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"What we now need is a socialist Brexit." Yes, and what the jumper from the Golden Gate Bridge needed was the suspension of the laws of gravity. Unfortunately for both the jumper and the "Lexiteers", I'm not sure which is less likely. A lot of things can be said and a lot denied about the Brexit vote. One thing that cannot be denied with any degree of truth is that it was a right wing, anti-immigrant vote. Sure, some - maybe most - of the workers who voted for Brexit may not have been chauvinists, but every single interview I saw of Brexit voters, including some pro-Brexit interviews, showed the workers as saying that first and foremost the reason they voted for Brexit was immigration. The entire Brexit vote was predicated on the idea that workers would be better off under the rule of British capitalism vs. European capitalism. This means that British workers should ally themselves with with the British capitalist class. Inevitably, this means at the cost of allying itself with the European working class. Unfortunately, the anti-Brexit campaign limited itself in this sense: It wasn't enough to campaign *against *Brexit; it was and is necessary to link that with a campaign *for* something. That "something" was and is pan-European working class unity and a pan-European campaign for a region-wide minimum wage, region-wide minimum social safety net, etc. The Brexit vote makes that all the more difficult. As far as the issue of the EU enforcing austerity: We should remember Marx's comment that law represents established fact. So do the EU mandates, and the established fact is that EU mandates or not, global capitalism requires national austerity. Show me one single capitalist government - EU member or not - that is not enforcing this sort of austerity. The "left" can comfort itself with "Lexit" all it likes. It remains nothing but a nice fairy tale which was and is preordained to come into existence as much as is the tale of Cinderella. John Reimann _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
