Copy of message sent to a friend.
Hello,
Not an easy subject to write about particularly with all the emotion and self interest attached to the UK’s interest in the EU. No need to reply and sorry to be a bit direct on occasions.
In a way, I was rather hoping that you did not mention the EU because it is not one of the simplest organisations to analyse. I do not expect you to agree, but I hope you will take a few minutes to write this offering and then perhaps we can agree to disagree. I am not expecting a full response, so no sweat.
The European Union has acted as an uncompromising vehicle of neoliberalism, both economically, in its forced imposition of austerity on Greece and several other member states, and institutionally, in its downgrading of the Democractic process. The situation in Catalonia and even the recent position on Venezuela has perhaps complicated any analysis, but outlines the EUs reactionary politics.
Meanwhile, the free movement of EU citizens across its internal borders has been accompanied by the increasing militarisation of its frontier. Those trying to reach the continent die in the thousands in the Mediterranean, or are forcibly removed to an increasingly authoritarian Turkey, in which they are often denied any possibility of refugee status. The role of the EU in the Middle East can hardly be called progressive. Even the progressive legislation and there has been some, as always been at a cost to Democracy. Does it not concern you that the right in the Labour Party, the tax dodging bosses and the bosses of the establishment and the rigged system are queueing with the remainers.
But what may seem a simple choice for the Left is complicated by the current political situation. This referendum was demanded by the Right and has been dominated by the Right, highlighting the degree of disunity on the left which can be rectified and should not be a reason for supporting the bosses union which is in deep crisis. The EU still has its own austerity measures and quantitative easing is still a tool, enabling the rich in acquire more wealth at the expense of most others. Both this country, the EU and the USA are economically and politically bankrupt owing trillions. One day a true international movement will be built uniting us all in both the EU and the world. In the meantime, plenty to do to bring about changes to support the environment and all those left behind. With a Socialist Government we should not be restricted by the EU and be free to legislate for even better laws than the EU has offered. This should give hope for a future where we are not manipulated and live in harmony and on an international basis.
This country is certainly run down economically, but the alternative as you see it, to getting into bed with the USA as been saught by the EU and we should not forget TTIP. We need a socialist alternative and only the struggle and Solidarity of the people can achieve this. Even the legal and protective forms of EU legislation we can legislate for and we should be more confident in achieving our goals. We built the NHS when we were broke and we built it with vigour, optimism and determination. Ye of little faith! Britains, neoliberal austerity is a mainly a home-grown product. As a result, the EU is popularly imagined not as the imposer of reactionary economics, but as an imposition on the sovereignty of a British state which could otherwise control its borders and keep out immigrants. This is clearly nonsense.
The immediate beneficiaries of the Leave vote have been the Tory right, the far-right UKIP and even more unsavory and openly racist forces. Migrants feel under threat, and rightly so the Left seems stuck between remaining within an institution authentically to our aims, and gambling that we can turn the period of crisis which would undoubtedly follow after leaving into a system for the many and not the few. We clearly should not be stuck like this and have a clearer perspective for the people who are already sick of the biased media and eststablment daily bombardment of innacurrencies and so often very blatant array, of a tissue of lies.
If this gamble is seen as too great, what does it say about the self-confidence, organisational capacity, and political horizons of the British left? Then Cold War factors come into play, in a sense France and West Germany were less inclined to threaten each other because both were directed against an external enemy in the shape of the Soviet regime. That now seems to have returned.
As this last point suggests, the United States was not in any sense opposed to or threatened by the EEC, indeed it saw western european integration as a necessary institutional compliment to NATO.
This point is important, as you seem to argue that the EU is a block against US interests; but while it is true that the major EU states compete economically with the United States, and that they do not always politically agree such as over Yugoslavia or Ukraine, they are united in the same imperialist alliance and against us all.
Given these origins it is scarcely surprising that the EU reproduces internally the structured unevenness of the capitalist system, in which the dominant members, namely Germany and some way behind, France, determine the fate of the weaker members.
This has been most obvious in the case of Greece, but also in those of Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and even Italy who are moving to the right.
However, uneven though it is internally, the EU presents a unified face to the global south outside Europe, both economically, since it both dumps food exports there and blocks imports in return, and geopolitically, in the shape of the fortress Europe it presents to refugees and other migrants. Import controls that Trump seems to love and hate with his trade wars. Sound familiar!
It might be argued that these aspects of the EU could be subject to reform, but the mechanisms by which this could take place are never made clear and are so bureaucratic.
The dominant bodies in the EU are either unelected, like the Central Bank or the Commission, or like the Council, consist of government leaders from the member states, who are elected by their own voters, but not by those of the EU as a whole, even though they are making decisions which affect it.
The parliament, as is well known, cannot initiate legislation on its own behalf, but simply ratify or at best amend initiatives from the Commission.
In a way, the entire setup was invented by the right, in which he argued for an EU-type body which would be run primarily by bureaucrats, so that interfering voters, and by extension politicians, would be unable to make demands threatening to the market order, and that economic policy would be governed by a set of unbreakable rules, constitutive of what we now call neoliberalism. Sound familiar?
What happens if Jeremy Corbyns Labour Party wins the next election and then finds that its path to reform is blocked by the EU, do you at that point say, sorry we didn’t mention this before, but the EU is actually a regime for imposing neoliberal austerity which we should maybe think about leaving? Why would anyone listen to us then? The situation would be worse.
Rather than relying on the EU, the Left needs to unite around a program of defense for migrants, whatever their status economic migrant, refugee, or asylum seekers which attempts to: one, end all restrictions on immigration, irrespective of EU membership; two, extend full rights of British citizenship to all migrants; three, unionise the workers, native and migrant, in the precarious sectors where the latter are most concentrated and close down the detention centres and establish new rights.
I think there is a very deep pessimism in your message which perhaps suggests matters about the prospects for socialism, and a belief that we have to restore capitalism to health before we can even think about moving beyond it.
The problem is that The problem is that capitalism isn’t going to be restored to health at least not to the kind of health it enjoyed in the West during the postwar so called boom.
This may well seem like a protracted response to your message, but it is only part of the analysis. I have tried to offer some alternatives to your gloom and despondency. Sorry, but do cheer up and have hope. Although, I appreciate it is a difficult one to sell on the doorstep when canvassing.
Again given up waiting for the snow, but I will send you the photos of my dogs and I hope we do not fall out over the EU and interconnected matters. I will just hope that we can agree to disagree. Do look after yourself. Ivor
As I post the political establishment struggle about to almost disregard the referendum result. The impact on the economy will be huge.
Ivor Timson. February 2019
Ivor Timson 