What position for the labour movement on the EU referendum?

On Thursday, 23 June, a referendum will be held to decide whether Britain should leave or remain in the European Union. When Jacques Delors, then EU Commission President, announced his vision of a social dimension for European integration in the late 1980s, in the UK he won large parts of the British trade unions over into a pro-EU position. Against the background of neo-liberal restructuring by consecutive Conservative governments, social regulation at the European level offered advances, which would have been impossible in a purely domestic context. Is this situation still the case today?

Photo by Descrier

In this post, I will first assess the current state of affairs for social policies in the EU. Then I will focus on the dangers of nationalism and xenophobic reactions to migration, implied in a no-vote, before concluding in the third section that the focus of the debate should be redirected on what kind of EU we want, rather than the issue of further or less integration.  

How The West Came To Rule – Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Marxism Reading Group at Nottingham!

This semester, the Marxism Reading Group of the Centre for the Study of Social andGlobal Justice (CSSGJ) in the School of Politics and IR at Nottingham University will celebrate its 10^th anniversary. In this blog post, I will briefly outline the main purpose and achievements of the group over the years. Moreover, I will provide information about our anniversary workshop on How The West Came To Rule, on 7 June 2016.

Mobilising through Solidarity: the social clinic in Drama and the refugee crisis.

While the Syriza government had to submit to the dictate of the European Union in July 2015, the concrete resistance against austerity has continued unabated on the ground in Greece. In this blog post I will discuss the experiences of the social clinic Solidarity Community Clinic – Pharmacy of Drama (KIFA) in Drama and its recent efforts at helping refugees living in a camp close to town. I will draw on experiences and discussions with activists from a recent visit to this city in Northern Greece.