Breaking News.

Labour supporters can be blinkered idiots as well. Just because there’s more of them doesn’t mean they’re right.

The party split is a result of the class split; working class voters believe EU membership has been bad for Britain by 55% to 21%.

@2 – Yea, it’s amazing what a barrage of press propaganda from anti-EU papers will do.

Leon @ 3:

Of course, the pro-EU people don’t exactly do their cause any favours. See Chris’ comment at # 1 for an example.

The EU did not mess up the welfare state otherwise Germany France would be in the same mess, they are not.

It was Blair that messed it up big time and since Blair’s politics are Cameron;s are the same god help us all

Perhaps the biggest incentive for the intellectuals in Labour to become increasingly suspicious of EU membership has been its hegemonic role it has played in facilitating the expansion of capitalism and imperialism at the expense of the environment peace and social justice.

Imperialism?

@6 – Wingnut translater says “has defended civil liberties the government wanted to abolish”

Also, this representative of the fact the left no longer vote for labour, so the EU’s supporters are not properly represented…

@6 – Wingnut translater says “has defended civil liberties the government wanted to abolish”

Er.. what?

If you don’t want an answer, don’t ask the question.

@ 9:

I don’t think it’s that he didn’t want an answer; more that the answer you gave seem didn’t seem to have any relevance to what he said.

@10 – Of course it does. The days-in-detention row, anyone? *bang*, a Labour policy shot down largely because of a fuss the EU raised. And one of many.

Imperialism!

Leon, are you saying that Éoin Clarke is a wingnut?

@10 – Of course it does. The days-in-detention row, anyone? *bang*, a Labour policy shot down largely because of a fuss the EU raised. And one of many.

Do you mean 90 days? That was shot down by Tories, LibDems and about 50 Labour MPs. IIRC very little, if anything, to do with the EU.

@12 – No, the later 42-day row.

IIRC, victory against 42 days was again little if anything to do with the EU, but rather won in the Lords by the Tories, LibDems, 25 Labour and Crossbench peers. I can find no mention of the European Union or EU in that debate:

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2008-10-13a.491.4

The results of the division, for reference:
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/division.php?date=2008-10-13&number=1&house=lords

There was a major fuss about it which started from the EU Human Rights commissioner, who kept it in the press.

Come now, there are plenty of examples…are you quibbling with my premise?

Well Labour is the original anti Europe party.

“Perhaps the biggest incentive for the intellectuals in Labour to become increasingly suspicious of EU membership has been its hegemonic role it has played in facilitating the expansion of capitalism and imperialism at the expense of the environment peace and social justice.”

What does this mean, exactly? And how does the idea that the EU is the enemy of social justice square with your later statement that the EU is a driver of equality?

For the record I am a supporter of the EU, warts and all. But EMU was an insane plan, foisted undemocratically on the European politicians (notably by Mitterand and Kohl, both of whom were postumously shown to have been deeply corrupt). Its problems were all too forseeable – if anything, critics didn’t warn enough. Brown and Balls haven’t had enough credit for keeping Britain out. The pro-EMU politicians in all three parties – and the European politicians and bureaucrats who produced it – haven’t received anything like the stick they should be getting. They ooze contempt for ordinary people – if the voters don’t like what the EU propose, they are patronised as not understanding the great plans of the elites. Usually democratic processes are by-passed. Otherwise you get farces like the Danes rejecting the Maastricht Treaty in the 1992 referendum, only effectively to be told to do it again the next year and this time to vote the right way. It can’t be said enough – EMU was a policy mistake on a colossal level, for which millions are paying a very high price.