What are the most urgent problems facing the working class today? First, wages are still far below their pre-crisis level. Second, job security has become a joke, with the spread of casual jobs, like zero-hours contracts, self-employment, etc. Third, big companies are getting away with depriving thousands of their livelihoods, like BHS, and others; blackmailing thousands more workers into agreeing to pay and pension cuts, like Tata Steel. Fourth, due to the housing crisis, many of us are having a hard time finding a proper home which we can afford. And fifth, welfare provisions for the poorest have shrunk shockingly, while the NHS is left to crack at the seams from under-funding and under-recuitment.
And we all know who's responsible for all these problems: British bosses, who have been cutting their wage bills on our backs to line their pockets, and their men in government, who have been cutting vital services, from welfare to health and social housing, the better to subsidise the wealthy.
These are the only relevant facts for us, workers. But don't try to find any of them, let alone their real causes, in the arguments of the EU referendum's rival camps. These people just live on another planet!
Scapegoating's ugly head
In fact, in this last leg of the referendum campaign, the two camps are now focusing on EU migrants, with both pledging to reduce immigration.
And they expect us to take their scapegoating seriously? As if immigration, whether from the EU or anywhere else, was the source of our problems!
Indeed, it is a lie to say, as both camps claim, that our wages are being pushed down by the "competition" of migrant workers. If anything is pushing our wages down, it is the greed of very British bosses who are pushing their profits up.
Just as it is a lie to claim that migrants are taking our jobs. There is crying need in this country for all kinds of jobs to be created - in transport, housing health and social care, education, as well as for the infrastructure needed - which could employ a huge number of workers!
And it is a lie to claim that the housing crisis is caused by "too many migrants". The truth is that, over the past years, British capital and landlords have been thriving on Osborne's subsidies to real estate speculators, while the stock of social housing was driven down from its already inadequate level. And as the vast programme of social home-building which is vitally needed would compromise its speculative profits, by stemming today's crazy rise in house prices, the City won't have it!
It is a lie too, to claim that public services and the welfare state are "crumbling under the burden" of migrant workers. The government's own figures show that migrant workers contribute far more with the tax they pay and the work they do, than they get from welfare and public services.
We have no interest in their farce
But all these lies have a function, of course - in fact, the same function as this referendum itself.
Let's not forget where it came from. Cameron only wanted to contain the growing unrest among his own Tory backbenchers who were terrified of losing votes to Ukip.
Instead, ironically, Cameron has only succeeded in providing the "rebels" with a platform - Brexit. And now, Tory Brexiters are announcing that they will trigger a leadership contest regardless of the referendum's outcome. Meanwhile, Cameron's would-be successors are lining up on the Brexit side - from Boris Johnson to Gove and the latest aspiring candidate, his viciously anti-working class employment minister, Priti Patel.
This referendum was never about the EU and always about the rivalries within the whole British political establishment and their on-going overbidding. But now, it has narrowed down to the rivalries within the Tory party itself. As to the other parties, on one side Ukip is rubbing its hands in glee, expecting the official Brexiters to give it a respectability it never had. And on the other side, Corbyn is being careful not to undermine Cameron by at least distancing himself from Cameron's attacks against migrants. Meanwhile, Sadiq Khan is placing himself in the running for Labour leader (à la Blair!)- by sharing a platform with the very same Cameron who, only a few weeks before, was linking him to terrorism!
In any case, not one of the protagonists has exposed this referendum for what it really is - a demagogic farce!
For us, workers, there is only one camp - our own, which is not represented in this referendum. Both camps represent our class enemy. By choosing to scapegoat migrant workers it is our class that they are attacking, our forces that they want to split. It is in our interests to refuse to have anything at all to do with it!