Brexit vote shows anger at EU, claim TDs

The Brexit vote represents the anger which many people feel towards the EU, left-wing politicians here have said. 

The Anti-Austerity Alliance/ People Before Profit (AAA-PBP) which had supported a leave vote in the referendum said the Brexit result was a “kick in the teeth” for the European Commission.

AAA-PBP TD Paul Murphy said the vote to leave was proof of the “increasingly massive disconnect” between EU institutions and the general population. Ruth Coppinger said in the lead up to the vote the arguments made by the left were not heard but said they would be heard now.

“There is no question that this is a kick in the teeth for the European Commission,” she said adding that the EU has become a “right-wing neo-liberal hub”.

“We favour a different kind of Europe, a co-operation. We are not nationalists, we favour co-operation between countries on trade and we want a different type of economy where we would have a break with neo-liberalism, a break with privatisation,” she said.

Richard Boyd-Barrett said people across Europe now feel “alienated” and the vote had proved this. “Europe is the author of its own current crisis by stoking up racism against poor immigrants trying to get into Europe, by increasingly favouring the interests of banks and multinationals, by becoming increasingly a military block,” he said.

He said the left had offered an alternative to the “policies of austerity of fortress Europe and of a corporate-dominated Europe and an increasingly undemocratic Europe”.