How Britain will leave the EU/ Denis MacShane/ I.B. Tauris

Actually it’s more a ‘Why’ than a ‘How’. Glyn Ford writes that Denis believes there is an inevitability about Britain leaving the European Union (EU) neatly abbreviated as BREXIT. Its backstory is one of greedy bankers and cowardly politicians married to English history and geography all abetted by a culture of denial. In today’s EU Britain, along with Sweden, are the only Member States not to have suffered either occupation or dictatorship in the memory of their politicians. On that basis, there is a premium worth paying to guarantee peace and security.

Perhaps understandable in the case of the Brits, but certainly not true of those who were victims of either or both of Stalin’s or Hitler’s Empires or Franco’s Spain. Secondly we Brits retain the most absurd delusions of grandeur. In a world where Washington is trying to do deep and comprehensive trade deals with thirteen Asia Pacific countries with the Trans Pacific Partnership including Japan and simultaneously negotiate a similar deal with the EU, David Cameron and his gang thinks it’s time to sunder Britain from Europe and strike out on our own in the interests of promoting poorer social standards and having two million Brits repatriated from the Continent.

Yes, it’s more complex that that, but in essence while Industrial Capital in Britain relishes the EU with its Continental sized markets and companies like Airbus are up there with the best in the world, and Japanese carmakers like Honda, Nissan and Toyota are employing tens of thousands of British workers to produce cars in England for export into the EU and further abroad. We don’t have to wait for the referendum to see the toxic impact on investment Britain’s uncertain future in Europe is causing.

In contrast Financial Capital hates the EU with a vengeance. After all the EU threatened from the beginning to bring its rapacity under control and after the crash limited bankers’ bonuses and the imposed stricter controls on its workings. Interestingly, the big donors to Cameron’s Conservatives are the bankers and the hedge fund managers and not those who actually make anything. All hard to reverse but well-neigh impossible if you don’t try.

Tony Blair had his pro-European faith, but he just chose not to go to church. Apart from tearing up the social chapter opt-out immediately after Labour’s Election in 1997, allowing UK citizens to be covered by EU Anti-discrimination legislation amongst other things, he was strangely quiet bullied by Gordon Brown into accepting largely meaningless tests on the appropriateness of the Single Currency for Britain. Gordon was more Murdoch than Single Market thinking the Aussie’s endorsement could turn him from a dog-end Prime Minister to the real thing.

It’s why our own General Custer fought and lost the 2009 European Election with his troops forlornly handing out leaflets on Council Estates saying: “The Liberals are Soft on Drugs”. At least Ed has resisted the siren calls from inside the Party to commit political self-immolation by agreeing to a referendum over a changed relationship with Europe, which is exactly what the Labour and Trade Union Membership don’t want.

BREXIT suggested we just might be saved by a Miliband Government after May 7th. I’m not so sure. A Labour Government with 33-34% of the (un)popular vote will be assailed by the Press and a new Tory leadership gone from Euro-sceptic to Euro-phobic. While the SNP must see the opportunity of triggering a second Independence Referendum in Scotland if England votes to leave and Scotland to stay.

BREXIT may be followed by SENTRY as the UK disintegrates into irrelevance. The one thing that will do a lot to guarantee that is an All-Party No Campaign, which will have the excitement of last week’s football results and a fate worse than Scotland.

Glyn Ford is a former Labour Member of the European Parliament