Reassessing Corbynism: success, contradictions and a difficult path ahead

[Ken Burch]

7. What was done to Greece is what will be done to ANY left government under the EU.

If they weren't allowed to break the neoliberal consensus, no EU member ever will be.

You claim there are changes on the way in the EU. But in which way? There's been no change in any progressive direction under the EU(other than some nice bits of bourgeois social liberalism that were never transformative). Why would you possibly believe that the spending constraints will ever be lifted in the future? That the no-deficit requirement will ever be lifted? That "labor market flexibility"-i.e., the right to screw workers into the ground-can ever be rolled back? Which of these minor "changes" you mention will ever be on the side of the workers, rather than the wealthy? If the EU has always been neoliberal up to now, what makes you think that can ever change

The only institution in the EU anyone other than France or Germany has any real say in is the European Parliament-a body that, being powerless and irrelevant now, will always be powerless and irrelevant.

I'm not nostalgic about the past. I only mentioned the Attlee example because it was an illustration of possibilities.

Corbyn is the leader of the Opposition. He can only lose seats by fighting against Brexit now. It's impossible to elect a Labour government on a "stay in Europe" plank AT THIS STAGE OF THE GAME. Why even try when all it can lead to is lost seats? How is anything that gives the Tories a chance of a comeback ever in "the people's interests"?