due to luck than any positive impact that departure may have.
“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” — Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1852