''In the early hours of 16 July, the
Greek parliament voted overwhelmingly to give up its sovereignty and
become a semi-colonial appendage of the EU. A majority of the Syriza
Central Committee had already come out against the capitulation. There
had been a partial general strike. Tsipras had threatened to resign if
fifty of his MPs voted against him. In the event six abstained and 32
voted against him, including Yanis Varoufakis, who had resigned as
finance minister after the referendum, because, he said, ‘some Eurogroup
participants’ had expressed a desire for his ‘“absence” from its
meetings’. Now parliament had effectively declared the result of the
referendum null and void. Outside in Syntagma Square thousands of young
Syriza activists demonstrated against their government. Then the
anarchists arrived with Molotov cocktails and the riot police responded
with tear-gas grenades. Everyone else left the square and by midnight it
was silent again. It’s difficult not to feel depressed by all this.
Greece has been betrayed by a government that when elected only six
months ago offered hope. As I walked away from the empty square the EU’s
coup brought back memories of another..''
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