Finding and Making a Positive Case

 (This was my positive case for voting Remain in the UK European Referendum and for Scotland In Europe: first published on Kiltr 3 months ago)

I'm not one for reductive reasoning or the oversimplification of a meme or Facebook post; it's not that I don't think they have their place, a day job(s) whiich utilises a grounding in design as well as the semiotics of cultural anthropology means I appreciate the manipulation of signs and symbols to convey meaning just as much as the next person. Its just I know they are so often not the fait accomplit they are presented as in a contemporary context, through an Internet meme, job done, argument won etc, I prefer the nuance of full and positive debate. So, just like the wee graphic above, this is as close as I can get to making a 'positive case' for a 'Remain' vote in the EU referendum on June 23rd and what I think it means for Scotland, without resorting to any of the most obvious arguments being made by either official camp - or repeating myself from previous posts or comments, I'm aware enough of my tendency to 'waffle on a bit much' for everyone's taste, its stylistic, a rhetorical device, honest!

We don't get to hear the positive case for either side of the EU referendum debate much in the UK corporate media, it simply doesn't suit the prevailing narrative. It doesn't fit the trajectory of either official camp's manufacturing of consent for their future plans, its not the news where they think you should be!

That's why there has been precious little coverage in the UK press of the 'Another Europe Is Possible' campaign or the DiEM25 movement generally, despite the potential to provide a cohesion for the positive case to 'Remain'. That's why the 'masterpiece in stating the positive case' of a speech given by Yanis Varoufakis in support of the London Declaration and 'Another Europe Is Possible' (you can sign the Declaration here http://www.anothereurope.org/declaration/ ), was barely mentioned anywhere. Here it is, in full, I think it matters:

Likewise you would have heard little in the UK media with regard to the launch of the group 'Economists for Rational Economic Policies' 'Remain for Change' report, despite a general appeal in virtually every debate attended by the British public, for facts, figures and alternatives to the spurious churning out of opposing and manipulable, and therefore often easily discredited statistics by both official camps. You can download the report here, http://www.primeeconomics.org/erep/ , I think it matters too.

It matters if, like me, you've found the entire Conservative Party leadership referendum debate entirely facile, farcical and infantilising, with neither of the official campaigns, ably assisted by a compliant state broadcaster and corporate media, finding it within themselves to rise above the petty mud slinging politics associated with the Westminster and Old Etonian debating society cartels, for little else primarily than the refreshing experience of hearing a genuine positive case for either side put. It is not a novel or even telling observation in political, cultural or simple sociological terms that it has become clear, across the corporatocracy of the neocon project, that an integral aspect of its trajectory is maintained by the process of continuing to manufacture consent through disenfranchising huge swathes of the polity simply by creating a politics which disengages them from its processes. Low voter turnouts and political apathy, where those motivated to vote are more likely to support the status quo, have been part of the modus operandi of a corrupt and complacent ruling elite across Europe for decades. It could easily be argued that this has been the case in some of its constituent states, of which the UK is a prime example, since the inception of representative democracy and extending suffrage, masking what lies beneath with a veneer of democracy, accountability and respectability.
And yet, across Europe, challenges are being issued, and with some measure of largely unreported success and momentum, to what has been the prevailing narrative.

Unable to escape the burden of a national debt, largely accrued by representatives of a ruling elite in the French and German banks, Greece initially seemed to set up the boldest of challenges through the populist left movement, and now highly and publicly compromised party of government, Syriza. The apparently dominant and prevailing European economic doctrine, despite or because of its culpability in accruing the debt in the first place, set up the coup which prevailed in the ensuing gory battle with the 'troika'. Holding up the example of Greece as what happens when a challenge is issued and engaged with the unelected financial elite of Europe is ultimately a red herring though, like using the brutalised victims of a loan shark to justify the inevitability of their particular form of financial probity.



And how much we saw the British media froth in fervour, glorying in the bloodbath of it all; 'You see what happens when you have the temerity to challenge your betters, oiks?' 'There are no alternatives other than those we offer you!'. But there are and you won't find them in the rhetoric of Farage, Gove and Boris or the assurances of Davie's sincerest faces and the attendant future promises/dire warnings of Giddy, the little, history degree'd and no economic background whatsoever, chancellor who can't. The alternative, for now at least, may just be full of Iberian promise.

A dominant thread of the prevailing, hegemonic narrative is that social democracy has offered as much as it can to the post war European consensus and there is no alternative but a further and continuing drift to the neoliberal right, claiming it as the new centre, and increasingly to the far right in some cases, since the financial crisis of 2008. Within this thread a nascent nationalism has seen a general rise in resentment towards and manipulation of fear of 'migrants' and refugees in some of Europe's more insular states, exemplified perfectly by the British nationalism and isolationism displayed by both official camps in the EU referendum debate. The straining political and economic architecture of a Europe, which has increasingly prioritised a restricted and to some extents illusory vision of fiscal discipline in an all pervasive and ubiquitous austerity over investment, economic cooperation and stimulation, has created a growing sense of crisis within European institutions and apparent trust in them. Brexit appears to be just one of multiple self fulfilling prophetic threats to European unity.

Still, it could clearly also be said that the adoption of neoliberal, ideologically austere policies, by individual constituent European states, championed by the Commission and appointed commissioners, created the conditions for the rising polarisation in Europe's political landscape as part of that self fulfilling prophecy; but perhaps the 'there is no alternative' strain of this argument has reached its nadir and is being given and exposed for the lie it was always built upon. Within the simplistic reasoning of prevailing European and UK ideological austerity is a failure to acknowledge the successes of a far less austere initial Europe wide response to the financial crisis of 2008, one founded on a balance of stimuli, which brought a general recovery, comparable to that of the US, by 2010/11. Europe is founded on compromise and adapting to change; just as stimulus was abandoned in favour of ideological austerity from mid 2011, urged on by changes in European Commissioners, change can be wrought again, as can new stimuli and commissioners. A full engagement with the economic and underpinning democratic structures, which acknowledges where genuine positive change has happened/is happening, by a movement for that change is surely a first step towards it, becoming the change we want to see.

Its easy, viewed through the lens of UK media, to believe there is no change, no alternative. It has been rare to see genuine reports, among the cheerleading for Eurpopean or UK ideological austerity, about Iberian developments, for instance; but just as with the Scottish Independence Referendum 2014, we should know it's necessary to dig deep for truth, for the real news, to get past the filters.



Political events in Portugal, since December 2015, have passed by with rarely a murmur in the prevailing ideological lapdog media of the UK. It's not surprising; since then, the Iberian country has begged to differ on 'the rigid austerity orthodoxy imposed by the Eurogroup and ECB'. Following the Portugese elections last October, the Socialist Party, supported by the Left Bloc, the Communists and the Greens, have formed a working, progressive left government. It's policies have not necessarily been revolutionary or even extremely radical, but are committed to 'easing the burden on Portugese working people and restoring some of the welfare benefits destroyed by previous right wing administrations'.

In this quiet evolution of the Portugese state, wage and pension freezes for public sector workers have gone whilst tax concessions for low earners have been restored. A tendency towards creeping privatisation in the public sector has been drastically slowed and some intended privatisations outright halted. Most recently, a progressive labour law reducing the working week in the public sector from 40 to 35 hours, thus sharing all available work among more employees and bringing in the possibility of more overtime, passed through parliament on government proposed legislation. Supporting group, the Left Bloc, have proposed a measure, also likely to pass through parliament, to extend the 'social tariff' on energy bills, thus making a subsidised rate giving a 33% reduction to those on low incomes, which is expected to reach and support around one million families rather than the 110,000 included under the previous scheme.

Inevitably, this type of challenge to the prevailing hegemonic austerity/neoliberal narrative directed by the unelected Brussels financial elite has drawn criticism from its compliant mouthpieces and media feeds. Portugal, however, unlike Greece, has a public and national debt which is largely under control. In a distinct reversal of the fortunes in which Syriza found themselves at the rough end of the current elite's enforcers tactics, it is those critics and the Eurogroup who have had to 'suck it up' whilst a sovereign constituent state enacts its policies on behalf of its country's citizens. And yet, how many UK media outlets have dutifully reported events as they unfolded in Portugal or explored their positive implications for the European project.



Likewise, throughout the European Referendum debate, and before, precious little is heard from Spain, other than in favour of the apparent government opposition to developments in Catalonia. But there is no mandated single or coalition governing party sitting in Madrid following the unresolved elections in December, which returned what has been called the most fragmented Spanish parliament in its history. A new election will be contested just three days after the UK referendum, on June 26th. The resolute and steadfast commitment to their founding principles in challenging the corrupt prevailing hegemony and not compromising in coalition with any of the parties they see as symbolising the hollowed out husk of a dying politics, has if anything garnered more popular support for the anti austerity Unidos Podemos alliance. Polls suggest they may have a chance of winning a governing majority, in which case Portugal's larger Iberian neighbour would, in defying the narrative of the financial elites within their own country, also join a left bloc of governments in the fight for an alternative to current prevailing European hegemony.

In Podemos' being minded to acknowledge the results of Catalonian independence referenda and the possibility on official negotiations beginning for transitioning to an independent Catalonia, recognised by Spain and Europe, the routes taken by Catalonia would clearly have implications for Scotland's future position with regard to when and how to call a new Scottish Independence Referendum. Changes in material circumstances or public support post a 'Brexit' or 'Remain' vote on June 23rd, would simply require acting on the principles and precedent established in the Edinburgh Agreement, Westminster's further permission would not legally be required, surely?

With France's polity also set for a summer of discontent in opposition to intended draconian labour law changes, the European narrative is demonstrably not as either of the official EU Referendum camps and the dutiful British media would have us believe. It is far from all prevailing, unelected corporate austerity entrenching financial and political power further into the hands of fewer or simply dramatic shifts to the right and anti refugee sentiment among governments which make the Dave and Giddy show, or any avatars to come, look like sensible, moderate alternatives rather than a point on the same continuum which they are. They are not the reason to vote 'Remain'.

Distilling down the arguments from either side of referendum debate has led me to concur with 'Another Europe Is Possible'/DiEM25 regarding the vote on June 23rd; only the xenophobic right who brought about the referendum in the first place stand to gain from Brexit. The anti immigrant demagogues in Farage's UKIP and their bedfellows of the Conservative right use their reductive reasoning and dog whistle British nationalism and isolationism as a mask for redundant, simplistic, provably outdated and unworkable, in any kind of social and economic functionalist sense, Thatcherite economics, underpinning their support for permanent ideological austerity and the dismantling of the Welfare State, and the NHS with it, as we know it.

Support for a Britain removed from the process of re-democratising Europe and increasing its internal democratic deficits comes only from those who would further polarise the politics of the continent. Harald Vilinsky, the EU delegation leader for Austria's right wing Freedom party, which recently triumphed in Austrian elections sending shockwaves around liberal Europe, was one of only a few European leading figures to react positively to David Cameron's renegotiations with Brussels. He also endorsed a domestic petition calling for Austria to follow Britain and seek Auxit. Leader of Belgium's far right, Flemish separatist party Vlanims Belang, Tom Van Grieben, is a Brexit supporter, as is Dutch right wing Freedom party leader and Farage cheerleader, Geert Wilders.

Then of course there's the staunch support for the 'Out' vote from far right French Front National leader Marine Le Pen and nascent fascist (that's a genuine use of the term, if you have no economic policy, are openly misogynist and racist and base policies on those foundations, like building a bloomin wall at the Mexico border, and only the will and 'charisma' of the high heid yin, Il Duce, is what challenges the current regime or is left to fulfil the promise of 'Making (any country) Great Again, that's almost, by definition, fascism) 'wannabe leader of the free world', the Donald, who is due to visit Scotland on June 24th, ostensibly for other reasons but a wee smug gloat at a Scotland which has increasingly shunned any and all of his advances, amorous or otherwise, at it being dragged out of Europe against its will, is difficult not to be seen as part of his diary agenda.



But let the Donald have his brief gloat and metaphorical high fives and smooches with his xenophobic, fascistic and/or just generally right wing peers in Europe and/or the UK, should that be how it transpires. Despite the contorted attempts at manipulation of Scotland's political narrative trajectory by Bufallo Ruth and the MSM Sycophants, who would have to be considered the exact diametric opposite of an 'indie' band, Scotland has had its Syriza/Podemos/Portugese Socialist Party moment and the energised and engaged polity have declared themselves, through broadly proportional representative democratic means, far more in keeping with the progressive left alliances of Europe than the right wing ideologues of Westminster.

Regardless of the overall EU referendum result, the people of Scotland still look set to vote far more resoundingly for Remain than they did for 'Yes' or 'No' in the Independence Referendum of 2014, and for a continuation of proactive, deterministic political trajectory in overhauling the 'troughers' of unionist party local council representation in 2017. This would be a coup de grace in the biggest challenge to prevailing UK political hegemony in over a hundred years.

For many, the civic nationalism of Scotland's independence movement is as much about the reduction or removal of the inherent and entrenched democratic and financial deficits in UK political structures as it is about engagement with international progressive, political structures across Europe, they are two sides of the same coin. I know its preaching to the choir for many or even most of the movement in Scotland but it is worth pointing out over and over that this could not be further removed from the rampant, parochial and backward looking isolationist perspectives of British nationalism in all its insidious guises; and a 'surge' to a distant second place with just over twenty percent of the vote for its cheerleaders in Scotland is barely a whimper still in the face of the pro-independence majority in the Scottish parliament, as well as in opposition to an apparent increasing willingness for progressive alliances on individual issues across other parties.

When Michael Gove complains that 'the EU is a constraint on ministers' ability to do the things they were elected to do' and Priti Patel indicates she wants to 'halve the burdens of the EU social and employment legislation' as indicators of the Brexiteer's blueprint, they both fail to acknowledge the slim majority of just twelve votes held by their government, 'mandated' by only 36.7% of the vote across the UK, or the electoral fraud investigation ongoing which involves no less than 29 seats won by the Conservatives and is likely to be extended to 31, enough to potentially overturn that majority and hand a larger one to Jeremy Corbyn's Labour, though that happening is just as unlikely a prospect as that of the corrupted results bringing about a rerun of the election at all, though neither shouldn't or needn't be. Just as Tory doublespeak for 'democratic referendum' is a cipher for 'internal bun fight for the leader's chair', so too do Gove and Patel's statements translate as 'Following a 'Brexit' we will be unleashed and our attacks will become more right wing' and 'We want to scrap at least half of workers rights guaranteed by the EU and that's before we even get started on disabilities and work legislation or those pesky human rights!' respectively.

We should be under no illusion that a right wing Conservative party, emboldened by Brexit, would make attacking migrants' and refugees' rights a dog whistle priority too. Making trade deals more fierce and discriminatory than TTIP won't be far behind either.

It is likely, regardless of a 'remain' or 'leave' result in this referendum, given the increasing bloodletting which its starting whistle following Cameron's statement of (lack of) intent regarding his leadership set in motion, that a new, unelected (or certainly not one who was leader when the party was elected to government however controversially) Conservative Prime Minister will follow in short measure, within the term of this parliament. There will be an unelected Conservative Prime Minister, supported by a slim majority under serious threat from electoral fraud investigations but looking set to gerrymander retaining power by altering constituency boundaries, who will force through a right wing, austerity led agenda to appease either side of internal Conservative party schisms. The impact of changes already being made are intended to last generations, their snowballing social and economic consequences increasingly difficult to mitigate, in some regards even with complete reversal.

Respected figures on the left, like Paul Mason, may be rightly reticent about ceding power to the current financial elite of the EU but even he points out we, the polity of the UK including Scotland, should not be dictated to by a more corrupt, entrenched and integral part of the global elite in the UK government, as to the when's and how's of leaving the EU club. There is no left 'exit' In this referendum, or even one with a genuine social conscience, but there is a left 'Remain'.

Voting 'Remain' means 'Another Europe Is Possible' and we can join the growing fight to change it from within. Alongside that, a Scottish polity voting overwhelmingly to remain means another Scotland continues to remain possible too; another UK, if it ever was possible, looks increasingly unlikely as the days count down to the referendum vote. Keeping the possibilities alive means engaging with the actual, nuanced, informed arguments, not the dog and pony show of the British media, we knew this during the 2014 referendum and should still know it about the EU referendum; it's not their referendum, it's still ours too and resisting an all too understandable complacency when June 23rd comes around becomes all the more crucial because they, yes I'm 'othering' the corrupt establishment and UK corporate financial elite, have dominated both sides of the debate, counting on our boredom and apathy