Should the UK pull out of the EU?

[Carlos-Marcos]

What do you think about this? ok, the EU is a corporate entity run by unelected officials, but surely unity of nations, albeit capitalist ones, is better than them all being separate? so , should one vote to leave or stay?

I have a vote on this one, in referendum, so intend to use it - I think the ideal solution would be some kind of renegotiation of terms, but doubt that will make any difference - so what is the far left's view on this forum here, on this issue, thanks

opinions would be useful:)

[Q]

Like you said, the unity of the working class is always preferable compared to its division. What we need actually is more unity, fighting for a democratic union.

As for the old turd of the EU being a corporate entity: The EU is made up by its memberstates and, last time I checked, all of them were capitalist states. Then again, some comrades think this is enough reason to call for an independent Scotland, given the opportunity. At least they are consistent.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Like you said, the unity of the working class is always preferable compared to its division.

So according to this argument, the union of Syria and Egypt was a great victory for the proletariat of the Middle East, and its dissolution a great tragedy.

I on the other hand would say that both the United Arab Republic and the states that succeeded it were anti-working class formations. Whether bourgeois Syria was joined to bourgeois Egypt was of no concern to us. The unity of the working class is unity from the bottom up, workers cooperating with workers, not the working class being brought under the same bourgeois state.

Whether Britain remains in the EU or not is immaterial. What is necessary is the international unity of the working class in its struggle, not having some continental bourgeois union you can aspire to govern one day on a social-democratic programme.

[The Feral Underclass]

So according to this argument, the union of Syria and Egypt was a great victory for the proletariat of the Middle East, and its dissolution a great tragedy.

I on the other hand would say that both the United Arab Republic and the states that succeeded it were anti-working class formations. Whether bourgeois Syria was joined to bourgeois Egypt was of no concern to us. The unity of the working class is unity from the bottom up, workers cooperating with workers, not the working class being brought under the same bourgeois state.

Whether Britain remains in the EU or not is immaterial. What is necessary is the international unity of the working class in its struggle, not having some continental bourgeois union you can aspire to govern one day on a social-democratic programme.

I agree pretty much with what you're saying, but I think it would be blithe to say it was immaterial. It will actually have real 'material' consequences for people if we leave the EU. What that ultimately means as a result for socialists is a matter of debate, I suppose.

[PhoenixAsh]

Personally I find the EU to be a hindrance to working class union in its current composition as well as (and because of) the obstruction to democratic principles and widening the gap between the electorate and the governing body reducing even further the already limited influence people have within a bourgeois parliamentary democracy.

And while that by no means should be construed as any form of support for a parliamentary democracy....it is accepting the reality that the EU is functioning along even less democratic lines and benefits the bourgeoisie & capital even more than national parliaments.

Deconstructing that power base the bourgeoisie desires and capital obviously needs...is a blow to capital.

[Armchair Partisan]

So according to this argument, the union of Syria and Egypt was a great victory for the proletariat of the Middle East, and its dissolution a great tragedy.

I don't think Q was saying that. If you ask me, it was (potentially) slightly preferable the two states being separate. Not a "great victory" or a "great tragedy" - that's a clear hyperbole on your part.


The unity of the working class is unity from the bottom up, workers cooperating with workers, not the working class being brought under the same bourgeois state.

Don't you think it's easier for the working class to cooperate when there are no borders separating them? Borders can be pretty damn inconvenient for moving around and organizing physically; nationalism can also be used to pit the working classes of two states against one another, even if it's just on a rhetorical level, encouraging rivalry and that sort of thing. I can't see that helping grassroots organization either. It just so happens that the dissolution of smaller nation states in favor of larger, supranational unions, just like globalization itself, brings about more favorable conditions for proletarian revolution.


Whether Britain remains in the EU or not is immaterial. What is necessary is the international unity of the working class in its struggle, not having some continental bourgeois union you can aspire to govern one day on a social-democratic programme.

If international unity can be achieved just as easily with strictly guarded borders and more nationalist propaganda, you are right. I disagree with that, however. In addition, nobody was talking about governing anything on a social-democratic programme, that's a strawman. While certain supranational unions (like the EU) can be argued to hinder working-class unity for other reasons, simply abolishing the borders is not one of them.

[Left Voice]

I agree pretty much with what you're saying, but I think it would be blithe to say it was immaterial. It will actually have real 'material' consequences for people if we leave the EU. What that ultimately means as a result for socialists is a matter of debate, I suppose.

This is a point that needs highlighting. I have no love for the EU as such, but many of the core principles such as the freedom of movement, the Human Rights Act etc. are aspects of the EU that benefit working people in the real world. A rejection of the EU by the UK would see both of these eliminated at the expense of working people, both British and those from other countries. As somebody who is currently a virtual exile of the UK due to who I chose to marry and the UK's visa rules, I can particularly relate to the importance of freedom of movement.

As bad as the EU is in so many ways, I fail to see what advances for socialism will be gained by reinforcing national borders, the resulting strengthening of nationalism and the general reduced capacity for workers to operate across national borders. To suggest the UK's membership of the EU is 'immaterial' ignores the issues that real working people face.

[Comrade Jacob]

It would be good as a socialist-union, but it's not. If Britain became socialist it would be kicked out the union.

[cyu]

Anarchists would pull the UK out of the EU, pull England out of the UK, pull London out of England, then pull everyone out of London :lol:

People think they have rights until they arm themselves for self-protection, refuse to use the "national" currency and issue their own, then they find out just how little freedom they have. Some of those types of people might be right-wing nuts, but considering that it is always the wealthy that control the national currency, how dumb would leftists have to be to buy into the program of the ruling class?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

This is a vital question for the UK (and the UKs working class) in the long-run.

The reason, I believe, Britain wants to pull out of the EU is so that it can re-negotiate trade deals on favourable terms and also relax 'red tape', i.e. loosen workers' rights in order to open up avenues for an increasing rate of accumulation by capital.

Therefore if Britain did exit the EU and this affected freedom of movement and workers' rights more generally, it would make it a damn sight harder to ever forge meaningful solidarity with foreign workers and workers in other countries.

it's classic divide and conquer and we shouldn't fall for it, neither should we fall into the 'indifferent' camp and wash our hands of the whole thing. At this time more than any, I think we need to make sure we are forging links of solidarity, at a social level at least, on as wide a plane as possible, including internationally.

[Comrade Jacob]

I could have made an inappropriate joke...

sorry

[cyu]

Listening to the working class from other countries is different from obeying capitalists from other countries ;)

If the governing body of the EU offers only a forum for capitalists around the world to talk to the locals, this is not the forum you're looking for.

[Blake's Baby]

Is obeying capitalists from your own country better than obeying capitalists from other countries? I don't understand why it would be.

I don't think I want to stop you pushing the EU over but I'm not going to help either. I don't see the relevance.

[cyu]

Is obeying capitalists from your own country better than obeying capitalists from other countries? I don't understand why it would be.

Agreed - earlier I was going to say the United States Congress is just a forum for capitalists from around the country to talk to the locals within the country - but didn't bother adding to the post - guess I got lazy xD

The only real way to stop listening to capitalists would be for non-capitalists to take over their local mass media outlets.

[cyu]

BTW, not directly on topic, but while it would be nice to implement solidarity world-wide by encouraging people to ship goods to the working class around the world, anarchists would also encourage the poor to simply ignore borders - if the rich aren't shipping you what you want, simply go over there, and take it.

[Futility Personified]

I have heard, admittedly I am drunk and this seems to be hearsay, that the EU is detrimental to workers rights, though I have found no evidence (in comparison to a brexit). Formerly, based on these assumptions, I was anti-EU... but now, i'm not so sure. Free movement of labour, or rather, the ability to go wherever the fuck you want, is appealing. The idea of a super capitalist state being able to crack down on you is not, but you really think sweden would stick up for you if push came to shove?

Ultimately, I am split in two because on the one hand, I want immediate revolutionary circumstances, which is to say, an immediate exacerbation of present conditions to get the workers pissed off and ready to do something.

However, it is apparent that with things as they, people would need a state sanctioned faecal spreader (because not everyone who didn't vote tory was left wing) to start considering systematic alternatives.... Both options are unpalatable, but as nationalism seems to be the singular bastion of the bourgeoisie when things are getting tough for us and them, I have changed my mind, and would consider the EU the slightly lesser evil.

For now.

[Carlos-Marcos]

I believe that the EU has a law that prevents certain companies/state concerns from being publicly owned (eg: energy companies) - so how does that help socialism? and as someone else pointed out, if the UK or other country went Socialist there'd be massive pressure on having them kicked out of the union - witness Greece right now for example

[Futility Personified]

This is what i've heard, but I have not seen anyone provide a reference for me to look at.

I don't think Greece is being threatened because they've gone 'socialist', as it looks like the far left segment of the party seems more in favour of a grexit than anything. It is more due to the fact that Greece is a risky liability, Syriza seem to have made so many uturns that their original positions are difficult to validate.

Is the EU a neo-liberal capitalist bloc though? Yeah, there's no denying that, and they would punish countries that move to the left. I'm more of an on-the-fencer than anything, waiting for good news for the left to properly come from europe. In many ways, I can see a brexit resulting in mass deportations, and the right in england (which is more right than the acceptable right in western europe) having a massive playground.

[Carlos-Marcos]

I think the whole deportation of immigrants thing, is vastly overstated, because before the EU, there was a very high level of immigration to the UK anyway. Pretty sure the right just want to keep down the numbers of newcomers.

But how to challenge the UKIP line that 'immigrants lower the working conditions of locals' - because surely Marxist theory will tell us that an oversupply of workers actually benefits the capitalists greatly -how to deal with that?

[cyu]

The only reason poor natives fight poor immigrants for droppings, is because the rich use the police and media to redirect them away from the real wealth.

[Carlos-Marcos]

so how does increasing the supply of workers increase the wages of the worker?

[cyu]

More workers on your side means more people can help send the capitalist packing. Once the capitalists are gone, more workers means more people around to produce the things you need.

If you were the last person on earth, you'd be dead within a week.

[Carlos-Marcos]

But how will this oversupply of workers, make enough money to support themselves?

And what is to stop the new workers from becoming bosses themselves?

[cyu]

OK, let's say Greece was kicked out of the EU, or Greeks just started ignoring their own government (considering any politicians that get elected will be intimidated by foreign intelligence agencies until they turn against their own people). What do they do for money?

Any real economist (as opposed to a professional propagandist pretending to be an economist) will tell you money is a fabrication. It's not like Greece needs money from the EU, from the IMF, or anybody to function. What people need to function are just the stuff you regularly consume - food, water, energy, etc. In fact, you can use finished goods to back money - if you study history, it turns out gold, like any fiat currency, was basically worthless, and originally backed by food.

So it's not money they need to support themselves, it's just the stuff workers both produce and consume.



And what is to stop the new workers from becoming bosses themselves?


The same way workers did it before. Weapons.

[Carlos-Marcos]

Perhaps, but would this new version of Greece allow mass-immigration if there were scant resources to supply it's own people? I imagine not.

[cyu]

If they were anarchists, they bring their weapons and ignore national borders, because guess what, what is the "national" part of "national borders" to people who defy government?

[Carlos-Marcos]

That would be assuming that the Greeks were also anarchists and were ok with a new wave of anarchist immigrants coming in - but if they weren't?

[cyu]

What is the point of politics if not to spread memes?

[Carlos-Marcos]

for sure, it's a good idea to try and spread your beliefs, but most people aren't anarchists, hence the whole immigration issue is still left unresolved. So, I still can't see how mass immigration actually helps the worker that much in the host nation, even Marxist theory rails against the oversupply of workers - yet many on this board support it , why????

[cyu]

most people aren't anarchists

If there's only one anarchist in the world, no government will be overthrown. If there's only one communist in the world, no government will be overthrown. Yet governments have been overthrown.


I still can't see how mass immigration actually helps the worker that much in the host nation

Don't bother mentioning nations to anarchists. You think anarchists are actually trying to help any nations? As mentioned before, if the wealthy aren't shipping you what you want, simply go over there, and take it.

[Luís Henrique]

Then again, some comrades think this is enough reason to call for an independent Scotland, given the opportunity. At least they are consistent.

Their consistency, of course, vanishes as soon as anyone mentions the Orkneys.

Luís Henrique

[John Nada]

for sure, it's a good idea to try and spread your beliefs, but most people aren't anarchists, hence the whole immigration issue is still left unresolved.Most people aren't reactionaries either, yet it's only an issue to be resolved in the minds of racist reactionaries.
So, I still can't see how mass immigration actually helps the worker that much in the host nation, even Marxist theory rails against the oversupply of workers - yet many on this board support it , why????"Host nation"? Are immigrants an occupying force now, waging a counterinsurgency? "Population oversupply" is Malthusian bullshit that has nothing in common with Marxism, or anything remotely leftist. If you think there is an "oversupply" of people you're more than welcome not to have kids.

[ñángara]

... the EU is a corporate entity run by unelected officials, but surely unity of nations, albeit capitalist ones, is better than them all being separate?
Kind of a contradiction... the capitalist empire is made of transnational corporations. How it comes that capitalist countries are separate?

[Carlos-Marcos]

because people and corporations are not the same thing

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I don't think Q was saying that. If you ask me, it was (potentially) slightly preferable the two states being separate. Not a "great victory" or a "great tragedy" - that's a clear hyperbole on your part.

It would be hyperbole if this was the first time the argument was made. But that is not the case - Q in particular has made the argument several times, and, in his own words:

"http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2274003#post2274003) There is a lot of contention on this issue on the left. Broadly speaking much of the left takes a position against the EU being a project of the capitalist class arranging European "unity" on a basis of mutual capitalist interest. I think this position is pretty much ok.

However, things go awry when the same people try to offer an alternative and get stuck at national strategies. This can range from "radical" Keynesianism to blunt nationalism. All such roads are a dead end however, since capitalism is a global system and as such national roads away from it will lead to disaster: bankruptcy, military invasion, police state... you name it.

So, instead we have to realise that our positive alternative starts at a continental level. On this level we can start to build towards a better kind of society and transcend the evils of the inherited capitalist society, overcome the rule of value and start to begin a society based on the rule of planning to human need.

Thus, instead of merely attacking the EU, communists ought to engage with this given playing field and incorporate it into our own project of a united European working class, striving for political power as a class."

I think this is fairly clear: a union of bourgeois states appears as the prerequisite for socialism. And not a "revolution", but "building toward", "transcending" etc. The significance of this is that, contrary to what you say ("nobody was talking about governing anything on a social-democratic programme, that's a strawman"), Q has recently talked explicitly about "their party" taking government responsibility on the basis of the minimum programme of old social-democracy.


Don't you think it's easier for the working class to cooperate when there are no borders separating them?

It might be, depending on the situation. The European Union also has an extensive police apparatus, with national police forces cooperating with each other extensively. That is what happens, after all, when a trade pact moves toward being a state union. (And this is the general refrain with the EU, and all bourgeois formations: without mass pressure, what is given to workers in one area is recuperated in another.) And of course, the EU is not without borders. In fact the borders of racist "Fortress Europe" are among the most guarded in the world. What will you do, have the EU extend to the entire world? That is sheer fantasy.


Borders can be pretty damn inconvenient for moving around and organizing physically; nationalism can also be used to pit the working classes of two states against one another, even if it's just on a rhetorical level, encouraging rivalry and that sort of thing.

Nationalism is nasty. There is also, however, an European "nationalism", or European chauvinism at any rate. Today it is chiefly directed against Muslim immigrants, against Turkey, and other undesirables to the imperialist project of the German and French bourgeoisie.


I can't see that helping grassroots organization either. It just so happens that the dissolution of smaller nation states in favor of larger, supranational unions, just like globalization itself, brings about more favorable conditions for proletarian revolution.

I think this is the chief problem, this perspective of bourgeois developments "bringing about more favourable conditions for proletarian revolution". The objective conditions for revolution have existed for a long time now. Attempts to create, within the bourgeois society, the magical set of conditions that will lead effortlessly to communism has always led to the workers being bloodily butchered, and it can't lead to anything else.


This is a point that needs highlighting. I have no love for the EU as such, but many of the core principles such as the freedom of movement, the Human Rights Act etc. are aspects of the EU that benefit working people in the real world.

There seems to be a lot of sound and fury in the UK right now, concerning the Human Rights Act and the ECHR, but the ECHR is pretty much irrelevant, even to the citizens of the EU. It didn't prevent Ireland from criminalising homosexuality until the nineties, for example, it doesn't prevent Portugal from criminalising abortion, it certainly didn't stop the Spanish government running death squads etc.