01.04.2009
Socialist Party silent on left nationalism
Peter Manson exposes a mixture of popular frontism and 'socialism in one country' anti-EU nationalism
Despite the fact that Dave Nellist is expected to head the list in the West Midlands, the Socialist Party in England and Wales is steadfastly refusing to respond to the numerous condemnations of its uncritical participation in the ‘No to the EU, Yes to Democracy’ electoral platform to contest the June 4 European Union elections.
The latest issue of The Socialist (March 31) briefly reiterates its support for this challenge to New Labour, which “will campaign against the EU-led privatisation of our public services, for workers’ rights and in opposition to the EU constitution (now repackaged as the Lisbon treaty), which puts into EU law the failed doctrines of free market economics”.1
But the article does not, of course, hint at No2EU’s blatant left nationalism and contents itself with appealing for funds. This challenge is, after all, “initiated by … the most militant industrial union in Britain”.2 However, while the Rail, Maritime and Transport union’s Bob Crow is fronting the campaign and the RMT has provided much of the initial cash, its political leadership comes from the ‘official communists’ of the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain.
The result is a mixture of popular frontism and ‘socialism in one country’ anti-EU nationalism of the worst kind. This was exemplified by an advertisement in the March 28 Star for a meeting on April 4 called jointly by the Campaign for an Independent Britain and Campaign Against Euro-Federalism. One of its speakers was due to be Brian Denny - RMT press officer, CPB member, head of the Europhobic Trade Unions Against the EU Constitution and No2EU nominating officer.
Other speakers advertised in the Star included rightwing former Tory MP Teddy Taylor and Henry Nitzsche, an independent MP in Germany. Nitzsche, who resigned from the Christian Democratic Union in 2006, caused an uproar when he said that Germany “should never again be governed by multicultural fags from Berlin” (he was referring to Green Party ministers). As well as being anti-gay, he looks back with nostalgia to the days when German nationalists could stand tall and is notorious for his Islamophobia: “A Muslim would sooner allow his hand to rot away before checking the box next to the CDU on his ballot.”3
Denny has now withdrawn from the platform in response to various criticisms. In an April 1 statement he says: “When I agreed to speak I understood that I would be sharing a platform with a speaker from the People’s Movement in Ireland and an African speaker talking about the devastating impact of EU trade deals on African countries. I was not aware that the German MP, Henry Nitzsche, who has opposed the Lisbon treaty in Germany, had been added to this platform.
“While I am willing to debate with people with differing views to my own, I feel that on this occasion it is inappropriate for me to join a platform with this speaker due to fact that he has made insulting anti-Muslim and anti-gay remarks. Those who support the development of an anti-democratic superstate in Europe would use my participation in such a platform as a sign that I somehow agreed with Henry Nitzsche’s remarks, which is clearly not the case.”
While homophobia and Islamophobia are going too far for comrade Denny, he is happy to share a platform with rightwingers who are a little more PR-savvy. Straight-down-the-middle bourgeois nationalists are no problem at all. Of course, there should be no objection in principle to forming temporary alliances with all manner of political forces, but the CPB’s popular frontism and national socialism causes it to elevate the “defence of British sovereignty” above that of the working class.
So who are the Campaign for an Independent Britain and the Campaign Against Euro-Federalism? The CIB is an umbrella grouping dominated by the type of petty bourgeois anti-EUism that insists that Britain is subsidising the rest of Europe and would be so much better off outside the European Union. It is “a non-party political campaigning organisation of people from all walks of life who recognise that continuing British membership of the European Union poses grave threats to our liberties, independence and economic prosperity”.4
The CAEF, which is “oriented to the labour and trade union movement”, is affiliated to CIB. Founded in 1991, its politics seem to be virtually identical to those of Trade Unionists Against the EU Constitution, the CPB and No2EU. If anything, though, it is more open in its reformist nationalism. According to its statement of aims, “Our nation-state can only be democratic if it has the right to self-determination. Only elected MPs in the House of Commons and a government answerable to those MPs should have the power to make laws and policies for our multi-racial, multi-nation state of Britain.”5
When it comes to the “immediate task”, however, this is even more class-neutral: it is, “together with all other interested groups and individuals, … to protect the rights of the peoples of Britain, guard their interests by preventing the implementation of the … EU constitution and further steps to Euro-federalism”. And did you know that EU bodies “consist of a majority of representatives of member-states not answerable to our government, parliament or electorate and would be taking decisions which may not be in the interests of Britain”?
The section on the CAEF website entitled ‘Internationalism’ has a more left gloss: “We recognise and support the need for international cooperation and solidarity amongst working class organisations in EU member-states to protect the interests of their members. Internationalism means the right to self-determination and national democracy for all nations and nation-states of the world …”
“Self-determination” means that, “independent of the European Union”, the government “can then exercise control over the economy, monetary policy, taxation, interest rates, exchange rates to protect home industries and employment and powers over the movement of capital, transnational corporations and cosmopolitan bankers”.
Interestingly the “main political resolution” carried at the CAEF annual general meeting of October 2008 included the commitment to “campaign for a boycott of the European parliament poll and make clear this EU institution has no real powers, but supports consolidation of the EU”. Our ‘official communist’ friends seem to have changed their minds since then - but at least No2EU will boycott the parliament itself, if not the election. And No2EU is most certainly taking up another CAEF pledge: to “make clear as widely as practical that the nation-state is the only organisation capable of controlling transnational banks and big capital”.
A couple of months after this resolution was passed CAEF’s newspaper declared: “The time has come to further discuss and implement the best ways and means of forming a popular front to regain these fundamental principles. In this the labour and trade union movement forms a key element.”6 You can see why it is important for No2EU to join forces with groups like the Campaign for an Independent Britain.
The CPB has found in comrade Crow an excellent proponent of its left nationalism (he is a former member, after all). I must say, however, that the RMT general secretary manages more successfully than his CPB backers to give it a more consistent pro-worker veneer.
For example, in reply to former Labour MEP Michael Hindley, who claimed in the Star letters column that No2EU was pandering to the extreme right,7 Crow declares: “One glance at our website (wwwno2eu.com) would reveal an internationalist outlook that goes beyond the Euro-nationalist Fortress Europe mentality of the European Union … The real internationalist alternative that Hindley seeks is surely to fight the undemocratic, unaccountable and increasingly imperialist EU structures that promote rightwing economic policies inside the EU and impose vicious trade deals on the poorest countries in the world.”8
No wonder the Socialist Party’s Peter Taffe tells his comrades to quote Crow rather than the official No2EU platform drafted by its CPB bloc partners - about whose details it has so far maintained an embarrassed silence.
As for the Socialist Workers Party, it is not saying very much at all about No2EU. Its tiny Socialist Worker report last week (there is no coverage in the latest edition) did not mention either the SP or CPB. It comments:
“The fact that a major union is prepared to back an election challenge to New Labour and the Tories is to be welcomed. But there are some concerns that the campaign nods too far in support of arguments that led to the slogan, ‘British jobs for British workers’, by attacking free movement of labour.
“Yet in the coming months European trade unions are launching coordinated protest action over the recession. If ‘No to EU - Yes to Democracy’ can link with this Europe-wide resistance, it can provide a welcome break with a debate in Britain over the EU, which centres solely on preserving ‘our’ sovereignty and ‘our’ pound.”9
This mildly critical support makes for something of a contrast with the SWP’s stringent opposition to the Lindsey strike because of the initial prominence of the ‘British jobs for British workers’ slogan. I also seem to recall the SWP coming out against the euro (and therefore in favour of “preserving … ‘our’ pound”) in the days of the Socialist Alliance.
One organisation that will definitely not be backing No2EU is the Scottish Socialist Party, which decided at its March 28-29 annual conference to stand its own list in Scotland. But it was a close-run thing. The conference, which was held in a village hall on the isle of Arran, eventually voted by around two to one for an SSP contest - but only after an alternative motion to back No2EU was lost on the chair’s casting vote following a 34-34 tie.
SSP co-spokesperson Colin Fox said in a statement published on the organisation’s website: “In the forthcoming European elections the SSP will be once again ask voters to mark their cross beside the SSP”; and added (without any irony, I understand): “for socialism, independence and internationalism”.10 He does not refer to the vote on No2EU at all.
Like the SSP, Respect now looks certain to stand its own list - but only in London. The International Socialist Group, one of two remaining left organisations operating within Respect (the other is Socialist Action) has decided to back No2EU, but at the April 4 national council meeting of the ‘unity coalition’ the ISG will accede to George Galloway’s wishes that a contest be mounted in the capital.
So, with no-one else likely to oppose Galloway, Respect will stand against No2EU in London, but may back it elsewhere.
Notes
1. The Socialist March 31.
2. SP statement: www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/7070
3. See Andrew Coates’s blog: tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/no2eu-rmt-sir-teddy-taylor-and-far-right-henry-nitzsche
4. www.eurofaq.freeuk.com/cib/index.html
5. All CAEF quotes from its website: www.poptel.org.uk/against-eurofederalism
6. The Democrat January-February 2009.
7. Morning Star Letters, March 25.
8. Morning Star Letters, March 27.
9. Socialist Worker March 24.
10. www.scottishsocialistparty.org