As a result of the Referendum
Great Britain Leaves the EU. 51.9% Out, 48.1% In. A Devastating Blow Against High Finance, Banks and City
Cameron resigns. European rulers take measures to prevent the fall of the Union and peoples from fleeing from it. According to Renzi, imperialist Europe is “our home that must be renovated”
Hold the referendum in Italy as well

The peoples of Great Britain have achieved a great victory against the imperialist EU by voting for leaving the Union. This historic victory is a powerful encouragement for the people of all the EU member states to hold similar referendums.
The results of the 23 June referendum are clear and final: 33 million voters out of 46.5 million, i.e. 72.2%, went to vote. 17.4 million of them voted Leave against 16.1 million votes for Remain. This is a vote against the Europe of big finance and banks, a NO to the Europe of big capital, not of peoples.
This vote is the result of growing inequalities, social exclusion, impoverishment, the staggering increase of rents, expensive and inefficient privatized rails, the dismantling of the national health service, and the effects of the policies carried out by the government in London, in accord with Brussels, which have put the financial and economic crisis of capitalism on the backs of people’s masses in Britain too.
The “divorce” is set to begin by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which says: “Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements”. The procedure includes a notification to the European Council, and afterwards talks begin to draft the agreement on exit terms. The agreement must be approved by the EU Council with a full majority, after it has been approved by the Parliament. If no agreement is reached, the exit becomes effective after two years from the notification, unless the country concerned and the European Council decide to postpone the deadline.

CAMERON’S OPPORTUNIST MOVE
The referendum on Great Britain in the EU became part of Cameron’s programme (despite him being against it until 2013) when the Tories saw Farage’s UKIP becoming the most-voted party at the 2014 European elections and draining anti-EU voters from them. The move served Cameron to win the 2015 general elections, then he had to keep his promise.
On 22 February, Cameron appeared at the House of Commons to unveil the position of his cabinet on the deal that had just been signed at the EU summit in Brussels, which awarded a “special status” to Great Britain in order to keep it part of the Euro system and prevent Brexit. “I have negotiated a deal to give the United Kingdom special status inside the European Union,” Cameron proclaimed, “Now I can recommend to vote to stay” at the 23 June referendum.
He also said that “leaving Europe would threaten Britain’s economic and national security”. This was only the first of a number of reasons with a threatening and blackmailing tune to support the Remain vote, which included: a Brexit “will increase the risk of descending into war”, “would set off an economic bomb”, pensions would be “at risk”. He was also supported by Obama, other EU leaders and imperialist financial institutions, with the G7 calling Brexit “a threat to global economy”. An impressive front which was worth nothing.
On 24 June, Cameron acknowledged the result and announced his resignation. He will remain at Downing Street for three more months to allow the formation of a new cabinet to start talks with the EU.
Renzi, among others, tried to shield monopolistic Europe from the blow with fealty oaths and statements such as: “Europe is our home, and the home of our children and grandchildren. We say it now more than ever, with the belief that our home must be renovated, and maybe needs some fresh air, but it still is the home of our tomorrow”. He also painted the imperialist EU in false colours, saying that “the world needs the EU a lot, it needs a labour-, courage-, freedom- an democracy-based Europe. In a word, the world of the future really needs European humanism”.

THE SUMMIT OF THE GERMANY–FRANCE–ITALY DIRECTORY
“Italy, Germany and France are the most populated countries of the EU, as well as three founding countries. As Great Britain is going to leave, the EU must stay united over the responsibilities it must bear”, said French President Francois Hollande to justify the new inner summit of the strongest countries in the EU after the Berlin meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on 27 June. “Let’s stay united” was the first message of the three-party meeting in preparation to the first European summit after the referendum through which Britain decided to leave the EU with 51.9% of the votes against 48.1%.
Actually, the meeting itself was prepared one week before by the Berlin-Paris axis, but the Chancellor decided to invite Renzi as well because of the result of the vote and because Hollande is weakened by the revolt against Loi Travail, France’s labour reform.
Arrogant as usual, Renzi even said that “the European Union has no directory”, although it was Merkel who reported on the line decided by the directory for the EU summit to be held in Brussels from 28 to 29 June.
“In order to start the negotiations,” the Chancellor said, “we need an official request by the United Kingdom. We are going to meet again in September to talk about concrete measures. We must proceed as quickly as possible with the exit procedure,” and “make concrete suggestions to member states on concrete measures to be taken in the following months” in order to “avoid any centrifugal movement in the EU”. Merkel also set the times of the negotiations with London and decided on the measures to be taken by European rulers to prevent the fall of the Union and peoples from fleeing from it.
After his resignation, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced he is not going to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to leave the European Union and formally start the negotiations on 28 June, leaving the task to the new cabinet to be sworn in in October. Merkel contradicted him by indicating September as the starting period for negotiations.
Anyway, what is worrying Europe’s main imperialist countries is not the temporary fall of the stock market, which was not unforeseen, but the strong blow by voters against the EU of high finance, banks and the City. This has shown what people think of the EU when they are given the possibility to express their thoughts, in a clear warning against the imperialist European Union and its neoliberal policies. This is the main significance of the referendum, as opposed to the efforts by the apologists of the imperialist European Union to exaggerate the role, albeit noteworthy, played by ultra-nationalist, racist and xenophobe parties and positions for a Right-wing exit from the EU. This is the case of Boris Johnson, former Conservative mayor of London, recently “converted” to the Leave campaign also to take Cameron’s place, and of Nigel Farage’s reactionary UKIP, ally of Grillo and the Five-Star Movement, whose best performance during the 2014 European elections did not go beyond 10% of voters, i.e. 4 million votes.
The 27 June meeting of the directory in Berlin mapped out a possible pattern towards a multi-faceted European unification in order to appease both the so-called Eurosceptic who want to preserve a certain degree of autonomy for nation-states, such as Poland, and those who want to achieve fast a greater economic and military unity, taking advantage from the fact that London will no longer have any veto power.
Diplomats from the six founding countries of the EU (Italy, Germany, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium) met in Berlin on 25 June to stress that Britain must invoke Article 50 “as soon as possible”. In the meantime, Brussels appointed Didier Seeuws, a Belgian diplomat and one-time chief of staff to former President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy until late 2014, as head of the so-called Brexit Task Force of the EU Council of Ministers.

HOLD THE REFERENDUM IN ITALY AS WELL
But there are still vetoes by peoples, such as the one expressed by Britain or when the 2014 elections for the Europarliament were boycotted. Other countries also need a similar referendum, including Italy, despite the Constitution now in force does not provide for a referendum to ratify international treaties. Back then, Constitution-writers deemed it better not to give the people’s masses any means to break Italy’s alliance with the Western imperialist front. The referendum should be whether to stay in or leave the EU, as opposed to be partial and misleading referendum to leave the Euro, opportunistically called for by the Five-Star Movement. Its representatives Di Maio and Di Battista, however, have confirmed that they are not asking Italy to leave the Union.
During our abstentionist campaign for the Europarliament elections on 25 May 2014, the PMLI pointed out that “we must strive for the total sovereignty and national independence from the EU. Only this would create better conditions for the development of class struggle against capitalism for socialism, as well as for the proletariat to seize political power. Italian Marxist-Leninists are internationalists, not nationalists. As Lenin said on 28 December 1919, ‘We stand for the close union and the complete amalgamation of the workers and peasants of all nations in a single world Soviet republic’. In order to achieve this goal, however, we must destroy capitalism and its bourgeois State in every country, including the EU. Even if it was possible to reform it, the EU would keep on exploiting and oppressing people, it would remain racist and anti-migrants, and it would still do only the interests of monopolies and the bourgeoisie.”

11 luglio 2016