The EU debate: for a yes
vote and internationalism
Len Arthur – LU South
Wales branch
The Left Unity conference will be discussing the position to
take in the European referendum. This is a contribution to that debate, arguing
that we should support a yes vote. It builds upon the points made by Felicity Dowling
and Luke
Cooper on this website a few months ago.
A considerable discussion has started across the left on this
issue and two of the better contributions have been made in the International Socialism Journal issue 148 as a debate between John Palmer the European
editor of the Guardian and Alex
Callinicos editor of ISJ.
Both articles provide a detailed historical background on the
evolution of the EU and are worth consulting for this alone. The article by
Callinicos has the following key statement, making the proposal that the
struggle at the national level should be prioritised, it is that position this
contribution seeks to challenge:
“Strategically the problem is that
since the 1980s, but more especially as a result of the eurozone crisis, a
Europe-wide neoliberal regime is being constructed. Breaking that is most
likely to happen at national level. To make successful resistance dependent on
a coordinated movement at the EU level is to postpone that resistance
indefinitely. The process of uneven and combined development implies that
struggles are most likely to succeed at national level but can then be
generalised.
Dialectically, then, for internationalism to advance there have to be breakthroughs at the national level.”
Dialectically, then, for internationalism to advance there have to be breakthroughs at the national level.”
There is a general level of agreement among socialists that the
problems posed by capitalism require an international level solution, the
debate, it seems is how best to get to the position to make that challenge and
carrying through transformation.
The EU terrain of
struggle
Historically the EU has been a post 1945 project primarily for
the interests of capital. In the previous 60 or 70 years before that date capital,
faced with increasing international competition, often sought to ally with
nation states to secure its competitive interests: securing home markets and worker
compliance, whilst supporting imperial policies to secure markets beyond the
reach of the particular nation state. State capitalism remains a useful way of
describing this process and period.
The Second World War confirmed the emergence of world
domination by the US economy, ?a trend which was strengthened by the outcome of
the First World War. Faced with state capitalist regimes in Eastern Europe -
with a different historical root to those in the west - and US domination,
European capital realised that the size of western European states, weakened
economies and blocked imperial expansion required a different form of state
capitalism: one based on a closer cooperation across state boundaries.
Surprisingly, given their political backgrounds John Palmer and Alex Callinicos
in their different ways, describe this history by avoiding using the idea of
state capitalism.
As all of us on the left seem to agree, the EU is a capitalist
and even imperial project. However, as with all expansions of capital, which
still does require the cooperation of workers who produce the wealth, there is
a unifying social flipside which potentially provides the source of an
internationally challenging contradiction. It is this feature which is widely
ignored by many socialist commentaries.
First, possibly due to the need to have social and Christian
democrat cooperation in the European parliament and at the council of ministers
to make the EU work, a range of measures and reforms have been adopted that
seek to ameliorate the social consequences of some market forces. The Charter
of the Fundamental Rights of the EU, its incorporation of the European
convention of human rights and legal back up through the work of the court of
justice of the European union as well as development through the European
parliament, is one outcome, as are the various financial support programmes for
regions, areas of deprivation, support for certain economic sectors and the
huge £77 billion research fund. These measures have specific benefits at
workplace and local level such as on working hours, agency workers and freedom
of movement; on basic investment in places such as Wales and in over £7 billion
that comes to UK higher education.
Of course these measures are under pressure from the dominant
neo liberal pressure of EU policy but, nevertheless, they are international
reforms socialists should defend as we defend other reforms on a national
basis. They provide a basis for mobilisation.
Second, as socialists, we recognise that the problems of
capitalism are international and can only have international solutions. The
existence of the EU means that as its policies operate across national
boundaries so the challenges faced by the working class constantly have
international dimensions which provide opportunities for solidarity and action
on this basis. The fight against austerity in Greece, and now Portugal, is much
more obviously our fight as being part of the EU than if we were outside.
Similarly the politics of right wing governments in Hungary and Poland require
to be challenged as much as our own UK government for the same reason.
The European Left: the
socialist organisation that no one mentions
Left Article after left article on the EU makes reference to
the need for an international struggle, often with vague reference to
possibilities such as in the recent Red
Pepper article
by Leigh Phillips.
Hello, smell the coffee! A socialist organisation that is
linking campaigning and politics across the EU and wider, does actually exist:
the European Left (EL). Here
is a policy statement agreed at the EL conference last year stating why it is
central for there to be an international opposition to neo liberalism and
austerity, together with a programme of campaigning demands and including
alternatives.
The EL is composed of 21 European parties and through the
European United Left / Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) has 51 MEPs. With the Green
MEPs with whom they regularly cooperate, they are the third largest section in
the European Parliament. Left Unity now has observed membership of the EL.
The last EL congress policy statement, referred to above, covers
the ground that most socialists could support. This is not so much the case
with some specific decisions such as the lack of criticism of the final deal
reached by Syriza. However, centrally it argues that another radical and
democratic Europe is possible and thus provides an international basis for
socialists to debate and agree what this means and how we can act to make it
happen.
The existence of the EL adds an absolutely key dimension to the
referendum debate, particularly in challenge the right. UKIP, and the like,
attempt to frame the debate in terms of the UK and people taking back power
almost as a form of liberation. This becomes the peg on which to hang populist
policies such as scapegoating migrants and refugees for causing all the
problems experienced by workers: low wages, housing, NHS queues, unemployment -
even motorway traffic jams.
Of course, as with all populist arguments they are opportunist
and hypocritical, as the taking back of power the UK right are really after is
the freedom to dump all the social charter and introduce even more attacks on
workers, exacerbating all the problems they seek to champion.
Having an internationalist alternative programme and strategy
which addresses how these problems are related to the failures of capitalism
and their neo liberal policies, backed up with a real international political
organisation, provides a direct and internationally based challenge to the
right and their nationalistic populism. Ignoring this possibility, as many on
the left are doing, at best weakens the internationalist case and, at worst,
plays into the hands of nationalist populism.
And at the very worse, if Brexit happened and the neo liberal
right have the free reign they are after, socialist who argued the exit case
will be saddled with that responsibility. Hair splitting over nuances of
difference and meaning will be a very poor fig leaf.
Personal plea
The history of the UK is inextricably linked to world history
and in particular, Europe. The development of capitalism and the various forms
of imperialism over the last 400 years have accelerated this process. The last
100 years have seen two European wars of utter annihilation, which are of also
part of a world conflict. Like nearly every other family I know, mine and that
of my partner’s have been scarred by the deaths and experiences of these
conflicts. The consequential wars have continued since 1945. Working class
support for these wars was justified and won in nationalist terms, weakening
the solidarity and international links that may have prevented them and
challenged capitalism at the same time. This was, let us not forget, the key
failure of the second international. That nationalism continues to undermine
us, with potential fatal co consequences.
Conclusion
It is not dealing with this reality to argue that a UK or
perhaps just an English answer to the problems posed by capitalism and
imperialism exists. Just as states cannot abstract themselves from the world,
neither can we as socialists and as a working class: we have to engage on an
international basis within the terrain of struggle we find ourselves: unlike
Callinicos, as socialist we need to organise and fight on both national and
international fronts, not prioritise one against the other.
Not to do so when the chance actually exists could set back the
socialist case in the UK for a generation. We have to argue for a yes vote to
continue with the internationalist struggle; to argue that another Europe is
indeed possible and to point to the programme and existence of the EL to show
how it could happen.
