While the Bullington Bullies turn their spite on each other with their spurious arguments over the UK’s status with the European Union, the British electorate are faced with an imponderable choice. But when one considers the matter closely, it is really no choice at all. In either scenario the giant corporations and banks that bestride the planet will still be in control of the British economy. No rational person can really believe that, post referendum, the chronic housing situation in the UK is going to be sorted out by either the in camp or the out camp. And no rational person can believe that either the stay or leave camps, are going to regulate the banks and corporates. The tax havens that facilitate wholesale tax evasion will still be in place whatever the outcome of the referendum. So too will the toxic fossil fuel industry and the equally toxic food industry.

Post referendum, all the accumulated social problems afflicting the UK will still be there; pollution, congestion, homelessness, low wages, zero hour contracts and chronic indebtedness. And to those that are forced to exist on a day by day basis, the referendum on Europe is really a giant red herring. Smoke screens and mirrors as Jeremy Corbyn so astutely put it.

The Out Camp led by arch Tory reactionaries Michael Gove and Boris Johnson pretend that this is all a question of national sovereignty. This is a complete nonsense. In the age of globalised capitalism, national sovereignty is just an illusion. For the ordinary working person, national sovereignty has always been something of a fantasy just the play thing for the national elites. But now even those little Englanders, still secretly dreaming of the glory days of British Empire, must tip their cap to the truly big players; global corporations and the mega banks. No nation, no matter how powerful, can dictate to these unelected transnational institutions. And whilst global capitalism is the only real show in town, the direction and scale of that unaccountability will be irreversible. To believe otherwise is to propagate the illusion of returning to the golden age of the nation state. That age has gone along with the brutal European empires that it spawned. This is a decidedly new era of globalised finance capital.

The ‘In’ campaigners are just as deluded. Their catchphrase is security within the EU; economic security and global security. Neither exists. While the EU is in hock to the military-industrial complex and NATO’s relentless expansionist policies, European cities will never be safe. A disaffected immigrant or terror cell will always find a way to wreak revenge. As for financial security, that is even more of a joke. Since the last global economic collapse in 2008 the world is now 57 trillion dollars further in debt. The next collapse is almost certainly just around the corner and the repercussions of that collapse will be just as dire whether Britain is in or out of the EU. No one escapes in a globalised economy.

So what is to be done? Firstly, we should not become entrapped by the in/out circus. Instead we would be better off shining the spotlight on the real problems facing the UK. Exposing the criminality of the global trade networks, including the decidedly undemocratic TTIP, and the criminality of the casino banking sector, especially the global network of offshore tax-havens, would be far more productive. So too would an exposure of the criminality of poverty wages, endemic unemployment and exorbitant rents and mortgages. Exposing the criminality of the global military-industrial complex and its endless wars of occupation would be of far more use than becoming obsessed with the in/out campaigns. And exposing the folly of renewing the ¬£200 billion Trident system of mass destruction, a system that can never conceivably be used without setting off a thermo-nuclear Armageddon could make a real contribution to a more rational world. In other words, we need to construct an entirely different political manifesto that stands over and above the manoeuvrings of the British and European ruling elites. For me, I will vote to stay in the EU simply because continued membership might help facilitate greater ease of communication and joint actions by the growing European-wide progressive anti-austerity movement. As for all the hot air about ‘sovereignty’ and ‘security’; that is just so much Old Etonian tosh. Smokescreens and mirrors indeed.