The vote for Brexit was in my view, an anti-globalisation vote. A vote against decision-making by invisible, unaccountable global markets in money, trade, property and labour. Unregulated markets, facilitated by mobile, cross-border capital flows that imposed painful economic changes on populations across the world, and did so at great speed. A global market in mobile capital that enables big global corporations to dodge taxes, and shift profits abroad.
Brexit was a vote against the impotence of the political class, both on the right and the left – who effectively shrugged their metaphorical shoulders when it came to costs of the Great Financial Crisis. Politicians who deflected attacks on the private banking sector and blamed the public sector for the crisis post 2010. Politicians like George Osborne and ex-Chancellor Alastair Darling who used ‘Project Fear’ to threaten the public with £30 billion of higher taxes and savage austerity if Brexit was supported.
But while the vote for Brexit gave expression to widespread public anger and frustration, it will not address the real threat to Britain’s living standards: globalisation. To challenge the globalised system will require international solidarity with like-minded activists wanting to transform the globalised system in both the EU and the US. It will require international partnerships, cooperation and coordination if society is to challenge the global financial system. Above all it will require solidarity with progressive activists like Yannis Varoufakis, who is campaigning for a transformation of the EU.
That’s why I support Another Europe.Why