The Brexit Crisis: A Verso Report

Verso Reports

by Étienne Balibar, William Davies, Akwugo Emejulu

Making Sense of the Brexit Referendum: writers on the crisis

‘Let’s Take Back Control’ was the slogan that won the UK’s EU Referendum. But what did those words mean to campaigners and voters? Control of what was being wrested from whom and why? And in whose interest was this done?

The Brexit Crisis gathers together some of the most insightful and provocative reactions to this moment, from the UK and abroad, examining what happened on the 23 June and what this might mean for the UK and the EU as a whole. It looks at the ruptures, false promises and ingrained racism revealed during the campaign and afterwards. As the UK heads towards the exit, what is to be done?

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

187 pages, ebook

First published July 1, 2016

About the author

Étienne Balibar is emeritus professor of philosophy at Paris X Nanterre and emeritus professor of comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine. He is also professor of modern European philosophy at Kingston University, London, and professor of French and comparative literature at Columbia University. His books include Violence and Civility: On the Limits of Political Philosophy (Columbia, 2015).

Reviews

[June · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of essays about Britain leaving the EU--but very little discussion about the Left's pro-leave position. The EU has been devastating for workers with its "labor reforms" and mandatory privatization of public services to further a neoliberal agenda. From the best essay by Stathis Kouvelakis:

Destabilizing the European Union, shaking its legitimacy and leadership to the ground, is an opportunity not to be missed. See for instance how Jean-Luc Melenchon --the leader of the French radical left who is currently getting higher approval ratings than President Francois Hollande--reacted. For Melenchon, Brexit reveals the European Union's total deadlock. The lesson to be drawn is that a proper left government in France should immediately propose "exiting from all the existing European treaties" in order to implement an anti-austerity, eco-socialist program...the existing European Union bars the implementation of any agenda that would halt--or even moderately slow--the advances of neoliberalism and austerity, as amply demonstrated in Greece. It is therefore absolutely urgent to break the founding European treaties, which enshrine perpetual neoliberalism and negate democracy and popular sovereignty.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. A really fantastic collection of essays from which I've learnt a lot and been given plenty of food for thought. The quality is consistently high throughout, across differing styles, approaches and emotions. Everyone in Britain should be reading this right now, and it's currently free on Verso's site - for writing of this standard, an offer not to be passed up (it looks like it will be 99p in future, which would still be a steal). I've been enthusing to my friends about this little ebook since I picked it up, can't recommend it enough. Have a read, and a think, and let's start working out how to live in this weird new country we suddenly inhabit.

[Kate Page · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mix of articles of varying interest, bits and pieces of new stuff. Obviously limited by the limited time since the referendum, and the pace of events. Found the final essay 'a letter to the British Left' by Stathis Kouvelakis the most interesting and one of the best looks at the left response to Brexit that I've seen.

[Michael Macdonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

A curate's egg from the wildly irrelevant contempt for the working class to some excellent analysis of the dilemma of leaving a club designed to promote neo-liberalism. Why some many see Remain as progressive when the EU is a driver of austerity and decking workers rights is part of the dismal record of the European left. Read and think.

[oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

exciting, invigorating and transformative thinking from a variety of perspectives on brexit and the european union.

[Benjamin Britton · Rating 4 out of 5]

“This is why Marx thought that ‘political emancipation’ wasn’t the whole of ‘human emancipation’ and why the ‘political state’ should abolish its separation from ‘civil society’ via the radical transformation of the social relations that both levels organize and reproduce."


"As Marx and Engels famously put it in the Communist Manifesto: ‘Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.”

“the existing European Union bars the implementation of any agenda that would halt – or even moderately slow – the advances of neoliberalism and austerity, as amply demonstrated in Greece. It is therefore absolutely urgent to break the founding European treaties, which enshrine perpetual neoliberalism and negate democracy and popular sovereignty.”

•Stathis Kouvelakis

[Andrew Doran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly balanced set of essays on the various aspects of Brexit. Some of the viewpoints on the EU have really got me thinking and made me more uncertain of the future than before. The outcome of the vote may still yield good results in the long run, but as we only have one timeline ahead of us it will be difficult to say how the alternatives would have worked out.

Well worth the short amount of time it takes to read this, especially when it is free on the Verso Books website.