The Foreign Policy Centre and Community, the union, have jointly published an excellent brochure designed to contribute to the left's debate on Europe and the EU. I can heartily recommend it.

From the introduction:

"The insight that the peoples of the World are united by common interests and a common humanity is obviously not a recent product of the global era; it has been central to the socialist idea since its birth. Yet the democratic left has often failed to translate its internationalist values into the practical reality of a progressive World order built on strong and effective institutions. The European Union is certainly not perfect, but it is the most advanced and successful international organisation that has ever been created. For all its faults, it is living proof of humanity’s capacity set aside deep national differences and order its affairs in common. That is too precious an achievement to be squandered lightly or eve jeopardised by neglect.

"Europe must be more than a marketplace for the free movement of goods, services, labour and capital. It must be an instrument for regulating markets in the public interest and restoring human values to the economic life of our continent and the wider world. This is Europe’s rationale and its real achievement: not simply the promotion of free trade, but the creation of a framework that allows trade to be managed in accordance with rules and institutions that are politically determined by elected governments. In the real world this is something that even the largest European countries can no longer hope to achieve on their own and must now do by acting collectively. Real progress has already been made on consumer standards, environmental protection, social rights and much else. But Europe has the potential and the need to do a great deal more simply because the greatest challenges, opportunities and threats it faces today are transnational in scope.

"The purpose of this statement is therefore twofold: to restate the democratic left case for the political and economic integration of Europe and to set out a vision of how the European Union could be reformed to make it a more effective instrument for social and economic progress. No one imagines that this will be easy, but the alternative of disillusionment followed by disintegration would be a catastrophe for progressive politics and the security of nations."