Brexit – the view from the left

Review

By Ben Soton

Robert Griffiths (2018): The EU, Brexit and Class Politics. LEXIT: the Leave Campaign. £2.00

Communists have been the only political grouping in Britain consistently to oppose both the European Union (EU) and its forerunner, the European Economic Community (EEC).  The old Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) as well as the New Communist Party took a principled stand against this neo-liberal, pro-capitalist entity from the start. The same can be said of the CPGB’s successor, the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) of which the author of this pamphlet is General Secretary.

This is not the case with other political groupings. The far-right were actually the first to champion the idea; one of the first British politicians to champion post-war European integration was former fascist leader, Sir Oswald Mosley. The Tories, who initially favoured membership of the EEC, are now heavily divided on the issue whilst Labour contains many of the ‘Remainiacs’ demanding a second referendum. Although the Labour left once took a similar position to that of the Communist Party, now it seems largely to have swallowed the pro-EU line.

The Liberal Democrats have always been the most consistently fanatical supporters of European integration, whilst the Greens take a similar position and consider any attempt to leave the EU on a par with the abolition of clean air legislation.

In this pamphlet Robert Griffiths clearly lays out the reactionary, un-democratic nature of the EU. In a section entitled The Cold War Origins of the European Union, he cites Lenin’s opposition to a United States of Europe. Lenin stated that such an entity would only exist as an anti-socialist venture. Opposition to a United States of Europe was, incidentally, a major difference between Lenin and Stalin on the one hand, and Trotsky, who favoured the idea. For this reason, some Trotskyist groups oppose Brexit.

Robert Griffiths fails to mention that the expansion of the EU in the 1990s was only possible with the counter-revolutions in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, which took place as a result of treachery by the clique around Mikhail Gorbachov. This may emanate from the CPB being, shall we say, a bit slow to recognise the reactionary nature of Gorbachov’s policies.

Griffiths goes into some detail about how the political fault lines have changed around the issue of EU membership. In the 1975 referendum on EEC membership the Tory Party was overwhelming in favour, as were the Labour right, the Liberals and big business; whilst Communists, the Labour left and the TUC were against, as were the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists. Things changed in the 1980s.

On the one hand the labour movement suffered a number of defeats and in 1988 the President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, offered the carrot of the very short-lived Social Chapter. The end of the decade saw a wave of reaction resulting from the counter-revolutions in Eastern Europe. Then some viewed the EU with a degree of false hope. This is still the case with some trade unions such as Unite, the GMB and Unison campaigning to remain in the EU. However not all the unions swallow this line; both the RMT and the Bakers Union supported the Left Leave Campaign.

The author also demolishes this argument that the EU is some kind of panacea of workers rights. EU legislation has done nothing to reverse the anti-trade union laws introduced by the Thatcher government. He points out that legislation has been won as a result of class struggle, not given by some benevolent official either in London or Brussels.  For instance, the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act was introduced as a result of the strikes that took place that year. Meanwhile the overwhelming majority of European Court of Justice (ECJ) rulings favour employers.

What is missing is an explanation for the split in the Tory Party. The British Conservative Party is probably one of the most successful reactionary organisations in the world. Its success is due to the dual role played by Toryism. On the one hand it exists to represent the economic interests of the British ruling class. At the same time, its success comes from being able to appeal to a much broader base than those who actually benefit from it; this has been done with appeals to God, Queen and Country, and at times racism. It has been able to create a political hegemony that has dominated British political life for over a century. Often these two functions diverge, hence the Tory party split.

Some Tories, such as Cameron, Osbourne and May, played the role representing the interests of big business; whilst those around Boris Johnson and Gove took up the cause of right-wing populism. Meanwhile, what of the Left?

There are still some in the Labour party who understand the reactionary nature of the EU.  Jeremy Corbyn, a long-time opponent of the EU, is to a certain extent a prisoner both of reactionaries with the Labour Party and of naïve elements of the left, in particular many in Momentum who regard the EU as progressive. Part of the success of Labour’s 2017 election campaign however, was the decision of Corbyn and McDonnell to honour the referendum result. This resulted in the almost total collapse of the UKIP vote. Demands for another referendum however, could see the revival of UKIP and the far-right.

Recent developments include the anti-Brexit demo on 23^rd June, referred to as the “Marks and Spencer March”. Thousands of well-heeled individuals took to the streets demanding a ‘People’s Vote’, perhaps not aware that we already had one in 2016 – called a referendum. At one point during the protest some of these spoilt malcontents were shouting “Where’s Jeremy Corbyn?”.

We have also seen the launch of the so-called ‘Left Against Brexit’ campaign, which claims that Brexit will make socialist policies harder to implement. I’m not sure what planet these people are on, but EU membership ties British and other members’ economies to an effective neo-liberal straight jacket.

Robert Griffiths’ pamphlet is, however, a useful tool for anyone wishing to counter right as well as left arguments in favour of the EU. The time for a Marxist understanding of the EU is now more important than ever. Meanwhile, the Remainiacs continue with ‘project fear’, claiming that this country will have no one to trade with after Brexit. One only has to look at the number of Fiat, Renault, Citroen, Volkswagen, Volvo or Audi cars on the road, all made in the EU. Surely a post-Brexit trade deal can’t be that difficult to negotiate?

Corbyn stands up to Zionism

 JEREMY Corbyn has, at last, responded to the intervention of the Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the internal politics of the Labour Party. Netanyahu poses as defending Jewish communities around the world. But the Zionist leader remained silent when his friend, Donald Trump, endorsed neo-Nazis and racists last year. And the reactionary Israeli leader had no qualms in cosying up to the Hungarian premier who whitewashes Hungary’s fascist role during the Second World War and has launched an anti-Semitic campaign against George Soros, the Hungarian-American financier accused of funding opposition to the Budapest government.

The anti-Corbyn hate campaign has gone unchallenged for far too long. Rank and file opposition to the Blairites and Zionists inside the labour movement is the only way we can combat the lies and filth of the bourgeois media. 

False promises for rough sleepers

THIS WEEK the May government unveiled what they claimed was a £100 million plan to help people living on the street. The Tory minister for housing claimed that this would end rough sleeping by 2027. But Labour soon exposed it as a hollow sham when it transpired that it would be paid for out of existing funds. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn blasted the plans for containing “no new money” and homelessness organisations have urged that the strategy should go further.

The sight of people sleeping in shop doorways in major towns and cities across Britain was once commonplace during the Thatcher era. The numbers went down during Blair and Brown’s Labour governments — but it has once again become a familiar sight under the Tories’ austerity regime.

The homelessness charity Crisis says more than 9,000 people would have spent last Christmas in tents or cars, or on trains or buses, on top of the thousands who sleep rough every night. Tent ‘cities’, so commonplace in the USA, are now becoming a feature of British life as well. Rough sleeping has more than doubled since 2010 thanks to decisions made by Tory ministers. But the next Labour government would end rough sleeping within its first term by making 8,000 homes available to those with a history of sleeping on the streets. 

The shambles of the railways

TRANSPORT unions and passenger groups are launching protests at fare rises announced this week. The TUC says fares have risen 42 per cent in 10 years, whilst nominal weekly earnings are only up 18 per cent. Many long-distance commuters will see their annual costs increase by more than £150 next year. RMT General Secretary Mick Cash says: “If it wasn’t for the profiteering and exploitation that is endemic after more than two decades of rail privatisation we would have enough cash in the pot to invest in staffing and infrastructure and hold down fares at the same time…today’s fare rise is just another nail in the coffin of Britain’s rip-off privatised railways. It’s no longer a question of if our rail services are renationalised, it’s a question of when.” That will only come if and when Labour wins the next general election. Another good reason to back Jeremy Corbyn!

Drive the racists off the streets

 Boris Johnson, the Tory journalist turned politician, has come a long way since he first entered Parliament in 2001. He reached the dizzy heights of Foreign Minister in 2016 only come tumbling down following the Eurosceptic revolt in the Tory Cabinet last month. Johnson wants to become the next Tory leader when Mrs May finally throws in the towel. But his naked ambition is frowned on by many Tory grandees and his past performance merely shows that his privileged background has elevated him way beyond his capabilities.

            Now Johnson is playing the race card with vulgar remarks about the traditional veiled dress of some Muslim women which he says make them look “like letter boxes” or bank robbers. This has, naturally, provoked a wave of protests from the Islamic community including the few prominent Muslims still in the Tory ranks. But Johnson is wallowing in the publicity he’s gained and refuses to apologise for his putrid comments.

            Johnson lacks the depth of support that Enoch Powell once enjoyed within the Tory party and he clearly doesn’t possess the rhetorical skills of Sir Oswald Mosley.  Powell had been a major player in the Tory party and Mosley was Labour’s rising star in the 1920s. But when these ambitious men fanned the flames of racial hatred working people closed ranks in a mass movement that forced Powell to seek the solace of the Ulster Unionists and Mosley into voluntary exile in Ireland and France.  

            Anti-fascist resistance drove the Blackshirts off the streets in the 1930s. A new anti-racist movement did the same in the 1970s to beat the National Front.  Now Labour is calling for another Anti-Nazi League to do the job today.

            Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said anti-racists should build on the work of the Anti-Nazi League (ANL), which was founded in the 1970s to clear the streets of the fascist threat. Jeremy Corbyn’s number two spoke out against the growth of the far-right pointing to the protests in support of jailed racist ‘Tommy Robinson’, now released after winning an appeal, the attack on a left-wing bookshop in London as well as Johnson’s recent Islamophobic remarks. McDonnell said: “We can no longer ignore the rise of far-right politics in our society. Maybe it’s time for an ANL-type cultural and political campaign to resist”.

Capitalism is in deep crisis. It cannot solve the problems of the millions of working people whose labour it exploits but it always seeks to divert the masses to perpetuate its rule. In Britain and throughout Europe we are witnessing the “creeping fascism” of the bourgeoisie who couple their attacks on workers’ rights and living standards with tactics that seek to scapegoat asylum-seekers, religious and ethnic minorities, and immigrants to divide and weaken the working class.

The ruling class is not inherently racist but it has always used racism to divide and weaken the working class. When any worker suffers abuse or discrimination because of their race, religion, gender, sexuality or for any other reason, the class as a whole is weakened and it is the responsibility of the whole class to combat racism and all other divisions of the class.

This is why the New Communist Party does not support separate organisation for workers of different colour, religion or gender. The class must stand united on the basis that an injury to one is an injury to all. Labour and the organised working class, the trade unions, must take the lead in driving the fascists off the streets and combating racism at work and in the community.

We have always supported the anti-fascist and anti-racist movements in the country and we will always continue to do so. But day-to-day struggles must become consciously linked to the fight for fundamental change, and that means revolution and socialism.

Brighton's Regency gem

By Carole Barclay

The Brighton Centre, is the largest conference venue in southern England. Open by Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan in 1977 the Centre can accommodate over five thousand delegates and it continues to host labour and trade union conferences to this day.  Sadly few stray beyond the sea-front watering holes during conference season to seek out Brighton’s past that lies only a stone’s throw away.

            The Royal Pavilion marks the beginning of modern Brighton. It was built in 1787 for George, the Prince of Wales, whose patronage transformed a coastal village into a fashionable sea-side resort for a jaded aristocracy whose gambling and whoring was now confined, by the Napoleonic wars, to our shores. 

           The architect John Ash, who also designed Buckingham Palace and much of London’s West End, built this royal palace in the Indian ‘Moghul’ style favoured by the English nabobs of the East India Company and the feudal rajahs that were under their thumb at the time. But while the outside is all minarets and domes the inside was decorated in the equally fashionable Chinese style also favoured by those who could afford to collect Chinese works of art.

Prim Queen Victoria didn’t like it and sold it to the council in 1850 where it was used as an assembly room and during the First World War it was converted into a hospital for Indian soldiers who, it was believed, would feel more at home in its surroundings.

            An extensive programme to restore the rooms to their original state began in the 1950s to house some of the Regent’s collectables and furniture that have been loaned by the Royal Family for permanent display in the Pavilion.

            Visitors who walk through the Pavilion’s gardens that have been restored to Nash’s original vision should also spare some time to visit the nearby Museum and Art Gallery that was originally the Pavilion’s stables.

            The Brighton Pavilion is at 4/5 Pavilion Buildings, Brighton BN1 1EE. It’s some 15 minutes’ walk from the railway station and five minutes from the conference centre. Open all year round, admission is £13.50 with the usual concessions for unwaged and senior citizens.

The tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Next week millions in Japan and throughout the world will pause to remember those who died in the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the last days of the Second World War. On 6^th August 1945 Hiroshima was destroyed by an American atom bomb. Nagasaki was hit three days later. Some 250,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed instantly in the atomic blasts. Many more would later perish from flash burns and radiation sickness.

The Second World War began as an imperialist war. It became a people’s war when the Nazis turned on the Soviet Union in 1941 and the Japanese Empire unleashed its legions against the Americans in the Pacific. Four years later the Red Army was in Berlin and the Japan was begging for a ceasefire.

But these pleas were ignored. Instead the world witnessed the use of the most terrifying and devastating weapon – the nuclear bombing by the USA of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

The claim that the atom bombs forced Japan to surrender is an enduring myth of the Second World War perpetuated by bourgeois politicians and historians who seek to justify this monstrous war crime.

We are told that the Americans had to use the atom bomb to force Japan to surrender and bring the global conflict to an end. But Adolf Hitler was already dead in his bunker when Berlin fell in May 1945. Japan’s oil supplies were cut, its ports blockaded and its main industrial centres were being hammered by round the clock bombing. Communist-led people’s armies had liberated vast tracts of China, Korea and Vietnam. Finally the Red Army broke the back of the Japanese army when they smashed through Manchuria. Emperor Hirohito was on his knees begging for an armistice when the terrible atomic massacre began.

Two Japanese cities were wiped out to show the world, and the Soviet Union in particular, what the might of US imperialism was capable of doing.

The first successful nuclear test in New Mexico in July 1945 convinced the leaders of Anglo-American imperialism that they had a secret weapon that would ensure their domination of the post-war world. At the Allied Conference in Potsdam the US president, Harry S Truman, told Stalin that US imperialism possessed “a new weapon of unusually destructive force”. But the Soviet leader already knew this from his own intelligence service.

What the imperialists didn’t know was that Soviet scientists were also unravelling the secrets of the atom and that the USSR would soon be able to develop atomic weapons as powerful as anything in the imperialist arsenal.

The only two socialist states that possess nuclear weapons are People’s China and Democratic Korea. Both have pledged never to be the first to use nuclear weapons. At the United Nations, People’s China actively supports proposals for multilateral and universal nuclear disarmament. China stands for the complete prohibition and total destruction of all nuclear weapons.

In Britain the New Communist Party (NCP) supports the efforts of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) for unilateral British nuclear disarmament. The NCP calls for the abolition of all biological, chemical and radioactive weapons, and our immediate focus is the demand to scrap the Trident missile system and use the money saved to refund the National Health Service and other state welfare projects.

The fight for peace is inexorably linked to the struggle for justice. The campaign for peace must inevitably challenge world imperialism, which is the greatest threat to peace. The challenge to imperialism must present an alternative to the capitalist system of oppression and exploitation that is the root cause of all conflicts in the world today.

Solidarity with the Palestinian people: Joint statement of communist and workers parties on Palestine

The Communist and Worker Parties decisively condemn the crimes committed by Israeli army against the Palestinian people in the occupied territories, especially in the Gaza Strip, that has caused a bloodbath, murdering in cold blood unarmed demonstrators, men, women, and children.

The aggressive policy  of the Trump administration and the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to mov the US Embassy there, over and against the general international outcry, has encouraged the aggressiveness of Israel, that continues the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories and continues massacring the Palestinian people.

The governments of the countries that assume a stance of equal distances, identifying the victim with the offender, have great responsibilities; the position of the European Union, that while an organized massacre of the Palestinian people is occurring is calling “all sides to show restraint” and is upgrading its relations with the Israeli state, is unacceptable.

Some European left parties also have unacceptable positions supporting the Israeli occupation and settlements as the latest visit of the leader of parliamentary group of German left party Die Linke and planting a tree in Israeli settlement have shown. In some other European countries, led by other parties, members of  the European Left are developing relations with Israel especially with the  military. The latest vote of the Israeli Knesset, the Nationality Law, is an additional step towards he apartheid state .

The Communist and Workers Parties express their solidarity and  their support to the Palestinian people and to its just struggle in favour of its own independent and sovereign Palestinian state within the pre June 4th 1967 borders, with its capital in East Jerusalem. We continue our struggle and we call the peoples to strengthen their solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people  until the end of the Israeli  aggression and  occupation supported by world imperialism.

SolidNet Parties

Communist Party of Albania

Party of Labour of Austria

Communist Party of Bangladesh
Communist Party of Belgium

Brazilian Communist Party

New Communist Party of Britain

Party of the Bulgarian Communists

Communist Party in Denmark

Communist Party of Denmark

German Communist Party

Communist Party of Greece

Hungarian Workers Party

Tudeh Party of Iran

Workers Party of Ireland  
Communist Party (Italy)
Jordanian Communist Party

Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan

Communist Party of Malta

Communist Party of Mexico

New Communist Party of the Netherlands

Communist Party  of Norway

Communist Party of Pakistan

Palestinian People's Party

Palestinian Communist Party

Paraguayan Communist Party
Philippine Communist Party [PKP - 1930]
Communist Party of Poland
Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF)
Russian Communist Worker's Party (RCWP - CPSU)
Communist Party of Soviet Union
Union of Communist Parties - Communist Party of Soviet Union
New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
Communists of Serbia
Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
Communist Party of Swaziland
Communist Party of Sweden
Communist Party of Turkey

Communist Party of Ukraine

Communist Party of Venezuela

 Other Parties

CP, Denmark

Communist Party of El Salvador

Revolutionary Communist Party of France

Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist)

Party of Communists of USA