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Remain and Regret
The Labour Party is risking a golden opportunity if it goes down the dead-end Remain road, argues PAUL O’CONNELL

WRITING in 1975, on the eve of the last big referendum on Britain’s relationship with the European Union (European Community as it then was), the great historian of the English working class EP Thompson noted that there were “some sillies” in the labour movement who did not understand the nature of the EC.

As such, they thought that joining would facilitate the advance of socialist and working-class interests. As Thompson astutely pointed out, joining the EC would do the exact opposite, and would put the capitalist class light years ahead of the working class.

Today, the political heirs of these “sillies” have won the day within the Labour Party, and Labour’s position on Brexit has shifted from working for the best form of Brexit, in line with the result of the 2016 referendum, to now effectively being a party of Remain. A party that will campaign for a second referendum, in which it will argue the virtues of remaining in and reforming the EU, to pursue radical, transformative and internationalist politics.

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