The Liberal elite The EU’s useful idiots

Ah, the liberal elites, still churning out those Brexit memes – like the one up there on the left. But hey, don’t fret, it’s “fixed” now.

Who are you people?

I can’t help but ponder, who are these folks? When I stumble upon these images in the vast expanse of social media, it leaves me genuinely curious about their identities and their political compass. Do they even know which direction they’re pointing their moral compass?

There’s a certain irony in play here – one moment, they’re sharing a meme of Mick Lynch or a video of Eddie Dempsey eloquently championing the working class struggle and speaking truth to power. The next moment, they’re unleashing a barrage of labels, branding anyone who voted to leave the EU as a right-wing fascist.

These characters have infiltrated left-wing groups and forums, pretending to be the flag-bearers of socialism and workers’ rights. Yet, in reality, they seem to have a soft spot for centrism – that ideology that worships at the altar of the free market, where profit reigns supreme, often at the expense of the working class.

Now The “Lefties for remain” brigade, the centrist Remainers who it appears, have an abundance of ignorance that rivals the size of their condescending attitudes. They display little to no understanding of the EU or the history of the Labour movement. A movement that, by the way, has a long and storied tradition of opposing the EU and its predecessors, dating back to luminaries like Nye Beavan, Clement Attlee, Tony Benn, Michael Foot, Jeremy Corbyn, and the list goes on.

Of course, crafting memes is easier than nuanced analysis. But simplistic caricatures won’t build solidarity or bridge divides. However satisfying it may feel to score rhetorical points, there are real economic grievances driving anti-establishment votes like Brexit. If we ignore those in favour of lazy stereotypes, genuine solutions will remain elusive.

In the realm of Brexit and the left, it seems some are not just missing the forest for the trees – they’ve taken a detour into a political wilderness of their own making.

Nye Bevan: A political malaise following upon the failure of Socialists to use the sovereign power of their parliaments to plan their economic life

Ah, those wayward liberals, these centrist Remainers who tirelessly championed a second referendum and the grand idea of rejoining the EU for a solid seven years. A policy so spectacularly ill-fated that it managed to obliterate the Lib Dems and serve as the backdrop to Labour’s cataclysmic defeat in the 2019 general election.

A defeat that chucked the proverbial baby out with the bathwater in the form of Jeremy Corbyn.

I feel for them in a way, these children of Blair, their confusion evident in all they say and all they do.

They have nowhere to go, they killed their natural political home with the Lib Dems. with their dull-witted slogan Bollox to Brexit. Real Socialists and Workers’ Parties won’t entertain them.

And oh, the irony! Sir Keir Starmer, the grand Remainer himself and the mastermind behind the vote-losing second referendum that played a starring role in Labour’s 2019 electoral debacle, has cast them aside.

Even he grasps the magnitude of the wreckage he wrought on the Labour movement in his zealous quest to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. The damage he did to the Labour movement in his pursuit to undermine Jeremy Corbyn cannot be fixed. The backing of ‘Rejoin’ would sink the ship just that bit faster.

Maybe the remainers should create their own little Party, after all, they have done such a good job at destroying others…

The Left-wing Remainers are Neoliberalism’s useful idiots.

These people wanted to overthrow a strongly working-class revolt against neoliberalism and to keep the UK beholden to Brussels’ rotten capitalistic rules.

If they thought they were Revolutionaries then they were counter-revolutionaries. If they thought they were Socialists? Then they were capitalism’s useful idiots.

Pro working-class? Hardly they worked to overthrow millions of working-class votes and try to ensure that the British working classes, and the rest of the UK, remain subservient to ruthless EU neoliberalism.

These centrist Remainers claimed they want to overthrow capitalism and yet as soon as millions of ordinary Brits demand a break from the globalist EU they’re weeping into their almond-milk macchiatos. ‘Is this fascism?!’, they cry when the people of Britain raise their voices against EU neoliberalism, bourgeois buffoons that they are.

Know your subject…

The EU’s commitment to capitalism is absolute, but worst there is no manoeuvring in its treaties that monopoly capitalism is most prevalent when it comes to public ownership. The very reason why we are suffering this present energy and cost of living crisis.

The truth that should endure is this: a social Europe was never a fundamental component of the European Union’s super-state vision. It seems almost incompatible.

Throughout its history, the EU has hitched its wagon firmly to the “free trade” locomotive, embracing principles such as unrestricted movement of capital, corporate austerity, adaptable labour markets, reduced wages, privatisation of public services, and the dismantling of welfare states. These policies weren’t arbitrary choices but rather meticulously crafted by ardent ‘free-market’ enthusiasts.

It was the deepening and integration of the EU project that allowed unelected policymakers, driven by the powerful EU corporate lobby, to circumvent and eradicate the social rights that were won by workers in the aftermath of World War Two. Creating democratic deficits in all the EU institutions and policy-making by unaccountable technocrats enabled and accelerated this process of dismantling rights.

This arrangement ensured the neoliberal Holy Trinity of public spending cuts, privatisation and the removal of trade union rights could be enforced with little contestation.  

As the late Tony Benn once pointed out: “The EU has the only constitution in the world committed to capitalism … it destroys the prospect of socialism anywhere in Europe, making capitalism a constitutional requirement of that set-up.”

Centrists have done well to falsely create the argument this is a ‘Tory Brexit’, while completely ignoring that the Tory Party have since 1973 been the Party of the EU. The Tories had more skin in the game to remain than any other UK political Party, they took us into the Common Market and the EU while socialist and Labour stalwarts from Tony Benn to Jeremy Corbyn opposed both treaties.

Truth is, the Tories were ardent Europhiles until recently, having led us blindly into the common market back in the hazy 70s. Yet Labour lefties like Tony Benn were already warning it would castrate socialism and entrench free market madness. If only Corbyn’s crew had listened to his prophetic speeches!

Of course, the powers-that-be don’t want you thinking about that. Far easier to pretend it’s those nasty Tories who snatched EU membership away, rather than a coalition of unions and old school socialists.

Funny how the biggest worker advocates like the RMT and Baker’s Union backed Brexit eh? Not quite the right-wing coup Remainers would have you believe. Though I guess announcing “Capitalism Forever” doesn’t play well with the leftie crowd!

And let’s dispel the myth that employment laws trace back to Brussels beneficence. We have the trade unions and labour movement to thank for every right and protection workers enjoy in this country. The EU was simply jumping on a moving bandwagon.

But that doesn’t fit the script, does it? Far better to pretend the Tories alone schemed to rob us of our socialist paradise in Europe! Then centrists don’t have to admit their one-size-fits-all capitalism is the true enemy of worker solidarity. What delicious hypocrisy.

The truth is that these centrist Remainers have far more in common with the Tories than those on the Left of the Labour movement. They skip the fact that the Tory Party, in general, campaigned vigorously to remain in the EU spending millions in public money to enforce a message of remain.

On workers’ rights, there has never been any argument remaining in the EU to protect our rights. It’s always been a myth that the EU has won workers’ rights and protections for workers.

Nearly all the laws that protect employment rights, social rights, women’s rights and racial equality in Britain are UK laws which have been won by the struggles and campaigns of the British trade union and Labour movement.

This was a populist vote against the EU by a majority of the UK.

Many on the LeFT were stunned that Leave won the vote! Especially when you consider the establishment’s backing of remain was unprecedented. the amount of money spent, trying to convince the people to remain, equated to an eye-watering £9.3 million in public money, spent on leaflets that only spelt out the pros of remaining in the EU. Ironically the webpage still exists titled ‘. ‘Why the Government believes that voting to remain in the European Union is the best decision for the UK‘.

The establishment support to remain was unprecedented, but not unexpected, after all, the EU was and always had been a Tory project. The Tories never ever wanted to leave, let alone be the party to take the UK out of the EU. No wonder Camron resigned the following day after edging all his bets on Remain.

In the same frame, no wonder, the Labour Party PLP carried out their so-called Chicken coup on Jeremy Corbyn less than three days later. Corbyn at the time was the only competent political leader with enough knowledge of the EU.  He had been a lifelong Eurosceptic.  He had made many of the arguments for Lexit in his four decades as a politician his ability to articulate those arguments would have meant a very different Brexit.

Denying democracy.

The words of Labour legends like Michael Foot ring truer than ever – the working man fought for the vote not just for the joy of marking a ballot, but to create real change!

What use is electing a government if it remains shackled to distant bureaucrats in Brussels? Voting out the UK administration does nothing when true power lies with the EU aristocracy.

Foot was right – sovereignty and accountability to the people are what’s at stake. The UK is a democracy, and authority should rest with those who lend their votes, not some foreign technocracy.

Tony Benn recognized the EU’s antidemocratic nature too. Unlike the UK system where leaders must bend to the electorate’s wishes, Brussels doesn’t have to listen to member states.

Yet during the referendum, 25 of 30 Conservative cabinet members campaigned for Remain, never expecting the country would dare defy the establishment and break free of Brussels. Some Tory rebellion!

In truth, this was a cross-party decision – 5 million Labour voters and 61% of Labour constituencies chose Leave. But don’t expect the Blairite centrists to admit that.

They’d rather peddle myths of a “Tory Brexit” than acknowledge workers used their democratic rights against an elitist EU. Europhiles just can’t accept that power should lie with the people, not the bosses in Belgium.

Now real accountability is restored. The politicians we elect must answer to their voters rather than dancing to Brussels’ tune.

I wonder how the ardent EU fans will spin this at the next election, when they plead for the votes of the same Leave supporters they mocked? They may find themselves abandoned as they abandoned the working class.

In the end, it’s simple – the British people spoke, and chose to regain control rather than bowing to a distant authority. Perhaps the centrists should listen, instead of trying to overturn a democratic decision that makes them uncomfortable.