However, the tartan-wearing insect is only a fly, so she can’t.  I (MCfly editor, Marc Hudson) can vote, and I voted Remain already

Why?  Not because I love the neo-liberal EU.  A lot of what the Brexiters say of it is true. As George Monbiot said it’s a “festering cesspool of undue influence and opaque lobbying.”  Though um, we do actually elect our MEPs, which is more than you can say of the House of Lords.

Not because I am under any illusions about how life will be like if we stay and end up with a neo-liberal TTIP. And Cameron and Osborne are gagging to use TTIP to further strip workers of their rights, to privatise the few remaining things that haven’t already been flogged off, in a process that 13 years of Labour did nothing to slow down.

Not bec…   Look, because of this.

Our species is in far deeper trouble than it realises.  There is a sniff of a chance that the EU might help in softening the blows. It is a big enough body, with enough political and economic clout that it might – just might – do enough of the right things that mean we have a “transition” to a low-carbon future, with loads of off-shore wind, renewables, energy efficiency.

Personally I wouldn’t put the odds at more than about 3 in a 100, and that is with an unprecedented civil society mobilisation, over and above the “sucking up to policy-makers” approach some believe is the way forward.  Outside the EU, our neoliberal elite, of whatever shade (dark blue, light blue, pink)  will keep doing the insanely short-sighted things that favour existing incumbents.  It will keep smacking renewables in the face. It will keep subsidising oil, gas and fracking.  How do I know? Because I have been paying some attention for the last 20 years.

We (the species) are in the fight of our lives. We will almost certainly lose.  We (in the UK) have a tiny chance inside the EU of being part of the solution.  I believe we have zero chance outside.

How’s that for a rallying cry?

PS And if you think Manchester City Council are a bunch of neoliberals who do whatever Westminster tells them, while mouthing pieties about being a ‘dented shield’, you ain’t seen nothing yet.  With Prime Minister Gove, or Johnson, it will be even more insane.