Peter Taaffe: Introduction [to Common Market – No. Socialist Europe – Yes. The Socialist Case]

[Printed in the pamphlet, London, March 1975, p. 1-7]

The ‘Socialist Answer to the EEC’ by Ted Grant was written in 1971 on the issue of Britain’s entry into the Common Market.

The three years which have elapsed since it was first issued have not rendered this analysis obsolete. On the contrary as the reader can see events since then in Britain and in the other eight countries which make up the EEC have entirely borne out this analysis.

But it is not for this reason alone that Militant is re-issuing this pamphlet at this time. The June referendum on the Common Market has re-opened the debate within the Labour movement on all the issues dealt with in this pamphlet. Militant was the only tendency in the Labour and trade union movement which took a clear class position during the 1971 Common Market controversy. So too in the present debate.

In the two years since it entered the Common Market the sickness of British capitalism has been enormously aggravated. The sunny optimism of even the Confederation of British Industries the spokesman of the monopolies—which had the most to gain from entry—has completely evaporated. The chronic weakness of the British capitalist economy has been shown in every department.

They have been completely outstripped and beaten by their rivals in the EEC. This is summed up in the colossal trade deficit which British capitalism has accumulated with the other EEC countries. Since 1972 this deficit has increased from £459 million a year to £2,785 million in 1974. But this is not due to Common Market membership alone as some of the anti-Marketeers argue. It is an expression of the decay—the lack of competitiveness—of the British capitalists. In the same period Britain’s deficit with the rest of the world has gone from £477 million to £4,259 million!

The former ‘workshop of the world’ now imports over 50% of its manufactured and semi-manufactured goods! An indication of the devastating weakness of British capitalism was recently shown by the Economist when it revealed that a total of £12 billion manufactured goods were imported into Britain in 1974. British capitalism is beaten in its own backyard!

This is a consequence of the complete failure of the capitalists in the past to re-tool in order to meet the challenge of its EEC rivals. Manufacturing investment increased by 10% in 1974 but this was still below the amount re-invested by the capitalists in 1970! Yet the ‘forcing house’ of EEC competition has resulted in a spectacular leap in investment in at least one field—property. Thus the British capitalists have an estimated £5,000 million sunk in property in the Common Market countries.

This has meant a catastrophic falling behind of key industries like steel, which is still a measuring rod of economic health. In 1974 steel production in Britain dropped by 15.9% to 22.4 million tons. Even backward Italy overtook Britain in steel production in 1974 for the first time with 23.8 million tons while the former satellite of British capitalism France produced 27 million tons and West Germany’s steel production was 53 million tons.

The glittering prospect of Common Market membership has proved to be a mirage for the British capitalists. Nor will the ‘re-negotiated’ terms brought back from the Dublin EEC summit in triumph by Wilson do anything to restore their flagging fortunes. Wilson has earned the plaudits of the capitalists and their press because they realise that while Common Market membership offers no magic cure for their ills, outside the EEC they would face even worse disaster. But the concessions which Wilson has received are tiny when set against the massive problems which beset the economy.

The total refund on Britain’s budgetary contribution in any one year will amount to no more than £125 million in a year. Yet last year there was a deficit on the balance of payments of £3,820 million more than 5% of — Britain’s Gross National Product. The prospect for this year is for anything of the order of £4,000-5,000 million deficit. On this ‘fundamental issue’ the EEC mountain laboured and produced a mouse! The same applies to the concessions on New Zealand cheese and butter which in no way challenge the fundamental interests of the other capitalist powers in the EEC.

Britain’s EEC rivals—in particular Germany and France—have been prepared to grant these concessions only because they fear the departure of British capitalism would be a body blow to the EEC which would eventually lead to its complete break up.

Even at the time of Britain’s entry as ‘SOCIALIST ANSWER TO THE EEC’ shows in detail, national rivalries had undermined the dream of a capitalist ‘United Europe’. But in the last two years any lingering hopes which the capitalists still had have been completely shattered.

Thus the Economist a zealous advocate of British capitalism’s entry into the EEC and ‘European Union’ mocks its own past position in its January 14th issue…““The grand design of Europe is dead and long may it remain so… The aspirations in Germany and Benelux for a united Europe of the future, although still passionately held by some, are now very shop worn…this summit of the nine (which had just taken place in Paris) put the stamp on the idea that Europe will remain ‘a loose confederation of nation states.”’

The Economist confirms in its own stark and cynical way the consistent position of Marxism that it is impossible to unify Europe on a capitalists basis…“‘Mr Tindemans the Belgium Prime Minister, (was labelled) a ‘wise man’ (which he already is) and (commissioned) for a year and preferably longer, to try to define what the undefined words ‘European Unity’ mean.”’!!

Only a handful of naive pro-Marketeers and their counterparts in the anti-Market camp still imagine that Britain could be swallowed up in a ‘United Europe’. The capitalists have long since abandoned these dreams. The Times their most authoritative organ showed this in its comments on the Dublin summit…‘“The plans for economic and monetary union remain only an aspiration for the 2 future not a blue print.”

In other words there is not the remotest possibility of “economic and monetary union.” How could the Times write otherwise when each of the EEC countries have blatantly ignored every one of their solemn undertakings not to break the Community rules whenever they have felt that their vital ‘national interests’ were at stake?

The dominant section of finance capital in Britain wish to remain in the Market not because they are planning to set up some fiendish ‘supra-European’ state as some of the anti-Marketeers imagine. They are bound with economic hoops to the European markets. 35% of British exports go to the other EEC countries. Even more than in 1972 British capitalism’s trade and influence with her former Empire—‘The Commonwealth’—has drastically declined.

This has recently been underlined by the statements of the Prime Ministers of Australia, Canada and New Zealand all of whom delivered lectures on the advantages of Britain remaining in the Common Market. The Australian Prime Minister visited Brussels first before coming to London which shows the diminishing influence of British capitalism in her former colonies!

The prospects for British capitalism within the EEC are indeed gloomy. They entered too late at a time when the outline of the future break up of the EEC was already taking shape and the ‘European Economic Miracle’ was beginning to grind to a halt. Now even the Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Wilhelm Haferkamp, has informed the European Parliament…‘“The days of vast increases in prosperity are gone forever, The growth rate of private consumption (i.e. the standards of the working class PT) is in the future bound to lag behind the national product as a whole.” (Times 20/2/75).

But for British capitalism to be outside the Common Market would be an even worse disaster for the British monopolies! They would be forced to enter into a ‘free trade agreement’ with the EEC. This could mean that key prices for steel and other products would be fixed by the EEC, as with Norway and Sweden, without the British capitalists having a say.

This is why the British capitalists have treated with scorn the arguments of Powell and the Tribune left of the Parliamentary Labour Party that EEC membership infringes ‘Britain’s sovereignty’. On a capitalist basis outside the EEC, Britain—by which the bosses mean themselves—will enjoy less sovereignty. On a capitalist basis there is no alternative at this stage to continued membership of the EEC.

The right wing pro-Marketeers in the Parliamentary Labour Party reflect with tender concern the desire of the dominant sections of finance capital to remain within the EEC.

But there is not an atom of socialism or of a class approach in the position of Tribune and their allies, the ‘Communist’ party leadership, on this issue. They have highlighted the issue of sovereignty’. This is to completely mis-educate the advanced workers in the Labour Party and trade unions in particular. The CP in particular has spoken about the alleged betrayal of the ‘nation’ of ‘Britain’ during the re-negotiations. This is to pander to all the base nationalist prejudices of the politically uneducated workers and the middle class.

Disraeli’s ‘two nations’ still exist—the nation of the rich and that of the poor. It is the ‘Britain’ of the poor—the working class and lower layers of the middle class—which is the concern of the Labour movement. In or out of the Common Market their future is bleak unless society is transformed along socialist lines. Nowhere does the Tribune say this clearly. Nor does it link opposition to the EEC to a clear class and socialist alternative. In its issue of 7th March Tribune printed a long article by Michael Barratt Brown which it claimed represented a ‘socialist alternative’ to the Common Market. It was anything but as the following quotes will show…“‘the system of political organisation of the EEC has just one political end: to prevent any one of the member states breaking away from the capitalist embrace…all the economic institutions, rules and regulations of the EEC are designed to achieve just one economic end: that the allocation of resources in capital, land and labour of goods and services is determined in the market by the return in profit of private capital.’’ This is of course true.

But wouldn’t this also be the case if Britain was outside the Common Market and still remained on a capitalist basis? Barratt Brown goes on to say that…‘‘The freedom of national governments to intervene in their economies is firmly circumscribed.” But how would the position be any different if the Labour Government came out of the Common Market but still remained within a capitalist framework? The powers of the Labour Government between 1964-70 were “firmly circumscribed” not by the Common Market but by ‘strikes of capital’ economic pressure and the blackmail of the capitalists which the Labour leaders capitulated to.

As a result Labour’s minimum reform programme was jettisoned. It is the remorseless pressure of the British monopolies and not the EEC Commission which has resulted in the Labour Government granting enormous concessions to the capitalists in the last budget with the promise of more favours to come in the next one. Even those mild measures like the National Enterprise Board and the Capital Transfer Tax have been watered down to suit the capitalists. But it is not the Rome treaty—a scrap of paper—or foreign devils which has forced the Labour Government to retreat on these measures but the living reality of the pressure of the British capitalists. There is no way of escaping that pressure in or out of the Common Market, unless the Labour Government breaks this power by nationalising the 300 monopolies under workers control and management.

A vague proposal to ‘extend public ownership’ by Michael Barratt Brown is no real alternative. There are no clear measures outlined by him and Tribune which give a socialist alternative to the Common Market. Radical phrases are used but they are incapable of disguising the narrow nationalist approach of Tribune.

Tribune—probably as a result of the past criticism of the Marxists—indignantly deny this charge…‘‘the tendency to a rather narrow nationalism of more conservative nationalists (perhaps the less conservative nationalists are preferable PT) needs to be corrected. It has dangerous and potentially fascist implications. To tail behind a purely nationalist and potentially anti-socialist line 4 would be fatal.” A big section of Tribune MPs and supporters like Clive Jenkins are refusing to heed Michael Barrat Brown’s advice. Otherwise why are they intending to speak on the same platform as the rabid “‘anti-socialist’’ Powell and other right wing Tories?

But a few lines after condemning those with ‘nationalist’ deviations Barrat Brown commits the very same sin…“It is the fashion to decry the weakness of the nation state in the face of the super powers and the giant companies and of course most small nation states are desperately weak…but Britain is not small…Appeals to the Dunkirk spirit have been too often invoked by failing politicians to carry much conviction but few would deny that the challenge of ‘going it alone’ combined with some real evidence of equality of sacrifice would elicit a common response…the only hope for Britain as for others suffering from such an ebb (in their economic condition) is to cut themselves off as far as they can from the effects of the world market’’!!(our emphasis).

These lines of Michael Barrat Brown reveal the utter confusion—to be kind—of the Tribune. Science, technique and the organisation of labour—the productive forces—are rebelling against private ownership on the one side and the nation state on the other. The market of 55 million people in Britain is too small for the giant monopolies who have the potential and are geared to the European and the world market. It is reactionary utopianism to say that it is possible to cut Britain off from the world market. Through the international division of labour which has been enormously extended in the last twenty five years—the world is bound into one interdependent whole. It is impossible for any country—least of all Britain which relies for most of its raw materials and food from abroad—to build a self sufficient socialist utopia.

The beginning of socialism would mean a level of technique and production higher than the highest level yet reached by capitalism. This is not possible if the productive forces are strangled by capitalist ownership and the nation state. The unsuccessful attempts of the capitalists to unify Europe expresses the contradiction between the need to organise production on at least a European scale and the barriers to this in the form of the vested interests of capitalism.

Only the working class can free the mighty forces of production for the benefit of the peoples of the continent through a Socialist United States of Europe.

The great majority of the rank and file of the Labour movement oppose the Common Market for vague class reasons. They see the capitalists lauding the advantages of the EEC and therefore instinctively oppose it. They are confirmed in their opposition when they see the right wing of the Parliamentary Labour Party joining in the chorus of the pro-Marketeers. These worthies have formed a bloc with the most rapacious section of finance capital in advocating continued membership of the EEC. They claim that this is done in the spirit of ‘internationalism’ that the EEC represents a step towards a ‘Socialist Europe’. This is a pernicious fairy tale which the spokesmen of British capitalism themselves have refuted.

Thus Christopher Soames one of the EEC Commissioners in a recent speech pointed out…“I believe going into Europe is based essentially on the capitalist system and will always be so” (Times 25/1/75). Moreover the. EEC is incapable of overcoming Europe’s national and racial divisions. The present world recession has already resulted in 4 million unemployed in the EEC and brought in its train measures to exclude immigrant workers from Germany, France etc.

But the leading opponents of the EEC in the ranks of the Labour movement have directed these class suspicions of the advanced workers into narrow nationalist channels. This is expressed not just in the ‘sovereignty’ and ‘splendid isolationist’ arguments of Tribune. It is also seen in their preparedness—along with the CP—to share platforms and march with right wing Tories, dissident Liberals and the nationalists. The ‘theoretical’ justification for this position has been supplied by the CP leadership. Thus in the Morning Star of February 28th Jack Woodis wrote…‘‘In other words; when they oppose the EEC, the Tory anti-Marketeers are prompted by class aims which are fundamentally different from those of the Communist Party.

Despite this, we share a common aim in wanting to take Britain out of the Common Market—and this provides an objective basis irrespective of our different class reasons for joining in a united campaign against the Common Market…There is nothing against socialist principles in working for such a broad campaign. On the contrary it has always been a basic tenet of Marxism that the working class, by itself can never attain its objectives.

The CP justify their espousal of class collaboration by pointing to the fact that Labour only received 39.3% of the vote in the October General Election. They say that it is therefore necessary to water down and effectively abandon any class opposition to the Common Market in order to woo Tory and Liberal voters. But isn’t this precisely the general approach of the Labour right wing of Jenkins and Co? They maintain that Labour’s programme must be toned down that the mythical ‘middle ground’ must be occupied if the middle class and politically uneducated workers are not to be ‘frightened away’. Marxism has answered this argument many times. We have pointed out that this strata will not vote for a paler version of Toryism. It is necessary to advance a programme which links their demands with the idea of the socialist transformation of society. This can only be successful in a battle with the Tory, Liberal and Nationalist leaders—only if the Labour movement sets out to unmask these scoundrels before their middle class and working class followers. To form a bloc—to share a platform—with them is to re-enforce illusions in the Liberal, Tory and Nationalist leaders. The right wing of the Labour Party can quite comfortably share platforms with their Tory and Liberal opposite numbers. For them this could be a dress rehearsal for a more permanent alliance—in a National Government—when the economic crisis is serious enough.

But Tribune MPs who share a platform with the like of Powell, no matter how unconsciously, are aiding and abetting a dangerous opponent of the Labour movement. It should be the task of those who claim to stand on the left of the Labour Party to combat the nationalist and racialist poison put forward by Powell and his allies.

Denis Skinner, and some MPs in the Tribune group are refusing to speak on the same platform as the Tories and Liberals. But they need to go a step further. It is not sufficient to just oppose the Common Market. This opposition needs to be invested with a clear class approach. Moreover a viable socialist alternative needs to be posed in the referendum campaign. We will advocate that Militant supporters vote ‘NO’ in the referendum. We oppose the Common Market in the same way that we oppose British capitalism. But at the same time we advance the socialist alternative—A SOCIALIST BRITAIN and A SOCIALIST UNITED STATES OF EUROPE.

The capitalists will use the press, TV, radio and the enormous means of propaganda at their disposal in order to guarantee a massive ‘YES’ vote. They will use the fact that food prices are presently lower in the Common Market than on world markets. And if there is any suggestion that the vote will go against them they will conduct a scare campaign. This is what their Southern Irish counterparts did in 1972 and obtained a 5-1 majority. In Denmark too the capitalists threatened the working class with devaluation if there was a ‘NO’ vote in the referendum!

But victory for the capitalists and their shadows in the Labour movement in the referendum campaign will not cure the maladies of British capitalism. The piling up of the problems of British capitalism means the certainty of social turmoil in Britain. So serious is the crisis that the capitalists are openly talking of replacing the Labour Government with a National Government at a certain stage as a means of ruthlessly slashing the living standards of the working class. In Europe too the grandiose events in Portugal and Greece and the coming revolution in Spain are an anticipation of an era of social revolution which will leave no part of the ‘Old Continent’ untouched.

The slogan of a ‘Socialist Britain and a Socialist United States of Europe is not a programme for the dim and distant future. It is the only way that the workers of Britain and Europe can avoid the miseries which a continuation of capitalism will mean. We urge all Young Socialists, Labour Party members and trade unionists to ensure that ‘A SOCIALIST ANSWER TO THE EEC’ reaches as many workers as possible during the referendum campaign. We also include as an appendix a short article written in 1923 by Leon Trotsky.

This article together with ‘A SOCIALIST ANSWER TO THE EEC’ are vital to an understanding of the Common Market and the task of uniting Europe on a socialist basis.


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