Which way to vote in the EU referendum on 23 June has split Tory, Labour and trade unions (to a lesser extent) and the left. However, many people are undecided on what their position should be. The choice is between Britain in an imperialist Europe or an imperialist Britain outside of the EU. That is why we call on young people, workers and working class communities to reject their offer and boycott the referendum.
UK In or Out
Cameron’s referendum is an argument about the best way for bosses to hammer workers and maximise their own profits and wealth. In or Out both sides agree on the basic principles to smash workers rights; privatise services; cut pay and conditions; use of racism and xenophobia to shift the blame away from themselves; and defend the City of London and British capitalism’s position in the world. In or Out, what divides them is on the best way to achieve all of this.
Cameron was forced to hold the referendum to answer the challenge from UKIP and the Out bloc of Tory MPs in a debate driven by xenophobism, racism and nationalism. The No campaign, a carnival of reaction, is based on hostility to migrants and refugees.
In or Out both support the privatisation UK health services (including hospitals) and all public services, and TTIP. The Royal Mail privatisation in 2014 was forced by Europe and Tory government and prepared by Labour governments. It was begun in 1997 when the EU announced an EU-wide postal service would be established by its directives.
Tory and UKIP are irrevocably committed to the interests of transnational capital, freedom for the banks and privatisation.
A new form of EU colonialism has developed whereby wealth is being directly transferred from the periphery to the core particularly in Greece and now Ukraine. One form it takes is a colonial transfer of capital through interest payments on an ever increasing debt.
The EU austerity policy imprisons the smaller nations in Europe while outside of Europe it enslaves (or tries to enslave) Middle East countries and many other parts of the world. It gives huge sums to Turkey while Erdogan represses and kills Kurds, Turkish youth and trade unionists. It supports Israel and a solution in Syria that includes Assad.
EU power struggle
There is a struggle between the main powers in Europe that involves British capitalism wanting to proceed with minimum regulation but with protection from German and French banks and businesses. Cameron’s deal aims to defend British banks and trans-nationals in the EU so that like locusts they can ravage the land in Europe and the world to amass resources and profit.
The City of London is overwhelmingly in favour of staying in the EU and opposes ‘Brexit’. The EU is a strong force for neoliberalism, privatisation and driving down workers’ wages.
But small business groups and some larger capitalists see a way out of their economic problems through breaking with Europe.
For a workers not a capitalist way out
A recent EU report noted that non-residential investment (excludes households buying houses) fell as a share of GDP and the main reason was “a reduced level of profitability.” The Commission found that Europe‘s profitability “has stayed below pre-crisis levels.”
The approaching referendum coincides with an approaching third phase of the world crisis despite Tory talk of a rosy economic. With increasing personal indebtedness the future is anything but rosy.
The interests of the workers, immediate or in the future, are not at stake in this referendum it is about increasingly exploitation of British and immigrant workers.
Labour for Yes
The majority of the Labour Party support remaining in the EU. Corbyn secured a deal with the right wing and the trade union bureaucracy on this position.
Alan Johnson, who is leading the Yes vote campaign, says. “The EU referendum will be the most profound political decision of my lifetime in terms of its effect on our national prosperity and Britain’s position in the world” [our emphasis].
“The Labour campaign that I lead will put the country’s future above party machinations, emphasising the contribution that the EU has made to peace and prosperity across our continent” [our emphasis].
However, immigrants, the Greeks and the small countries will disagree! Ask those who are being sanctioned in Britain, unemployed steel workers, junior doctors, railway workers and the millions working casual labour or zero hour contracts and all the striking workers in Europe if they agree!
After its brutal treatment of the Greek people during 2015, the EU has proven to be an anti-democratic autocracy committed to permanent austerity, whatever the human cost.
The EU’s free trade agenda over the past 20 years has shown that the radical reform necessary to turn the EU around is impossible.
Over 3.2 million people have signed the European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP, the largest number ever recorded for such a petition. However, Labour has turned its back on the campaign and can never support a united European working class campaign to defeat these privatisation plans.
The out
The right-wing No Vote campaign focuses on EU law and immigration as the cause of the problems of the British working class, championing insularity, racism, nationalism and xenophobism.
It has already become a factor in deepening Cameron’s war against migrants in Calais, and draconian attacks on benefits and housing are being announced almost daily.
No campaigners come from a section of the bourgeoisie (represented in the “Business for Britain” campaign), small businesses and sections of the middle class, some represented in UKIP and other racist groups. However they also from the left such as George Galloway, who recently shared a platform with Nigel Farage (UKIP).
The Socialist Party supports the NO campaign, and also argue (see Socialist Voice August 2014) that “no immigration controls” would “be a barrier to convincing workers of a socialist programme”.
However “no immigration controls” is a leading demand in the fight for socialism and a socialist programme. Opening the Calais’ border, and granting safe passage to all who want it is a very important to show all immigrants we are in solidarity with them. We believe that indigenous and immigrant are one working class and that an injury to one is an injury to all, throughout the world.
EU a noose for the working class
The majority of trade union leaders support the Yes vote. But the EU is a noose for the working class.
Some workers think the EU protects services and jobs from Tory Austerity. Nothing could be further from the truth. The EU imposes zero-hours contracts, casualisation and poverty pay and is destroying collective bargaining across Europe as part of its structural adjustment programme.
Even the European TUC, which campaigned for a “Yes” vote in the Greek referendum for more austerity, openly admits that “cuts in salaries, cuts in public services and weakening collective bargaining rights are all on the agenda”.
The EU neoliberal employment model calls for wages to reflect productivity, which means cutting wages even further allegedly to compete with the ‘core’ high-investment economies of France and Germany.
The European Commission, IMF and the European Central Bank now directly intervene in national wage negotiations in Ireland, Greece and Romania to weaken collective bargaining. Previously in Romania, 98 per cent of workers were covered by collective agreements today that figure is around 20 per cent. This means a loss of sovereignty of these three countries.
Workers’ jobs cannot be protected by clinging to the EU. Austerity, this government or the EU cannot be reformed. That is why Workers across Europe are opposing EU attacks and taking to the streets.
In 2016 many strikes are taking place, for example junior doctors and railway workers in Britain, transport workers in Barcelona, French air-traffic controllers, dock workers, truck drivers and more than 5.6 million civil service workers, general strikes in Greece, railway workers in Belgium, Portugal’s unions representing 600,000 civil servants (Courts, schools and medical services).
The will to fight lives on the streets of Europe. A workers and people’s Europe can only be built from below to overthrow the nightmare vision imposed by the undemocratic institutions from above.
End austerity, bring this government and the EU down – this is the only way end our misery, across Europe workers must take to the streets.
Neither Austerity or EU can be reformed
Britain is an oppressor nation and we cannot support one side or the other of our oppressors in this particular referendum.
We support unconditionally the right of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland to leave the EU because they and the European Central Bank supported by the IMF have imposed austerity in these countries that turned these countries into semi-colonies. The only way out for the smaller countries, for immigrants, for all workers is to leave the Euro and the EU.
We call for a campaign to champion the rights of workers, to support all workers’ struggles across Europe, to expose the self-seeking xenophobic and profit motive of both capitalist camps, and based on the need to support oppressed nations within Europe, to bring this government down, and break up the EU by the actions of workers and for a free socialist states of Europe.
Boycott the bosses referendum
Only working class mobilisation can end austerity!
Bring the Tories down!
Down with the EU!
One working class: Immigrant and Indigenous – for a free socialist United States of Europe!
