The Left case against the EU
Peter Hitchens talks about David Cameron as though he were a sandal wearing, bearded leftie. In spite of Cameron’s rhetoric on the EU that half our laws emanate from EU bureaucrats, his alignment to the European Conservatives and Reformists (which according to pro-Europe Ken Clarke sits the Tory party with neo-fascists or cranks in Europe) and his constant snubs (today Downing Street refused to fly the EU flag, defying Europe Union “wishes”), Hitchens says Cameron has done nothing to stop Britain from sleepwalking into Europe’s arms.
But then Hitchens would say that – for him everything bad, from abortion to crime to human rights, has by its side a box-ticking regulator with a foreign accent.
Cameron can say what he wants about the EU, but Hitchens will tell us that the homunculus inside the Prime Minister’s head is wearing a blue tie with yellow stars on it.
Though it is fair to say Hitchens is not always the best judge of good reasons to stay out of Europe; much like Dan Hannan for whom it appears 85% of laws come straight from legislation books locked up in Herman Van Rompuy’s secret underground lab which one enters to the overbearing sound of Ode To Joy (and Beethoven was probably a freemason – coincidence? Er, yes!).
But Hitchens is nothing if not consistent in his dislike of the EU, and his judgement that the UK Conservative party secretly likes the membership status it has in Europe. In May 2009 he wrote an article suggesting that while Thatcher saw off the dreaded unions, she did little to counter the “cultural revolutionaries who wanted to undermine marriage, dissolve the family, sexualise children and use State schools as an egalitarian sausage machine, turning out brainwashed Leftists by the million.”
For him there was little point in Thatcher defeating the shop stewards since so many of our laws are dictated by the unelected directive in Europe.
But while not agreeing with the premise, I happen to agree with Hitchens that Thatcher created the grounds where the EU cold flourish in the UK (though, of course, Hitchens would have no truck with my conclusions). Firstly, in ruthlessly destroying the lives of miners, and so much of the workforce in Britain, she weakened the industrial base of the country. She recognised that industry, and worse nationalised industry, provided too much security for the wage labourers who she despised, and did nothing to conquer the world – a task she admired, educated, as she was, to be an Empire politician.
Thatcher really came at the wrong time; the sun had set for the imperial nation she grew up fantasising about, but post-industrialism opened up a new promise – what if Britain was a economic powerhouse! Mother Hayek destroyed the public sector and brought about a neo-liberal model, re-inscribed later by Blair, and whose ferocity has been matched by today’s coalition government under the banner “big society”. Perversely, however, this new model required a new workforce; the unskilled worker, and much of it. While Enoch Powell warned of the rivers of blood, Thatcher’s capitalism required as many workers as possible (too many if necessary, to keep unemployed workers as back-up to drive down wages and undercut unions). The best way to sustain this model was to free up trade, and exploit the immigrant workforce – a set of principles which has been written into every European Union treaty from Maastricht to Lisbon.
Clearly Thatcher had worked anti-Europe rhetoric into her brand, much as Cameron has done, but the European Union is really the sum total of the conservative capitalism they both adore so much. They both may have waxed lyrical to the tune of isolationism, but a free market EU is set in stone in the Conservative party unconscious.
It is for this reason that there is still a plausible Left case against the EU; at best the European Union is a charter for unregulated capitalism with an unelected hub at the beck and call of multinational corporations who are free to exploit the resources of whichever workforce it chooses, set up shop in whichever country gives it the best deal for tax and regulation, move whole swathes of the workforce from place to place and can pick up and leave whenever it wants – reducing whole areas to depression and despair.
It used to be said that a Pro-European Tory was a Liberal Democrat, indeed many former members of the Tory Reform Group are now Liberal Democrats (Baron Lee of Trafford, Baron Dykes, Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne to name but three). But their difference to modern Conservative party attitudes towards the EU is that they were avowed in their championing of EU policy. Free market and neoliberal Tories forget how closely they operate under the EU spell. Any leftie who opposes Thatcherism (and that is nearly every one) should oppose the EU too.
The principals of freedom of movement and trade go back to the start of the EU http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Market_%28European_Union%29#History
BTW, it might just be my browser, but the font appears to change half-way through the post, after the Thatcher quote.
This is true, thanks for pointing out. I should really have stated that the free movement of trade and people goes back to EEC – in fact, as the wikipedia page points out, “[t]wo of the original core objectives of the European Economic Community (EEC) were the development of a common market offering free movement of goods, service, people and capital”. And so it remains.
It wasn’t just your browser, but it has all been taken care of now.
Free movement may have been written into the EEC right from the start, but the neoliberalisation of those (perfectly acceptable basic principles were only formalised (and taken beyond the reach of the EU’s democratic institutions by Maastricht (see http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2010/03/17/the-ec-report-on-the-uk-deficit-the-illogical-heart-of-the-eu/) and then Lisbon (see http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2009/10/13/whats-really-in-the-lisbon-treaty/)
Note also the reaction of the Commissioner on Taxation to the Parliament’s (non-binding vote) on a European Transaction Tax )http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2011/04/09/algirdas-semeta-eu-commissioner-for-narrow-financial-interests/) – a decent indication of how far neoliberalism has been culturally as well as institutionally entrenched within the EC.
So yes, we do need to shout out loud leftist opposition to the way the EU is run (notably, I suspect, through much better engagement in the UK between the labour momvement and the PES, something I’m starting to work on locally as a test case of sorts).
And then I remember that you’re libertarian on the subject of immigration
By neoliberalisation of the free movement of people, I gather you mean immigration as a motive for profit, in which case how does a libertarian socialist conduct his pursuit of open borders while that policy is also championed by neo-liberals?
Coming from it at a different angle, I’m reluctant to support the free movement of people while economic policy operates in the way mentioned above – though of course in a perfect world the free movement of people wouldn’t concern me.
One other thing, you seem to imply the way the EU is run is the sum total of the problem – do you therefore support a socialist EU, or an EC of socialist states? I can’t see the point in the EU other than to embed free trade policies, and since I’m opposed to such policies, I can’t see the point in a socialist EU – though I’m open to challenge.
There is no “left” case against the EU – apart from the case against capitalism itself. Every other “case” against the EU, “left” or not, is nationalist and often racist nonsense of the sort peddled by the ‘Morning Star’ and other reactionaries.
Fair enough – but I’m trying to distinguish a line between the undemocratic centralism of the EU, the democratic centralism of a socialist EU and the Stalinism of No2EU and Bob Crow. To quote Tony Blair, albeit with modifications, there’s a fourth way…
How was No2EU Stalinist?
It may have been many things (misjudged, misnamed, etc) and there’s plenty of scope to disagree with it but this seems like a classic case of the use of ‘Stalinist’ as a catch-all political insult.
Apologies Duncan, I said that in reply to Jim Denham who accused No2EU of being Stalinist, maybe on account of Bob Crow’s membership. Many supporters of that short-lived project probably agree with what I’ve written above.
Jim @5: “The left case” is just shorthand for “The Left Case against the current neoliberally run EU”. To seek to close down debate about the way the EU is run on the grounds that any criticism is bound to be racist/nationalist doesn’t seem v helpful. I’m sure that’s not your intention, but your wording makes it look like that.
Carl @4: Not quite sure what you mean. You want the EU to restrict free movement of people within its boundaries even more than it does (A2 accession)?
There’s plenty of scope for a socialist EU co-ordinating the things that benefit from being co-ordinated at a transnational level, with decision on why and how made democratically.
Paul;
what I mean is if we accept the economics that says an unemployed workforce is a necessary part of neoliberalism, then we should oppose the principle of the freedom of movement if this is only being used to drive down wages and undercut unionisation.
I can foresee a socialist EC, but I cannot see the point of an EU since it seems the only thing unique about having a union of economies in Europe is to ensure free trade and the free movement of people – neither of which are policies that particularly appeal to me. Perhaps, of course, at this stage our disagreement is purely one of semantics.
“if we accept the economics that says an unemployed workforce is a necessary part of neoliberalism, then we should oppose the principle of the freedom of movement if this is only being used to drive down wages and undercut unionisation.”
This seems lazy.
Surely if an unemployed workforce is a necessary part of neoliberalism, restricting migration will just result in more unemployment being created to drive down wages and undercut unionisation?
Better for British workers, EU workers and illegalised workers to unite and fight against the barriers that divide us, against unemployment and against low wages and poor conditions together.
Illegalising yet more workers won’t stop people travelling here anyhow, it will just drive down wages further as more people work illegally without recourse to agreed wage and working standards.
Tim;
You’re almost saying that migrant flight will help build the workers’ revolution, that seems lazy.
And sure it won’t stop anybody, but then making cannabis or porn illegal won’t stop people using it, that fact shouldn’t colour our opinions of it.
The lazy slur was a bit harsh and dismissive, sorry for that.
Freedom of movement is surely a good thing in itself (so different from, say, porn) – it’s the consequences of it you’re arguing are not necessarily good. If it won’t stop anybody, those consequences are not altered (except for the worse, brutalising individuals) by restrictions.
Migration won’t in and of itself build any kind of revolution, but our reaction to it might. (It may decrease global wealth differentials, however, as remittances have been shown to be much more effective than aid.)
Let’s be clear, the argument the author makes here is incorrect and reactionary, one increasingly made on the left, even amongst the so-called ‘marxist’ left, and which offers no positive alternative to the EU, and which re-inforces nationalism and bourgeois ideology.
First, is the EU a capitalist club? absolutely. And Insofar as it is such a club it is dominated by the larger sections of capital within it, Germany, France, and the UK. Its very nature, its composistion, its laws and courts prevent it from being anything other, give or take. In short it sahres many similarities with any kind of capitalist state form, most obviously the capitalist nation-state, which differs in that it is more autonomous, is armed with police and militray power, and also is dominated by fractions of capital according to their size, albeit at the national level, i.e finance and the city of london, german industry, and so on.
The logic of the authors argument is that one shouldn’t dirty ones hands with capitalist state forms, but, curiously, only weaker supra-national state forms, not the main enemy – the one at home, our ‘own’ capitalist state. Is the UK PLC a bosses club by virtue of the law, the courts, the officer core, the paid agents of bourgeois rule that form the political class, the police, the sanctity of property and so on? Yes. Indeed more so than the EU and even more potently and directly.
The authors most substantial passage:
“It is for this reason that there is still a plausible Left case against the EU; at best the European Union is a charter for unregulated capitalism with an unelected hub at the beck and call of multinational corporations who are free to exploit the resources of whichever workforce it chooses, set up shop in whichever country gives it the best deal for tax and regulation, move whole swathes of the workforce from place to place and can pick up and leave whenever it wants – reducing whole areas to depression and despair.”
is a naive perspective, and a dangerous one too. Firstly, on a purely technical level, the EU Social Chapter provides for more workers rights than in the UK – much to the infuriation of the capitalists agents here, indeed Labour refused to sign up to these conditions precisely because they dampened down the crazy un-regulated capitalism that the author claims to be so disgusted by.
Also, ‘multi-national companies’ do not need the EU to be able to exploit whichever national workforce they want, to find locations that have low tax rates, or to move produciton from one place to another. This is the whole history of the world market from the 1700′s on! Most obviously single nation states are even less able to do anything about this process, so why abolishing a proto-international state form would do any good is beyond me!
Surely, one may complain, the EU is not democratic, whereas the nation state is and then, glorious day, we elect a labour government, it will bring reprieve that would be unavailable from the EU from the awfulness of ‘neo-liberalism’. This is an outdated and reactioanry perspective. Why? Again, the lone nation state is relativelt powerless against the tectonic shifts of capital across the globe, nevermind the lightning fast flows of ‘hot money’. You cannot have Socialism in one country, and the development of the world economy and of capitalism means that you cannot have social democracy in one country either, and that nostaligia for the post war era is fundamentally misplaced and based on a static understanding of history – the unique circumstances that forced capitals hand on an international scale, note:international, post 1945 will not be replicated again. If you cannot go backwards then you must go forwards.
Remember, the capitalist state, not just in Britain but across the world, has democarcy forced on it by the prospect of a revolution, or sufficient co-ercion by the workers movement just short of revolution. If we apply the posters perspective back in time then the British state was not worth engaging with because it was an undemocratic bosses club – the workers movement, the communist movement, the labour party -none of these would have existed. At the level of the nation state the authors perspective, if logically applied which it is not, would boil down to anarchism or abstensionism. But given that the working class movement is a good thing and was prodded into existance basically by marxists (outside of anarchism at least) on the basis of political action for democracy against a bosses state then the only conclusion we can draw is that the working class movement must do the same with other such formations, like the EU. If we make these our own then we also do away with the problems that inhibit socialist politics in lone nation states, only a socialist EU can move the working class of each indicudal nation forward now. This requires an international party of the working class that does not collaborate with capital and which fights for democracy: a communist party, both in the nation and at the level of Europe.
The idea that there is no right to the free movement of labour is outright reactionary, handing the power to ‘handle’ the population back to the native bourgeoisie. What progress! This patrician ‘left-nationalism’ cannot but also strengthen all other forms of nationalism as it gives them implicit credibility no matter how much our caring labour-nationalists insist that their nationalism and their giving power to the bourgeoisie is ‘different’ and ‘for the workers own good’ and so on ad nauseum.
The idea that only captitalism in its ‘neoliberal’ form requires unemplyment also represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how capitalism works. Again there is the implied nostaligia for the post-war settlement, a utopia.
The basics of the authors arguent also get extended to the sub-nationalisms within the greater, Scotland and so on, where Scots nationalists make exactly the same arguments except we read ‘England’ in the place of ‘EU’. Again, the idea of a socialist Scotland is a dangerous utopia (Just as a socialist Britain against a capitalist EU is an impossible hallucination) and represents a retreat from a larger state form which the working class must confront on a larger scale, to a smaller state form that divides the workers and sets up the insane utopias based on a mix of either downright defeatism (far left) or nostalgia and class collaboration (soft left).