Monday 18 May 2015

Red Flag, Yellow Stars?

There seems to be an assumption among middle-aged commentators that Labour must necessarily line up on the side of staying in the EU in any referendum that might somehow ever come to pass, and that the young would be very heavily of that mind, too.

But the young's formative experience of the EU has been that of watching the Eurozone fall apart, with everything that that has entailed.

The two liveliest and most youthful tendencies within the Labour Party are the resurgent post-2008 Left and Blue Labour. I know them both well, and there is very little enthusiasm in either of them at least for any EU that actually exists or is ever likely to.

The referendum would be on whatever "renegotiation" had been secured by David Cameron. Which aspect of that would be likely to appeal to Labour voters, members, MPs, or sources of funding? And why?

If the only other option on the ballot paper were withdrawal, then withdrawal it would be.

No international body is a matter of first principle for any British political party. Not NATO. Not the UN. Not even the Commonwealth, which is over-sentimentalised, as any erstwhile British Minister who has ever had to deal with, especially, Australian counterparts has known for the last 100 years.

And certainly not the EU.

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