unless they can be told that decisions about immigration policy are going to be in the hands of the British electorate, like all decisions of major importance. The debate can then begin over what kind of immigration policy the Left should support, and whether (like the present system) it should in effect give priority to white Europeans over the older classes of immigrants in Britain, predominantly South Asian, who wish to unite families and move easily between Britain and South Asia. The Left should also appreciate that the traditional heart of modern left-wing politics, a planned welfare state, is rendered virtually impossible if Britain stays in the EU, since no one will have any idea of the population numbers in the UK even in the near future. This is an illustration of the way the free movement of people in the EU, as well as of goods and capital, almost necessarily entrenches markets rather than collective planning.
Many of my English friends on the Left reply to these arguments with despair: nothing can now be done to change the situation, the forces of globalisation are too strong, the political culture of Britain is too conservative. Membership of the EU offers shelter, despite its patent lack of democracy and its basic sympathy with capitalism. But this is to rationalise defeat. There have been times in living memory when the Left in Britain could assert itself successfully, but those were times when it understood the nature of Britain’s political structures and could use them. The lack of political possibilities perceived by so many people today is the result of quite specific decisions, above all to enter the EU, and I see no reason why reversing that decision would not open up real possibilities for the Left in Britain again.
Notes
6 Richard Tuck, ‘The Left Case for Brexit’, Dissent, 6 June 2016. 7 European Trade Union Confederation, Trade Unions and Free Movement of Workers in the European Union (April 2010), p. 5, https://www.etuc.org/sites/default/files/TURKISH_8_1.pdf.
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