Keep the nationalist flag flying

In this referendum, the solutions proposed by politicians, both pro and anti-EU, will not work to better the conditions of the working class and, if anything, will make matters worse. They want us to validate their actions by putting an X on a piece of paper, thus giving them the power to act on our behalf. However, we know that they will not represent us and will continue to support the rich and the powerful economic institutions of capitalism that are making our lives a misery. The only way that we can resist the attacks is to gain control of our lives and our society. The Socialist Party opposes the top-down approach adopted by the other political parties. We need to promote non-hierarchical forms of organisation and methods of organising. The future organisation of society that we envision will be one of that is bottom-up based on groups which federate with each other and co-ordinate on a world-wide level, independent of any current statist structure whether national or at a European level. This will include all areas of economic and social life such as the production, distribution and consumption of goods and the provision of services such as health, housing and education. We need to take control of our own emancipation from the grasp of authoritarian ideologies such as nationalism, religion and cult of the leader.

In order to achieve this aim of complete political, economic, social and cultural transformation we need to build on and strengthen the global networks of the working class to create a new society, no matter what country they live in. We are all facing similar attacks so we can have a common strategy which can be adapted to local conditions. The European Union is a political reality we have to address. Therefore as workers organised against their national governments and ruling class (as well as uniting internationally), the struggle moves us further towards an ongoing need for europe-wide co-ordination. In some countries in the EU like France and Italy, workers are much stronger than here in the UK. As such I think that those countries in the EU are ones which push for EU-wide legislation on things like workers' rights in order to stop countries with weaker workers – like here – getting an advantage over them.  One has to defeat the idea of 'internationalism' in the sense of inter-*nationalism* because it counters long-run socialist principles of universalism. But the ambiguity of the term has increased by the notion of 'national self-determination', a slogan with undesirable content and decreasing practicality.  Socialists must avoid both defending the European Union and slipping into narrow nationalism. Anti-capitalist politics can't be reduced to a defence of any geographical territory. We believe another world is possible, so let’s start building it right now.