He may be unflappable, and reputedly of interest to a whole queueing phalanx of inflamed loins across Europe and beyond, but Yanis Varoufakis couldn’t face down the masters of Europe, and he can’t sell a progressive campaign against Brexit on these premises. (A progressive “out” campaign seems to be an even more difficult prospect, but that is of less pressing concern, since the vast majority of leftists who are doing anything about the referendum are campaigning for “in.”)

Watch this video for yourself, and note the logic very carefully, because it elides a number of registers of analysis without acknowledging that this is happening.

Varoufakis argues a number of points in connection with Brexit: one, in the event of Brexit, the UK will probably end up with Boris Johnson as prime minister, and negotiate a more rapid entry into the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP); two, given the rise of the far right, and the risk of the European Union “disintegrating” and thus producing new nationalist reflux, the Left has to learn the lessons of 1929, form a popular front “with other democrats,” and stop the meltdown; three, a retreat to the nation state can “never benefit the Left.”