What's been fascinating is the way that a false dichotomy, a spurious polarisation, into Leavers and Remainers is still going on 7 years after the vote. Rather than reject that model, people are continuing to see themselves and others in terms of it, to the extent that some people are even travelling from one identity to the other.
We didn't in fact have a debate on the merits or otherwise of the EU. What we actually had were a number of overlapping proxy debates.
Look at the two campaigns. Leave led by Farage and Johnson. Remain by Cameron and the CBI. This was not a choice that was in any way what it was sold as; then or now.
We had a war between the neoliberal and neoconservative tendencies in the Tory party (and in the ruling elite). These tendencies do not map simply into two factions, but are carried by degree in each and every Tory, and now also in the Labour leadership. That was a race I had no horse in. And it isn't over.
We had a moral panic on immigration. The Labour leadership has also bought into that, and on the wrong side. This debate was complicated by the neoliberal side of Cameron and the CBI, far from being concerned about rights for workers, they were motivated by
factor mobility and
labour arbitrage.
We were asked by some to vote in favour of remaining in the EU on the basis of a description of the EU that really doesn't match the reality. It is not the great protector of migrants, it is not the champion of the workers, nor is it even a bulwark against the far right, as just a glance at the far right in EU countries will show you. For me to be actively in favour of the EU would require a level of cognitive dissonance I don't think I could maintain.
I think it's worth saying that the project that some people think they signed up to - a Europe of cooperation, of solidarity, of mutual aid, of democratic institutions we can all be part of, etc - is a good and worthwhile project. It's just that the EU has demonstrated that it isn't it.
I've always favoured a closely linked Europe of solidarity between peoples.
The EU has shown, in its treatment of Greece, that it is not the institution to deliver that. It is instead a bankers', bureaucrats' and technocrats' tyranny that can overturn the democratically expressed wishes of any member state it feels deserves to be humiliated for daring to question the austerity consensus. In or out we get austerity, and "remain" austerity has demonstrated it's no friendly affair.
The EU has shown, in its treatment of migrants, that it is not the welcoming place it paints itself. The razor wire, the grubby deals to deport Syrian refugees from Greece, the German and Danish border controls, the Calais "jungle". That is all happening within the EU.
The EU is a neoliberal project. The Lisbon Treaty of 2007, which we were led into by Gordon Brown, is a codification of neoliberal principles. Far from being about protecting workers' rights, it is about protecting the interests of the business elites. It is a prospectus for privatisation and deregulation, for eroding public health services and free education, and for decimating pension provision.
None of that looks like evidence of solidarity between peoples to me.
I did not feel engaged with the EU referendum. Neither side seemed worthy of my energy. When I voted Remain, it was with no enthusiasm, and it was a last-minute decision. In the end, it was a reaction against the xenophobic tenor of the Leave campaign, specifically and particularly the queue poster. It was a visceral reaction. And certainly no identity stance. I was no heart-and-soul Remainer: I cannot bring myself to feel any love for the institutions of the EU.
In or out we are ruled by the same ideology. Call it Labour or Tory. In or out the neoconservative versus neoliberal power struggle would still play out. Leave was not a victory for being out of the EU alone and in itself. It did not happen in a vacuum. It happened along with a tip in the balance towards neoconservativism. But don't for a moment imagine that a win for Remain would have spared us that. Because actually it wasn't about leaving the EU anyway. As a simple glance at the details of the campaign itself should have informed you.
