{"id":10642,"date":"2016-07-03T18:50:06","date_gmt":"2016-07-03T18:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=10642"},"modified":"2021-02-19T16:10:03","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T16:10:03","slug":"an-open-letter-to-lexiters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/03\/an-open-letter-to-lexiters\/","title":{"rendered":"AN OPEN LETTER TO LEXITERS"},"content":{"rendered":"

AN OPEN LETTER TO THOSE LEXITERS* OPPOSED TO A SECOND EU REFERENDUM, BUT TOO NERVOUS TO CALL A DEMO FOR A ‘FREE UK’ TO IMMEDIATELY BREAK WITH THE EU, WORRIED WHO MIGHT TURN UP!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"th-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear comrades,<\/p>\n

June 24th hasn’t quite panned out as you Lexiters claimed it would. All those workers “justified” in supporting Brexit have not followed up their crushing victory over Cameron by taking to the streets or striking against the Tories’ austerity drive; nor does a Jeremy Corbyn led Labour Party look particularly likely to replace the Tories in any immediate general election.
\n<\/p>\n

You put down that British chauvinism and overt racism in the EU referendum campaign to the leadership of the Tory Right and UKIP. But Johnston and Farage have gone. Yet, there is still a rising wave of hate crimes, which is not being organised by these forces. It represents a much deeper racism that you have been in denial about. Oh, and during your Lexit campaign you seem to have missed out on the fact the majority of people in Scotland and Northern Ireland were not wanting to be dragged down the Brexit road – we know where\u00a0walking backwards would take us!<\/p>\n

You are now worried about a new EU referendum, which given you got it so wrong about the last one is not surprising. I agree that the Left should not be calling for another EU referendum. Nor should it support the other\u00a0more\u00a0likely possibility. Referenda only have advisory status\u00a0under the UK constitution, so this one\u00a0could be set aside with a majority Westminster vote.\u00a0Such a move would certainly represent a salutary lesson for all those Brexiters, who were talking about bringing back power to the British people.\u00a0However it would only provide the Right populist and neo-fascist Brexiters with an even better opportunity to organise. Although, I would not\u00a0write off the possibility of certain Left groups forming a Red-Brown alliance in such a scenario, given their cheering on the ‘Red’\/Brown alliance in eastern Ukraine at the moment.<\/p>\n

Now that attacks on migrants and non-white UK residents\u00a0have greatly\u00a0increased\u00a0since the Brexit vote, I think it is imperative to highlight the exclusion of non-UK and Commonwealth\u00a0EU migrants from the EU referendum vote.\u00a016-18 year olds, who would suffer\u00a0the longest\u00a0effects of any Brexit, or follow-up compromise,\u00a0were also excluded.\u00a0Yet both these groups were given the vote in the Scottish independent referendum, so there is a clear precedent.\u00a0This also goes a\u00a0long way to highlight the political\u00a0difference between the two referenda campaigns<\/p>\n

The\u00a0two\u00a0main wings of\u00a0the Scottish independence campaign\u00a0(SNP and the non-official\u00a0campaigns such as the Radical Independence Campaign)\u00a0clearly supported\u00a0\u00a0‘Yes’\u00a0on a civic\u00a0national basis\u00a0(anybody living in Scotland who wants to be part of Scotland is welcome).\u00a0In contrast, the two\u00a0wings of the Brexit campaign, led\u00a0by Johnson and Farage\u00a0 (with the\u00a0support of the mainstream Remain unionist parties) clearly promoted an ethnic version of Britishness, excluding huge numbers of non-UK EU residents who wanted to remain. Their\u00a0refusal to extend the vote to 16-18 year olds is an\u00a0indication of their conservatism.<\/p>\n

However, the\u00a0Brexiters can not complain if a general election is held to decide on the way forward, where candidates can openly state where they stand. The Brexiters provided no programme for Brexit negotiations and sold their followers ‘a pig\u00a0in a\u00a0poke’ –\u00a0demonstrated by\u00a0their ditching any increased funding for the NHS within a day (shades of Cameron’s sudden support for ‘English Votes for English Laws’, straight after the Scottish independence vote).\u00a0\u00a0The SNP government had at least published an extensive\u00a0White Paper\u00a0<\/em>in 2014\u00a0(whatever we may think of its political\u00a0limitations)\u00a0to show the electorate what it was going to do\u00a0after any independence vote.<\/p>\n

The most\u00a0legitimate resolution, at present, is a general election, where parties put forward their programmes for the new political situation. I think the Left could create an independent political profile by saying that\u00a0we oppose the EU set-up too, but want to remain\u00a0united with migrant EU\u00a0workers and other non-UK subjects.<\/p>\n

During the Scottish independence campaign, RIC fought on the basis of ‘Another Scotland is Possible’, ‘Another Europe Is\u00a0Possible’, ‘Another World is Possible’, Now that the focus is on the EU\/Europe (two different things) we need to put forward a clearer idea about ‘Another Europe’ should be – i.e.\u00a0a federated, secular and social European Republic. This challenges the implicit politics of\u00a0the mainstream unionists – ‘Another UK is Possible’, ‘Another EU is perhaps Possible’, ‘Another World is\u00a0Impossible’, and to the reactionary Brexiters ‘ – ‘Back to 1972\/1956\/1939\/1914’\u00a0(take your choice), ‘Fuck\u00a0Europe’, ‘For a White Christian World’.<\/p>\n

What makes this ‘Another Europe is Possible’ \u00a0a possibility under the current political conditions? Some of us have argued for the latent reality of a European Democratic Revolution. The Scottish independence referendum and the Catalan\u00a0independence struggle have\u00a0already shown this.\u00a0 The vote of the Greek people to defy the EU bureaucracy was another indication of this. It is to the credit of RIC, in the context of its own contribution to the democratic revolution, that we recognised this. With the support of the STUC, we organised the biggest demo in the UK in solidarity with the Greek people.<\/p>\n

The EU bureaucracy’s hostility\u00a0towards \u00a0these\u00a0challenges shows\u00a0that they too were\u00a0aware of\u00a0this\u00a0possibility. Unfortunately the myopic ‘Brit Left’ can’t see this, but want to go back to either 1975 or 1945 on their British road to the past. The bureaucratic British Labour Party and the British revolutionary sects are caught in a time warp, reflected in their anti-democratic behaviour and organisational practice. In relation to these, Jeremy Corbyn must surely be having his eyes opened, but his loyalty to the UK state will likely prevent him drawing the necessary political conclusions.<\/p>\n

The Syriza leadership did not have the politics to address the situation in Greece, and it would have needed solidarity support on the scale of the 2003 anti-war protests to force the EU bureaucracy to back down. I would argue that the Podemos leadership is even less prepared, when it sees the way forward as forming a coalition government with the Spanish Socialist Party. The best that can be said about current conditions of political stalemate in Spain is that the ruling class there is being thwarted for now. This is similar to the situation in the UK now opened up by the majority Remain votes in Scotland and Northern Ireland in particular – but maybe we are also witnessing the People’s Republic \u00a0of London challenging the City of London’s unionist and imperial empire!<\/p>\n

It is the latent\u00a0reality\u00a0of a European\u00a0Democratic Revolution\u00a0which makes any Brexit so reactionary. It is as if, whilst workers\u00a0prepare\u00a0themselves\u00a0for a major\u00a0struggle against their bosses, you decide\u00a0not to join that struggle, but take your lead from those who say, “Hey\u00a0no, some sub-managers have offered us a way out by giving us employment in a new local\u00a0arms-length management unit.\u00a0Let’s\u00a0follow\u00a0them”!<\/p>\n

Another possible Europe\u00a0is already latently\u00a0present in all those migrant communities across the EU, in constant communication\u00a0with their original homelands. They should be very much a focus for the Left’s attentions in the current situation.<\/p>\n

It’s time for you Lexiters to realise you made a major mistake. We can oppose the EU, but only by fighting for another possible Europe alongside all those migrant workers who have contributed so much. They already represent the seeds of that new united Europe living in our midst.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yours in struggle,<\/strong><\/p>\n

Allan Armstrong, 3.7.16<\/strong><\/p>\n