The meaning of the EU Election

The elections coming up seem to be very similar to every other. For all the promises nothing ever gets better.  Nothing ever gets resolved.  If you seek to protest both the Brexshiteers and the Remainders then perhaps a vote for the Socialist Party might suffice. The Socialist Party candidates contesting South East England are: Mandy Bruce, Ray Carr, Dave Chesham, Rob Cox, Mike Foster. Stephen Harper, Neil Kirk, Anton Pruden, Andy Thomas, Darren Williams.

These are the choices. Carry on regardless with a society which has not, nor can, solve the problems we face today. Or we can elect to change things and bring about a society of cooperation, not competition. A society of equality not inequality. A society of production to satisfy human need, not to satisfy the drive for profits for a few.

We in THE SOCIALIST PARTY cannot bring this society about for you, nor are we offering to. Only you can, by working together and acting for yourselves. If there is a majority of people who understand and want this change and work to bring it about then it WILL happen.

When elections to the European Parliament take place workers in countries all over Europe are being given the opportunity to express their views at the same time. At the moment they misuse this opportunity by confining their support for capitalism. The World Socialist Movement advances the concept of world socialism, a planet without borders and without the State. We argue for forms of free associations of producers and world-wide federated communes. The EU is a capitalist economic bloc, displaying all the vices and irrationalities of capitalism. We are against it. We are equally against the alternative of ‘independent’ capitalist nation-states. Our alternative to both is the fight for world socialism and for international working class unity and solidarity. Socialists maintain that workers must free themselves of patriotism and national superiority in their own interests, for without discarding these aspects of the prevailing ruling class ideas they will never themselves be free.

The EU has nothing to do with internationalism. Fortress Europe has class walls. The vast majority of those denied entry are poor and vulnerable; those with wealth and privilege are invariably welcomed. Crisis plays into the hands of the right, as history tells us. Nationalism and xenophobia are returning. Fortress Europe has encouraged xenophobia in general and helped to provide rationales for the right-wing with the idea of securing Europe against ‘threats’ from without.

The EU is essentially a business arrangement, an agreement between different capitalist ruling classes, relating to the way in which they organise their markets. Europe’s capitalists find themselves driven by the scale of business operations to try and integrate their efforts. Only in this way could they develop the resources to enable them to compete with other giants of the modern world economy. The EU wants a ‘europeanisation’ of capital – but this continually clashes against national state boundaries. The national state is not our state. It functions to defend the ruling class, and cannot operate in any other way. Neither the narrow British nationalism of the Brexiteers nor pseudo-Europeanism of the Remainers are a solution in the interests of the working class.

Neither the Eurosceptics nor the Euroenthusiasts offer a way forward but simply highlight the bitter divisions within the ruling class. In or out, the problems facing the worker are very much the same. The remedy to the problem lies in the unity of the workers of the world against the capitalists of the world. The battles the labour movement will have to fight cannot be won within the confines of one country. Never were the perspectives of real internationalism more relevant and more practicable. Side by side we must join battle with our common enemy.  The workers’ movement should not be wasting valuable time now fighting irrelevant  battles on the questions of national sovereignty or  ‘our British way of life’ but should be gathering and coordinating its international forces for the battle for socialism. The struggles of the world’s labour movement demand the maximum cooperation between the different national sections. The workers of Britain have interests in common with the workers in Europe and of all countries. Their interests are opposed to the capitalist class of all countries including Britain.