What the EU means for Socialists and why it is vital that we campaign for an “exit left”.

On 4 June, the Guardian published an article of what was essentially a compilation of pleas from people across the European Union, including notables such as former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Zizek, to vote to remain within the EU.

The article itself is a rather sad and desperate sight, which would make any principled leftist cringe for a variety of reasons(including appeals to military security), but it’s telling that acolytes of reformism such as Varoufakis are amongst the names present. After all, for the Guardian to maintain its role as the gatekeeper of left wing journalism, it needs to have some veneer of radical credentials, even if it is an exceedingly thin one.

The EU’s rotten nature is now recognised by every credible layer of the left and workers’ movement, that many still support the institution in spite of its rotten core is not a matter of believing it is genuinely good for the working class, but out of a tendency towards lesser-evilism where they fear the uncertainty of a Britain outside the EU. Should these people actually believe that the EU is a positive for workers, then their support of it would actually be somewhat forgivable, understandable even.

In this article I’ll attempt to outline the arguments against staying in the EU, and why it is a question of utmost relevance to revolutionary socialists.

The arguments

Argument: We can reform the European Union from within, and turn it towards our own aims!

This argument, commonly proposed by those on the left of the social democratic or reformist socialist persuasions, seems to leave out a rather core element of strategy out of the discussion: How?

One would think due to the strictly parliamentarian orientation of these sections of the left, that they would be amongst the first to clamour for Brexit. Anyone remotely familiar with the functions of the EU Superstate will be able to inform you of its extremely undemocratic nature. The European Parliament, the solely elected arm of the union, has no genuinely effective power. The parliament can debate policy and legislation, and can vote on it – this is true. However, the European Parliament has absolutely no executive power, it cannot propose legislation of its own, making it quite literally nothing more than a talking shop to rubber stamp what comes through.

Now, to be fair, what the European Parliament can do is act as a power of refusal. Legislation still must be voted on, and in some fantastical world where the European Parliament has a totally different political composition to the rest of the EU, it can be used as a disruptive force in the workings of the state.

So, if it’s not the elected parliament which holds power, who does? The entirely unelected European Commission! It is the Commission, which is not answerable to the parliament, that behaves as the executive. It formulates policy, and is the sole body with legislative initiative, that is issues of importance will only be discussed and voted on if the Commission approves.

But does the Commission itself really hold all the power? In case the number of steps to the seat of power wasn’t enough for you already, well there’s another one you have to consider; The European Council. The Council is comprised of the heads of government of every state within the European Union. It is the Council which proposes the Commission, and the Council which ultimately steers the overall direction of the Union.

So, we have four tiers of government that we have to take control of before we can even think about reform. Firstly, there’s the national government(Which for the sake of argument we will assume is already in the hands of the left – though if we dominated the national government one would wonder why we need to be in the EU at all to implement reforms?). Then, you need a majority within the European Parliament, which means the winning of hundreds of seats across the entire continent. How this goes is actually generally a reflection of the mood towards the national government of any given country, so as far as we’re concerned, securing that majority is essentially a crapshoot. Then, we must secure control of the Council, which means having an elected left government with extremely similar, reform-minded views, in all the major states in Europe, and then some.

Then, once all that is said and done, our left wing Council can propose us a Commission, and our left wing Parliament can approve it, and then we all live happily ever after… Except living happily ever after is something that only occurs in fantasies, which is precisely what this kind of vision is. This cannot happen for a number of structural and just practical reasons, from the national elections being out of sync with eachother(leading to years of isolated left governments, praying that their counterparts can secure control of government), and the fact that when push comes to shove, those who are in control of all the wealth in our societies and their pro-capitalist representatives in government, will immediately challenge any left government and will attempt to bring it down. It took six months to bring SYRIZA from the heavens, to its knees. To take the Varoufakis route, and appeal to the “enlightened” elements of the ruling class to let us be and give us concessions, or to sit and pray that they do not crush our left movements in their infancy, is a matter of pure fantasy, a fantasy which will turn to ash in our mouths over and over again so long as we operate within the constraints of the European Union. What is so comical about this is that Varoufakis readily admits the failure of the SYRIZA strategy, yet thinks if we simply try it harder then next time the ruling class will be convinced!

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Argument: A left wing Brexit position gives ground to the right, and lets them set the agenda. We can’t legitimise UKIP’s racist rhetoric by entertaining Brexit!

Let’s break down what’s actually being said here; The left must not oppose a racist, Euro-chauvinist, neoliberal institution, because that would be somehow giving ground to the right.

Tell me, which is the genuinely anti-racist position – the position which opposes the institution which has forced tens of thousands to their deaths in the Mediterranean, or the position which supports this institution? The answer is clear. That UKIP and similar right wing organisations are opposed to the EU does not make the Socialist case against the EU any less potent, in fact it makes propagating it an imperative.

The working class across Europe is drawing conclusions about the nature of the EU – simply put, that the EU is not good for ordinary working people. The follow on from that is to pursue explanations as to why that is the case. That the far right has struck a chord across Europe with this layer of workers is not a condemnation of the anti-EU position, it is an absolutely thundering condemnation of the cowardly and subservient role of broad sections of the left, primarily social democratic and reformist layers, to the EU. That there hasn’t been a determined, left wing opposition to the EU, is what provides the oxygen with which the far right breathes life into itself.

Where Zizek pleads with us to not “allow them to define the terms of the struggle”, he rejects the reality that terms of the struggle have already been defined. That’s always the stick with referendums, the terms are always defined by the ruling class. However, it appears Zizek would rather think that the struggle no longer exists if we bury our heads in the sand and pretend it doesn’t – just hold our noses and vote for the status quo! The unfortunate reality is that there is a brutal class war being waged, the struggle around Brexit is one of its many battlefields. Zizek’s argument amounts to a call for the armies of labour to retreat in the face of its enemy, for fear of legitimisation of their forces.

Opposing the EU doesn’t legitimise Nigel Farage anymore than supporting it legitimises David Cameron – though with the brutal levels of austerity the Tories have pushed through under the benevolent rule EU technocrats, there’s a stronger argument to be made for that than any argument about “legitimising” UKIP.

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Why should we care? The EU and UK are both fundamentally pro-capitalist institutions. How is the British state tangibly better than the EU? Leave, remain, doesn’t matter either way surely…

This line of thought comes from a layer of the socialist left which considers itself revolutionary. The argument goes that seeing as the British state is itself anti-worker, racist and so on, giving it more power(by leaving the EU) is not a progressive position. Similarly, the EU as a super-state developed in the interests of capital, is not a progressive institution. Therefore they’re both equally bad and we shouldn’t support either.

On the face of this I entirely agree, the capitalist state is something to be opposed whether it’s British or European, but we have to take a concrete look about the role of the EU in relation to a European workers’ movement, and how that movement will develop itself going into the future.

Firstly, we have to ask how – in the most general sense – does a working class movement develop? It does not begin as a revolutionary movement, often it does not even constitute a distinctly socialist movement, but generally as a sentiment of discontent amongst the mass of people. It is through an ongoing process of struggle, of victories and defeats in these struggles, that the working class gains a sense of its own power and develops a revolutionary socialist consciousness as a whole, critical of the capitalist system in a conscious manner. It is in this situation we can talk about the “revolutionary movement”.

The first steps on these struggles are the struggles for social democratic reforms. Simply put, the working class movement tests the waters and flexes its muscles in struggles seemingly unrelated to socialism as a whole – higher wages, unjust taxations(The Poll Tax comes to mind), escalating to issues of healthcare and housing and education. There reaches a point in these struggles where we have a systemic incapability to meet demand – how can a capitalist society provide full employment, for example? It simply can’t do that. From here there is potential for working class people to draw conclusions about the capitalist system as a whole, and demand we move beyond the system into something that acts in our interests(socialism).

Simply put, for workers to develop consciousness and realise our own strength as a class, we have to be able to actually win struggles, which means governments need to be able to pass social democratic reforms without getting into an economic nuclear war with the western world. There is a degree of division amongst the European states with inter-imperialist conflicts of interest between France and Germany being one of the main fault lines in the European ruling class, but they are unified on this: Any left wing political surge is a contagion which must be contained and purged from existence. We saw with SYRIZA the lengths that these people are willing to go to in order to keep that political contagion from spreading, including utter economic disaster. The European Union’s apparatus(Which along with the Central Bank constitutes two components of the infamous Troika) is a major tool in the capitalist arsenal, and it’s a tool we must ensure cannot be used on us, even before the workers have gained state power.

The imperialist nature of the EU is not to be overlooked either. The role played by the EU in Greece, Ireland, Italy, and across the European periphery generally show all the hallmarks of a domineering empire, in which the small or economically weaker states which constitute most of the Union are totally subordinate to the core of the Union(France, Germany and to a certain extent the UK) and operate in the interests of the core’s imperialist capital. The Eurozone project is a classic example of states actively undermining their economic stability and security to serve the interests of German capital. A Brexit will critically weaken the European Union and create more space across Europe for left movements to form and contest for state power.

The European Union will act as a bulwark against the development of a powerful working class movement capable of challenging capitalism. Progress towards its dismantlement(i.e. Brexit) is therefore going part of the way towards overcoming this obstacle. To quote Lenin, who’s comments were oh so prescient;

“A United States of Europe, under capitalism, is either impossible or reactionary.”

Brexit Left and combating austerity

Whether or not the UK stays in the EU, or leaves, what’s imperative is that the struggle against austerity continues. The organised labour movement in the UK, six million strong, is a force to be reckoned with, and it must be realised that if Tory(And indeed, Labour, SNP and Green) austerity is to be defeated then there must be a mass mobilisation of working class people who are willing to take the fight to government through mass protest, direct action and strike action. The collective power of such a movement can bring any government to its knees.

For those who hold illusions in the EU as some guarantor of workers’ rights, any and all benefits gained from the EU are gained off the back of struggle, and it is only through struggle that we can defend our rights and advance our own interests. The EU has thus far offered paper thin protection against the Tories, and has been actively attacking workers’ rights across Europe. Now is the opportunity to strike back. A Brexit Left would not only be both damaging to the neoliberal EU, giving confidence to working class people across Europe to break with the institution, but it would also deepen divisions within the Tory government and strengthen the hand of the working class in the UK.