Ten years after the majestic, globally significant, yet betrayed NO Referendum of the Greek people – a personal message:

On 5th of July 2015 the Greek people voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to say a big, beautiful NO to the Big Business and Big Finance

Churchill once said of the battle of El Alamein that, before it, the Allies had never won but that, after it, they never lost again. I could say something similar about that splendid and, at once, tragic day, of the Greek NO Referendum ten years ago today – the day when 62% of Greek voters ignored the financial terrorism of the European Central Bank (which had shut down the Greek banks to blackmail voters to accept the terms of surrender they were dictating to the Greek people).

Before that day, before the magnificent NO Referendum outcome of 5th July 2015, we could not imagine losing in the long run our fights against the Big Finance and the Big Business that blew up our social economies in 2008.

But after it, since the PM I was serving under overturned our people and betrayed their referendum verdict, we cannot imagine winning ever again, at least not in our lifetimes, against the Big Finance and the Big Business.

It was THAT significant a day. It was THAT significant a defection.

Now, I know it is not the done thing to sully the spirit of one’s fellow travellers, one’s comrades, to say things like that - to surrender in public to the admission not only of the size of our defeat but also of the possibility that we may not win again for the foreseeable future. Alas, now is the time for honesty – for without honesty amongst rebels no rebellion worth its salt can be staged.

Indulge me friends, fellow travellers, comrades.

Somewhere to the North of where I am talking you from, the killing fields of Ukraine are devouring lives with a ruthless, mechanical precision. Where is the Peace Movement to stop this? Nowhere really. Instead Europe is sinking fast into Military Keynesianism, with large majorities in our parliaments voting for unspeakable amounts of new debt to go to weapons of mass destruction we neither need nor can afford – and certainly weapons that people with the slightest of sense left in their hearts and minds should not want.

Meanwhile, needless to say, from my southeast, from the scorched land of Palestine, the acrid stench of genocide drifts on the wind. Yes, we have staged magnificent marches on our streets. Yes, our people have marched to Gaza, other comrades risked life and limb to sail to that coastal war crime scene. Yes we have made it possible to speak of the genocide without being treated as buffoons. Yes, we have shifted public opinion. But, nothing is changing on the ground where Palestinian life is eradicated at a steady, at an unbearable rate, or in the corridors of power.

Where are the sanctions on Israel? Where is the UN Peacekeeping force that should have been parachuted in to stop the genocide in its tracks? Nowhere. The only people that are hounded are people like the UN’s Special Rapporteur, my friend Francesca Albanese, for daring to report on the political economy of genocide. Why has Brazil, Spain or Ireland, countries whose governments have been supportive of the Palestinians not joined the Hague Group that our Progressive International has brought together to isolate Israel? What are they waiting for?

Friends, fellow-travellers, comrades, at the risk of saddening, maybe even angering you, I shall say it again: Since that NO referendum was overturned ten years ago, today, by the left’s own leadership, we are losing at every front.

Who is winning? Not the liberal authoritarian establishment – Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer, Friedrich Merz. No the pro-genocide radical centre they sensationally unpopular.

No, the winners nest elsewhere in even uglier echelons of the political spectrum. Have you not smelled its smell? Can’t you smell the fascism in the air? Can’t you feel its sour, metallic taste clinging to the back of your throat?

Well, take a look at the triumphant Donald Trump on the one hand – yes, he is winning on every front. Authoritarianism, that most insidious of plagues, has crept into every sinew of life. Along with the smell of pollution in the air, microplastics in our oceans, the insidious power of cloud capital hardwired into our brains, delivering our minds to the whims of our new techlords – this New Global Ecocidal Hyper-Exploitative Ruling Class is entrenching itself as the new order, its cold grip tightening with each passing day.

On this, the 10th anniversary of our Great Victory which was turned overnight into the Great Betrayal, it is ever so easy to surrender to the feeling, the sensation, that my political struggles, fuelled by a fierce and unyielding hope, are taking me from one defeat to the next, making me feel like a character in some twisted simulation, doomed to repeat the same futile actions over and over.

BUT, I shall not surrender. And nor will you!