|
|
Irish No hits EU rulers
The vote in Ireland against the Lisbon treaty has
stunned the EU rulers. Reeling in shock, establishment politicians and
big-business are branding the electorate as ignorant and reactionary.
The majority of Irish NO voters, however, consciously rejected their
plans to press ahead with the neo-liberal agenda of privatisation and
attacks on workers’ rights and living standards. PETER TAAFFE assesses
the vote and its affects on the EU.
"THE COUNTRIES THAT have said ‘no’ will have to ask
themselves the question again". (Jean-Claude Junker, the prime minister
of Luxembourg, following the defeat of the French and Dutch referendums
in 2005) "Despite the lip service paid to democracy, western societies
are effectively run by moneyed oligarchies, who have as little time for
their wage slaves as did the ruling elite of ancient Athens". (Larry
Elliot and Dan Atkinson, The Gods that Failed) "‘The people have spoken,
the bastards’. So said one Californian candidate when voters did not
respond to his electoral charms in the way he desired".
Similar sentiments towards the Irish people are now
shared by the Irish capitalists and their counterparts in Europe
following the stunning victory of the No vote in the referendum on the
Lisbon treaty. They had the effrontery to defy the combined weight of
‘official’ Ireland and the EU institutions, nominally representing 500
million people. The vote is all the more astonishing in that all the
hallowed institutions of the Irish capitalists – all the main parties
apart from Sinn Féin and the Socialist Party – including the summits of
the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) were mobilised on the side of
the Yes campaign.
‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’.
True to form, the European bourgeoisie as a whole has reacted with
horror to this cheeky defiance of ‘one per cent’ of the EU population to
its grand plans. They have urged with one voice – some screeching while
others plead – that the Irish people repeat history and duly repudiate
their latest vote in a new poll before March of next year. Yet the Irish
referendum result is not exceptional. The Danes rejected the Maastricht
treaty in 1992, and then on joining the single currency in 2000. A
popular vote in 2003 saw the Swedes reject the euro, too. The French and
the Dutch gave the political leaders a ‘collective bloody nose’ on the
EU constitution in 2005.
Yet in a breathtaking demonstration of contempt for
the ‘democratic will’ of the European masses, there is a chorus
demanding that the result in Ireland should be unwound by hook or by
crook. ‘How can 1% of the EU population hold the rest to ransom?’ is the
bellicose cry of the recent summit of the EU. The truth is, however,
that, given the same choice, many countries – perhaps even the majority
– would reject the undemocratic, pro-neoliberal big-business charade of
a ‘treaty’.
The novelist and critic Colm Tóibin, writing in The
Guardian, poured scorn on the outcome of the referendum: "A godsend to
every crank in Ireland – on the left or on the right". Yet even he is
compelled to admit: "It is likely that this treaty would have been
defeated in many European countries had it been subjected to a
referendum". The treaty was, in any case, ‘a rose by any other name’.
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former French president who presided over
the drafting of the original constitution, following its rejection in
2005 declared that the treaty "amounted to the same thing".
The treaty is so dense – 269 pages weighing at least
eleven pounds – that, during the Irish campaign, even the new prime
minister Brian Cowen admitted that he "hadn’t read it". Nevertheless,
the mass of the Irish people – it is true, for a variety of reasons –
were well aware of its implications and how it would seriously impact
negatively on them. They were assisted in drawing this conclusion by the
vigorous No campaign – in which the Socialist Party and, particularly,
its main spokesperson, Joe Higgins, played a crucial role, as other
articles in this issue illustrate.
It is a neo-liberal charter, the purpose of which is
to further encroach on the rights, working conditions and living
standards of the mass of the people in a further ‘race to the bottom’.
The Irish result illustrates the deep-seated hatred that is now
developing, not just in Ireland but on a European and world scale, to
the ruling elites. It vividly demonstrates, in particular, a deep class
divide. Even Garret Fitzgerald, a former Fine Gael (Family of the Irish)
prime minister and standing on the ‘liberal’ right, said that the No
vote was strongest in working-class areas, while the Yes campaign did
better in affluent constituencies. The result, he said, "was very class
divided, which is disturbing in its own right".
EU manoeuvres
AN EQUALLY WIDE gulf has opened up between the
pro-treaty leaders of the ICTU and the ranks of the unions, who were on
the other side of the barricades in this campaign. The working class
remained impervious to the threats emanating from Brussels that the roof
would fall in if they voted No. Bernard Kouchner, an alleged socialist
yet serving in the cabinet of right-wing French president, Nicolas
Sarkozy, warned: "The billions of euros Ireland has received in EU funds
will probably be choked off if they voted against the wishes of the EU
tops".
Yet during the campaign, posters urging a Yes vote
were seen alongside ‘For sale’ boards in the rapidly declining housing
market and the failing economy. Unemployment has climbed by nearly
50,000 people in a year to reach 5.4% and is expected to increase
rapidly in the next twelve to 18 months.
The net result of the referendum is confusion,
bordering on pandemonium, within the EU institutions. Before the result,
the EU Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, declared: "There is no
plan B in case it is No". In fact, the treaty is plan B, as the rejected
constitution of 2005 was plan A. The attempt to repeat the example of
the Nice treaty, when the Irish voted Yes only in a second referendum,
faces formidable obstacles. The No camp’s margin of 53.4% to 46.6% on a
turnout of 53%, higher than in both the Irish votes on the Nice treaty
in 2001 and 2002, makes this difficult.
Moreover, the Irish No vote will undoubtedly
encourage opposition in other countries to the implementation of the
treaty. In the Czech Republic, for instance, the president Vaclav Klaus
has flatly declared that the Irish No means that Lisbon is finished. It
seems he has little formal power but, nevertheless, it falls to him to
officially approve the treaty and the Czech Republic assumes the EU
presidency for six months on 1 January 2009 – the day that Lisbon is due
to take effect. As the Financial Times commented, the Czechs have a
"somewhat muted enthusiasm for the EU, evident since it joined in May
2004 [and] may produce confusion just when the bloc is trying to dig
itself out of its crisis".
Moreover, the attempt of Gordon Brown to rush
ratification of the treaty through the British parliament indicates, to
say the least, contempt for the British people’s views. David Cameron,
the Tory leader, has stated that ‘Lisbon is dead’ and, should they win
power in the next election, probably in 2010, they will seek to
"renegotiate a fresh deal for Britain". But as Berthold Brecht declared
after the East German government expressed its ‘disappointment in the
people’ after the East Berlin uprising of 1953, "would it not be easier
in that case for the government to dissolve the people and elect
another?"
So desperate is the European bourgeoisie that all
kinds of fallback positions are being discussed. The idea of a
‘two-speed’ Europe – with Ireland and other similarly ‘non-conformist’
nations relegated to the slow lane – is once again being floated. There
is still ferocious pressure to force the Irish to think again. The
little concealed arrogance and impatience of capitalist commentators was
summed up by Wolfgang Munchau in the Financial Times: "The No vote
leaves the country with exactly two alternatives. One is a humiliating
u-turn, consisting of a Yes vote in a second referendum without a
material change in circumstances. The other is that Ireland could lose
its full membership if the second referendum produces a second No
victory. Ireland’s citizens would send the country back to the economic
dark ages, from whence it emerged only a few decades ago". The German
foreign minister has even suggested that Ireland should "withdraw
temporarily from the process of European integration".
Obstacles to capitalist unity
THE IMPLICATION IS that later, when the Irish have
‘got it right’, they could rejoin. But others, such as the French, have
talked about a ‘legal arrangement’, which is legalese for forcing
Ireland to leave the EU. If this was done, it is not ruled out that this
could create a No domino effect, involving the Czechs, Swedes and, not
least, the British. This would shatter the impression of ‘European
unity’, the cherished goal of the European bourgeoisie for decades.
Against the economic might of the US, and the growing powers of Chinese
and Asian capitalism, the European capitalists have sought to overcome
the divisions of the continent in order to establish an economic,
military and diplomatic counterweight to these rival capitalist blocs.
But, as Marxists have argued, and as Socialism Today
has underlined in a series of articles, the major obstacle to unifying
the productive forces – the organisation of labour, science and
technique – is the ownership of private property by a handful of
billionaires and the national state. At the same time, the enormous
expansion of the monopolies has completely outgrown the narrow confines
of the national state.
Such is the modern scale of production, technique,
investment and management that the multinationals and transnationals
which dominate world trade as never before plan their operations not on
a national but a continental, and now a world, scale. This would be the
starting point for a democratic socialist plan, which would liberate the
productive forces from the stultifying limits of capitalism. Starting
from the national sphere, with full democratic workers’ control and
management, it would be entirely possible to organise a European plan
linked to a world plan of production.
In a period of economic upswing, it has been
entirely possible for many of the obstacles to economic collaboration to
be overcome, or at least considerably reduced. But the establishment of
a unified European bourgeoisie – as the US ruling class is unified – is
utterly impossible within the framework of capitalism.
Much has been conceded by the different national
states to the institution of the EU. Indeed, one British commentator,
the right-wing economist Samuel Brittan, argues that EU powers have
extended "to the Brussels level decisions that are left to the state
level in the US". But the EU has not fully integrated the productive
forces on a continental scale as is the case with the US at the present
time. Hence the numerous ‘opt-outs’ on crucial questions for different
national governments. For instance, the British opt-out on the 48-hour
week. The EU institutions, moreover, particularly the European Council
(the body on which government leaders sit) envisaged by the Lisbon
treaty, would not be elected. These ‘figures’ would be selected by heads
of government who are themselves elected for other reasons. No-one knows
whether the commissioners are a legislative or an executive body.
Neo-liberal agenda falters
THE EUROPEAN BOURGEOISIE is itself divided over what
route the EU should take in the next period. The decisive sections – the
banks, the aristocracy of finance in general, as well as the big
industrialists, employers and employers’ organisations like the CBI in
Britain – are in favour of a more integrated EU. They see the EU treaty
– with its pronounced neo-liberal bent, with opposition not just to
nationalisation but of state subsidies to ailing industries – as a
guarantor of the untrammelled play of the 'free market’, the hallmark of
European and world capitalism over the last three decades. In this, they
display what Karl Marx called "parliamentary cretinism" (‘constitutional
cretinism’, in this case), a treaty fetishism. They believe the treaty
would guarantee the permanence of the economic counter-revolution
against the rights and conditions of the working class which went with
this period.
The EU sought to pressurise the Brown government
against nationalising Northern Rock. But the internal pressure in
Britain compelled the government to brush EU objections aside. Similar
threats from the EU have been made to Poland to prevent government
subsidies to ailing shipyards. Against a serious economic and social
crisis, the EU treaty will be seen for what it is: a scrap of paper.
The same applies to the euro, whose tenth
anniversary was recently ‘celebrated’. There is no guarantee that it
will see its 20th birthday, maybe not its eleventh or twelfth. The
launch of this currency coincided with the seemingly unstoppable
progress of neo-liberal, turbocharged capitalism in Europe and the
world. However, the onset of the present economic crisis – still in its
early stages – combined with the crippling rise in the value of the euro
in relation to the dollar, and the consequently devastating effect this
has on European industry, has seen the re-emergence of all the
fissiparous tendencies of the past. There could be defections from the
eurozone, particularly of Italy, because the high price of the euro is
having a devastating effect on the competitive position of the country,
which is already on its knees.
Growing crisis & revolt
A GROWING SOCIAL crisis on the heels of the economic
fall-out will compel national governments, often against their will, to
introduce ‘emergency’ measures to ameliorate the situation in the teeth
of mass pressure. Northern Rock is just one example of this. Brown’s New
Labour government earned the ire of the European Commission for taking
this measure, one that Brown and his chancellor Alistair Darling had to
be dragged kicking and screaming to ratify. Needless to say, they have
promised to restore Northern Rock back to the private sector once the
state – through the taxes paid largely by working- and middle-class
people – has paid for its renovation.
The Irish No vote, therefore, could signify a new
stage in developments in the EU. Rather than it being a ‘hiccup’ along
the way to a more integrated capitalist Europe, it could signify the
beginning of many revolts against the European capitalists and their
anti-working class, anti-democratic policies. What is striking about the
EU referendum in Ireland – which is mirrored in every country in Europe
– is the total disconnection between the official establishment and the
mass of the people.
Part of this establishment is now the rotten tops of
the trade union movement in Ireland, but also in Britain and most
countries in western Europe. The British trade union leaders,
particularly the TUC, utterly incapable of defending the present
standards of the working class through industrial action, never mind
making further conquests, look towards Europe, particularly a ‘social
Europe’, for salvation. Via this route, they reason, cuts in hours and
greater trade union rights in the workplace can be achieved, which are
presently barred to British workers by the existence of Margaret
Thatcher’s anti-trade union laws – perpetuated in Britain by Tony Blair
and now Gordon Brown.
But the capitalists, via the Brown government, have
successfully lobbied their European counterparts against lifting the
British opt-out of the 48-hour week. Yet in the first quarter of this
year, 300,000 extra workers were working 48 hours or more, adding to the
total of over three million who already work these hours. Only combative
trade union action can begin to change this situation – not special
pleading through the so-called ‘progressive’ EU project.
Contrast the huge effect of the Socialist Party in
Ireland and its best-known representative, Joe Higgins, with that of the
shameful posture of the official trade unions in the Irish referendum.
The role played by Joe was absolutely critical in taking on and exposing
the arguments of the senior political and business representatives of
the establishment. This was generally recognised. In the Evening Herald
newspaper, media analyst and consultant, Terry Prone, cited Joe among
her ten reasons why Lisbon was defeated. (Lisbon Treaty No Vote Delivers
Major Shock for Political and Big-Business Establishment, Kevin
McLoughlin, Socialist Party, CWI Ireland, 14 June,
www.socialistworld.net) Imagine if the labour movement’s leadership was
heavily populated by the likes of Joe Higgins. Then, not just this
treaty could be defeated but the whole continent-wide conspiracy of
capitalism could be turned back.
Our opposition to the EU is not one of narrow
nationalism. We participated in Ireland alongside many opposed to the
treaty – some not for progressive reasons. But we made absolutely clear
our differences with them and our approach to European unity. We oppose
narrow nationalism. We stand for the unification of Europe which, we
repeat, is not possible on a capitalist basis. Only a socialist Europe,
a united socialist federation of Europe, organised by the working class,
can take the peoples of the continent out of the blind alley into which
it is heading – a crisis-ridden economy, an ever-growing gap between
rich and poor, and continuing attacks on the living standards of
working-class people. This is the future of Europe, not the moth-eaten,
tawdry remnants of the EU treaty, which represents the past.
|