When Theresa May triggers article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty next week, Britain will officially start floating away from Europe.  May will then embark on two years of horse-trading over her government's future relationship with the EU.
    
    Does this mean that the Brexiteer politicians' promise of restoring Britain to its past "grandeur" will finally come true?  No chance!  With a population 11 times smaller and an economy 6 times poorer than the Continent's, "little" Britain is in no position to dictate the terms of this divorce.
    
    As to their pledge of restoring the British people's "sovereignty", it's a joke!  What "sovereignty" can there be for the working class majority of the population, in a world where all resources and production facilities are owned by a tiny minority of capitalists, for whom the entire planet is just a playground for their insatiable greed?
                                                                       
Capitalism is the real killer plague
                                                                      
There is no more striking illustration of the real problem we're facing than the figures in the latest annual list of the world's billionaires, published by the US Forbes magazine.
    
    At a time when the whole planet is still reeling from 9 years of economic crisis after the 2008 banking crash, the number of billionaires has increased by 233 - a 31-year record - and they are now 20% richer!
    
    In this capitalist system, the wealth of this tiny parasitic minority of capitalists feeds on the impoverishment of the vast majority.  They keep increasing their own share of the wealth that we, the working classes of the world, produce with our labour.  Their frantic rivalry over markets and reckless speculation feed the on-going chaos of the world economy.  And, as they never have enough, they thrive on relentlessly turning the screw of exploitation against workers, as today's explosion of casual employment shows.
    
    Yes, capitalism's crazy competition for profit plagues the world.  It is the root cause of today's rising poverty, in the poor as well as in the rich countries.  Just as it is the root cause behind the present on-going wars across the world and the catastrophic refugee crisis of the past two years.  And it is the main cause behind the ecological disaster which is threatening the planet - quite simply because protecting the environment would dent capitalist profits!
    
    Yet it's not as if the world wasn't rich enough to cater for the needs of its entire population and protect its future.  The scientific knowledge, the technology and the resources, both material and human, are all there.  But in order to be efficiently used, this knowledge and these resources would need to be pooled together, on a worldwide scale, and used in a rational way - in the interest of all, instead of being used only to satisfy the greed of a few.
                                                                       
We need another kind of society
                                                                      
But in order for knowledge and resources to be rationally pooled together, all obstacles in the way of this will have to be removed.  And the very last thing we need, is to have yet more national borders, more walls and barriers, erected between populations.
    
    All of today's rich countries were the result of  centuries of migration.   At the time, there were no national borders to stop the free movement of people.  And in fact turning the whole planet into a human melting pot of cultures, knowledge and potential capabilities today, is the only  viable future for mankind.  The politicians who stand in the way of this future, in the name of what they call the "national interest" - in reality only protect the vested interests of the capitalist minority.  They are enemies of mankind's progress and workers' class enemy!
    
    For their own needs, the capitalists have produced a working class which is itself a "melting pot" of workers from all over the world.  And this is our strength.  We have no interest in defending the profits and privileges of our exploiters.  And we have every interest in preventing them from dividing our ranks along national lines.  Wherever we hail from, we all belong to the same class.  We all share the same sense of achievement: together, we  produce all the wealth in this society.  We thus have the same interest in getting rid of the straitjacket of private profiteering, once and for all.
    
    Maybe we can't stop the Brexiteers' nationalist drive today.  But we can refuse to fall for their deluded promises.  We can already see what their endgame is - another turn of the screw against our class, whether it be against those of us who are in work, or against the elderly and the disabled.  And we can stop them.
    
    One hundred years ago, the Russian workers succeeded in overthrowing capitalism and getting rid of private profit.  Their attempt eventually collapsed due to isolation and poverty.  But, today, we are starting from much more favourable conditions.  Their example shows us the way forward.