We’re leaving the EU, but we’re not giving up
By: Nick Dearden
Date: 24 June 2016
Britain’s decision to leave the European Union opens up a world of uncertainty. It will take some time before we know what the full impact will be. It could be years before we fully exit but the leave vote represents a significant victory for the politics of fear and hate that dominated the campaign.
It won’t be easy to heal the divisions created during the referendum. By pandering to a narrow and hateful brand of nationalism, the mainstream Leave campaign has built a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment and fostered a notion that the UK can return to an age when Britain was the world’s foremost ‘great power’ by leaving the EU. We share the sense of fear that many of the people targeted in the Leave campaign now feel.
Our movement is more important than ever
We will not give up in our attempts to build a better world based on equality, democracy and humanity.
We want a world based on community, solidarity and hope, rather than selfishness, greed and fear – if you share our vision then join us as a member and help us make it a reality.
It is vital that we stand together as a movement and make our voices heard and the more people that join as members, the more powerful our message.
We understand and share the distrust many people feel towards the institutions of the EU.We know that it lacks democratic accountability, negotiates exploitative trade policies like TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), visits economic destruction on its own member states, and treats refugees as if they were criminals. But too often British governments have been pushing Europe to become less democratic, less transparent and more in debt to corporate and financial power. Now we must begin to work together and ensure our government doesn’t replicate the worst aspects of the EU.
What’s next? You decide
We may no longer be part of the EU, but we are not alone and we will still work with movements across Europe to create a better world. In the coming weeks we will review the impact of leaving on our campaigns and propose new priorities to our membership.
As a member of Global Justice Now you will have the right to vote on how our campaigns are shaped to reflect this new world.
At the top of the list will be building a campaign to defend the rights and dignity of migrants. We will also need to prevent the signing of free trade deals which are as bad, or worse, than TTIP, to protect our human rights framework and to continue building genuinely democratic alternative to corporate domination. We will continue to work with our European friends and allies to build a better world.
Your activism and support will be vital to our work. Our work starts today to steer the UK in a new and positive direction as part of the movement for change. We must prove to the world that Britain will not become a byword for intolerance, narrow-mindedness and despair.
