A reformed EU, not Brexit, offers best hope of more progressive UK | Letters

Larry Elliott (Why the moaning? If anything can halt capitalism’s fat cats, it’s Brexit, 21 July) mentions the EU’s state aid rules as a stumbling block towards the pursuit of progressive economic policies. As someone who has been teaching and researching this subject for over a decade, I find Mr Elliott’s comments unfounded. It is wrong to claim that state aid law prevents the UK from funding sunrise industries. Indeed, this is the kind of initiative that is typically allowed under EU law. It is equally wrong to claim that state aid law prevents nationalisations. There are a number of examples of nationalisations both in Europe and in the UK which have not been stopped by “Brussels”.

State ownership or participation is widespread throughout Europe. One need only look at Norway, which, despite not being an EU member state, is bound by EU state aid law. Norway’s most important industries are state-owned. There are publicly owned banks in a number of EU countries, including Germany. A number of European states or regions have shareholdings in companies such as EDF, Renault and VW. Elliott’s suggestion that Brexit will mean ditching the state aid rules is also misleading. No UK-EU trade agreement is likely to be possible without a commitment from the UK to respect these rules. The reason is simple: they are designed to prevent “beggar thy neighbour” policies. To state the obvious, whatever their future relationship, the UK and the EU will continue to be neighbours.
Francesco de Cecco
Lecturer in law, Newcastle Law School, Newcastle University

• It is very good to see the letter from Bert Schouwenburg (20 July) and the article by Larry Elliott, both of which highlight the anti-working-class nature of the EU. The issue now should be to devise our alternative vision of a Britain after Brexit, free from its rules. Labour, the unions and many campaigning organisations, from housing through to transport, need to work together on progressive policies for all areas of our economy. Many of these already exist as manifestos, union policies and campaign literature and now need transforming into more detailed plans.

Also, it is surely time that, as we discard the neoliberal EU constitution, we should give some consideration to replacing it with one of our own, laying out rights and responsibilities for the workers of this country. Brexit should be seen as our chance to advance what Elliott calls “radical solutions” and to strike at the dominance of neoliberal capitalism in Europe, which last week continued to attack workers in Greece with its demands for further austerity.
Sarah Ansell
Northampton

• Larry Elliott seems to believe that only a British government unencumbered by the EU could legislate to reduce poverty and inequality – for example by lowering VAT and providing state aid to industry. Yet Anthony Atkinson’s Inequality (2015) identified a range of more significant solutions, including effective wealth, property and inheritance taxes; increased social security rates and coverage; a living minimum wage; and a more progressive income tax. All these and more could be achieved within the EU. Inequality in most EU states is lower than in Britain, and the EU includes several of the most equal countries in the world. Poverty and inequality in Britain reflect our own history, values and bad decisions, and our latest bad Brexit decision is most likely to make them worse.
Chris Edwards
Winchester, Hampshire

• Larry Elliott’s article was a welcome relief from the usual self-righteous proclamations of reluctant remainers. These people seem to think the EU is capable of reform. Well, Brexit may provide that opportunity. One of the first steps should be to install basic accounting principles as in “who got paid, how much, and for what?”. Simple enough? Seems not. Former chief accountant to the EU Marta Andreasen was forced out of her job for trying to implement these principles. Read her book Brussels Laid Bare.
Roger Knowles
Nebo, Ceredigion

• It is fitting that Larry Elliott’s article on Brexit begins by invoking the names of Attlee and Gaitskell. The arguments he advances for leaving the EU are hopelessly out-of-date.

It is no accident that opposition to the EU has grown among Tories and simultaneously been declining among greens and the left over the past 30 years or more. This reflects the reality that increasingly globalised capitalism threatens little England nationalism while at the same time creating economic units that can only practically be tamed and regulated at a more-than-national level. The case for action occurring at the EU level to tackle the Googles of this world, and to tackle environmental problems that know no borders, is very strong. Yet Elliott fails even to mention these.

He claims that neoliberalism is “hardwired” into the EU single market. He ignores the fact that the idea of a level playing field for a fair system of regulation for trading in the single market has been made use of by the labour and environmental movements to create the basis for protecting employment rights, air quality and quality of life more generally. This is precisely why the extreme deregulators on the Tory benches are so keen for the UK to leave. No one claims, as Elliott asserts, that the single market is a “panacea” for all our ills. The people talking about a panacea were the leave campaigners who promised the earth but now find there is very little they can deliver. Fortunately, public opinion is not static. People are noticing what is happening. It is only right that, when we have a full picture of the actual exit deal, we get the chance to vote on whether that is what we want.
Victor Anderson
Green House thinktank

• The EU itself is under enormous internal pressure to renounce neoliberalism, as anti-austerity sentiment grows across the continent, along with the questioning of the free flow of people. Such shifts could make a call for managed migration within the EU more plausible, hence addressing the major reason for Brexit. “Remain and reform” would keep us part of a continent powerful enough to stand up to international capital, compared to a Brexit Britain, battered and bullied into submission by such forces.

The parliamentary recess offers Labour an opportunity to slough off its “socialism in one country” Brexit fantasy. To expedite this when Jeremy Corbyn tours the 100 most marginal Tory-held seats (Big majority of Labour members want UK to stay in single market, 18 July), he should be greeted by a new advisory chant from his pro-Europe young followers of “No Brexit … Jer-em-y Cooorbyn”.
Colin Hines
East Twickenham, Middlesex

• We do need a new vision of a post-crash, post-neoliberal, post-austerity Europe. But this will surely include getting global corporations to pay their taxes, and limiting their monopoly power – not possible for a little Brexit Britain. Labour’s ambition should be to show that the EU itself can be made to work for the many not the few – far more inspiring than drifting off as a free market socialist paradise island.
Andrew Broadbent
CES Ltd Economic and Social Research

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