1/12 If you want a perfect explanation of why Labour should back Brexit, look no further than the 1950 Labour manifesto on European unity:
2/12 “Though political interdependence imposes economic co-operation, such co-operation cannot be expected to bring great new positive advantages to Europe as a whole. The national economies of Western Europe are parallel and competitive rather than complementary”.
3/12 “Some people believe that the required unity of action cannot be obtained by co-operation between sovereign states; it must be imposed by a supra-national body with executive powers”.
4/12 “They consider that the European countries should form a Union in both the political and economic spheres by surrendering whole fields of government to a supra-national authority”.
5/12 “The Labour Party considers that it is neither possible nor desirable under existing circumstances to form a complete Union, political or economic, in this way”.
6/12 “The European peoples do not want a supra-national authority to impose agreements. They need an international machinery to carry out agreements which are reached without compulsion”.
7/12 “The sudden dismantling of internal barriers to trade would in the short term cause serious dislocation, unemployment and loss of production. … Whole branches of industry and whole districts in many parts of Europe would go bankrupt and destitute”.
8/12 “Socialists would of course welcome a European economic Union which was based on international planning for full employment, social justice and stability”.
9/12 “But international planning can only operate on the basis of national planning. And many European governments have not yet shown either the will or the ability to plan their own economies”.
10/12 “The fact is that an economic Union would require a degree of uniformity in the internal policies of the member states which does not now exist and is unlikely to exist in the immediate future”.
11/12 “A complete economic Union of Western Europe must therefore be excluded, since it would demand an unattainable degree of uniformity in the internal policies of the member states”.
12/12 “If based on "laisser- faire" [economic and political union would] cause fatal political upheavals. If a complete economic Union is impossible, a complete political Union is thereby also excluded”.
