Richard Tuck - The Left Case for Brexit

1 Title page The Left Case for Brexit Reflections on the Current Crisis Richard Tuck polity

2 Copyright page

3 Preface

4 16 April 2016

5 22 April 2016 Notes

6 16 May 2016 Notes

7 6 June 2016: The Left Case for Brexit I II III IV Notes

8 9 June 2016 Note

9 17 July 2017: Brexit: A Prize in Reach for the Left Notes

10 16 August 2017 Notes

11 6 November 2017 Note

12 17 February 2018 Note

13 28 February 2018

14 9 March 2018 Notes

15 11 April 2018 Notes

16 26 April 2018: Why Is Everyone So Hysterical About Brexit?

17 17 May 2018

18 15 July 2018: How to Break Up the Union Note

19 1 August 2018 Notes

20 19 November 2018: The Surprising Benefits to Ireland of a No-Deal Brexit Note

21 16 January 2019

22 17 January 2019: Deal or No Deal

23 23 January 2019

24 24 February 2019

25 12 April 2019: Modest Proposals

26 3 June 2019 Note

27 5 July 2019

28 18 July 2019 Notes

29 31 October 2019 Notes

30 End User License Agreement

1 Cover

2 Contents

3 16 April 2016

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Richard Tuck

polity

Copyright © Richard Tuck 2020

The right of Richard Tuck to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2020 by Polity Press

Polity Press

65 Bridge Street

Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

101 Station Landing

Suite 300

Medford, MA 02155, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4227-7

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4228-4(pb)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Tuck, Richard, 1949- author.

Title: The left case for Brexit : reflections on the current crisis / Richard Tuck.

Description: Bristol, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Why opposing Brexit means opposing socialism and democracy”-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019038607 (print) | LCCN 2019038608 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509542277 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509542284 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509542291 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: European Union--Great Britain. | Socialism--Great Britain. | Democracy--Great Britain.

Classification: LCC HC240.25.G7 T83 2020 (print) | LCC HC240.25.G7 (ebook) | DDC 341.242/20941--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038607

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038608

Typeset in 11 on 13pt Sabon by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NL

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Limited

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com

As the campaign began over the Brexit referendum which was scheduled to take place on 23 June 2016, I found myself increasingly troubled that there seemed to be few people in the debate putting the old left-wing case against Britain’s membership of the European Union. I started writing short essays for circulation among friends and occasional publication in various online settings, and not long before the vote I was asked to put some of these ideas together into a piece for Dissent , which attracted quite a lot of attention and encouraged me to develop the themes further, and to reply to my critics. The Westminster-based think-tank Policy Exchange invited me to set out my thoughts in a lecture in July 2017, after the referendum and the general election, and that enabled me to develop my ideas further; I would like to thank Dean Godson, its director, for his help and encouragement. I have also continued to write short essays on the subject. This book contains these pieces, in the order in which they were written, to make it clear how I was responding to the complicated twists and turns of British politics over the last three years. Above all I would like to thank the friends for whom they were first written: David Grewal, Daniela Cammack, Alex Gourevitch, Jed Purdy, Chris Bickerton and Maurice Glasman. I would particularly like to thank Daniela Cammack for her help with this text. Many of the essays appeared on The Full Brexit website, the main organ of left-wing Brexiteers; I would like to thank the principal organisers of the site, Peter Ramsay, Lee Jones, Costas Lapavitsas, Martin Loughlin, Danny Nicol, Philip Cunliffe, Mary Davis, George Hoare, Anshu Srivastava and Aislinn Macklin-Doherty. Others have appeared on the Briefings for Brexit website; thanks to its organisers, Robert Tombs and Graham Gudgin.