Ten years of "actually existing Brexit"

June 23 marked the tenth anniversary of the referendum vote that took the UK out of the EU following a spectacularly dishonest campaign by the populist right and a pathetically inept official “Remain” campaign.

Shamefully, much of the UK left advocated voting “Leave”, but dressed up their capitulation to the populist right by claiming their pathetic efforts (sometimes pretending to be a campaign calling itself “Lexit”) offered options different from those coming from victory for the nationalist and often racist campaigns being run by the two main “Leave” outfits, one run by Dominic Cummings and the other by Nigel Farage.

The most craven and nationalist anti-EU left forces were the people gathered round the Communist Party of Britain and its mouthpiece, theMorning Star.

Xenophobic

For years before the referendum the Morning Star’s rhetoric against the EU had been virtually indistinguishable from the xenophobic language found in the Daily Mail, except it would insert the word “socialist” into its tirades.

To judge by the 23 June 2026 issue of the paper, they have learned nothing, even though the vast majority of working class Brits now recognise Brexit has been a disaster, and this includes even a majority of 2016 “Leave” voters.

An article by CPB general secretary Alex Gordon, headed — amazingly — “Brexit — Britain’s revolutionary act, 10 years on”, claims that even establishing closer ties with the EU (“dynamic alignment”) “prevents any British government nationalising rail, mail, utilities and essential public services, let alone practising ‘Manchesterism’ as espoused by Andy Burnham”.

This, of course, wilfully ignores the fact that the EU poses no insurmountable obstacles to public ownership or to an industrial policy involving state aid and does guarantee basic employment rights. And the possibility of EU-wide cross-border worker campaigns against EU bosses.

The little-Englanders of the CPB wilfully and repeatedly ignore the fact that there are state-owned rail companies operating across Europe including some with franchises in Britain. On state aid, there are “social clauses” that enable governments to support firms where there are special local needs. The EU is no more associated with austerity than post-Brexit Britain and it is simply untrue to claim that EU trade treaties would thwart public sector intervention in privatised services.

It is worth noting that while Corbyn was Labour leader they managed to maintain their image as a pretty much uncritical pro-Corbyn publication whilst in the small print opposing Corbyn’s one and only clear policy on Europe — to avoid a no-deal Brexit at all costs.

Paradise

Over the years since the implementation of Brexit, the paper has occasionally acknowledged reality and admitted that it has not brought about a workers’ paradise in the UK, but explains this as the result of it being implemented by the Tories — as though they hadn’t noticed who was in government in 2016.

But they cannot be allowed to get away with this: the truth is that the paper supported Boris Johnson’s withdrawal bill, stating (editorial, 21 October 2019): “this government… has, against the expectations and manifest hopes of all those parliamentary renegades who have repeatedly found ways to subvert the popular will, reached agreement with the European Union. This is the actually existing Brexit. There is no going back.”

The paper also printed the CPB’s statement: “The Communist Party of Britain urges MPs to support the swift passage of the new EU Withdrawal Bill which is due to have its Second Reading vote later today (October 22).”

But it was the logical continuation of their long-standing anti-EU nationalism, and their truly wretched and politically dishonest stance around the 2016 referendum: a shameful betrayal of working class internationalism that the Morning Star continues (literally) to this day.

These little-England “socialists” don’t seem to realise something obvious: that socialism requires breaking down international borders rather than building higher barriers between workers.