CAMERON SPEECH ON EU-
BOX-OFFICE POISON IN
BRUSSELS:
This week in the House of Commons,
and later at the Global Elite gathering at Davos, In Switzerland, Brit Premier,
David Cameron, made his long-awaited public statement on Britain's position in
the EU and his vision of the British Conservative Party way of pursuing it in
the future.
His speech committing the
Conservative Party to a "IN-OUT" referendum on EU membership in 2017, had been postponed
for a week, supposedly due to the hostage crisis in Algeria. But,In fact, it was a
speech that had been brewing for years, ever since his taking over leadership of the Tories, for
fear that it would rip the party apart. In the end, it is primarily the fact
that the Tories are already being pulled apart by more rabidly expressed opposing positions on
the EU in recent times that forced his
hand. This was well demonstrated by the hoots and hollers of the Tory Neanderthals
on the back benches of the Commons chamber.
The "Financial Times" Philip Stevens, commented that this was “politics on a tightrope”, motivated by Cameron’s hope that his commitment to a referendum would “forestall a historic split in his own party comparable to its 19th century ruptures over the Corn Laws and imperial trade preferences in the early 20th”. Raucous support from the back-benches didn't hide the dismay in other quarters at Cameron's guff. The Lib-Dem half of the coalition government at Westminster attacked the speech and disclaimed support for it.
More worryingly for Cameron, and
the British ruling class as a whole, has been condemnation of the prospect of a
British referendum by other EU members and, more especially, by President Obama in Washington. Although the
referendum is not scheduled for another four years and is dependent on the Tories
winning the 2015 general election, a dim prospect at the moment with the Tories on only 33% compared with Labour on 39%, Cameron has
been attacked for injecting further uncertainty into the European project
when it is already in crisis. Philip Gordon, US assistant secretary of state
for European affairs, publicly made clear Washington’s displeasure recently
when he stressed that Britain’s continued membership of the EU was “in the
American interest”.
Cameron’s remarks were intended
to try and appease constituencies none of which can be described as progressive;
the back-bench Tory Eurosceptics and the UK Independence Party, who have been yapping more loudly at
Cameron's heels since he became Prime Minister, each of which just as
reactionary as the other. To his EU partners, Washington and a substantial
section of British and international big
business opposed to such a risky move, Cameron pledged that in such a referendum
he would campaign for British membership with all his “heart and soul”, a mealy
mouthed pledge which went down like a lead balloon.
Cameron presented his move as a means of saving the European project, rather than damning it. Europe’s crisis, he stated, stemmed from its lack of competitiveness and flexibility in the “new global race of nations” now underway, and the challenge posed by the “surging economies in the east and south”.
"With “Europe’s share of world
output … projected to fall by almost a third in the next two decades”, Cameron
condemned “complex rules restricting our labour markets” and “excessive
regulation” on business as “self-inflicted” wounds. Cameron cited
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s earlier pronouncement that Europe’s system of
welfare and social provision is unsustainable and has to go.
His proposals essentially consist
of a demand that the austerity measures that have created a social catastrophe
in Ireland, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and elsewhere must be extended and deepened across
the continent, in line with the levelling down of wages and working conditions to
the levels of sweatshop Asia.
This is why that, even
while demanding a “loosening” of the EU so as to protect the City of London,
the citadel of British Finance Capital, Cameron supports further fiscal and political
consolidation within the Euro zone. He claimed that the Euro zone countries
needed “the right governance and structures to secure a successful currency for
the long term”— that is; it must have the economic and political mechanisms in
place to enforce the diktats of finance capital, while stressing that Britain
had no intention of adopting the Euro-currency itself.
On the continuing decimation of the living
standards of the working class across the EU, Cameron, the EU, Washington and
Monopoly Capital are all united. All of which makes Cameron’s posing as the
defender of “democratic accountability and consent” hypocritical cant. Cameron
hypocritically referenced “growing frustration” with the EU across the
continent that has led to “demonstrations on the streets of Athens, Madrid and
Rome” In Britain too, he said, “democratic consent for the EU … is now
wafer-thin”. Whereas, democratic consent for the vicious austerity programs being
enforced across Europe by Cameron, Merkel, Draghi, Barosso and Rumpoy doesn't
exist at all.
But, Cameron’s proposed referendum
has nothing to do with establishing the democratic right of working people to
oppose and defeat the vicious austerity that has brought millions onto the streets.
The opposite is the case. He, with the others, wants to consolidate a
right-wing bloc pledged to even more draconian economic measures, in which the
interests of Finance Capital, both domestic and foreign are protected while
abolishing the remaining legal rights of
ordinary workers. Hence his attack on legislation limiting working hours.
This is the kind of EU to which Cameron
is committed. While various European foreign ministers criticised Cameron’s
speech, it was not on its substance that they did so, but, for his lack of a united approach with
the EU -Wall St. elite and for opening up another nest of worms with his dodgy
referendum pledge.
Referring to Cameron’s demand to
renegotiate the terms of EU membership, German Foreign Minister, Guido
Westerwelle, said that “cherry picking was not an option” while his French
equivalent Laurent Fabius complained, “If you join a football club, you can’t
say you want to play rugby.” Merkel, however, said that Berlin would listen to
“British wishes” over EU membership in the hope of finding a “fair compromise”.
Only on Tuesday, Merkel and French President, Francois Hollande, had vowed to
speed up Euro zone integration and promote European "competitiveness" (code for low wages) in terms
similar to Cameron’s. Quoted on the 50th anniversary of the Franco-German
Alliance, both stressed the need
for “budget discipline” and "labour reforms", more coded language for the
further reduction of workers' rights throughout the EU.
Cameron did succeed in creating a
dilemma for the British Labour Party, whose leader, Ed Milliband, opposed the
idea of the referendum but had no concrete proposals to substitute for the
austerity mania currently sweeping Europe. This, itself, is indicative of the
inability of European Social Democracy as a whole, including the Irish Labour
Party here, of mounting any kind of challenge to the rampage of neo-liberalism
led by Wall Street and its cronies in London and Frankfurt. The Global Financial
Elite don't need Social Democracy anymore to act as a semblance of democracy
and social justice in the Capitalist World. They have decided to use the
economic crisis brought on by their own insatiable greed and power mania to gut
the organised workers' movement and abolish what has been described as the
"European social model" in short order. There is only one reply to
this audacious power-grab; massive popular resistance and internationalist
solidarity of the working class everywhere.
FearFeasaMacLéinn
Áth Cliath/Dublin
Eanáir/January 27 2013
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