Portside

Indeed, the parallels with the United States are clear. In the lead up to the November elections, rampant inequality continues to grip the nation while campaign finance laws push lawmakers to unabashedly peddle policies that solely benefit the corporate elite.

Bernie Sanders Is Not Dropping Out Tonight. Rep. Debbie Dingell's Sitdown Speech. What Would It Take for Donald Trump to Lose Your Vote? Boogie Blues on a Liverpool Street. John Oliver | Brexit.

Great Britain’s citizens haven’t been losing control over their fate to the EU. They’ve been losing it because their own country’s leaders – as well as those of most other Western democracies – are increasingly in thrall to corporate and financial interests.

'What Europe needs more than ever to avoid a slide into a xenophobic, deflationary, 1930s-like abyss'

As these and other thoughtful observers acknowledge, the question is not an easy one. On the one hand, in the U.K., the movement to leave is led by the right — with a generous sprinkling of racist elements — and a Brexit victory would likely strengthen their hand. On the other hand, the EU has increasingly become a neoliberal project and — partly because neoliberalism generally requires it — an anti-democratic one.

The question for the left, is whether we can transform the operation of the European Union. It's the same question asked by the left about any state institutions – whether it's the local council, the national government, or any transnational institution. We have the opportunity to re-route the referendum debate away from Tory Brexit and into a debate about the democratic future of Europe.

Can the EU still unite a continent shattered by world wars, or is it little more than a vehicle for austerity capitalism? Soon British voters will vote on Brexit - leaving the EU. Given the absence of a strong, continent-wide left, however, reversing the current economic rules of the EU may be a country-by-country battle. It's already underway - and for all of the economic power of the EU, the organization is vulnerable to charges that Brussels has sidelined democracy.

Why is Europe disintegrating? And what can be done about it? What we should do now is what democrats should have done in 1930 to prevent a catastrophe that is now becoming imaginable once again. We should establish a pan-European coalition of radical, social, green, and liberal democrats to put the “demos” back into democracy.