Common Market referendum in 1975 as viewed by Jak in the London Evening Standard.

The results of the EU Referendum do not change our vision set up by Sir Oswald Mosley in 1946 in his book The Alternative. This was followed up by the creation of Union Movement in 1948, a movement which I joined in the 1960s as a teenage soldier. We believed in Europe and we believe in Europe today.

The reactionaries have won for now but sooner rather than later their trust in free trade economics and market forces will prove an illusion. It is easy to say we should stand on our own two feet and reclaim our democracy. They are mere slogans without any real substance.

Britain is not independent and free when you still have your money supply controlled by a cartel of private banks. Hence inflation or deflation, depending on too much or too little out there in the economy. The International Monetary Fund rules the conditions on loans to which British governments must conform. In reality, it is the big moneylenders who dictate to us and this makes a complete mockery of democracy. The little Englanders ignore this aspect of the real world and prefer to go off to the pub singing Rule Britannia. The mincing dandy, Nigel Farage, has had his big day with this referendum result but his days as an elected politician are over. In fact, Ukip is now totally irrelevant and should disappear up its own back passage. The only Ukip MP, Douglas Carswell, is known to despise Farage and may well challenge him for the leadership sometime in the future.

The future of the union of the UK is also now put at stake with Scotland overwhelmingly in favour of remaining in the European Union. Northern Ireland, likewise. The Scottish National Party has been given an opportunity to push for another referendum on independence. It will come, for sure, now that Britain prepares to withdraw from the European Union and in which Scotland sees its future ... to give up one union in favour of a greater union of Europe.

To say that Britain can no longer play a role in Europe is misleading. We can negotiate trade terms and this must be on the agenda whoever is Prime Minister. Cameron sees this being put into gear in October when he steps down as Prime Minister.

However, our belief in Europe a Nation is a vision that transcends the bankers’ European Union of today, which is as far removed from a true union as you can stretch the imagination. The big moneylenders have dominated the politics of the EU, offering ‘bail outs’ to member states struggling with repayments on a previous ‘bail out’. The proper word for it is usury ... lending at exorbitant interest for the sole purpose of acquiring the assets of a country when that country defaults, by design of course. They raped Greece this way, robbing that ancient and classic country of its state assets, including many of the Greek islands given away as the private property of their financial chums. Germany acted as a conduit for these moneylenders with Goldman Sachs manipulating the European Central Bank. With the IMF, they were dubbed the Troika, originally the name of a Russian vehicle pulled by three horses. This is what the European Union had become.

The idea of free movement of labour across Europe was something ill-calculated. Free movement could only work if the economies of member states were stabilised and workers’ wages levelled throughout the continent. Poland now has an increasingly large ageing population with fewer younger people paying the taxes to support state pensions. The reason is obvious. Mass migration to Britain has brought about this social and economic crisis. Nothing is ever thought through.

This is why a democratically elected European government is important so that such movements can be regulated in the interests of all of Europe and never to the disadvantage of any one member state. Instead, it has been chaos.

The threat of migrants camped around Calais and other coastal towns in northern France was not created by the European Union. Most of them came across the Mediterranean from an ungovernable Libyan coastline. This state of affairs began after the Nato attacks on Gaddafi’s state, destroying infrastructure and murdering thousands including Gaddafi himself. It was a collusion between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President Sarkozy and Defence Minister  William Hague. All three are not only war criminals but the architects of the unrestricted passage for people smugglers and their clients en route to the land of milk and honey known to the African continent as Britain.

This has nothing to do with the European Union but entirely the US-led Nato which has never restored the countries it has bombed to pieces but always left them ungovernable and unstable, their resources plundered and their history obliterated. The creation of a European Army, including Britain’s soldiers, would have offered an alternative to Nato. With Britain’s withdrawal, this appears to be unlikely and so we have to tag along with Washington’s neo-con designs until our leaders in Europe wake up to the fact that we remain under American military occupation and our liberation from it is desirable to the majority of Europeans.

Europe will now only become truly united through revolution, by a massive civic uprising by the mass of ordinary people. This will come about through necessity. Our leaving the bankers’ Europe should herald this noble cause, which is now the real alternative.

Europe a Nation offered more than a means of Europeans coming together in common purpose. It meant a new system.

That system offered a way out of this free trade international competition that favours low-wage economies, while those who give their workers a fair deal fail to compete successfully.

Look at France, together with a ’socialist’ President. The government there wants to impose new labour laws that would make French business ‘more competitive’.  They want to strip the workers of their rights. Now, that country is plagued with mass protests on the streets and the workers are not going to back down.  This form of civil unrest is the only course for French workers. They have no other options.

Solidarity across Europe could overthrow existing governments in the way that French workers could over throw the French Republic. It’s been done before.

In 1975, I remember the leader, Oswald Mosley, instructing us to campaign to stay in the Common Market (or EEC as it was called) because he reasoned that it was a step forward on the path to Europe a Nation. We sold the Union Movement paper ACTION with the front page banner heading “FORWARD TO ACTION IN EUROPE A NATION ... Britain stays in! The people of Britain have spoken at last! They have voted for Europe in their millions, against all the prophets of doom”.

Oswald Mosley appealed to Britain to choose between being ’the head of Europe or the tail of America’. Jeffrey Hamm wrote on the back page of issue number 197 of June 1975, “The referendum campaign proved a mock battle and a sham fight because neither of the umbrella organisations laid before the electorate the real reasons for staying in Europe or coming out”. Sounds familiar?

He went on, “Perhaps we have been a little unfair in branding all anti-Europeans as Little Englanders; some are ‘one-worlders’ and we have witnessed a most unlikely alliance of the extreme Right and the extreme Left under this banner. “Not out of Europe but into the world’ they cried as they girded their loins for the long pilgrimage to the promised land, in search of a favourable balance of trade. The Left used to believe that world trade was dominated by international financiers of the capitalist system ... the extreme Right also denounces international financiers, who jostle for pride of place with the Reds under their beds.

Union Movement alone stands for an economic union of all Europe with a European government (elected by the people) leading the European economy towards maximum production for consumption within Europe.

We alone advocate progressively raising wages as production increases  for the guaranteed and insulated market our third force could provide.

Our government would guarantee by law the same rate for the job throughout Europe, to exclude unfair competition, encouraging the most able to triumph and providing  full employment and high living standards for all”.

That is the vision and that is our aim today because the words of Jeffrey Hamm are as relevant today as they were in 1975.

June 24th 2016 was a painful day for all true Europeans but Europe will survive. The Remain campaign was fought on fear and how much money we stood to lose or gain. The Leave campaign was little different apart from also attacking migrants into the bargain. “Johnnie foreigner must go” was the message from Boris and Nigel. The old ‘wogs begin at Calais’ mindset.

We owe it to the youth of Britain and Europe to light a torch which flame shall spread across a different Europe. A Europe for all Europeans.

Older voters in rural areas were conned by the Murdoch press acting as Brexit propagandists, smearing migrants from the EU who came here to work. The Sun newspaper said they were a threat to our communities. No, they are brother Europeans and shall always be.

copyright©Robert Edwards2016