With Nigel Farage staging a whirlwind tour across the south of Essex today (Saturday 18.5), it seems like a good opportunity to restate our position on Brexit which is basically this – a pox on all of your houses! We’ll try to clarify what we mean by this…

We’re anarchists and as such, distrust all power structures. By definition, we’re opposed to the European Union because it is a power structure that promotes corporate interests – think back to the thankfully failed Trans-Atlantic Trade and Invest ment Partnership. Also take a look at Fortress Europe – there may well be freedom of movement within the EU but for anyone from outside, particularly if they’re non-white, there are massive barriers to their entry into Europe.

Also, look at how one of the leading powers in the EU treat their citizens when they rise up in protest against a neo-liberal imposed austerity. We’re talking about France and the increasing repression by Emmanuel Macron’s paramilitary thugs of the grassroots Gilets Jaunes protest movement. This has been going on since last autumn. A number of protesters have lost their lives. Many more have been seriously injured and maimed.

If this is what a leading EU power can get away with without being taken to task, we want no part of such a union. What shocks us is the number of so called liberal minded people who still see the EU as some kind of cuddly, benign organisation. They’re not – when push comes to shove, EU member states will have little compunction about launching violence on their own citizens who may have the temerity to take to the streets in protest against government policy.

During the course of last year and into this one, we have published a number of posts looking at the disruption and chaos that could arise as a result of a no-deal Brexit. We wrote these posts not as part of ‘project fear’ or because we’re ‘Remoaners’ but because we wanted communities to be as prepared as possible for the consequences. You only have to look at the staggering levels of ineptitude at national and local government level to realise that building grassroots neighbourhood resilience to deal with this chaos is a sensible option. All the time we emphasised that building this grassroots neighbourhood resilience and solidarity could potentially be the first step in building a movement that would eventually tear down the top down power structures that are screwing us over.

Onto the Brexiteers… Just because we reject a neo-liberal EU, it doesn’t mean we’re going to be running into the arms of the likes of Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg…or even Claire Fox for that matter! Farage, Johnson and Rees-Mogg are carpetbaggers who see a no-deal Brexit as the perfect opportunity for them to launch their disaster capitalism, sucking what’s left of this country’s battered and demoralised public services into the private sector. None of the many Leave voters we know want this outcome. As for Fox, there’s probably a book that can be written about her political journey…

To all of those Remainers and Leavers who think there are only two sides in the seemingly never ending Brexit debate, we say there’s a third, radical option of rejecting what the EU stands for on the one hand and what the carpetbaggers and asset strippers such as Farage, Johnson and Rees-Mogg want on the other hand. To put it crudely, they’re nothing more than two cheeks of the same arse and we emphatically reject both of them!

Bear in mind that in the 2016 referendum on EU membership, one in four of eligible voters did not cast a vote. There are a variety of reasons for this. One is the feeling that the arguments from both Remain and Leave didn’t offer enough in the way of verifiable facts to enable them to make an informed decision. Another is instinctively recognising that neither the EU or a so called ‘sovereign’ Britain offer any solution to a working class beaten down by almost ten years of austerity.

Whether it’s remaining in a neo-liberal supporting EU or going it alone under a post Brexit Boris Johnson premiership, there’s nothing on offer from either that will tackle the increasing sense of precarity our class is enduring. The only option that will ensure a decent future for us is bringing power right back down to the grassroots. As we’ve said many times before, the chaos Brexit has already wreaked upon the party political system in this country potentially provides us with the best chance we’ve had in ages to bring about this change…