Europe

UK Independence Party: sometimes quirky, always reactionary

It is now common to meet working-class people who say they are sympathetic to, or will vote for, the UK Independence Party. Clearly what they stand for has a resonance, including a resonance with former Labour supporters, alienated by New Labour's record in government. Anti-fascist activists need to arm themselves against this unpleasant far-right party. The UK Independence Party (UKIP) polled 16.5% of the vote in the 2009 European elections beating Labour and winning 13 seats in the European parliament. UKIP will get fewer votes in the coming general election — partly because of the voting...

Occupations in Vienna

Since 22 October around two thousand students and university staff have been occupying several parts of the main university in Vienna, demanding an end to restrictive admissions practices, tuition fees, and the marketisation of education. Their action has swept across Austria, with seven universities now occupied around the country. Students and workers are fighting the Bologna process — a process of standardisation across the whole of European higher education, which seeks to reorganise the university sector as a selective, expensive, two-tier system. What began as a protest against the...

The left and Europe

The British left is still infected by nationalism. There are a number of reasons for this. Britain did not join the European Community — despite two abortive attempts to do so — until 1972, 14 years after the Treaty of Rome came into operation. Initially there was strong ruling-class opposition, and that was reflected inside the labour movement. The USSR opposed Europe, and the Stalinist party in Britain — which had much influence in the trade unions — took this line ready-made, hypocritically purveying British nationalism, the better to serve Russian foreign policy, that is, Russian...

There is only one socialist answer on Europe: workers unite!

Increasingly, “Europe” determines what happens within the member states of the European Union. More and more, what “Europe” decides happens, especially where a second rate power like the UK is concerned. National parliaments are overshadowed. Democratic rights which in countries like Holland, Britain and France took centuries of popular struggle to win have in this way been increasingly nullified. Now, socialists are for European unity, even under the bourgeoisie. The call for a United States of Europe was for long the cry of the left, not of the right. Undesirable things such as Maastricht...

"Europe without frontiers yes, Europe without jobs no"

"Europe without frontiers yes, Europe without jobs no", was among the slogans on a 70,000 strong march in Brussels on 16 March, where workers from the threatened Renault car factory at Vilvoorde, Belgium, were joined by delegations from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece and Austria. In the 1970s and 1980s, steelworkers fought closures and job cuts all across Europe. But they fought separately. French workers fought to save French steelworks, Italian workers to save Italian steelworks. Within Britain there were rival campaigns to save "Scottish steel" and...

“No 2 EU” is not an adequate platform

“Trade Unionists Against the EU Constitution” is planning to run lists in the 4 June election for the European Parliament, and on 4 March won the support of the Executive of the rail union RMT for that. • More: www.workersliberty.org/no2eu Should socialists like AWL who believe that New Labour has stifled working-class political representation, and who argue for unions to back independent working-class challenges in elections, back this initiative? Not on present lines. Politically, the lists do not even pretend to speak up for the working class against the capitalist class. They confine...

No to little Englandism

As the banker James Pierpoint Morgan said, everybody has two reasons for things they do: the good reason, and the real reason. A new pamphlet, The Big EU Con Trick, from a “Trade Unionists Against the EU Constitution” (TUAEUC) gives several good reasons “why trade unionists should demand a referendum on the EU’s Renamed Constitution”. The new “Reform Treaty” contains many of the proposals that were in the draft EU constitution a few years ago. That constitution was rejected in referendums in France and the Netherlands (in 2005). Tony Blair had promised a referendum on it (which didn’t happen...

The left in France and Greece

A delegation from Workers' Liberty and Solidarity attended the annual fete of the French Trotskyist organisation Lutte Ouvriere on 26-28 May. This fete, a tradition for over 30 years now, attracts around 20,000 people each year - somewhat fewer this year on account of almost continuous rain. It is held in large grounds about half-an-hour from Paris, with some 200 stalls offering food, drink, games, and information, plus music, dancing, and forums for political debate. LO offers stall space to any revolutionary group that asks for it, and this year, as every year for a long time past, Workers'...

TUC Women Discuss Abortion Rights

Here I am at TUC Women's Conference in Scarborough. Today, I moved RMT's emergency resolution on abortion rights. Here's my speech, plus a report on the debate that followed.

(Pic: The RMT delegation pose in front of the Conference banner in defence of abortion rights)

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Until now, the...

The racism of the anti-EU campaign

By Jim Denham The Morning Star is the daily publication of the British Stalinist “left”. Prior to the collapse of the USSR and the Stalinist empire in 1989/90, it was subsidised by “Moscow gold”. Since then it's been subsidised by the dues of rank-and-file union members, most of whom are completely unaware that their hard-earned wages are being used to finance the last gasp of Stalinism in Britain. The 13 September edition of the Star carried an article on the subject of the European Union and migrant workers, entitled “Don’t be fooled by the EU Trojan horse”, written by one Doug Nicholls,...

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