00:00 Luke Cooper: I'll say something about the Labour Party and then something about going forward. And so I'm certainly not speaking about the Labour Party in an Another Europe is Possible capacity in any sense — we're having a consultation [?], it's a cross-party movement, etc. — and I'm clearly speaking as a left activist in the Labour Party. And I think we're in a very interesting situation with regard to this. It does look like there's going to be one [a leadership challenge]. I have to say I don't think that it can be ruled out, or — I don't think Corbyn is in any way guaranteed to win.
00:30 Two factors are particularly important here. One is that the anyone-but-Corbyn faction is going to unite around one candidate this time, and they obviously didn't last time, and [put in] huge pressure at the local constituency party level to try to get the anyone-but-Corbyn candidate to win, including, you know, signing up [?] councillors and so forth, really going all out for it. So they will run a very well-funded and very aggressive campaign.
01:01 And secondly, it's unfortunate that it hasn't just been Labour MPs who have come out prior to the referendum and attacked free movement [inaudible] — not just any Labour MP, the deputy leader of the bloody party, Tom Watson, an arch [inaudible]. I mean, sadly Len McCluskey has made similar comments.
01:32 Now, I think the challenge and opportunity are kind of the same thing for Corbyn in the immediate situation going forward. And the challenge is that lots of Labour Party members would have had experience of really tough arguments on the doorstep about immigration, [and] might be susceptible to say, well look, we should just drop this support for free movement. The opportunity is that Labour Party members are overwhelmingly in favour of free movement.
02:04 So — and in terms of the Unite, Len McCluskey position, I was really disappointed by those comments, not least because I know that Unite have produced fantastic material to their shop stewards explaining that immigration isn't a problem. Their shop stewards do come back to them — you know, they're very honest about this if you talk to people in the office [?] — they do come back and say the shop stewards really struggle with the argument in their workplaces, and they're very honest about that, and so we try to help them with the argument. McCluskey is doing both — uncategorically supporting Corbyn and sticking with this free movement position — for the same reason: he has an election for general secretary in 12 months' time. So there's something to put forward there.
02:36 But Corbyn, I reckon, should certainly make it a plus, to say to the Labour Party membership and wider supporters, you know: look, these people are attacking me for not being pro-EU enough, but four days before the bloody vote they came out and attacked free movement. I mean, how was that — undermining all the work that we were doing on the doorstep to win this campaign?
03:07 And secondly — just to get to finish, then — I think that this is — maybe we haven't talked about it enough — what it means at a European level, this crisis. Because look, Britain is — it looks like it's going to leave [?]. There's going to be a huge and massive crisis about the fifth-largest economy leaving the bloc. Greece is going to have another major financial and economic crisis over the next six to nine months, a major political crisis. Spain is still in turmoil [?]. [inaudible] the prospect of the European Union collapsing is no longer [inaudible] an unrealistic one.
03:39 That poses a major strategic question for the left, because it's not just in Britain that, if you like, a sort of left nationalist response is emerging. I mean, there'll be a massive temptation for the left, almost, across Europe, to take up anti-immigrant rhetoric, and there'll be a temptation to support exit on national sovereignty lines. And so therefore the strategic issue that I don't think we've ever really wrestled with, or not that [much], theoretically and politically, is: how do we push in this context for *altermondialisme*, as the French call it — an alternative globalisation, linking up across borders. Say DiEM [?], the Democracy in Europe Movement, is absolutely key: to have tangible ways to achieve unity across borders and push for gradual [?] change.
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