Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, You're listening to upstream. My name is Dela Duncan and today I'm in conversation.

You're listening to Upstream. My name isa Duncan, and today I'm in conversation with Joseph Chunara,

member of the Socialist Workers Party and the spokesperson for Lexit, the left leave campaign for Brexit. Welcome to Upstream. I'm wondering if you could just start with your background and a little bit of why you came to do the work that you're doing.

Yeah, sure, I'm a long-standing socialist activist in the UK. I'm in the Socialist Workers Party which is the

sort of biggest of the far left organizations. I've also been for recent months one of the spokespeople for the Legzit Left Leave campaign

which was putting forth a left-wing voice in the referendum campaign in Britain.

Other than that I've written quite a lot on political economy and on issues to do with class,

and the working class in particular in Britain.

So you mentioned, you mentioned Leggsitt, which is very relevant to right now.

Yesterday the UK voted to leave the European Union in the referendum

so can you talk a little bit about the lexic campaign and why you were advocating to leave the EU?

Yes for us it's a it's an argument that goes back a long time in British

politics really if you take the last referendum in the 1970s on membership of one of the

European Union's predecessor bodies.

Most of the radical left were opposed to membership on the basis that what we were being asked to join at that time was a essentially a large capitalist

organization that would be involved in driving for attacks on working class people.

What's happened since then has, if anything,

reinforced that impression of the European Union.

You see, if you look at the most recent phase, and in particular if you look at the most recent phase and in particular if you look at Greece, the European Union has been the key body driving for austerity in Greek society with an incredibly detrimental impact on Greek people in France at the moment

where there's a huge battle going on between government and labour unions, students and so on, over the implementation of a new labor law,

the European Union doesn't simply support the government

by Vazwa Holland.

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