Why I will vote Remain

It is with a heavy sigh that I will be voting Remain in the EU Referendum.

My reluctance stems from the fact that I can't help but feel that this whole campaign has been a waste of valuable time, energy and political will.

There are many good reasons to leave the EU.

As much as I would like to believe in Corbyn's notion of a reformed EU built on social democratic foundations, I fear this is idealistic in a Europe that is shifting ever further to reactionary right wing politics.

The EU is run by an anonymous bureaucratic elite that is concerned solely with maintaining its plutocratic influence over the whole of Europe no matter what cost, as was evidenced by its response to the Syriza government of Greece.

There is also the little-mentioned fact of the subsidies it distributes among the wealthiest landowners in Europe, that account to approximately 40% of the total EU budget. As George Monbiot writes in this excellent article, 'as much as 80% of the funds are harvested by the richest 25% of recipients.'

There are no two-ways about it, the EU is an undemocratic monolith. Two of Tony Benn's oft-quoted questions for a functioning democracy are 'To whom are you accountable?' and 'How can we get rid of you?' With the EU, it is very difficult to answer these questions in a way that would convince of democratic virtue.

This democratic deficit however, may in fact be an advantage when it comes to the major issues effecting the continent and the world. The EU as a power-body holds considerable weight against the US, India, China and others in terms of securing real and tangible commitments on the environment and climate change.

Short-termist national governments all competing to achieve growth in a slowing global economy are the wrong vehicles for achieving anything substantial on the environment, as can be seen by the Tories' sudden scrapping of the Zero Carbon Homes initiative in 2015. Anything even remotely positive on environmental issues has been achieved at EU, not national, level.

Despite all my reservations, I will be voting Remain because the alternative that has been offered by the Leave campaign is far more troubling. Were there a Brexit option that involved closing the equality gap, reassessing the land subsidies, investment in housebuilding, public services, infrastructure and manufacturing, and improving conditions for workers, it would be well-worth voting for.

As it is, Brexit would lead to a right wing government, most likely led by the oafish Boris Johnson, that in its desperate effort to secure the economy would sign the country up to any number of dreadful TTIP-style agreements, making us even more subservient to the whims of the United States, and turn the City of London into a glittering Las Vegas, a deregulated financial playground.

This is the crux of the issue. The great neoliberal capitalist experiment of the last 30-40 years - which the IMF only recently conceded in a report paper that it had on balance failed - has succeeded in changing the nature of the country whilst remaining so illusive and intangible that the disaffected who now back Leave have focused their ire on the EU instead.

The real focus of attention and debate should be directed at whether or not we can move away from this economic system, that has been entrenched by the political class as a form of inarguable orthodoxy, that perpetuates and widens the wealth gap, shifting ever more concentrations of wealth to the top level of society, diminishes public services, and buttresses social mobility with ever higher levels of personal debt.

The great irony of this free market capitalist system is that it means nothing and cannot operate without the associated free movement of people. For the right wing Tories who have banged the free market drum for decades to use immigration as a basis for leaving the EU is the height of insouciance.

The fact remains that the defining challenges of the 21st century - adjusting and responding effectively to the environment and unstoppable technological developments - operate with little-to-no acknowledgement of national boundaries.

Anything that attains to entrenching national borders is archaic and irrelevant in the face of these issues, which will have to be addressed on a continental, if not global, level at some point. Pining after a nostalgic vision of Britain's 'glorious past' is no doubt attractive, but misguided.

The referendum, at the heart of it all, is a vote on which rich over-privileged elite you want to govern over you. Nothing else. Undeniably, Project Fear has been operating in full force on both sides, with a machete of scepticism needed to hack through the forest of lies and fabrications that have been allowed to grow out of all control.

I'll be voting to Remain, but I suspect in the long run it won't matter much either way.