The UK referendum on membership of the European Union will take place on one day - June 23 - in voting booths across the UK, and with a certain number of postal votes from UK citizens abroad being counted.
But to understand the meaning and significance of the referendum, as well as to predict its likely effects, it is of course necessary to look at a longer time frame, and a wider geographical scope.
For those of us interested in battling for a fairer, more welcoming, more democratic Europe (whatever institutional form that may take), only by situating the referendum in a broader context than immediate and local political concerns can a durable strategy be developed. This is particularly the case where so much of the terms of debate (and indeed the options on the referendum paper itself) have been determined by conservative or reactionary forces.
