The truth is that whether we leave the EU with May’s deal, without a deal, or with a deal that looks more or less like the status quo (which must surely be the real meaning of phrases like “on the same terms as we have at present”) or with some other deal, or whether we just say, “I know, let’s just stay in, it was all a mistake, sorry”, socialists and anyone who thinks another world is possible will still have a fight on their hands.

Jeremy Corbyn said that one of the reasons we should stay was to preserve the workers’ rights gained in the EU. And, sure enough, those rights have often been better in other European countries than in the UK. I worked as an English teacher in France in the first half of the 1990s, and I was gobsmacked to find that, not only was there the right to join a union, you had the right for it to be recognised by the boss. If you wanted a staff representative you just had to ask. If you wanted a union rep, ditto. If you wanted a union rep (and at our language school there were just two union members out of a staff of about 35) an official from the union (in our case the CGT) would come and set up the operation. It meant that the boss was legally obliged to have annual pay negotiations with the union reps, among other obligations. None of this was perfect, but it was a good deal better than the situation in Thatcher’s Britain at that time. And French workers in their unions had fought for such rights well before the EU was even a twinkle in anybody’s eye.

But none of it was permanent either. Even before I left in 1995, there were rumours that these rights were under threat of being removed. One of my students said, “If they try that, there’ll be another revolution!” But Macron has made the most determined attempt so far to weaken and remove those rights. But even before Macron, in 2016, as Corbyn was saying we should remain in order to preserve workers’ rights, the government under Socialist Party president François Hollande was tear-gassing workers demonstrating against its own attack on their rights, an attack prompted from within the EU itself. I wrote in a blog in 2016 that

what was interesting in terms of Jeremy Corbyn’s argument was the claim by Danielle Simmonet from the Parti de Gauche (Party of the Left). She argued that the proposed law was not just a proposal by the French government. It was concocted by the government, the bosses – and the European Union. The proposed law is a “demand” of Brussels, she said, and a “deal” made with the European Union institutions themselves.[1]

So we can stay in to preserve human rights if we like, but they will not simply require preserving but vigorously defending, and probably will have to be fought for all over again. The same goes for all other rights, “standards”, etc.

If we leave the EU we will, for dead certain, have to fight to defend and extend our rights. The state will oppose us because it is a capitalist state, and thus not our friend. Even if we get a Corbyn-led government we will have to fight for change. John McDonnell spoke at a meeting in London recently and talked of “transforming the state”. He said this transformation would involve all of us in our unions, our communities, our pressure groups, etc., and in the Labour Party. The process needed to start now, he said, and it would be at least 10 years before we would see real progress (or as he put it, “two terms”). Of course, the state will resist any such transformation and we will have to hold a Labour government accountable and constantly keep it on track. It will be under enormous pressure to backtrack, abandon the transformation and return to “business as usual”. This will be the case in or out of the EU.

My main reasons for voting Remain in the 2016 referendum were about migration. I felt vindicated when it seemed that just the act of voting and getting their required result made so many people feel they then had the right to perpetrate racist attacks. It’s a small world and there can be no xenophobia or racism, no talk of “them” and “us”. We need to fight for free movement, which must be seen as benefiting both those who move and those who stay put and welcome the movers. A UK that bolts the door or pulls up the drawbridge against the antiquated figure of “the foreigner” will move further and further to the right. It will be going nowhere I want to go and nowhere I want to live. So I will probably vote Remain again if asked, despite the unfriendly – no, that’s too weak, think what they did to Greece – the vicious nature of what Yanis Varoufakis calls “Europe’s deep establishment”.[2]

[1] Defending workers’ rights against the EU: https://bobmouncerblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/12/defending-workers-rights-against-the-eu/

[2] Adults in the Room: my Battle with Europe’s Deep Establishment (2017), Vintage, London.