Caroline Lucas describes a creepy Europe that hides in your wardrobes. All photos by Chris Bethell.
Another Europe? Surely the one we’ve got is screwed up enough as it is? We don’t seriously want to live in a Multiverse of competing Europes, always bickering about what new subsidy to give French farmers, or whether a 170 degree banana is still ‘bendy’. Do we?
Apparently we do. Because apparently the present one is not, as Nigel and chums might see it, a Gomorrah of all that is soft and left and flower-arranging grants for Latvian rapists on day-release. No, it is, we are repeatedly reminded, a ‘bosses club’. A ‘racist place’. The place where capitalism goes to Netflix after a long day of neo-colonialising.
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Which is why, on Wednesday night, the back room of Brick Lane’s 93 Feet East is packed with a rainbow coalition of different shades of red and green, from Left Unity, to Syriza UK, to Unison to Caroline Lucas to Jeremy Corbyn’s Momentum, and on. This, we’re told, is the launch of Another Europe Is Possible, the start of the Referendum campaign for progressive/hard-left/enviro types, who really want us to stay in Europe, but don’t want to stay in Europe for the same reasons as David Cameron wants us to (or even that nice Mr Alan Johnson).
There are already an array of these micro-groups in existence, shading different pots of opinion on our upcoming binary question. Vote Leave, Leave.EU, Get Britain Out. Better Off Out. The way the system’s been structured, everyone gets to form a group – you and I could make one tomorrow: Stronger To Leave The.EU To Save Britain’s Europhobic Ocelots, or whatever. But in the end, they will all have to fuse until there is only one ‘nominated’ group on either side leading the cheering, with corresponding access to state funds.
For now, though, the terrain is about a broader argument – what Europe could be, rather than the hard facts of what it is now and whether we want to be in it. So we get a sort of leftist central casting version of stuff that happens and that may also be influenced by Europe. A junior doctor hot off the picket line tells us how the NHS is basically good. And… Europe. A man from Friends of the Earth told us that global warming is basically bad. And… Europe.
Some are even from other parts of Europe. Marina Prentoulis represents ‘Syriza UK’. She assures everyone that Syriza, despite diligently bending over and taking Mrs Merkel’s big hard austerity strap-on, are still very much in favour of an EU that bankrupted their country, then left them to clean up themselves. Some might call this Stockholm Syndrome. But no: “After all, can you name an international institution that has not been dominated by neoliberalism?” she counters. “UNICEF?” everyone internally speculates, “the WHO?” “SADEC?” “Syriza?”.
After the situation in Syriza, it’s back up the alphabet to the situation in Syria, via Syrian PhD student Mohammed Ateek. Long story short: still bleak. What this had to do with David Cameron’s historic opt-out on the provision of tax credits to EU citizens who’ve been resident less than four years was unclear. But it is always good to hear about Syria, and as we all implicitly understand, it is simply scripture that every leftist meeting is required to have one refugee talking about how incredibly hard it is being a refugee.
After Mohammed talks about his friend who drowned, the evening feels very sombre. So as is tradition, it’s up to a member of the NEC of the NUS, in this case Sahaya James, to lighten us up. This she does by swallowing her gender studies textbook and reconstituting it as a range of verbal bingo calls.
The EU referendum, she announces, is a double distraction. From heartless Tory cuts, and from a refugee crisis driven by ‘the aftermath of imperialism’. There is, she goes on, a false dichotomy between those inside the EU and those outside it. She is not only in favour of another Europe, she basically wants to expand the Schengen Zone until it contains the whole whole world. “Open all the borders,” she sloganeers. People clap. Even though it would be highly confusing to the other Europes, this Europe would at least be easy to achieve, depending as it does merely on a few Greek border guards leaving their posts.
Hywel Williams MP is introduced as the leader of Plaid Cymru at Westminster and the room pricks up its ears. Many in here have likely never seen a Welsh nationalist up-close before, just as many Welshmen have never seen a black man outside of TV repeats of Luther. This is a culture jam in front of our very eyes. Hywel informs us that Welsh nationalists are strongly pro-Europe. That it gives them breathing space to chill when they feel too claustro under the yoke of English oppression. Plus, Welsh-speaking Wales is eligible for EU social grants – Cohesion Funds – because they’re defined as a marginalised ethnicity.
Of course, they were against it in the 80s, but that was ‘the capitalist Europe’. Coincidentally, this was also before Cohesion Funds. He’s also dismayed that the Britain Stronger In Europe people have gone with the Union Jack on their logo, when it’s quite clearly a symbol of oppression. “We’re here on Brick Lane,” he says, “So I don’t have to tell you what that means.” The room nods sagely. It means cool laminated film posters for your dorm wall and all the cereal you can eat.
Ruth Cashman is listed on the press release among ‘voices from the grassroots’, as representing ‘Save Lambeth Libraries’. The room sits bated. How will TTIP impact upon Lambeth’s libraries? Will there still be mouldering Large Print copies of Anne Rice novels for Somali refugees to flick absently through while waiting out the endless visa application process? The stakes could barely be higher. To save them, it will be up to you to vote ‘Yes’ to Europe (while at the same time bearing in mind that another Europe is possible and the present one is merely a construct of the capitalist colonialist mentality).
Sadly, Ruth is eventually introduced as being ‘from Unison’, and skips all mention of Lambeth’s situation-critical book depositories, preferring to concentrate on how very racist Europe is re: migrants. She comes to a crescendo while arguing that the next time Syriza gets bullied by the Troika, they ought to be able to count upon the working classes of all the EU nation-states. This sparks a flurry of hot applause throughout the room. Yep, next time, we’ll just fire up the Hammer-n-Sickle Bat Signal.
Caroline Lucas rushes in late, presumably from another emergency at her veal farm, and warns everyone that the present Europe, while necessary, is a ‘desperate and dreary view that depends upon more free trade and less free movement’.
“To adapt the wonderful Arundhati Roy,” she grins in sign-off, “Another Europe is possible, and on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” The crowd applauds this creepy Europe that hides in your wardrobes, The Phantom Of The Europera.
They’re off. It’s actually happening. Soon, Caroline’s Europe is going to duke it out with Ruth’s and Sathaya’s and Ostrich Weed’s and David Cameron’s and that bloke up the pub who always confuses Romanians and Romans. Which Europe is right for you? We’re building a vision here, as much as we’re making a choice. Another Europe Is Possible want to argue that we’re not just passengers in Europe. It’s not a box we tick, it’s an evolving piece of our politics.
Later, at the bar, one supporter is taking the long view. It’s common sense, he asserts. After all, Europe’s been united more often that it’s been divided. The Hanseatic League, Austro-Hungary, the Roman Empire, Charlemagne. True. And perhaps if Neville Chamberlain had stuck around, we’d be part of a sea-to-shining-sea European Union of well-manicured German-speaking states. European unity isn’t a universal good. It’s only as useful as what’s inside it. And that’s both the point and the problem with tonight.
More from VICE on Europe:
The Truth Behind All the Scaremongering You Will Hear in the Referendum Debate
Photos of Greek Christians and Conspiracy Theorists Protesting Their New ID Cards
