Labour's Leader leads a rally to remain in the EU at Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, central London on May 14, 2016. Isabel Infantes/ Press Association. All rights reserved.
In 1975, a referendum was held on Britain’s membership of the European Union in which a substantial proportion of the left of the Labour Party, and of the labour movement more generally, voted in favour of withdrawal. Why? Because the EU’s institutional structures and trading arrangements favoured the interests of capital far more than they did the interests of labour. Rejecting Britain’s EU membership was therefore a clear-cut and correct class position for the left to take.
But is that same position correct today, more than four decades later? As the EU’s political and economic structures are still weighted in favour of business interests, it would seem that the answer has to be affirmative: rejection of Britain’s membership of the EU appears to represent a consistency of class principle. However, this consistency is only valid if complete abstraction is made from the seismic changes in the world order that have occurred since 1975. Factor these changes into the equation and what appears to be a consistent class position turns out to be anything but that in reality.
