ICMLPO on UK's vote to leave the EU

This is a statement from the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (ICMLPO) on the UK's recent vote for Brexit from the European Union.  There is lots of information on the BBC, broadcast daily on NPR and PBS here, but the BBC portrays the vote to leave as generally rightist, xenophobic, economically depressed, and populist (a derogatory term in Europe and increasingly on NPR, applied to Trump, Sanders, the various anti-EU parties, and Venezuela).    

 

After ’Brexit’:

The struggle against ‘United Europe’ of the monopolies and neoliberalism must be intensified
mainly fighting against one’s “own” bourgeoisie

 

The British referendum to remain in the European Union or to leave resulted in a vote for Brexit that was not anticipated by the European and global elite, the capitalist governments and media, presidents and financial speculators. In spite of a major campaign of intimidation, the majority voted to reject the EU and Cameron’s scheme. This has been a major blow to the EU elite and the plan to complete the building of the ‘United States of Europe’ by 2025 and has left not only the UK, but also the EU in an uncertain political situation, where many different forces are trying to assert themselves.

The Leave-vote was not a vote of the right; it was not a racist or xenophobic vote, as the fervent supporters of the European Union try to tell. It was a broad popular vote of 52 percent against 48, solidly rooted in the British working class. It was a vote of the workers, of the popular masses, of the poor against the rich, of the ordinary people against the bankers and financial wizards of the City of London, assisted by divisions within the British bourgeoisie and its ruling party. It expressed their wish to regain sovereignty and to reverse the neoliberal platform of the European Union that makes the rich richer and broad working and popular masses ever poorer.

Both in Scotland and Northern Ireland a majority voted to remain in the EU. This reflects the protests against the reactionary imperialist and colonialist English bourgeoisie and unclarity about the class essence of the United Europe of the monopolies. Forces fighting for the unification of Ireland and for Scottish independence have demanded referendums to this end. This is the right of oppressed nations.

But to kick out one reactionary imperialist bourgeoisie to replace it with the united reactionary and imperialist bourgeoisie of the EU is not in the interest of the workers or the broad masses of any nation.

The European Union is the project of the European monopolies, their governments and political parties for a single market of maximum profits protected by tariff walls and now with barbed wire to prevent refugees from bombs, wars, hunger and exploitation from crossing the borders. The United States of Europe is a vision of a new imperialist and neocolonialist superpower, impossible or reactionary all along the line. It is not a project of peace, of prosperity and welfare, of the peoples. Neoliberalism is its economic doctrine, established in the treaties of the EU and obligatory politics of the member countries, accentuated by the rule of the Euro that was imposed in most countries of the Union.

Where referendums have been held about the basic treaties implementing closer integration and new steps in the economic, monetary, political and military union, the results have in most cases been resounding No’s that have been discarded in practice. So-called populist right forces have been able to take political advantage of this ever-increasing anger with both the practical implementation of the economic and political dictates that have impoverished broad strata and with the plans for new steps towards more of the same. They have presented themselves as the defenders of the nation and the national interests against the EU, distorting the true class character of the European Union, scapegoating the immigrants and refugees as the cause of the impoverishment of the broad masses. The ‘struggle’ of these forces against the United Europe of the monopolies is weak, inconsistent and divisive. Exactly for these reason they are strongly promoted by the bourgeois media, which are seeking to hide the class character of the struggle against the European Union and its super-state.

Let us condemn, unmask and vigorously combat the movements and parties of the extreme right, the nationalists, racists and fascists that use a “social” demagogy to help the bourgeoisie divide and exploit the workers and the popular masses, clip freedoms and political rights of the peoples.

The social-democratic, socialist and left reformist forces of the EU and the trade union organizations that they lead have been partners in the creation of the monstrous European Union of today, of the disastrous Euro and the devastating neoliberal policies – while at the same time promoting the idea of a better EU, a reformed Union, a Europe of the peoples, a ‘social’ Europe. These are illusions that serve the monopolies. Facts and all experience show that the EU cannot be reformed to the advantage of the workers and peoples. If the shackles of the neoliberal anti-worker and anti-people treaties and institutions of the EU shall be broken, they must be abolished. The EU and the euro are failed projects.

The reformists and especially the left reformist ones like the European Left Party and its member parties from Syriza and Podemos to the German Die Linke and the French Parti Gauche, play a very dirty role as defenders of the European Union, while they promote themselves as strong forces against neoliberalism. This is a fraud as demonstrated by the Syriza government. They have opposed the creation of broad popular movements combining the struggle against the European Union with the struggle against neoliberalism, and replaced the class antagonism between Capital and the workers with a political struggle between left and right.

This position of the left reformists will inevitably, when no strong and broad movements against the European Union and the euro exist in a specific country, leave an open field for the right populist EU critical forces, who engage in social demagogy and concerns for the plight of the working masses. The left reformists are guilty of a great betrayal.

The struggle against the neoliberal EU is not only manifest in the movements to leave the Union and for referendums in various countries about leaving the Union or abolishing the Euro, but also in the labor struggles and broad popular struggles against the neoliberal political and economic reforms implemented in all the countries of the EU.  All these reforms carry the stamp of the European Union, such as the labor reform promoted by the Hollande government, the so-called law “El Khomri”, which the French workers and combative trade unions are heroically fighting in spite of police state measures.

We express our full support to the workers, the young people and the popular masses, to their combative organizations, that are struggling against the neoliberal and reactionary reforms, despite the repression and the criminalization of the protest; we invite all the workers and the oppressed peoples to develop international solidarity more and more.

Such concrete struggles must promote the political struggle against the EU and reject the illusions that the European Union can be reformed into a progressive institution in the service of the workers and peoples. The reactionary pro-EU bourgeoisie of each country is weakened outside the institutions, framework and treaties of the Union. Class solidarity of the workers transcends national borders within and outside the European Union.

In the UK the workers’ movement and the progressive and revolutionary forces must rise to stop the plans of the different factions of the bourgeoisie to eliminate the result of the referendum or to impose new neoliberal measures, to ferociously attack the migrants and burdens on the masses around a Brexit-agreement with the EU.

The Brexit vote has encouraged popular and workers forces all over the European Union and outside it to strengthen their struggles. Broad movements in the EU are developing, demanding referendums in their counties to leave or to remain. In countries with special agreements with the EU such as Norway and others the struggle against their neoliberal nature is developing.

In this scenario, it should be clear that to break up with the European Union is an empty slogan if is not closely linked to the struggle of the workers, the labouring masses and the peoples against the dominant classes of their own country and their reactionary and opportunists servants.

The struggle against the European Union will be successful only if is founded on the solid base of the struggle of the working class and the broad popular masses against their own bourgeoisie to defeat it.

Therefore, broad workers and popular fronts should be created, or strengthened where they already exist. They should fight for the economic and political interests of the workers, for the democratic liberties of the oppressed majority, against the imperialist wars and the warmongering alliances like NATO, against militarization and the formation of police States, for sovereignty and national independence, for the rights of nations to manage their own affairs and destiny.

The lessons of the referendums in the countries of the EU, and also of the Brexit, is that the protests and the economic battles against the consequences of the crisis and the neoliberal and austerity measures necessarily become a political fight against the bourgeois governments and the supranational institutions of capital. Our task is to indissolubly tie both of them in one class struggle of the proletariat to defeat the bourgeoisie and build the new society without the exploitation of man by man.

July 2016

Coordinating Committee of the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (ICMLPO)