 Well, first of all, thank you so much, everyone, for coming along to the inaugural event of London DM-25. I would say if you thank yous myself, I definitely want to thank Olivier. I think this is one of the most special and just precious resources that London has. It's a thrill to be doing this debate in such a spectacular and beautiful environment. I also want to thank DM-25 for inviting me to chair the event this evening. I have been watching the EU debate unfold with a kind of grim fascination. It's kind of, you know, watching political lines get drawn and then redrawn and then just kind of scrubbed out all together. You know, so you've got George Galloway teaming up with Nigel Farage, teaming up with Donald Trump. At the same time, you've got Jeremy Corbyn suddenly on the same side as Tony Blair, suddenly on the same side as David Cameron, who is now no longer on the same side as Boris Johnson. For me, as a journalist, it's an incredibly interesting but grim moment. I think the magnitude of this decision isn't one that should be underestimated. June the 23rd is something that is going to rock not just the UK and not just Europe, but I believe the entirety of the globe. That's why I wanted to be part of this event today. I want to know what the left has to offer to this debate and, you know, how can we intervene? How can we kind of throw our reflections upon some of the big issues of the day? But the main reason why I wanted to be involved was not just because of June the 23rd, but it was because of June the 24th. I want to know what's going to happen to us after the referendum in or out who is going to be in control of this country on June the 24th? On June the 24th, how do we stop the bodies of more and more refugees washing up onto the shores of the Mediterranean? So whatever happens, there is going to be a great deal to do on June the 24th. And therefore, as London DM 25, it's our hope and our suspicion that there will be areas of agreement between the two panellists this evening and that there may be topics within this event which are not so much areas of contention but where the panel finds itself discussing how to forge a progressive road ahead. Traditionalists would probably argue that this doesn't make such good television. However, we think you will all agree that there are bigger things at stake and that this event will have played a very useful role if we all come away from it with some common ground on which we can build and go forward. So there are now 42 days and 12 hours left until the EU referendum. So I want to just quickly introduce again who we have in the red corner and who we have in the other red corner. Here we have Aaron Bastani, co-founder of Navarro Media, political commentator and again has just done his PhD in new media and social movements. In the other red corner, Maria Prentulis, senior lecturer in media and politics and a representative of Ciresa. Now, how this is going to work, this debate, is going to be that we have, as London DM 25, selected a short list of controversial but important topics and I'm going to put a question about one of the topics to one of the panellists and give them three minutes to discuss it. I'll then bring in the other panellist and ask them to respond, perhaps to agree, perhaps to passionately disagree, we'll have to find out together and then we'll bring in the first panellist back with a right of reply. And then after that, we will have time for questions and contributions from the audience and we're very, very keen that all of you get involved in the event and so start thinking about your questions now. But before I bring in the two panellists, they're going to do a quick introduction, maybe a four or so minute introduction on their position. We would just like to do a little bit of audience participation. We're not going to ask you who's voting remain, who's voting exit but we do want to know if there's anyone in the room who hasn't yet made up their mind. So maybe a show of hands, who has made up their mind? Who is concrete on where they're going to be voting? Okay, okay. So have we got anyone who is maybe a little more open to persuasion, hasn't quite decided yet? Yes, we have. We have some people. Okay, panellist, there is everything to play for in this room tonight. Okay, so I would like to, I'll ask Marina if you would like to give us your four or so minute run down on why you have taken the political position that you have on the European Union. Okay, thank you. First of all, let me thank you as well for inviting me here and in such a beautiful place it's really a pleasure to be here. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. How will that affect the group? I don't know if there is a problem with the broadcast, is it? It should be okay. So I should show, yeah. Okay. So thank you. Thank you for inviting me and it's a pleasure to be here with all of you and with all of you that we've been in other debates before. Now, let me clarify, when people say I'm the representative of cities, I don't work for the government or the party. It's just that I'm involved in politics, I'm a member of cities and that's why for a long time I've been talking about what is happening in Greece and cities in particular. So I'm now campaigning with another Europe and I think another Europe is affiliated to the M25. So we have a similar, I think, view. Now I will try to focus on what is happening with the UK case and I think we are set up big time by the Tories, all of us. So I think what is happening is that because of the internal politics of the Conservative Party, because of the rise of UKIP, because of the leadership of Cameron and how it could be challenged within the party, they called this referendum. I don't think for a moment that they care about what the people think or that they would ever give the possibility to the people to vote for what they really want. So I think that's where we come from. We are set up a bit by the Tories. Now, how can we get out of this position? I think by not only voting in this referendum and I believe that we should vote remain, but we should continue campaigning for change in the EU. And the thing with the EU, from my perspective, is that there are a lot of things that are not working very well. There are issues that they have to do with democracy in the EU. There are issues which have to do with transparency in the EU. And I do accept all that and I'm sure I will agree with Aaron at many points that he will raise. The issue, however, for me is to think where we should be placed if we want to bring about change. Everything is about politics. And politics is looking at the situation that you are in, how is the setup of the powers involved and where you can intervene in order to bring change. I'm not the left which is a little bit indulgent and we say, oh yeah, but I take my purest position and from there I will go on repeating the same thing. No, I'm in the left because I want to bring change, because I want to bring social justice, because I want less people to suffer. So for me it's all about politics. Now the situation in the EU, it is quite difficult. We have a bureaucracy that you were talking about, but we should remember that this bureaucracy is not only happening on these transnational institutions and level. We have something similar at national level and yet we still go and vote and we still believe in democracy, although I think there is a lot that we would like to change and a lot that we aspire to. This bureaucracy in the EU, I think lately and especially if you think the case of Greece, it is connected with neoliberalism. One is embedded in the other. So when Shoible, in the case of Greece, was talking about the rules of the EU and it doesn't matter what the people of Greece will vote in their referendum, what he meant is that he was interpreting rules and he was pushing them towards the direction that it will help his own party and the main forces within the EU. And these are neoliberal forces. So for me there is one solution. The solution is we try to change these powers within the EU and in order to do that we have to work on different levels. First of all I think we should change the Tory governments across Europe. This is a given for me. We cannot go on like that. But I don't think this is enough. Again, on the level of national democracies, I don't have so much faith in our democratic systems. This is why I believe that at the same time we have to create transnational pan-European movements that they will support these changes, they will push the new governments that we will put in place to make the changes that we want and they will fight on the grassroot level. So for me, if we won't change, it has to work on all three levels together. Grassroot, strong movements, national governments, get rid of neoliberal conservative Tory governments, especially in Britain. And then within the transnational institutions, take over. It's our institutions and we have to claim them back. So we finish with one thing. This is my left position. If you give them an inch, they will take a mile. I will not give them anything. Can we please use the microphones? But can I have Olivier to understand down in this room? You don't mean I have to repeat that now? No. So we are going to use the microphones, simply because we are recording the event for the 500 million people who couldn't come along from Europe but really want to watch the debate. So we will use them, but I think they are turned down. So people are happy with the sound. Right, Aaron, saying from you please, set out your political position on the EU. So despite the fact that I have a graduate education, I have a mixed heritage, I live in London, I'm on the left, I should be the last person entertaining the ideas that I do. Demographically, I should be very rare. Nonetheless, I think there's some validity to what I think, the reasons why I think Brexit is a great idea, why Britain would be better out of the EU, why I think the EU itself probably would be better eliminated. So what are they? Well, let's start from the beginning. First of all, and I think we all agree on this, the EU has a horrendous deficit of democracy. Now people have been talking about this for decades. You could say, well look, the European Parliament, it's selected, it has some competences, it couldn't be more shambolic. The Scottish Parliament has more powers than the European Parliament, and that's just how the European Commission likes it. The European Commission is unelected. That's what all the power is, external trade policy, right? When we're ripping off sub-Saharan Africa, when we're destroying Kenyan flower farmers, it's being done by the European Commission and you can't get rid of these people. And I think that's absolutely astonishing that that's even permitted by European publics in the 21st century. And then some people were joined to that, they were like, well look, commissioners are brought from the 11 nations state and the country gives their commissioner. And that's kind of democratic. I mean, this is ridiculous, right? This is ridiculous. Can you really imagine Peter Mandelson being democratically elected as a commissioner for trade or industry? I mean, of course not, right? It's almost like the House of Lords, but these people actually have power. I mean, it's very, very scary really when you think about it. So democracy is a big issue for me. And that leads on to number two, which is the EU is moving in a direction that is not preferred. They're becoming illegal, right? So the implementation of TTIP would obviously be the culmination of this. But it feeds into this idea of, it was referred to everywhere, the European social model, European social model. So what is the European social model? I mean, in my head, yeah, sure, I think 40 hour working week, free higher education, great infrastructure, good wages, minimum wage at least 60% of the average wage, right? Functioning public services, but let's be honest, that isn't the European social model anymore. And actually, I don't think it's sustainable under capitalism as it currently exists. Okay? Again, maybe we disagree. I don't think it's sustainable under capitalism as it exists. You'd have to have, I think, a revolutionary, a systemic change in the nature of global capitalism to maintain that model, right? Which isn't even asking for that much, okay? So that's one, two. I won't go into too much about TTIP because, you know, it may not even happen. Number three again, excuse me, external trade. I mean, this is just astonishing. Bernie Sanders comes out and he goes, I hate CAFTA, I hate NAFTA, I hate the TPP, I hate TTIP. Good. You should hate them. They're very bad for working people in the United States. They're very bad for working people across the world in the global south too. Jeremy Corbyn is going to the EU. It's great for growth and jobs. These are the exact same policies, right? Now Jeremy Corbyn has a very, very similar, I actually say, far more radical politics than Bernie Sanders. He's hamstrung politically. He has to say this stuff. But that's the reality of the situation. He's having to fend an economic status quo where the European Union has trade policies which systematically seeks to underdevelop the global south. Has for 50 years. Did with the Kotsna agreement. It's now doing it with these things called economic partnership agreements. Great example, I said, Kenyan flowers. So Kenya wasn't going to implement one of these economic partnership agreements, right? They weren't going to have it. And Kenya is a big exporter of cut stems onto European market flowers. So the Europeans say, well, we're going to slap a tariff into your flowers. These are literally some of the poorest farmers you can imagine, right? We're going to stick a tariff on your exports and you're all going to go bust and you're going to feed your families if you don't accept this economic partnership agreement. It's EPA. So that's how Europe plays with the global south. That's where a lot of this wealth comes from. I think the European model of the last 50, 60 years has been premised on a privileging vis-a-vis precisely these countries. I would call it colonialism. Maybe some people disagree. I'd also call it imperialism. Again, some might disagree. This is also primarily conducted at the level of the nation state. I'm not going to say that this is all poor little Britain. The city of London is the conduit for 21st century imperialism. Unbelievable. We've got democratic deficit. They're going to make socialism illegal. It's kind of already illegal. We've got the issue of external trade policy. Finally, free borders. 30 seconds. We're all for free borders. We are all internationalists. I love the idea of free borders everywhere. Absolutely. But let's not be under any mistake, right? We've got free borders for economic white migration within the European Union for approximately 450 million people. Meanwhile, the Mediterranean is the epicenter for undocumented deaths worldwide, right? I think two-thirds now of deaths by land and sea crossings of undocumented migrants are happening in the Mediterranean. That was known when the European Union's interior ministers didn't replace Morhenostrum properly. They gave it a try instead. They knew this was going to happen. Free borders, the open borders we love are about economic white migrants undercutting each other internally. Increasingly, that will mean the most militarised external borders in the world. Brilliant. I've noticed a couple of people on their phones tweeting and stuff like that. The hashtag for tonight I'm going to add is LUN-DM-25 L-O-N-D-I-E-M-25 That's the LUN-DM Twitter handle as well. We're at LUN-DM-25. We have had a whistle-stop tour of where both of our panellists are coming from. Now we're going to go a little bit deeper into some of the issues and the first one that we're going to talk about is jobs. Now there was an interesting event with Yanis Varifakis a couple of weeks ago in London where he was kind of going through everything that was wrong with the EU and the audience kind of reacted to him saying, hey, what about all the stuff that's good about the EU that they've done well? One of these things is I think it can be argued is that the EU is the gold standard for employment. Paid leave, lunch breaks, maternity hours, health and safety, protection against discrimination and so on. But there are those in industry and in government who argue that high employment standards make Britain uncompetitive and that we should be deregulating our labour market to compete with countries like China. So the UK is at a fork in the road. What's it going to look like in the future? Is it going to retain its high standards or move to a more American like situation based on higher and fire contracts and workers having two weeks holiday a year? So my question is for Aaron first of all isn't it an argument that to leave the EU would be to forfeit the protection of Europe's employment law and potentially expose millions of workers in this country to a deregulated US style system of employment. Why would you want millions of people to leave the gold standard? Right, so I like to think of thatcherism as a counter evolution. I don't know if you know but we were in the EU when that happened. We were in the EU Britain's British trade union movement strongest in the world, 1974 topped the government by 1985 decimated. Now that happened while we were in the EU. Now the idea that the EU is a kind of safeguard against this stuff I think is just incorrect. What you're saying the assertion is absolutely true. Absolutely true. In terms of labour standards all these things absolutely true. They're written into statute domestically if we leave the EU that stuff would have to be changed at the domestic level. So we'd have a few years my wage would be we can have a left coalition government by then to not do that doesn't happen. In terms of protection however look there's the Thatcherite model there's the European social model Europe is moving towards the former right we're not going towards the latter the rest of Europe is over time approximating the British model. The idea that you use a safeguard against this stuff is kind of it's not born out in the there's no factual kind of empirical evidence showing this right. And also the opt-outs sorry Britain's opted out of loads of this stuff anyway so we're not even in Schengen. Reena what do you think about that do you think that employment law is a space that people should be sticking up for the EU? Is it working? Is it? Yes. Well I think one of the reasons that I will say let's remain in the EU is because of these minimal protections I don't disagree with what Aron said that we are moving towards a very different direction and labour rights are in danger across the EU but still there are some directives actually I don't want to imagine what would happen in thatcherism even if you were not in the EU and the only thing that this country has exported so well it's thatcherism and this is what we have to face now. So there was a different vision of the social EU there was the neoliberal thatcher right vision and now we know who won but this is why to stick in there and fight for that I want to say one thing about the employment law in particular the employment law that we have is especially things that they are supporting the most vulnerable and the discrimination legislation for women and equal pay for fixed term and part-time contracts for all those that they suffer and in the process and the young people will suffer more in their jobs we have directives we have directives for example for fixed term part-time contracts so they are not exploited all the time by employees by the time I was in a campaign like that as trade union secretary the moment I changed my job and I turned my head this in this country they had put zero hour contracts that was the national response and now they are exporting the zero hour contracts as a response to these minimum protections that we have in other countries as well like Greece we have to fight and what you were saying about these protections and so on the reason why it is important to fight on the national level of courses the EU is giving directives and some directions and it's not going to protect us if we don't give the national buttons as well to change the neoliberal governments and if we don't have a much stronger movement than we have now on the ground thank you Aaron, right of reply New Zealand's basically scrapped there are contracts that was the ground zero of neoliberalism in the mid 80s people say that the United States is terrible but I think the US is moving in a really good direction same sex marriage, trans rights drug decriminalisation and on economic stuff minimum wage for fast food work is $15 an hour that's happening because of social movements and that's the only way you're going to change any reliance on a bureaucratic structure trans national level to defend this stuff is so weak and I think I agree with Marina fundamentally that we have a lot more emphasis on the national level and the social movements and you've got this other element which I think maybe that would I think it's not really a place to contest a power OK, I respond so we'll go on about employment rights and these days because as you said and I agree with you all these employment rights are under threat in the EU you have the European trade union the ATUC which is trying to push against this idea of labour rights within the treaties of the EU so we are giving a battle and this battle and this is our important difference for me I think it has to happen on all these different levels at the same time OK, first this is our first bonus question bonus question OK, bear with me I know that this is not going to be a very popular topic but because this event is taking place in the shadow of Canary Wharf I am very interested to get our panellists' views upon this so one of the things that's being held up as a big kind of employment issue and something we're all supposed to be really worried about is the effect that Brexit could have on the city of London we're told that it could go into decline and I know I'm well aware that probably everyone in this room hates bankers as much as everyone outside this room but banking I have learnt in the last few days accounts for a tenth of the economy and an eighth of the taxes that the government receives and it's the UK's biggest industry so bonus question what I want to know from our two panellists is there any reason why people in this country should be worried about a possible effect on the city of London were we to have Brexit Shall I go for you I think in all these debates and I want to go a little bit outside the left because sometimes the debates between us is not the general debates that are happening both sides the city of London came for both sides of the campaign and I think some economists said you may know who it was he said if you interrogate the facts for a long time you will make them confess so you know who it is yes so the facts if we look at that it can go both ways I wish there was something that will minimize the power that the city of London has but because a lot of my comrades from either side I mean our two sides they talk about international capital and it is international capital and it is international banking system and what it does is that it goes beyond borders and this is one of the problems that sometimes I think I have with the other left position you are not going to block it because you are going to close the door if it was that easy we would be so much happier this is why also I believe we should have a transnational international response to the banking system to try to control them but they will say oh we are going to take our stuff and go somewhere else that's what they do if they are pushed in one country they try to play country against country and they go for free this is why for all these issues we need transnational responses Aaron should we be worried should we be happy so office building in London it's a break pace it's never been quicker and it breaks it so I suppose the city is indifferent I think they would obviously this data quality serves their interest more than leaving because it creates risk but I think they would be confident they would still be pretty well out of things Nigel Farage used to be a commodity trade-in in terms of what was I going to say in terms of no country can do much yesterday we had this joke anti-corruption summit in the UK and I'm sure some of you may have seen this I think there's four heads of state plus obviously the British Prime Minister two of these heads of state completely taken through the mud Nigerian president and then Ghani from Afghanistan two most corrupt countries we installed the regime in one we took all the assets from the other for a century there's explanation there but Britain and its crown dependencies really are the infrastructure they are the broadband through which international tax avoidance a lot of this stuff works and you're saying well what could one country do again if we have a left government whether we stay or whether we leave the EU a left government in this country which wants to nail these crown dependencies and because it hasn't happened for so long things like capital control so on we think it's not possible you could do it and shut them down Iceland had capital controls they still have capital controls about 5 or 6 years we were told before 2007 this doesn't happen so yeah that's a great example of one country making differences we shut down these crown dependencies in terms of the city nobody should care less we should nationalise all of these banks and they should have multiple metrics to judge investment and profit shouldn't be top I agree with that it's just that I'm thinking where are we going to do that and of course Greece is not the same like Britain we are talking about totally different economic powers there but what we've learned from this experience is that you need a lot of different countries and alliances across the board if you want to make a serious change great thank you okay so we're going to move on to our next controversial but important topic and that is that of immigration so in 2014 174,000 new EU migrants arrived in the UK 174,000 EU migrants now make up 5% of our population interesting footnote about half of the immigration into the UK comes from outside of the EU just a footnote there it's argued it doesn't just mean by UKIP this is an argument we hear from the RMT the Rail Workers Union that an influx of EU migrants puts a downward pressure on wages and increases competition for low skilled jobs so my question is for Marina and that is does the EU actually create a buyer's market for labour and undermine labour struggles for improved conditions wouldn't British workers actually be better off out no I think it's exactly the opposite and it goes my argument will go in the same way like the previous one we cannot allow them to play one country against another country now I don't know where you got this figure because yesterday I was reading an article which was where the statistics of migration come from and there is quite a dispute there are some statistical figures coming from the national insurance applications and other sources and it's not totally clear but what it is clear in this country and this is what scares me a lot is how much immigration from within the EU has become a huge issue in the mainstream media and for the Brexit campaign I find them scary there is no there is hate pure hate phobia racism and nobody anywhere discusses the contribution of the migrant workers and I think here we would all agree that their contribution it's much greater than what they get back but so the one issue is about European immigration internally and I wish somebody would stand up and we say the truth and the truth is that some of us we are Europeans Britain for a very long time has played both worlds we want that and we don't want that we will give them benefits or we will withdraw them back I have to say to this government fuck you you cannot have it both ways either you are in or you are not in I want Britain in but with the recognition that it is a European country and European citizens we will be moving around and this is one of our basic rights now there is an issue however with external migration as well and what is happening there and again Britain is the exception and again Britain doesn't sign to EU regulations about immigration about immigrants and chooses and cherry picks and says no I will decide on case to case basis and I want this as well to stop and migration is going to be a huge issue in the future because we have managed to destroy the environment and then there will be flows of immigrants and they will coming from the parts of the world that the west has contributed a lot in destroying and destroying the environment how are we going to tackle these issues again my response is only collectively we will be able to deal with these issues if you allow the situation that it is today and how in Britain certain things are perceived where everybody will close their borders and say oh no yes but we are a small country and we can't and so on no we will not manage to deal with these situations again it's about unity and again it's about having a European Union not as it is right now but the European Union that we will create thank you Reena and so Aaron let's hear from you now I mean you as someone who's backing Brexit you have ended up on the side of people like Nigel Farage does that worry you that you might be playing into the hands of certain reactionary forces that everybody out I mean my dad didn't have a passport my dad was a refugee not a passport till 2010 so he was here from 1979 when we ran the revolution so I've seen how bad the system is but no I'm not worried at all I mean the thing is I don't think you keep as a scalable political project in this country I'll tell you why it's limited to the over 50s Labour won the last general election amongst under 45s 51% of 18 to 24 year olds are Labour so I think yes there are lots of these people they're very vocal and yes they turn out elections but I don't think actually in terms of civil society there's a critical mass of these people for a popular project I just don't think it would happen if there was, this is on 23rd right the referendum 24th, if there was a demo on the 24th on the 25th I can imagine you know the refugees demo for instance was called at such short notice the left would be able to get on the streets whatever the outcome 70-80,000 people the right can't do it it's limited, it's much more micro-political to be 60 people kicking somebody's head in the wrong foot you know it's much more microscopic in terms of big political mobilisation in defiance of anybody like Nigel Farage I really trust the left and I think it's a much more scalable politics in the long term especially by the middle of the next decade so I'm not worried at all I want to talk quickly about the migration issue I mean there's a particular dynamic in the UK which is most wealth most resources go to London now some of these people in very isolated communities public services are crap real wages have been flat aligning for a long time living standards flat aligning for a very long time and they mistakenly blame yes, European migrants are also Muslims and they say that's why things are crap a particular dynamic we have in Britain which you don't necessarily have so much in Greece or Spain or Italy is this metropolis sucking in resources sucking in talents, sucking in money and I think that's another major explanation which is really specific to the UK and also explains partly why Scots are much more much less Eurosceptical in Britain this is why we live in Brexit but something else and I'm telling you that because we have both studied media you know that the mainstream narrative is so much against immigration and they go on forever there are all these issues about the referendum and they have managed to put immigration in Britain at the top of the agenda and we have to change it I mean that was a project that was constructed over 10 years in the print media you know the two biggest red papers in this country Daily Mail, The Sun over 50% of market share both owned by tax avoiders right, they don't even pay their tax so that isn't just a natural outgrowth of British sentiment it's two eyes really since the mid 1990s really and remember so start thinking about what questions you might have for the panellists, I know quite a few of us in this room wouldn't exist were it not for various bits of migration into the UK so it would be really good to hear from you know from as many of you as possible at the end okay so we're going to move on to another controversial but very important issue which is intrinsically linked again to immigration and that is the question of refugees so just to put just to give you a few figures this is a debate a discussion that has been has gone from one about people and human stories just to one about figures and quotas but just to add just to give you some more figures there are now four and a half million refugees from Syria in five countries Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan Iraq and Egypt more than a million migrants and refugees crossed into Europe in 2015 and we know that at least 3,770 refugees died trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2015 most of them died coming from North Africa to Italy but more than 800 died crossing the Aegean from Turkey to Greece we at Lundi M25 we decided we didn't want to use the issue of refugees as a political football so we are actually more we want to hear from the two panellists about where you think the refugee crisis has come from how you think it can or can't be solved or ameliorated and what the EU and the UK need to do with regards to this issue both at this point in time and perhaps on the 24th as well so I'm going to go to Aaron first well yeah we are seeing the first sort of flickers of the refugee crisis and I don't know what the Wikipedia article will be called in 2040 because it's a lot bigger than that Africa's population sub-Saharan sub-Saharan Africa's population is going to double between now and 2050 because of climate change crop yields could decline by one third so twice the people maybe one third the arable land you probably imagine a lot of people will be leaving if you look at the whole of North Africa all the way into Central Asia it's a straight line of countries with a couple of exceptions which could very plausibly become failed states now clearly these people quite rightly are going to go to the place where they will be able to find work political safety sanctuary but also just you know increasingly just yeah safety generally so yeah they're going to be coming to Europe and there's going to be lots of them and that is an intersection of a couple of things security crunch the end of American Empire climate change and yeah that's the two major ones and a failure of neoliberalism right I mean if you look at for instance interesting hypotheses around why the Arab Spring kicks off if you look at the political economy of a lot of North African countries they're de-industrialising throughout the early 1990s as China and India all of a sudden start making loads of textiles so there's actually a really good structure analysis for why Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt eventually move into a situation where they can become revolutionary after 2010 that starts actually a couple of decades earlier for some people so the refugee crisis is only beginning it's only going to get worse and yeah I'm obviously very concerned about that again I don't really see much of a solution for under capitalism if you look demographic change the United States I think is projected to become a minority majority country by 2040 something which means there's no overall ethnic minority i.e. white people are an ethnic minority so when white people are Trump brothers go where are you going to become an ethnic minority it's true so the left has to start saying yes and there's nothing wrong with that there's a similar thing going on in Britain Britain's expected to become a minority majority country I think by the 2060s 2070s the same is happening with Europe demographics are happening so like I say doubling in sub-Saharan Africa we've had higher birth rates across the Middle East Muslim countries for a long time now and white Europe has had below birth replacement rates for a long time now so Europeans are living longer, they're having fewer children so that means that the average European by the end of this century will be brown there will be fewer blonde people there will be fewer white people it's ethically neutral right but that's the reality of the situation now when you have political consent you have whole political parties and I don't just mean UKIP, I mean the Conservative party I mean New Democracy I mean the historic parts of Christian democracy and the centre right in Europe they are based on ethically homogeneity so given that, I just really wonder how they'll respond I suppose we've already had a foretaste of it with the United States and the left seems to be doing pretty damn well and I can't see Trump ever being a president for the presideries of outline demographic change, he could never win Florida, California too many Latinos I could be wrong of course so it's a huge catastrophe and the left has to meet it Marina, why do you believe that the EU is is part and parcel of solving or ameliorating or figuring out the refugee crisis and the crisis of migration that we're facing I know that I'm repeating myself that I have to go again and say because of political reasons first of all I have to start by saying that what we saw in the EU is the failure and the huge crisis failure to deal with the refugee crisis to accommodate the people to deal in a legal way with the refugees that they were crossing from Greece, Italy and so on so there it shows its weakness that it wasn't able to show the political will and the union that it should have shown according to its founding principles I have to say here as well that I don't like at all the deal between EU and Turkey I don't consider Erdogans, Turkey a safe country I think it is a deal that it is against international law and UN convention on refugees I think it is a deal which is against what the EU charters on fundamental rights are arguing and I think there we saw that we have to change this EU change it, this wasn't a response this wasn't a European response what happened instead is that they passed the problem to where they could just to get it out of their door other people should take our problem so this shows us that the EU should change but at the same time we saw what was happening that what stopped the solution to this problem was nationalism one of the big differences I think I have with Arun is that I am very much more pessimistic about where the left is as it is right now what we see is the emergence of nationalism Austria closing borders everybody building borders and refusing to take the political responsibility and the political solution legal solution that they should so I do believe the EU is in crisis I do believe it failed but if we want to deal with these issues we have to have unity not nationalism and deal with it collectively I guess one of the unknown things we can't know but we can speculate about would be the response of Austria and Hungary to the refugee crisis if they weren't constrained even by the EU and Poland as well do you think it would be even worse if we didn't have the EU? I think they would have done it much easier and with some of us saying hang on what is going on there but this is the problem I think this is the big threat of the EU it's not going to be Brexit and it's not going to be the left by the way we are not there I see the other side which wants to divide the EU they are organized Austria and Hungary had meetings outside the EU so there is a division already happening there and they are pushing their own policies which is very nationalistic and only thinking of how they won't have to deal with the problem this is why I believe we are very far behind them the left is not the one winning in this case it's very different forces this is why I think we should stay in and find I mean Aaron surely you can see the sense the left is not winning on the refugee crisis and the forces of reaction across Europe are dominating the dialogue and the policy I mean Greece last year took 800,000 people I think was that right? 800,000 by sea landed in Greece last year right? I mean it's just astonishing I just don't know how our country can even cope with that how the Greek people not only cope with that but elect a left-wing government but also go back further so I think at the start of the 1990s Spain only one or two percent of Spaniers were non-native born that's a lot higher now a lot of people left are to do that but it's a lot higher now and there's been no right-wing kickback the left has grown over that period of time the right hasn't done across Southern Europe because the big colonial powers are multicultural societies and all of a sudden Southern Europe actually has more brown and black people and they're very stable and actually they're voting for left-wing governments so I'm actually very confident about a lot of these things I just want to make a quick point about the nature of Europe which is you're looking at a constellation I think of three groups of country you've got the south you've got the north and then I say you've got the east now the north has these very peculiar I won't call them fascists fascist parties now they're polling number one in the Netherlands the UKIP is doing superbly the Front National is doing pretty well don't even look at the votes they're channeling something which is approaching a mainstream orthodoxy in a lot of these countries Truefends in Finland you've got the north and they also prefer fiscal austerity they almost hate Southern Europeans as much as they hate these people coming from Syria that's the north then you've got the south and they're supported by the refugee crisis more than anybody else and they are pro deficit funded counter-cyclical stimuli they want to run deficits to have a bigger state to create GDP growth and create jobs so there's an economic difference to the difference with refugees then you've got the east now I think if we had the old EU the pre-2004 EU this could be saved but I think it's too big for the interests and cultural values I don't think that can work anymore so the east has a very different economic model it's much more ethnically homogenous that doesn't exist by the way but they think it exists it's much more ethnically homogenous and it doesn't really have any history or culture of multiculturalism and I just don't think that these three families can work together maybe two of them could, I think the north and the south could but the three of them together I don't think will work this is an empirical observation I'm not saying it's a good thing to bring you back in on that point I think I think what you are saying there is something in there and what we show with the crisis especially with the great crisis and the negotiations is how the European Union is divided and how I mean show you believe and propose that that we should have a core and a periphery and periphery meant new colonisation here so there are forces in there but I think we have to stop that and I have to say in terms of the southern countries it's not that they we have created anything any unity any different block yet so always when we are thinking I think how we move forward we have to assess where we are and we haven't made progress in different alliances on the one hand and the other side is very much willing to divide that and win from that okay I'm sure a lot of you will have a lot to say about this issue when we come for questions I'm going to move on to issue number five and that is the environment it's been touched upon a little bit in the presentations now in the 1970s and the 80s Britain had the reputation for being the filthiest dirtiest countries in Europe had the highest sulphur dioxide emissions in the EU and seas that were like sewers because we were pumping human effluent into them European environmental policies which have accumulated quietly since the 1970s address almost every aspect of environmental protection they protect our drinking and bathing water landfills, emissions habitats, air pollution and of course the big one climate change they constitute one of the most comprehensive bodies of environmental protection law in anywhere in the world today membership or indeed leaving the EEA would mean that the UK government no longer has to be bound by European law on these issues and many people today particularly with the issue of climate change believe that it requires a unified transnational response so my question is for Aaron what would you say to people who argue that only through cooperation with our European neighbours can we address forthcoming environmental challenges don't you want it a question? no no I'm not asking you so unilateral action in one state cannot address something like climate change I'm sure you agree on that so if we can't co-operate on the EU how are we going to co-operate on the single planet? we've got all these multilateral organisations and supranational organisations like the EU we've got the G20, the G8, the IMF WTO, the World Bank and we're going to hell pretty quickly by I think there's a great book climate capitalism and the upper estimates the IPCC report in terms of climate change look at two thirds of the world's biggest cities on the water by 2060 that book's climate capitalism I'm not making this up that is on google books if you go and look for it so it's a huge problem we've got all these supranational transnational multilateral organisations and they're not meeting these challenges and I think the solution is like Marina said politics has to come from social movements and I think they get the most leverage, the most success at the level of the nation state because they can remove holders of public office we can't do that at the European level at the moment if we could then I'd say great but no and this particularly yes, it's been great for the EU's been great for clean beaches and so on and so forth but it's one of those issues where yes it's got an outstanding record, does that make up for some of the other stuff probably not, I mean it's got nice aid policy for instance right with a lot of the countries I've started at the beginning talking about got great aid policy but that's like a plaster, it's abysmal trade policy it's almost like so corporate social responsibility so I don't think so and also it's current environmental standards and nowhere near good enough if we want to even make a dent in climate change which isn't going to happen anyway I'm just going to pull you off a one thing because I don't think this is about clean beaches I think this is about the working class of this country having access to clean drinking water but that's the meme isn't it and having air that we can actually breathe well London air, I'm an asthmatic I was in Bournemouth seeing my dad until yesterday until today and I come to London I can't breathe so again if the EU is so great there are two levels in London going through the roof isn't that something that we would be better off fixing as a... politics fixes, I just don't think politics which appeals to change at the level of the EU is the politics to fix, I think we need to change the domestic government interesting, Marina should we just ride roughshod over decades of environment this is also an statue by the way if we left the EU tomorrow it would be a big job to get rid of it I have to say I don't think first of all we are going to get rid of capitalism there is a many days soon I'm not saying this I'm saying both of Jeremy Corbyn the other thing is that yeah I don't think the EU is great as well but we have to think again where we are and if you look at all the discussions that are happening in relation to TTIP and from people that they write about TTIP and probably they will be much closer to your position in terms of their referendum they all agree that the EU standards that we have in terms of the environmental standards they are much higher than the EU the US and this is why TTIP is a huge threat because it's going to destroy that so I think we already have something there not enough but I think the EU is much further ahead than for example the US and I do believe we have to fight TTIP now there was the parties agreement I don't think it's doing enough I don't think it's doing it fast enough but again the difficulty of managing to have so many different countries coming together and having even a minimum agreement it is something so again the environment it is something that I say in the unity how we are going to fight and of course when it comes to TTIP as well again I believe the same thing that within the EU we are fighting TTIP much better than what is going to happen if Britain leaves the EU because then we won't have Corbyn yet it will take a little bit we will have a Tory government negotiating a Tory government which cares about the interest of the city rather than the interest of the people and the agreements that they will make will be subjected to the same body that the TTIP agreements at the beginning were supposed to be under investor state dispute settlement which is multinational lawyers effectively dealing with any dispute that it will happen so while we think the EU we are fighting TTIP we are making some progress and I think we will manage to stop it I don't want to think what will happen if Britain goes out and you have a Tory government negotiating for the interest of big businesses if you look at where leaderships come on the big issues Italy, operation marinostrum they deployed basically the whole Italian navy searching rescue operations so they are training they said the heck of a lot of people right came from Italy I'm not a big nationalist again it's just an observation the EU replaces it with operation Triton they just do basically 12km around the seaboard right which has basically led to thousands of people dying they knew that was going to happen nuclear well you might not agree with nuclear but transitioning to a very different kind of energy economy Germany there was real leadership there why because of domestic pressures I just don't see any of this stuff happening at the level of Europe I mean if I had been writing this debate a couple of weeks ago I would have had an entire question on TTIP but it does now look like it may not happen which is an extraordinary feat for campaigners across Europe and in America as well but Aaron I've seen you argue that TTIP is one of the big reasons why we should leave the EU what do you think Marine's point that if Britain was outside of the European Union it would be more susceptible to hideous trade deals like TTIP rather than less susceptible and it does appear that Britain has actually been one of the driving forces behind TTIP in the European Union so a lot of this stuff TTIP between the US and Asian countries a lot of this stuff came about because of the failure of the WTO in the early 90s about 15 years ago the global south said we're not going to have this anymore with the global north so all of a sudden the EU the US, Japan has to go and they still want these wonderful free trade deals what are we going to do we're going to have to negotiate them bilaterally with other people we'll take it to another level we'll have to circumvent the WTO that's where it came from so I don't think things could be much worse if the UK external trade policy would be conducted within WTO I don't think it would be much worse what I would say is again it's all contingent on a different guy running the country sure but that's why we're in politics this is the thing the left the right is going to govern for 20 years if you really believe that I mean why bother I'll go and get my football coaching badges I wouldn't be doing this you're doing it because you think you can change things but then elections in 4 yeah but we would leave the EU in 2017-2018 they wouldn't be able to get rid of any statute before then and that's really important nothing big could happen for national election basically and in regards to WTO I think a left wing British government again I don't see Corbyn's ambitious guy they're not this ambitious we've made you reform with the international financial institutions WTO, the IMF, World Bank now I think there will be a handful of countries that can do this Britain is one of them now the left again my dad's Iranian I don't talk about Anglo-Iranian oil, BP I know colonialism the left's very like oh god Britain let's not talk about how it does punch above its way but it does so how about if you get a socialist as prime minister you might actually better do something about the IFIs Britain could do that America could do that, Germany could do that China could do that there are some countries that could do this Britain's one of them I think let's give it a shot and it's a lot quicker than 28 member states all changing in a new EU if that happens that's going to take a long time but there is something else there talking in the possibility that Corbyn is going to be in the next government I wish I would believe so much liberty democracy that I would say and then we are saved and I don't think we will be this is why another thing that it is happening and it is happening within the European Union is that you have different alliances created between countries but between progressive forces let's say so it's not only if Corbyn is going to Corbyn will need support and there will be some forces there to support with him and these are forces that they come from the European left some of the socialists in the EU greens potentially and so on so we have something in there in order to start building alliances and in case we have left governments having more support this brings us very neatly and to the next issue that we want to tackle and that is that of democracy I'm going to do something unpleasant again I'm going to quote Nigel Farage bear with me I'm not going to try and do an impression of his voice a super national beast sweeping aside national sovereignty completely the EU is not undemocratic it's anti-democratic that's Nigel Farage and here's one for you Greece isn't a democracy now it's run through a troika three foreign officials that fly into Athens airport and tell the Greeks what they can and can't do Nigel Farage, not me so this is my question for you which I think a lot of people will be very very interested in on the British Left the treatment of Greece has become one of the main issues I would say for why a lot of the British Left is being told to vote for Brexit why are you as a Greek activist and a member of Ceresa arguing for the European EU project and that the UK should stay in the EU yes sure first of all I have to say that when we were saying on July 12, 2015 that there was a coup in Greece there was a coup in Greece it wasn't a metaphor that we were using or anything like that there was seriously a coup and we were defeated and we have to say that as well then try to play something different but I think what happened there or what happened from my perspective is that what we show is that the European Union didn't show the political will that it needed and it didn't stick to its own treaties and this is how technocracy worked so when for example the Greek government was saying no we cannot take decisions like that within the Eurogroup but they have to be taken by the European leaders it was actually trying to do that bring politics back and the people and the voice of the people via the referendum back at the heart of the EU so seriously there is a democratic deficit there but it's not because in the way I say it because of the foundations of the EU but of how the EU what the EU has become now in Britain there are no other issues that they bother me a lot I think they may bother you as well since you are a Europeanist and we have in a very short time I feel to learn all together and try to understand what the EU is something that it hasn't happened I don't know for how many years and there are these accusations flying that the EU is a democratic and so on which I will agree with that the problem is that you have to know where it is on democratic and how we intervene and how we change that so in relation to the commission for example and I think you brought the commission at some point as a bureaucracy the commission now I know that I will be very much on the European side sometimes it happens the commission is the civil service which you have by the way on the national level as well and I haven't seen being contested on national level as well the commissioners are appointed by elected governments which across Europe they are mainly Tory and neoliberal and this is the civil service that you have so they are unelected true they are unelected but we have to remember that they are appointed by the elected governments so when we say that the EU is undemocratic I have a proposal there a small proposal but I think we should do something if we won't change within the commission on the national level we have more scrutiny of who is appointed as a commissioner and what their portfolio is and the same we go when our elected governments go and negotiate on our behalf within the EU usually they bring back what will happen in the negotiations within the national parliament we want more debate before, scrutiny before they go in the EU I think it may not sound big I have other proposals as well but I will leave it when you will ask us about the future the future have that as well Aaron can I respond to that quickly about the commission? okay go on I mean the commission is a civil service marina it's pretty unique it's got a gender setting powers no other bureaucracy in the world has that I mean it has a lot of executive functions and it's a bit disingenuous it's just a bureaucracy like a white hole isn't it? no what you have to remember is that they breed and I think I don't think I've been in debates that most people they don't know what the commission is doing they don't know who has to they think that the commission is just making laws and if the commission says so that's it, it becomes you it's not the truth so what I'm saying there is not a problem with the commission as I said there are proposals there but we have to be very specific and know how these undemocratic institutions work what are our proposals how we go on campaigning and how we intervene okay so my question to Aaron on this point is that even if we leave the European Union we're still going to want to be part of it in some way and I don't know if you're arguing to leave the economic area as well but it's still going to be this enormous thing that's going on it's still going to have a massive influence over our country except we won't be able to have any kind of power in it and for me that sounds like something that's undemocratic not having any kind of vote or any kind of say in an institution that is dominating your country and your life I want to address that and I'm going to say he was right okay and I think that the EU in around 2011 went from undemocratic to anti-democratic they imposed Mario Monti this managerialist government on the Italians because they were so worried about Berlusconi and Italy the fourth biggest bomb market in the world that would sink the euro zone pretty quickly if they left it and then likewise in Greece they imposed the Papademos government on to Greece so these were cherry picked politicians to lead countries wow and then in a similar vein during the occy stuff the ECB tries to start a run on Greek banks once it's clear that Syriza wants you know an occy boat right and again it moved that really betoken to me like a move from okay it's undemocratic to outright anti-democratic you know I look at John Gisselboom this is not enough this guy is an anti-democrat just unbelievable couldn't be more anti-democrat he couldn't hate the will and the sovereignty to make more this guy I wish I could say I love him but I can't and then your point about your point about it would still be there absolutely would be and I'm sure lots of people here are and that's all very well and good about Corbyn it's pie in the sky it's improbable let's use a more scientific word right possibly it's improbable maybe right I think it's more probable than genuine reform of the EU I statistically believe that I statistically think it's far more likely that the coalition government in this country than meaningful reform of the EU now why is that what would it take to reform the EU to have a more democratic Europe what would it take it would take I would say two left-wing governments in the following three countries Britain and France France and Germany Britain and France Britain and Germany France and Germany right the combination I think it probably would have to involve Germany I think it probably would have to involve Germany right SPD right now what are they polling at 21% low 20s maybe somebody's Germany going to correct me low 20s I saw it a few weeks ago where are they polling 16% right the CDU and the CSU running a show in Germany they don't want to stop anytime soon so the domestic German context is as well and that's not moving for 10 years so if you were just saying how do we make Europe more democratic everything you're saying is correct but if the best reason to stay in this thing is that it's better in than out and I mean wow I'd rather sort of just you know just burn the thing down and we'd still be in the EAA because I don't think if I thought reform was possible I would really go for it statistically it just seems so unlikely to me so is your position that you're that you're not against the EU as a concept but you're against it because of the governments that are running it if you did have I don't like Sarisa, Podemos, Labour, Dylinka all the rest of it in charge would you be happy in that kind of EU I mean the demand from DM about the European Parliament being sovereign I think it's a great demand and I'm well up for that I'm well up for a federal European super state and the executive and the legislature they're voted on and we vote for them and it's like the United States for the reasons I've said primarily I think it's a constitution of three different families of nations and then I just don't think the Germans there's a German domestic dynamic which will impede it for a generation so it's not going to happen ECB because you mentioned it I have to say I agree with you the ECB in the case of Greece it played a very political role actually it went against the treaties that they exist in the EU if you look at the treaties it says that it should manage the crisis for the European Union there are other founding treaties which are about solidarity and instead of doing that you have one case where you see the dominant forces within the EU using the European Central but as a political tool to bring down a left-wing government and they were quite successful in a certain way but that should not stop us from going on fighting on all this level that I mentioned another thing that happened which I think is quite important from the Greek crisis is that you saw that this bloc that it was quite unified especially the social democratic parties going along and saying yeah this is the way forward more austerity blah blah blah there was a crack there this is what it is interesting me in politics this is the possibilities that I see opening not that it's going to happen immediately and what with what I want to work and make a difference okay I think this would be a good moment to maybe open up the floor for questions from our audience does anyone have a question we've covered refugees we've covered climate change, migration brilliant okay let's go over here Jonny are you doing a roving mic so what we need is for the person who is asking the question to stand up cheers that was really quite interesting from both sides and actually Aaron once I was hearing from you I just honestly couldn't believe I've had several occasions to just shout out so I just want to ask one question what makes you think that you're going to be better off with your hands tied and gagged standing by while the EU affect their regulations on the UK and not be able to do anything about it I'm going to take a few questions you can write that down right yeah so I guess my question will be in the beginning I just said I was one of the persons who decided on what to do on the end of June through these I can't do nothing because I'm not a British citizen but I'm a deeply European person and my question will be could there be a leave both from a European perspective saying that this would be such a big shock the rest of Europe that a core group of countries which is as we said Germany and probably it's western satellites to actually go into the federal government so could there be a possibility and strategy for a European way to the leave campaign just wish for thinking interesting would you mind, oh yes thank you do you think that the antithesis that you posed is the wrong one as far as I understood your discussion so far you counterposed Europe versus the UK I call it transnational versus national but this antithesis to my mind is wrong is the wrong antithesis because as it happened in Greece it was the concerted capitalist nations in Europe versus the Greek people and its representative of Syriza so when that happened the collapse of Syriza it didn't collapse that was well it was collapsed I mean not a as you say it was a coup then this movement DM grew out of that it made it a European question its not a national question Europe versus the strong versus the weak breaking its own treaties so my question is should the antithesis be changed as you brought it out socialist policies are becoming illegal so that means the will of the people the interests of the people working middle class any people in Europe the industrial industrialism and the whole of the economies how they run whether they take any account of environmental policies or not how we pose the antithesis what do you think? brilliant okay I'm going to take those three questions first of all Aaron what makes you think you'll be any better off gagged and have with your hands tied whilst the EU imposes legislation upon the UK? I mean you could actually say the same thing about right now with external trade policy the European Commission decides trade policy with the WTO the member states have no they have no say I think if Britain left the EU okay what would happen I think the EU have existential problems right? let's model what happens it probably wouldn't exist in its current form I think it probably would then have something which would approximate a federal super state but then you'd need Euro bonds and I don't think that the German the German electorate is willing to do that I don't know actually willing to go the full Monty on monetary union so the EU would have an existential crisis I think something more concrete would come out of it and I think Britain would probably end up leaving the European economic area so the idea that they would still be tied to this stuff I don't know if that's necessarily necessarily the case okay thank you I don't think we should necessarily think in those terms okay Marina is there a chance do you think that a leave vote could create such a shock that it could force some kind of federalist organisation to come into existence around Germany? No because I don't think that's where we are because as I was saying before I think you see nationalisms you see people breaking up into a national interest coming to the forefront no communitarian spirit is that the question did I get it correct? Yeah There would be conditions for this kind of shock in Europe in case of Britain leaving There have been too big shocks in the EU one it was the economic crisis and what followed in the case of Greece it became the visibility the same was the refugee crisis another big shock in both cases we saw that the EU was much less than what we wanted but where the power goes and what we see emerging from that and I think this is the case for Greece as well is xenophobia is nationalism is the far right the fastest taking advantage of that I wish I could say something more optimistic I think but this is how I perceive the situation Okay and then both of you just met them quickly or have we is the way we've been looking at the debate wrong should we rather than framing it as in Europe versus the UK should we be looking at it through the lens of capital versus people and how does that affect your arguments for leave or remain because you're looking at me sorry I didn't I think you could say that we have to remember though that when we are talking about how the debate is framed from the mainstream it is Europe versus UK and this has been going on in Britain forever but the media have always framed this debate whenever the EU and everybody communicated in the mainstream media it is always us and them but I think you are right probably we shouldn't think on these national terms and we should start thinking of the creation of the people of Europe we are not there yet I don't think we have this identity we are not there yet to understand ourselves as one co-activity and I don't mean in geographical terms or in us the people of Europe and the power of the people of Europe I think this was the first instance that people realised that what was happening in this small country probably it says something about the situation of the rest of us as well but this is why we started from big-eating movements to create and I think this is the attempt of the M25 to create a people of Europe that they come together and they demand change That's an attractive proposition though I think absolutely we should look at it as Labour versus capital obviously it's the frame you should look at any social conflict through but like you said this is the question we're confronted with also big question is here is Britain part of Europe it's a big question historically Europe is a matinic one Italy isn't a country it's a geographical expression Now the same is arguably the case for Europe it's a geographical expression Now this is an island which has a particular history in regard to a global empire I think there's something interesting to be asked there if you look at why did Britain join the EU there wasn't there the Treaty of Rome in 57 they wanted to join in 63 they've all said slinging earth they finally joined in 73 Now why did it take Britain so long because British capitalism is tied up into its colonialism its colonies the British empire and then they were looking at growth rates they're looking at rates of return profitability they're looking at German capitalism Italian capitalism even Greece Greece in the 50s economic growth and say we want a part of that So this is not good all these captive colonial markets we have forget about it we want to be part of this western European party and they went there instead and that was a that was in the interest of a particular class of people in Britain capitalist class there was a higher rate of profitability going on in western European capitalism and British imperialism capitalism and yeah there was never this idea that oh we need to make Europeans I feel European I went on Erasmus I speak very good Italian I'm not Dante and Goethe Do I think that most British people feel European probably not and also as an extension of that most Scots do right so they're also internal internal constrictions here and another thing we're not talking about is Britain and Italy I think you'd almost certainly be the end of the union and I don't say that flippantly I think it would be right we're definitely going to come to that I'm going to take three more questions instant cluster over there we have a mic where are we going there was one, two, three all around Italy but the global empire in the Austro-Hungarian multicultural Who has a global empire? Italy when? the global empire it was just the point you're condemning the EU for being at best no more than a drag break moralism and factorism and then you talk about a left-wing government but if you take the break off in what way would that do other than strengthen the already in place right-wing government I'm going to take two more just a very simple point when you talk about the prison of labour versus capital that just seems such a reductive prison when the concept of war and peace and security for a lot of people is the main strength that the European Union and the project is for and I think that's probably more important than a lot of people are thank you, last question I'm preoccupied about how we get messages out to people you've alluded to the fact that the media is just killing all debates and covering over everything and not allowing what we would want to talk about to come through I'm also a bit shocked that the mayor of an election only 45% of Londoners actually voted great what happened but there was only 45% of Londoners that would send out to vote and I'm also thinking about Obama and how he got it and it was largely through social media a mixed bag of things there and what I'm concerned about is that I've been doing a lot of canvassing on the doorstep a bit shocked to how many really hardcore Labour voters when asked the question about Remain or Leave say I really don't know no it's an important point democracy right here how do we galvanise people do you want to tackle the first question it's absolutely true it was multi cultural if anything that goes to show again I don't like to say it but it goes to show that imperial powers are more prone to multi ethnic identities than nation states right another one is the Ottoman Empire friends and in terms of the the handbrake argument I've got a big idea which again many people may disagree with here and it's about changing public attitudes with younger people and I'm looking at the next 10, 20, 30 years here and the politics I was talking about that counter evolution of Thatcher but let's take it even before then this was a consequence of the failure of a particular kind of capitalism in the early 1970s and they made the most of it in the early 1970s profitability in America and the United Kingdom was very low workers' wages were going up all the time now in capitalism that doesn't work you need to reassert a particular relation so you have globalisation and you also have a political project which smashes organised labour so it wasn't nasty to all these nasty Republicans it was a response to a crisis of capitalism that's my opinion maybe I'm wrong now that counter evolution has been happening for decades and I think we're coming to the end of it I thought we'd come to the end of it in 2008 but I was mistaken right now it's more hardcore than ever before but if you look at for instance like I said public attitudes in the United States the age that Sander supports was the New Hampshire primary Sander's amongst under 30s beat Hillary by six to one Obama beat her by 20% 30% amongst that demographic it was a much bigger change so younger people have much more progressive values than older people not just in the US but also in the UK there's 20 million millennials in the UK a lot of people like I say last election they voted green and labour and we're moving towards Europe and the US becoming security countries brown and black people now given all of that given the climate change given the failure of neoliberalism given a security crunch I think loads of stuff is going to change and I don't think that the Tories are going to govern for 20 years I think we're going to see huge challenges to the system right economic system, political system how a consensus has been manufactured and so on so yeah that's the answer the first question yeah no we will I would like to get your view on this because it's something that David Cameron amongst other people has been talking about which is an issue that a lot of people take very seriously which is the impact of the European Union in bringing peace and stability to Europe do you think that's something that we should be proud of and that there should be more emphasis on or do you think the risk of war without the EU is a great one I think I think on that one we have to I agree that it brought peace and you started with your presentations about what the European Union meant after the second world war at the same time I would have to say that there were conflicts within the EU as well there was bombing of Kosovo, Serbia and so on so the conflict was there but if I have to say something about war and peace and they will throw that to Aaron I think if you want to leave something leave NATO why hasn't all these years that has been going around we are still everybody in NATO thank you marine that last question and then I'm going to bring us back to this idea of the future but as part of looking at the future how do we galvanise people to get them engaged in politics and debates like this so again my thinking is so premised on the inability to reform the EU so the reason why I say the things I do you may say well this doesn't make sense I don't think the most Eurosceptic parts of the country I think the most Eurosceptic is the north east of England right Labour country you keep finishing a lot of these places 121 second places last direction you can't tell these people we're going to do this reform is possible if you don't think it's possible now I don't think it's possible and I've outlined why the primary reason being you need a reform in government in Germany that's not going to happen for a very long time so how do you galvanise people I think the first thing has to be your honest with them and then secondly which I think the end does very well is you have to make clear demands which would mobilise specific social constituencies so this idea of we would have a fully elected legislature and that's where sovereignty would reside fantastic very easy to understand right so that would be you're already doing it so I say honesty and then clear demands thank you marine do you want to add anything to that yes quite a few I think because it is about media as well yeah yes yes first of all when I hear I go to your point about capitalism and these divisions I think one of the things that I have moved quite away from this reductionism I cannot I cannot take it when everything is reduced to this economic analysis which is always capitalism and capitalism and we have to move away from that to look at how economy is part of politics and put politics back at the centre of everything this was a point I think that you were making in terms of young people I teach politics but we have problem because we are talking about a university that is changing very fast which means that a relationship is changing the relationship we have in universities are changing and a lot of people who will be paying 9000 pounds they will be people that they are customers we are moving towards that from the side of universities and from the side of students as well I mean if you see university as a place where you could have debates and engage people and do something there of course I hope you will say that there was a movement of students but I still find what I am saying the change in the university quite problematic and then I come to the media and you are doing media much better and in practice and you are so good at social media the problem I have not very good at that is that social media sometimes they represent for me clusters of people talking to each other without understanding the broader pictures that they are happening it may be because I am not very good at that so I would go back to a mixed ecology if you want how do you talk to people how you bring messages out first of all in terms of mainstream media occasionally we have chances to use them Varoufakis has chances to use them he became a celebrity and he used them for good he said things that a lot of people heard because we have to remember media as well they are not as monolithic as they are represented sometimes they want to say and Varoufakis was very good in presenting himself he took quite a lot of airtime and I think he used it for good in that case so we have to use mainstream media we have to use social media but I am still interested in the old ways you have to go out you have to talk to people you have to have contact and nothing is going to substitute there ok so I am going to move us on to our closing issue which is that of the future now Varoufakis the finance minister of Greece believes that Brexit would mean the dissolution of the EU and the creation of an ultra nationalistic toxic social conservatism and around migration and economics he believes that this would result in a power vacuum and fertile ground for the right the bigots and the ultra nationalists and the fascists of Europe like Marine Le Pen in short Brexit means driving Europe off a cliff and it is a situation where the left will not make gains and where we could find ourselves in a kind of post-modern 1930s the UK if this happens will ultimately also get sucked into the vortex of this collapsing Europe my question therefore to both panellists is how do we change the balance of power in Europe to turn back the forces of the far right and to take back control from transnational capital what should we do to create that one simple but very radical idea to democratise Europe Marina how much time I have for that it's a very good question the first thing we have to understand and we have to accept that neoliberalism has won because in terms of the public domain the main narratives are neoliberal people accept them as common sense even if it is about economics if it is about politics and this is where TTIP is coming there is no other solution and this is a huge hegemonic victory that they have so we have to start changing these narratives and this doesn't mean that somebody will come out and they will say no this narrative is not true it needs constant work all the time but again in terms of the future about how do we democratise the EU I think I talked about these three different levels create movements change national governments create alliances within the EU but I have more particular proposals when it comes to the democratisation of the EU and you said something that the nation states play no role within the EU they always can veto certain decisions for example nobody I think vetoed the decision between the EU and Turkey so let's not reduce everything that there is no space nowhere and let's look where the space is but also in terms of democracy I think one of the issues and one of the campaigns that we have to put forward and I think BM25 is in a good place of doing that is about transparency and transparency when there are deals when the documents are on but at the same time on the national level as well what all British governments are playing in the EU and so on the second it will be more democracy again am I going too fast I got tired again on that level we have to look at the institutions and how they work and because the commission is coming up all the time my proposal will be before any government before any government appoints a commissioner let's scrutinize them it should go through national parliament we should know who there is by the way the commissioner of Greece for example he is not a left serious person he is somebody who has quite a lot of experience in the EU and I think he is coming from the conservative party so we have to scrutinize these issues on the national level in order to start building democracy that it will work on transnational level as well are you fed up with me did I go on? no I am not at all fed up with you no I think it is absolutely fascinating Aaron the thing about neoliberalism there are successes there are successes there are successes there are successes but so is increasingly the rise of Donald Trump I don't know if people are aware of this last few days he is saying he would look at the minimum wage being increased and so all the stuff he is talking about could be normally social democratic measures in the 1930s so he thinks the minimum wage should be increased he is saying he likes unions there are now teamsters for Trump and he says he wants tariffs imposed and imports to help American jobs now a lot of his key frames are coming directly from Sanders and he knows to beat Clinton he is going to have to say a lot of this stuff so I think that is symptomatic of a crisis of neoliberalism as much as anything else and incidentally what would be the most popular politics in Britain I think it would be what you could call red UKIP in the abstract right now what would be the most popular politics which is economically left wing but anti immigration and racism and if it was done by a charismatic conservative politician they would clean up so on a lot of the economic stuff I think we are there actually it is around migration, internationalism it is around who and who isn't the human who is allowed who is afforded or furnished human rights which is I think the big terrain now and for me personally I operate more at the level of civil society ideas I try and persuade people and that is what Navarra does we try and change people's minds and it is about constructing a different kind of hegemony a different kind of common sense that is going to take a very long time it is very granular but it has to be done and I think again, I will finish with this I think one of the limits of oh let's defend the EU it is this good thing you can't have this a lot of things it does but the idea that you can put this structure over the realities of Europe and over these dissenting voices of European publics hungry friends Jesus Christ there is so racist right it is all quiet it is all cleaned up great I saw on one of the slides here we have to help hold on to Hungary keeping them in the EU means that the right doesn't come to power and that is not sustainable because it is not democratic people are not going to put up with that so the big struggle is it is an electoral one it is a big people political one but also it is one of ideas in civil society that takes a very long time and it is about creating counter power I think through me as much as anything else that would be my number one aim final word on that idea of balancing the democratic games the democratic games were wider European Union with the democratic desires of individual states how do you think that is really compatible I think it is compatible and what we should be looking for is a union that it will accept difference we have our differences but this should not be the main priority can I reply something to Arun one of the things that I am I am always I am inviting you to think it with me not necessarily to is that from what you were saying about Trump how flexible is neoliberalism how easily they can take ideas that they don't care if they come from Sanders or from the left or whatever and incorporate a narrative that it will be for their own benefits the problem for me for the left it is that it is inflexible sometimes it always has the same reductionist analysis and we don't move with the times and getting into the things and trying to change things Trump is a fascist and neoliberal I mean Marilla Pam was the nationalized industry but the same is for neoliberalism I think as well if they have managed to do anything is that they can take ideas very very easily they don't care they don't care if an idea that I will have if I'm left if it is useful they will take it they will incorporate it the problem is the left that's my problem that it is inflexible it goes on with the same analysis and sometimes it becomes very wooden it cannot respond to the reality that it has in front of it and that's what I would like to change that's what this debate is doing ok so for our people who were undecided do we still have any more undecided people in the room everyone feel like they everyone's probably become undecided very good very good I hope that this evening has shown that the left is not always inflexible and that we do engage in dynamic and very important debates we've kind of had a written stop tour through some of the most pertinent controversial issues around the EU and I would very much like to thank our two panellists for giving us just an extraordinary tour of the political ideas surrounding the EU so thank you both very much well unless there's any announcements from you John about future events all I can say is follow Lundi M25 on Twitter and on Facebook that's where we post messages and notifications about future events that are coming up and if you're feeling inspired by the campaign or by anything that you've heard this evening do feel free to approach John or George or myself about how you could potentially get involved in DM 25 and thanks for being a fantastic audience as well thank you