Debates We Need To Be Having

Thomas Butler writes:

In three weeks time, voters go to the polls to elect their representatives to the European Parliament.

Not surprisingly,  Labour and a majority of the affiliated Trade unions have been very vocal on the need for a big push in the European elections to kick out the scourge of UKIP and BNP MEPs plus valiant aims to increase Labour’s presence from its current group of 13.

Labour members and trade unionists have also been out campaigning hard on the doorstep and in towns and cities encouraging people to vote Labour and raising awareness of the need to kick Nick Griffin, the BNP and fascism out of politics for good.

All good so far.

But upon further consideration, we see that all the above groups are almost certainly out campaigning during these elections for very different reasons. Some out of party loyalty, others because they detest the far-right and its fascist ideology.

Other comrades support the EU, its political and economic project and (perceived) social aims, and are driven by a need to re-establish legitimacy and popular support for the EU against the reactionary whims of a Conservative government hell bent on an EU referendum and repatriation of many powers back into our national legislature.

It has not gone unnoticed by the media that Labour is the only party with any serious clout to unequivocally support remaining in the EU – with the Lib Dems in danger of wipe-out and with no intentions of offering the road to a ‘Social Europe’.

Ed Miliband has also been very clear that EU withdrawal would be a mistake and stood firm in rejecting the need to offer any kind of EU referendum.

This drew praise from the trade unions and many in the party, for its positioning and unifying factor-but it also has to be said drew nifty criticism and accusations from left and right who felt it showed a Labour Party too nervous to demonstrate the worth and popularity of the EU.

Voters want to know that the case for remaining in the EU isn’t just an article of faith for Labour, but based on facts and common sense.

For them, the mass mud slinging between the Tories, UKIP and Labour on the EU has brought us to a point where people don’t know what is fact or fiction about Europe in the first place.

A referendum debate would allow the facts, pros and cons of the EU to surface and people the opportunity to finally make up there own minds.

It was a huge mistake for Ed Miliband to rule out a referendum.

It left the impression that ‘he knew best’ and that to make the pledge was somehow ‘opening a can of worms’ he did not want to open – not only for the noble virtues of containing the confidence of UK citizens job security and the business community (Nissan, etc) – but savvily avoiding argument with the “big three” affiliated unions (Unite, GMB, Unison) and any possibility of an opportunity from for those to his left in the party to project the true nature of the EU.

Some fear that the radicals in the party would start using the referendum as a platform to debate alternative methods of co-operation (e.g. South America) and the road to potential withdrawal.

But these are exactly the sort of debates we need to be having.

He continues:

We often talk about the EU fantasies peddled by UKIP and the right – and we are right to do so. But sadly, organisations on the left are prone to investing in European myths that are in fact very dangerous.

Most often, we hear of prospects for a “social Europe”. We hear that the EU currently provides its member states and citizens with adequate rights and protections and as well as decent public services.

It’s not true – every single one of those rights, protections and services is being attacked by the European Commission.

The commission is “modernising” and weakening labour law, and attacking rights to use collective bargaining and industrial action. It fails to deliver justice and equality for its citizens.

John Cryer MP recently described (p.13) the European Court of Justice as “persistently rules on the side of big business”.

Even worse, the EU and its commission has revealed its hegemonic and true undemocratic structure and neoliberal zeal by mercilessly attacking universal healthcare and destabilising the future of public education systems across the EU all via its TTIP truncheon.

It eagerly pursues the enforced marketisation of public services and nationalised railways across Europe through its 2006 Services Directive and 4th Railway Package which seeks to make public transport into a free market free for all, whilst making clear (article 36) it does this to “include the abolishment of technical, administrative and legal obstacles which still impede entry to national railway markets.”

Furthermore, it has also been guilty of far from protecting its citizens, but being a complicit and willing participant in wrecking there lives and economy, teaming up with the European Central Bank and IMF to drive up austerity and EU youth unemployment with particular effect in Spain and Greece.

The EU Commissioner for Employment Laszlo Andor even went as far as saying youth joblessness in Europe was closely related to the austerity measures being taken across member states ironically as a product of the enforcement of austerity by the EU itself and the other monolithic troika that collaborate against democracy and EU members.

Example after example can be discussed about whether the EU sides with co-operation, democracy and its citizens or some kind of perverse paternalism mixed with support for the bankers and the bosses.

Nowhere was this seen better than after the world financial crash,far from tackling the unfettered banks (EU bans publicly owned banking) with sanctions and regulation.

It instead forced diktats of economic discipline via its Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) to those states who sought an EU bail out through its “corrective arm”, which sanctions members if it fails to meet EU Budget targets and isn’t managing to comply with the EU’s prescribed list of economic shock therapy.

This has led to a growing assertion, in the words of TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady, that “if the EU is only about fiscal austerity, open markets and privatisation, then ordinary Europeans will increasingly question its legitimacy – and rightly so”.

So the question remains: why does so much of the trade union movement still lend its support to the EU?

His third and concluding part will be published in the next few days.