02.02.1995

Labour waves the union jack

ROBIN COOK has spent the week reassuring the bosses that the Labour Party can wave the flag just as vigorously as the Tories. We never doubted you, Robin. Putting on his very best Eurosceptic clothes, Cook condemned as “totally irresponsible” calls for a European single currency within the next three years.

Naturally, Cook’s new found reservations about European Union stem from his great love for democracy: “We will not answer the desire of the people for national democracy if we do not respect their right and their wish to retain control over the public policy of their nation.”

It will probably come as a great surprise to the unemployed, low-paid, strikers, republican community in the Six Counties and protesters against the Criminal Justice Act that the Labour Party wants to see them “retain control over the public policy of their nation”.

Since when has Britain belonged to the workers? The British state, which Robin Cook loves so much, is the property of the ruling class, which alone has ‘sovereignty’ over it. We will not be campaigning to defend Cook’s precious “national democracy”, but fighting to build workers’ unity across Europe.

This is a good time to strike home our message. The Tories are self-destructing over Europe, with the Eurosceptics baying for Douglas Hurd’s blood and scenting that their time has come. Michael Portillo is shifting into Winston Churchill mode, promising that the government would act to prevent any changes to the UK’s use of its veto, or to any alteration in the ‘majority’ voting system.

While Portillo gets prepared to fight them on the beaches and Robin Cook struggles to preserve ‘national identity’, we utilise every opportunity to fight for a workers’ Europe. Workers’ interests do not lie in lining up with their own national exploiters, but through overthrowing the state we live under and taking that victory forward to world revolution.

The bosses in Europe are being forced together against their own reactionary nationalist impulses. To the extent that they succeed, we will need greater workers’ unity - across unions and through a Communist Party of the European Union.

Eddie Ford