Keep It Dense, Keep It Futile, Yeah?

A greater issue haunts the conundrum of Brexit than many people, at least outwardly, acknowledge. That issue is the withdrawal of your rights as a working class citizen. Put it this way - if we leave the EU without a withdrawal agreement, the thing that everyone is fussing over at the moment, we will have a near instantaneous withdrawal of certain rights. Rights that have been democratically earned and conferred upon us by virtue of being a member state of the EU. Leaving without an agreement means the withdrawal of a citizen's right to freedom of movement within the EU, the free movement of goods within the EU, the free movement of capital within the EU and the freedom to provide services within the EU. It's not hard to imagine someone who runs a small business that might export or import goods to and from the EU as an essential part of their business, or student wishing to do a masters degree within another EU country, or even the fact that some of us just like to go on hol

There has been a resurgence of pro British Empire propaganda oozing out of the jingoistic woodwork of social media debate over Brexit, capitalism and conservatism (both big and little C). One of the popular, recurrent and broad motifs is that the British Empire was good  because it gave, a rather uniquely defined, "freedom" to many countries who apparently weren't free before the colonial forces of the British Empire took hold. That occupied countries only had freedom once they were occupied is a clear contradiction. Let's not fuss too much over the "you're only free when I say you're free" quandary, but instead talk briefly about the economic basis for the Empire, its implications and consequences. Thanks, PragerU. Very cool! Given that the British Empire was primarily a manifestation and emergence of early mercantile and then capitalist forces searching for new sources of raw materials, markets and labour, you can start to get a glimps