The hallmark of the months leading to today’s EU referendum has been horrifying censorship. One can but hope that Noam Chomsky’s dictum that censorship is a “brand on the imagination” and that it affects those who have “suffered it forever” does not apply.
The British electorate has been treated to a fake debate about issues that mask some of the most critical issues of our time. And that’s even if the issues will not be addressed whoever wins in the early hours of Friday morning.
The Right wing case for Britain leaving the EU is as idealistic as it is bizarre. It arises from the complexities of EU-formation. The Right accurately remembers the elite liberal Left which wanted to impose fairness “from above” given their despair at electorates unwilling to fight for revolution. The Right is blinded by memory – of a misty past of speeches about “Euro-Communism” and “Social Democracy” by people who no longer matter. To the Right, all the “free market reforms” fostered by EU institutions are forgotten. Maybe, idealistic free marketeers look the other way because the results of the EU experiment are clear: free markets inevitably lead to corporate monopoly power crushing the will of the people. Free markets lead inexorably to concentrations of wealth and power. To inequality and – before the uptick – austerity.
The Left wing case for Britain remaining in the EU is not really Left wing at all. It is founded on atavism and pessimism about the…