The Euro Area’s response to the covid-19 crisis is austere. This might lead to more dissatisfaction with the European Union project as many are predicting.

Yanis Varoufakis has been more critical of the Euro Area and the European Union in general in recent times, although he says he is in the team which wants to reform the EU from within. In a recent interview with Unherd, he makes it clear why the UK Labour lost the recent election: the push for a second referendum wasn’t liked by the voters and vote was a backlash against them.

Anyway I found a great clip from Tony Benn, the great leader of Labour, and it’s clear how the EU was hated by the left-wing but that it’s different now, unfortunately.

Tony Benn, in Parliament, 1990 (53:00 in the full video, clipped below):

Is the Prime Minister aware that what we are really discussing is not economic management, but the whole future of relations between this country and Europe? This issue is not best expressed in 19th-century patriotic language or in emotive language about which design is on the currency. The real question is whether, when the British people vote in a general election, they will be able to change the policies of the previous Government. It is already a fact, as the House knows full well, that whatever Government are in power, our agricultural policy is controlled from Brussels, our trade policy is controlled from Brussels and our industrial policy is controlled from Brussels. If we go into EMU, our financial policy will also be controlled. It is a democratic argument, not a nationalistic argument.

However, given that the right hon. Lady is a member of the Government who took us into the European Community without consulting the British people, given that she was Prime Minister in the Government who agreed to the Single European Act without consulting the British people, and given that she has now agreed to joining the exchange rate mechanism without consulting the British people, we find it hard to believe that she is really intent on preserving democracy rather than gaining political advantage by waving some national argument around on the eve of a general election. That is why we do not trust her judgment on the matter.

click to view the clip

There are many clips of Tony Benn on the EU on YouTube, but this is my favourite.