“If there was a referendum tomorrow on EU membership, I would vote to leave it without a moment's hesitation. I have to admit that that nutter, Nigel Farage, was in fact right all along.
The trouble goes back to the 1980s - despairing of beating the Tories at home the Left became cheerleaders for the EU as a way to circumvent Tory policy at Westminster. The result has been an uncritical adulation for all things "european" equally as silly as the "europhobia" of the Right.
But the EU hasn't stood still - look at Greece, Italy, Spain et al - democratic governments subverted in the interests of unelected power brokers, bankers and international finance.
Whatever the EU "was", it isn't that NOW. The Left needs to take a much more critical approach to the EU - issues like immigration have hurt the ordinary workers, something that Labour is starting to recognise. Voters can & will understand a nuanced approach than IN/OUT if offered it, but right now all they get is either Leave the EU or More EU and the former argument is easier to understand - hence the rise of UKIP. There is a looming democratic deficit at the heart of the EU - that will not be solved by an EU president - but rather by devolving power back to the nations.Just as local democracy can only be refreshed when Westminster stops relentlessly centralising. The Police Vote wasn't just another Tory omnishambles - increasingly people see no point in voting because no one listens in the three main parties. Power abhors a vacuum, if the mainsteam won't step up, then the extreme Right and extreme Left will.”