THURSDAY is D for Decision day regarding membership of the European Union. Reading the psephological runes, I think a Remain vote is more likely. However, I am increasingly concerned by the number of friends, colleagues and supporters of Scottish independence who are contemplating a Leave vote. So I make my final pitch to them.

First, let’s understand the progressive arguments for a Brexit, rather than the romantic, Little Englander project of the Tory and Ukip right. For many on the left, the current European Union is an uncertain ally. Much is made by the Remain camp of the workers’ and human rights entrenched in EU law. But the sad reality is that the thrust of EU policy since the start of the 1990s has been to embrace the Anglo-American neoliberal agenda, largely at the behest of the big multinational corporations and banks. This is enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty of 2007.

The genuine social liberal heart of the EU – which is worth defending with a Remain vote – predates the Lisbon Treaty agenda. It was the product of two things. First, the political influence of the great European social democratic and Christian democratic parties in the period up to 1989 and the fall of communism. Second, the role of the independent European Court of Justice, which championed the democratic and human rights of the individual.

Unfortunately, the defeat and retreat of the main social democratic parties in Europe in the past 25 years has led to the machinery of the EU – Council of Ministers, the Commission in Brussels, and indeed the elected European Parliament – being captured by the neoliberal right. That has swung opinion inside the EU bureaucracy towards reframing the treaties and decision-making process to enable more de-regulation, privatisation, and cross-border completion. It has also led to the EU trying to negotiate new international trade agreements (such as the notorious Trans-Atlantic Trade Partnership, or TTIP) which give away social protections in Europe in return for more access to foreign markets.

A neoliberal EU needed greater political centralisation, to force through unpopular policies. This met popular resistance. In 2005, referendum voters in France and the Netherlands actually rejected the new, neoliberal EU constitution. But after some cynical cosmetic drafting changes, those voters were bamboozled into signing up to the new European order. Meanwhile, in the UK, both Labour and Tories reneged on promises to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

One upshot of this new centralisation was the neutering of a project to allow smaller states in the EU a greater voice through a new Committee of the Regions (CoR). In the early 1990s, I was involved in the campaign to create CoR and enshrine it as a key part of EU decision-making. We hoped that eventually big EU states like UK, Spain, Germany and France would decompose into their traditional (and more-manageable) national entities; eg Scotland, Catalonia, Bavaria and Brittany. CoR did come into being but was relegated to the political sidelines. Meanwhile, Germany used the Euro to impose draconian austerity on European’s smaller states, crushing local democratic rights.

Given this track record, I can fully understand why some on the progressive and Scottish National left want to vote to leave the EU on Thursday. They hope this will trigger a new independence referendum in Scotland and, hopefully, begin a process of radical political renewal in England and the rest of Europe. Unfortunately, history does not progress in neat stages. A Brexit vote will only strengthen the populist right in the UK state. The subsequent economic crisis will more likely demoralise voters in Scotland, not propel former No-voters from 2014 to change their minds.

Worse still, being out of the EU will instantly remove the social and human rights protections guaranteed by the Court of Justice. The latter point is worth expanding upon because the Brexit right are determined to smash the power of the Court of Justice. Not, as they claim, to end excessive regulation and interference in our affairs, but the better to trample on those human rights.

The Court of Justice has the last word on interpreting the treaties of the European Union. Stating in the early 1960s, the Court began to evolve a legal doctrine that says rights granted to individual citizens by EU treaties cannot be unilaterally altered by the individual governments of member states, either by bureaucratic fiat or local legislation. Any infringement of this rule can be struck down by the Court. So forget all that nonsense about the EU being there to impose straight bananas. The Court has enshrined the rule of law and human rights at the core of all EU treaties, rather than those treaties being solely there to protect big business. Without the Court of Justice, workers’ rights will be under attack from day one.

Of course, voting Remain is hardly the end of the matter. If that is all we do, then we abandon Europe into the hands of a neoliberal project. Instead, we must use a Remain vote to launch a campaign for a new Europe of the People and Nations. Fortunately, given the SNP has power (though limited) in Scotland, it is possible to take EU-wide initiatives. Here are some ideas:

The Scottish Government should begin a diplomatic offensive among the smaller EU members and regional parliaments to build support for a treaty change to reduce the power of the big states. The starting point might be to create a commission to frame a new, more democratic Constitution for a People’s Europe. The Scottish Government should also use its “soft power” to hold a congress of Europe’s smaller states and regional parliaments to discuss the economic and social future of the continent, in particular an alternative to austerity.

At the same time, the Scottish Government and the STUC should collaborate to call a convention of trades unions from across Europe to frame a new European Charter for Workers’ Rights. Additionally, the SNP as a political party should convene a summit meeting of like-minded political parties and movements to create a new, radical European Movement for Change and Democracy. This would be committed to fighting the austerity policies and neoliberal drift in mainstream Europe, as well as the rise of the populist, anti-immigration right, particularly in Eastern Europe.

The progressive left has been at fault for a long time in not putting forward its own vision of Europe. It has been asleep on the job while the political thrust of the EU project veered towards neoliberalism. It is not enough for those of us committed to a Remain vote to tell the electors to mark their cross for Brussels while holding their nose. That does not constitute a “positive” case for the EU. Rather, we need to re-invent our internationalism – European and global.

And if Brexit should prevail on Thursday? It will certainly shatter the mould of both British and European politics. But history suggests that chaos favours the right rather than the left – doubly so in the present circumstances when the progressive left is so badly organised on an EU basis. In which event, there is an even greater imperative to organise on a pan-European basis, with the SNP taking the initiative all the way.