Brexit is the bed the EU made, now it must lie in it

For the colonial peoples of the world, Europe has for centuries been viewed as a parasitic nation-state project predicated on the subjugation of Third World peoples. It should not surprise anyone, then, that few in the Global South had much to say about the Brexit vote on June 23rd. The vote to exit the European Union has shaken the ruling capitalist system, if only momentarily. A dead-end narrative has been shoved down the throats of viewers of the US and Western media that praises the EU as a force of progress and Brexit as a force of regression. The right wing has been the scapegoat of this narrative. However, the right wing has made immigrants the scapegoat of anti-EU sentiments. This has taken attention away from how the roots of Brexit lie in the EU itself.

What led to Brexit? Europe developed from the spoils of colonialism. Colonialism has always required a heavy dose of xenophobia and racism to justify external conquest. For millions of people in the UK, the slogan “take Britain back” is a demand to assure that the privileges gained during the colonial era remain firmly in the hands of the colonizers. Many white Britons wrongly believe that immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa are to blame for the deteriorating social and economic conditions inside of the UK. The Independence Party, for example, has made xenophobia a critical part of the Brexit platform.

However, xenophobia alone cannot explain why so many voted to exit the European Union, nor does it give proper context for why thousands of immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa have ended up in the UK in the first place. For one, the notion that the EU has ever been an institution of progress must be completely shed. European capitalism has been mired in crisis for decades. The crisis has only intensified following the financial collapse of 2008. The EU’s remedy for the crisis has been to impose brutal austerity on the workers in order to bail out the banks.

In the UK, the ruling Conservative Party has recently announced plans to cut the national budget by the amount of 6 billion USD (4 billion pounds). The cuts include an education “shake up” and a severe reduction in disability benefits. Since 2010, the UK has eliminated nearly a half million public sector jobs. Real wages have not recovered to 2007 standards and remain depressed. Nearly half of renters in the UK now believe they will never own a home, and 70 percent report not being able to own a home without help from family.

The IMF, European Commission, and the European Central Bank, otherwise known as the “Troika” have universalized austerity and privatization throughout Europe. In a recent study, it was found that austerity has reduced health and education expenditures dramatically across the continent. The suicide rate increased in Greece by 45 percent from 2007–2011. Newborn deaths rose by 43 percent over the same period. Yet when the people of Greece voted “no” to the most recent bailout, the newly elected Syriza government defied the vote under the immense pressure placed on Greece from ”Troika” lenders.

The case of Greece has exposed the EU as the instrument of finance capital that it is. In Ireland, Spain, and Portugal, the economic conditions for the working class mirror Greece. Austerity is the EU’s legacy. So it should come as no surprise that a multitude of forces, including the right wing, have targeted the EU for its woes. The EU made the bed for Brexit and now must lie in it.

The ruling class is on the side of “Remain” because the EU is critical to the accumulation of finance capitalist profit. Advocates for “Remain” have attempted to sanitize the EU’s true character by blaming the right wing. The right wing has answered back by targeting immigrants. Yet contrary to what “Remain” advocates say, the EU was never the reason why European countries once possessed higher living standards. Workers themselves forced much of Europe to provide universal healthcare and education as well high union density rates, not the EU.

As for the right, the Independence Party has used white fear of immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa to energize its supporters for the Brexit vote. Yet it was the EU that created the conditions for the right wing to thrive and destroyed other nations by way of NATO to fuel the largest refugee crisis in world history. All but five EU countries participate in NATO. The NATO destruction of Iraq, Libya, and Syria (to name a few) has forced hundreds of thousands of people to search for a new home in the Western world. Advocates for “remain” declared a state of emergency after Brexit, but failed to mention that EU policies abroad have already has ruined the lives of millions of people in the Middle East and North Africa.

Brexit is a non-binding referendum, so the loosening of the grip of finance capital over Europe will take more than a vote. It will take the reconciliation of the contradictions between the forces that pushed Brexit. The left oriented forces must build a political party of the working class powerful enough to make the EU ungovernable. The right-wing forces must be isolated and marginalized, as there is no place in a victorious working class movement for white supremacy. Brexit has sped up the inevitable crisis of European and global capitalism. It is what the exploited masses do with it that will be decisive.

Danny Haiphong is an activist and radical journalist in the Boston Area. This article first appeared in American Herald Tribune.