Brexit: Hard or Soft - Poll

[littlebabyjesus]

can anyone explain what labours position on Brexit is these days?

Leave the single market and leave the customs union, but with none of the bad stuff.

 

[Andrew Hertford]

No, I'm saying that is what you are doing, or trying to do. You are trying to police the borders of what is politically possible, which is an incredible thing to do at a time when you have just been shown how porous they are and how none of your assumptions hold up to reality.

I’m basically on your side, but left wing governments being elected all over Europe isn’t likely to happen any time soon... if ever. And that’s not me ‘policing the borders of possibility’ (couldn’t you use that put-down about any argument?) nor is it merely an assumption, it’s just plain boring reality.

 

[ska invita]

Very interesting pro-hard brexit conversation with Costas L

he's got a new book coming out encouraging the left across the EU to support hard exit (no single market) - will get lots of translation supposedly
Book Detail | Polity

Lots of interesting points and insights, but that said there were numerous things in the interview i didn't agree with
-He said no one on the left thinks there should be a single market / clearly not true
-In the key Syrizan referendum he suggested the No vote was a vote to leave the Euro and EU - IIRC it wasn't, the voters wanted no austerity but still 2 to 1 wanted to stay in both - the contradiction at the heart of Syrizas problem.
-Talk of a 3 Tier EU suggested countries like Poland and Czech leaving the Euro, though neither is in it
-On the question of rising nationalism as a result of EU-exits he just brushed it away as not an issue, and not even nationalism
..probably more i don't remember now...

 

[billbond]

scifisamfeck
a tiny majority did vote leave, after all

ha You must have been in the same maths class as Abbott

 

[butchersapron]

Very interesting pro-hard brexit conversation with Costas L

he's got a new book coming out encouraging the left across the EU to support hard exit (no single market) - will get lots of translation supposedly
Book Detail | Polity

Lots of interesting points and insights, but that said there were numerous things in the interview i didn't agree with
-He said no one on the left thinks there should be a single market / clearly not true
-In the key Syrizan referendum he suggested the No vote was a vote to leave the Euro and EU - IIRC it wasn't, the voters wanted no austerity but still 2 to 1 wanted to stay in both - the contradiction at the heart of Syrizas problem.
-Talk of a 3 Tier EU suggested countries like Poland and Czech leaving the Euro, though neither is in it
-On the question of rising nationalism as a result of EU-exits he just brushed it away as not an issue, and not even nationalism
..probably more i don't remember now...

What did you find interesting about what he argued and how has it impacted on your thinking?

A few quick points that need clearing up: He said that he's shocked to see people on left supporting the single market or free trade because it violates socialist principles is utterly incoherent and childishly naive as to what this means - not that no one on the left supports it. And that this is tied in with wider UK left ignorance of what the EU actually is and does on the part of that same left.

On a multi-tier EU, this was his suggestion of a potential move by Germany to maintain current dominance by easing ongoing financial restrictions that are strangling south east and eastern europe - and that this would necessarily mean the death of the eurozone. That's all he mentioned as regards Poland and the Czech republic (both currently obliged to adopt the euro btw) and the euro. Bit of an odd criticism to make in the context of his wider point here.

He didn't say the referendum - which was a vote on approval or not of a germany/IMF/EU pro-austerity document - meant that Greece had voted to leave the EU or even the eurozone. Though, given the warnings that greek and EU politicians and capital handed out that voting against the document would mean exactly that - a forcible ejection from first the eurozone then the EU - it can be argued that it could be taken to mean just that. Lapavitsas says that the referendum became then a question of popular sovereignty, not of leaving the EU - though it could, of course, entail that at a later date.

He wasn't asked about 'rising nationalism' - the implication being that this is part and parcel of anti-eu politics rather than a result of EU austerity and neo-liberalism - he was posed a daft situation about there only being two choices for the left - pro-EUism or nationalism - which he correctly rebuffed by reference to popular sovereignty as the basis for a real socialist democracy which is impossible in the EU. And if popular sovereignty is by default nationalism and so all right thinking people then preferring a top-down non-democracy then that position is pre-putney debates. Sort of a pre-modern technocracy.*

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*The greatest ideological victory of neoliberals might very well be the idea that any attempt to break the encasing of markets in an oppressive global order is, regardless of conditions, a reactionary and conservative move. Seen that way, there is, indeed, no alternative.
Globalists vs. Internationalists, by Ayan Meer , New Politics