The EU is a German neoliberal vehicle that seeks to constrain social democracy in the UK to promote its business interests, so a kind of neo-mercantilism. Countries bound in the EU have to operate within certain parameters of state action to keep a "level playing field".
[Modifying Lisbon treaty and capturing European parliament] have to be part of a self-preservation strategy.
Customs union or single market membership is OK as long as there are exemptions from EEA rules. Author prefers a Norway-plus model, but if it and its attendant regulatory autonomies are not possible, then customs-union-only has to be accepted
[sounds a lot like Furunc].
However, the real threat is active ideological containment measures on the part of the EU ruling class, such as were undertaken in Greece in 2015. A binding agreement is necessary over potential future Labour government initiatives
[isn't that putting cart before horse, does Labour have power in the first place to ensure such a thing?]. Also, civil service and private obstructionists against a Corbyn/radical Labour government would find it harder to justify themselves without appealing to EU intransigence or disapproval.
Pro-EU British liberals think of the EU as more social-democratic than neoliberal, but the Left should disagree (see Furunc's quote). EU promotes "privatisation, outsourcing and deregulation", which can go against national interests. Also, like individual nations, the EU is vulnerable to being captured by the far-right currents
du jour, and the unelected Commission even more so.
So Labour needs to do what European social democracy should have done years ago: go to war on the Lisbon Treaty inside the EU, co-ordinating with any social democratic, green and left party in Europe prepared to join in.
[...]
The immediate aims a new EU left alliance should not be a detailed programme or a new party. It should be a declaration in principle against three things: austerity, xenophobia and the erosion of democracy.
European Left alliance forms faction in European parliament and tries to capture Commission presidency.
If the combined forces of progressive Europe could muster enough votes to win the spitzenkandidat election, the appointed boss of the Commission could then appoint a left-led commission. At this point we would find out exactly how much left politics the EU structures can bear.
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