The current whirlwind of hostility to the UK Labour Party's left leaders, albeit whipped up by some daft playacting in the media by by Ken Livingstone, and shadow cabinet and ex leadership contender Andy Burnham' very recent discovery of his own deep hostility to anti-semitism, is right wing Labour sensing Corbyn's blood and doing what they can to undermine Labour's May 5 electoral campaign to get it.
Although Livingstone's point was irrelevant to the current battles in the Labour Party, it was true that some German Zionists flirted with some Nazis (not Hitler) in the early 1930's, both about getting German jews to a Palestinian 'homeland', even in some cases extolling the Nuremberg race laws as potentially allowing the 'Jewish minority" to develop their culture and religion autonomously. Historically the Zionist movement always had a rightist as well as a leftist face. Today 'progressive' Zionists in the UK often chide their leftist colleagues for their lack of understanding that Zionism is but the name for Jewish national self-determination, an historic right of all oppressed people in the cannon of anti-imperialist and humanitarian politics.
It is not an issue for this blog or an explanation of the real nature of the explosion in the Labour Party; but it is worth noting that it is a uniquely odd act of 'national self determination' when a new nation is created on top of someone else's nation and where nationhood (whether you are allowed to be a citizen of that nation) is effectively determined by your prior culture and religion and not whether you live there. Such a definition of a nation legitimised pre WW2 Germany's 'right' to seize and 'protect' the 'German' Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. It stands contrary to the letter and spirit of the new idea of 'nation' created by the Enlightenment and enacted by the French Revolution, which characterised the nation on the basis of all who lived within its boundaries, and not by the 'culture', antecedants or 'souls' of certain people - regardless of where they lived.
Meanwhile Labour faces a dangerous battle, with the Corbyn leadership turning in every direction to defend its anti-racist credentials and the Labour right, including most of its MPs, plus the entire media determined to bring Corbyn down at any cost.
First the Corbyn leadership, and everybody else who has a stake in its survival, needs to call this conflict what it is; - the latest and most powerful effort yet to destroy the left leadership of the Labour Party and therefore an attempt to overthrow the decisions of the big majority of the Labour Party membership. Second, it must be made clear that any damage caused to Labour's support in the coming elections is a direct consequence of this offensive. Third, starting from the Corbyn leadership itself but essentially extending to all those mobilised by and fighting austerity and war is the need to make clear that the right wing Labour MPs need to call off their attack dogs. Already they no longer stand for Labour victory on May 5. Now they no longer stand for the new Labour Party.
Friday 29 April 2016
Wednesday 27 April 2016
Miscarriages of justice?
In the case of the Guilford 4 and the Birmingham 6 - where so called IRA bombers were convicted in British courts - the UK police hid and manufactured evidence according to subsequent enquiries and all the defendants had to be 'officially pardoned.' In the case of Stephen Lawrence's racist murder, the investigating police were also found to be racists by a subsequent national enquiry. Now, 29 years after the event, the 96 dead victims of Hillsborough Football Stadium crush are 'exhonerated' from causing their own deaths. It turns out that police management was the major reason why these people died and that the police also had organised fraudulent evidence to blame the Liverpool football supporters.
But these, and many others, are not miscarriages of justice.
Dr Michael Naughton, senior lecturer at the University of Bristol, is the founder and director of the University of Bristol Innocence Project. He makes a distinction between miscarriages of justice and “abortions of justice”, where police actively undermine a fair trial.
'There was a real crisis of confidence in the criminal justice system when those cases were revealed to be wrongful convictions,' says Dr Naughton.
A miscarriage of justice implies that some mistake happened so that the wrong result emerged from the procedure. But with Guilford, Birmingham, Hillsborough, the case of Stephen Lawrence and the rest, 'something' did not go wrong in the procedure. Instead the procedure, including for example in the Hillsborough case, where 116 police reports and statements were deliberately altered to prevent any culpability attaching to the force, was organised beforehand to produce the desired result.
On the 27 April, Teresa May, the UK Home Secretary with responsibility for the police, made touching remarks in Parliament about the dignity and courage of the Hillsborough families in their pursuit of justice. On the 25th, in a speech ostensibly supporting remaining inside the EU, she attacked the European Convention on Human Rights as they 'can bind the hands of Parliament'. This is the Parliament that (with the odd honourable exception) stood firmly behind 'our' police force and 'our independent judiciary' in the decades when public voices, families and campaigners raised the 'abortions of justice' carried out by these bodies and were excoriated for their efforts by the mass media and inside Parliament by the leaders of the mainstream parties.
It is surely more essential than ever that as many judicial bodies that are credibly available like the ECHR and the EU based European Court, coming from outside Britain's loaded system, should have the right to scrutinise and to respond to the cases raised by those who challenge their treatment inside a country with little to recommend about its justice system (unless you are a billionaire with a property case.)
But these, and many others, are not miscarriages of justice.
Dr Michael Naughton, senior lecturer at the University of Bristol, is the founder and director of the University of Bristol Innocence Project. He makes a distinction between miscarriages of justice and “abortions of justice”, where police actively undermine a fair trial.
'There was a real crisis of confidence in the criminal justice system when those cases were revealed to be wrongful convictions,' says Dr Naughton.
A miscarriage of justice implies that some mistake happened so that the wrong result emerged from the procedure. But with Guilford, Birmingham, Hillsborough, the case of Stephen Lawrence and the rest, 'something' did not go wrong in the procedure. Instead the procedure, including for example in the Hillsborough case, where 116 police reports and statements were deliberately altered to prevent any culpability attaching to the force, was organised beforehand to produce the desired result.
On the 27 April, Teresa May, the UK Home Secretary with responsibility for the police, made touching remarks in Parliament about the dignity and courage of the Hillsborough families in their pursuit of justice. On the 25th, in a speech ostensibly supporting remaining inside the EU, she attacked the European Convention on Human Rights as they 'can bind the hands of Parliament'. This is the Parliament that (with the odd honourable exception) stood firmly behind 'our' police force and 'our independent judiciary' in the decades when public voices, families and campaigners raised the 'abortions of justice' carried out by these bodies and were excoriated for their efforts by the mass media and inside Parliament by the leaders of the mainstream parties.
It is surely more essential than ever that as many judicial bodies that are credibly available like the ECHR and the EU based European Court, coming from outside Britain's loaded system, should have the right to scrutinise and to respond to the cases raised by those who challenge their treatment inside a country with little to recommend about its justice system (unless you are a billionaire with a property case.)
Friday 22 April 2016
A disgusting deal poisons Europe.
Peter Spiegel of the British Financial Times wrote this on April 21.
'There has been no shortage of reasons for outrage over last month’s refugee return deal between the EU and Turkey that, for now, has slowed the influx of migrants into Greece to a trickle. The UN believes the expulsion of migrants arriving in Greece may be illegal under international law. Human Rights Watch yesterday found the deportations “riddled with abuse”. Others have been more upset about the sweeteners given to Ankara in exchange for its cooperation in the crackdown, including €6bn in new aid and the unfreezing of negotiations over Turkish membership in the EU – which nearly upended Cypriot reunification talks and has given Brexiteers a new tool to scare UK voters.
But there may not be an issue as politically sensitive as the EU concession to provide Turkish nationals visa-free travel in Europe as early as June. Yesterday Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU’s migration commissioner, said Brussels will issue a progress report on May 4 outlining how far Ankara has gone in meeting 72 benchmarks required before the short-term visits can be allowed. “No visa liberalisation can be offered if all benchmarks are not met,” he intoned at a midday news conference.
There is increasing nervousness in several EU capitals, including Paris and Rome, that Turkey may actually clear those hurdles – or, if they're close, the European Commission will give Ankara a pass and force national governments to decide what to do about the visa deal. That would be awkward for domestic politics in several EU countries; critics are already complaining that a refugee crisis that has caused an anti-immigrant backlash in some quarters because of the high number of Muslims arriving in Europe will have to be solved with a Turkey deal that will allow even more Muslims to travel to Europe. Some governments have begun looking at measures that would allow them to hedge their promise to Ankara, including safeguard clauses, extra conditions or watered down terms. But Ahmed Davutoglu this week made it clear: if there’s no visa-free travel deal, “no one can expect Turkey to adhere to its commitments."'
The EU's wretched lurch into inhuman forms of 'people management' on a truly epic scale is bad enough. Inevitably there is a recoil, and the horror touches and infects many aspects of mainstream political life back in the EU countries themselves. The UK is a prime example. The thought of a 'wave of Muslims' from Turkey (and, inevitably, from its refugee camps) rolling into Western Europe come June will become a major issue in the Brexit campaign. It will be argued that once these new Europeans are allowed to settle, through the Schengen rules, they will then pour into Britain in an unstoppable rush. It is hardly surprising that France's junior Le Pen is considering a visit to the UK to add her own brand of poison to the Brexit mix.
Of course, this is not an argument in favour of the pro-EU campaign (which mainly consists of the call to 'get behind big Capital' for fear of something worse.) But the racist stew is bubbling away at the centre of the British debate about the EU and a victory for Brexit will consolidate a new right wing in UK society that even the junior LePen might be proud of.
April's Peoples Assembly demonstration was a mighty success. Most importantly the mass turn out for the march shows that there is a new left consolidating in the UK which supports, but which is not entirely dependent on, the left leadership of the Labour Party. In current conditions that is as good as it gets. An independent, non-sectarian, mass, anti-war and anti-austerity movement is the critical factor in the future prospects of left politics in Britain, including in Scotland. Should a new right emerge out of Brexit there is now a mainstream counter to their progress both inside and outside Westminster.
And for those in the UK following Bernie's political revolution in the US - there are treats in store! HERE can be found the latest news of the tribulations of two of his supporters, that might effect future dietary choices for the better (or worse.)
Tuesday 19 April 2016
Refugees, Brexit and the real world.
As the UK polls consistently show that immigration is by far the highest concern of those voters who support exit from the EU, so the Exit campaign leaders continue to elevate the threat to Britain's borders from EU membership. (And pro EU leaders defensively insist they are only committed to allowing in a select few.) Voters are invited to consider the pressures on jobs and our health and social services as well as the wave of EU based terrorists that will come to Britain, if 'the power to control our borders' is not 'returned' to Britain. This is the 'sovereign and democratic right', above all others, that the UK - apparently - must preserve.
Naturally this latest wave of racist drivel is not based on any facts. The UK is a 22nd level nation in Europe, beneath Ireland, for the number of settled immigrants in 2015. Britain's stretched services come from the up to now consensual decision of its political leaders - to tax the rich and their assets at historically low levels. And, since 2001, all of the political and religious based bombings and murders so far organised in Britain have arisen among second, third and even fourth-level generations of UK based immigrant families; while Britain's leaders are plotting yet another provocative military intervention in Libya.
Attitudes across the West are hardening towards efforts by the poor and by the downtrodden of the world to find some hope and life by escaping from their countries of origin. Trump's wall (after Israel's wall, the Berlin wall, Bulgaria's wall, and the other 63 new walls that have been built since the Berlin Wall. See Quebec University; Elisabeth Vallet, August 2015) is the latest insane symbol from History's museum of human degradation. And of course it was ever thus.
No it was not - and is not. Even under the tutelage of the most ferocious capitalist system that the world has ever seen, the USA was built - and continues to be built despite regular efforts to 'stem the tide'- on the acceptance of millions of immigrants.
In 2015 the EU is supposed to have 'taken in' 1m refugees. In fact EU countries have so far agreed to settle only 292 000. Between 1900 and 1915 the USA agreed national status for a million immigrants - a year. And the vast and open US western hinterland which allowed big population expansion? In 1912 three quarters of New York citizens were migrants or children of migrants. In 2014 there were 42.4 million fresh immigrants in the US, 13% of the population. Adding the children of modern immigrants in the US brings the total up to 26% of the US's population. The majority of immigrant families live first in California, next in New York State. After the 28% of modern immigrants of Mexican heritage, most families come from India, followed by the Chinese. In 2014 over 2 million immigrants were from Eastern Europe, and the big majority of immigrants and asylum seekers overall were non English speaking. In other words the USA is still bringing in migrant labour that lives and works mainly in established cities.
In April 2016 the US had 35 habitants per square kilometre and a total population of 324m. In the same month, in the same year, the EU had 33 habitants per square kilometre and 739m inhabitants.
The traditional US rulers act in this way because their enormous home market requires waves of the cheapest labour to keep domestic wage levels low (and profits high) by maintaining a constant and cut throat competition for jobs. Chancellor Merkel's touching humanity towards refugees comes directly from the same source and has exactly the same rational - on an EU wide basis. The material origin of official labour movement organisation opposition to immigration, particularly in the US and in Britain, has also come from that source. The labour movement politics of anti-immigration are a clear sign of the remnants of the old 'aristocracy of labour' that defended imperial preference, fought 'dilution' by women workers and saw unions as a means of upholding a monopoly of a certain craft and a means to maintain privilege in the general workforce.
Today in both the UK and the US while the price of labour is a factor for the poorest workers, access to services has also become a competition - courtesy of austerity.
The latest mass movements of people from the mid Asia, the Near East, and from northern Africa are testing the West's standing politics and economics to distraction. The deep crisis of domestic western capitalism in both the US and the EU has meant that low wage competition domestically is only required in some very specific and narrow directions; in agriculture, in some services and for criminal purposes, outside the regulated market. Huge, riotous and poisonous movements blossom in the fetid air of declining capitalism, poverty and alienation that has been created by the destruction of the old working class organisations. Television and the Internet show the faces of hundreds of crouching refugees, rescued from the sea, staring at the makeshift camp around them, glancing at the uncomfortable soldiers that stand in the doorways.
Europeans, indeed the whole world has seen pictures and heard of movements like this before.
The left (and there is a new left; 27000 attended Bernie Sanders New York rally, huge French demonstrations against austerity have restarted and at least 150000 marched through London on 16 April) links itself across the whole of the West and beyond. It understands that only the most profound, international answers, that drive into the decrepit political and economic system, into its very decaying heart, can deal with the problems of the new world.
A minimum wage for all labour, worldwide. The right of all to live where they wish. Huge new housing and welfare programmes. Marshal plans created to deal with destruction and to encourage peace. Taking and using the $30 trillion from the tax havens to plan and develop the world's needs in energy, in health and in infrastructure. It is all possible. More importantly it is all necessary.
Naturally this latest wave of racist drivel is not based on any facts. The UK is a 22nd level nation in Europe, beneath Ireland, for the number of settled immigrants in 2015. Britain's stretched services come from the up to now consensual decision of its political leaders - to tax the rich and their assets at historically low levels. And, since 2001, all of the political and religious based bombings and murders so far organised in Britain have arisen among second, third and even fourth-level generations of UK based immigrant families; while Britain's leaders are plotting yet another provocative military intervention in Libya.
Attitudes across the West are hardening towards efforts by the poor and by the downtrodden of the world to find some hope and life by escaping from their countries of origin. Trump's wall (after Israel's wall, the Berlin wall, Bulgaria's wall, and the other 63 new walls that have been built since the Berlin Wall. See Quebec University; Elisabeth Vallet, August 2015) is the latest insane symbol from History's museum of human degradation. And of course it was ever thus.
No it was not - and is not. Even under the tutelage of the most ferocious capitalist system that the world has ever seen, the USA was built - and continues to be built despite regular efforts to 'stem the tide'- on the acceptance of millions of immigrants.
In 2015 the EU is supposed to have 'taken in' 1m refugees. In fact EU countries have so far agreed to settle only 292 000. Between 1900 and 1915 the USA agreed national status for a million immigrants - a year. And the vast and open US western hinterland which allowed big population expansion? In 1912 three quarters of New York citizens were migrants or children of migrants. In 2014 there were 42.4 million fresh immigrants in the US, 13% of the population. Adding the children of modern immigrants in the US brings the total up to 26% of the US's population. The majority of immigrant families live first in California, next in New York State. After the 28% of modern immigrants of Mexican heritage, most families come from India, followed by the Chinese. In 2014 over 2 million immigrants were from Eastern Europe, and the big majority of immigrants and asylum seekers overall were non English speaking. In other words the USA is still bringing in migrant labour that lives and works mainly in established cities.
In April 2016 the US had 35 habitants per square kilometre and a total population of 324m. In the same month, in the same year, the EU had 33 habitants per square kilometre and 739m inhabitants.
The traditional US rulers act in this way because their enormous home market requires waves of the cheapest labour to keep domestic wage levels low (and profits high) by maintaining a constant and cut throat competition for jobs. Chancellor Merkel's touching humanity towards refugees comes directly from the same source and has exactly the same rational - on an EU wide basis. The material origin of official labour movement organisation opposition to immigration, particularly in the US and in Britain, has also come from that source. The labour movement politics of anti-immigration are a clear sign of the remnants of the old 'aristocracy of labour' that defended imperial preference, fought 'dilution' by women workers and saw unions as a means of upholding a monopoly of a certain craft and a means to maintain privilege in the general workforce.
Today in both the UK and the US while the price of labour is a factor for the poorest workers, access to services has also become a competition - courtesy of austerity.
The latest mass movements of people from the mid Asia, the Near East, and from northern Africa are testing the West's standing politics and economics to distraction. The deep crisis of domestic western capitalism in both the US and the EU has meant that low wage competition domestically is only required in some very specific and narrow directions; in agriculture, in some services and for criminal purposes, outside the regulated market. Huge, riotous and poisonous movements blossom in the fetid air of declining capitalism, poverty and alienation that has been created by the destruction of the old working class organisations. Television and the Internet show the faces of hundreds of crouching refugees, rescued from the sea, staring at the makeshift camp around them, glancing at the uncomfortable soldiers that stand in the doorways.
Europeans, indeed the whole world has seen pictures and heard of movements like this before.
The left (and there is a new left; 27000 attended Bernie Sanders New York rally, huge French demonstrations against austerity have restarted and at least 150000 marched through London on 16 April) links itself across the whole of the West and beyond. It understands that only the most profound, international answers, that drive into the decrepit political and economic system, into its very decaying heart, can deal with the problems of the new world.
A minimum wage for all labour, worldwide. The right of all to live where they wish. Huge new housing and welfare programmes. Marshal plans created to deal with destruction and to encourage peace. Taking and using the $30 trillion from the tax havens to plan and develop the world's needs in energy, in health and in infrastructure. It is all possible. More importantly it is all necessary.
Wednesday 13 April 2016
A tale of two referendums
The most important event in the UK this summer is the April 16 Peoples' Assembly demonstration. It will give a key indication of the breadth, morale and militancy of the leading edge of Britain's anti-austerity - anti-war movement. Britain's in/out referendum on EU membership on the 23 June is also significant, but not because it will decide anything about austerity or war, or for that matter Britain's fundamental relations with the EU, but because it will give a picture of the social base of Britain's new right wing.
The April 16 demonstration brings together the active leaders and supporters of the growing challenge to austerity - for jobs, over Education and Housing, and most importantly in terms of the Junior Doctors' strikes, in Health. As Prime Minister Cameron's grip on Britain's right wing, both inside and outside Parliament falters, through his reluctant exposure of his own greed, the Chancellor's failed budget and the emergence of the leadership contest to come, Cameron himself will feel the first impact of any regroupment of Britain's right wing. Now is exactly the time for the anti-austerity movement to take the initiative and show this failed leader to the exit. April 16 will also raise that call across society.
Meanwhile the 'official' EU debate gets underway.
It was well understood that 'Team Cameron' went for the referendum to hold back a Tory split before the last 2015 election. His achieved 'reforms' from the EU since the 2015 election are frankly laughable. No senior commentators or political leaders in any major country (except Britain) regards them as anything other than a fig leaf for those who want to remain officially inside the EU. (See for example FT Comment , 9/10 April, Andrew Moravcsik, Politics Professor, Princeton U.) Equally, and not surprisingly, the ridiculously dubbed 'big beasts' arguing for exit are now led by the main alternative leader of the Tory Party to the Cameron clique. Note; Boris Johnston placed himself as the darling of the Tory Party members over his EU opposition in the first instance by saying Britain could always have another referendum when we had shown the EU how serious the UK really was about its sovereignty. He has not the slightest idea of what a real non EU Britain would be.
Despite being ridiculed in mainstream political life the 'double referendum' ploy is not as stupid as it sounds. Both Ireland and Denmark have called a second referendum to make sure of their EU allegiance in the past. More to the point it shows where 'big beasts' like Boris and ex leader Michael Howard who first talked about a second referendum, really are on Europe. None of these people have the slightest intention of unravelling Britain's links to the EU. They believe, (as does David Cameron) that in the event of a 'no' vote Britain would immediately have to remake exactly the same arrangements for access to the EU free market as it has now - whatever concessions were required.
What all of these ex public school 'beasts' want is not a rupture with the EU, it is domestic political power. That is why the significance of the EU referendum is very little to do with what will happen to European capitalism, including the UK, and instead a great deal to do with regrouping a potential racist, anti-union, anti-welfare and pro nuclear right, first inside the Tory Party if possible and then as the leadership of society in the UK as a whole. Johnston and his pals are quite ready to have a prolonged (and entirely spurious) argument over terms with the EU to get the real prize, their 'sovereignty' over the UK.
Massive trade blocs form the key structures of modern, late capitalism. From a democratic socialist perspective none of these blocs, or their institutions, or their leaderships are reformable. The latest example of the political collapse of the Greek Syriza leadership is yet another proof that a reform programme in the EU is far too weak to make any sizable inroads. Yet to the degree that trade blocs respond to modern global life, a radical perspective needs to encompass the prospect of united states and federations of nations on a voluntary and democratic basis. That choice is not of course an option in the coming UK referendum, which is primarily and predominantly a domestic contest.
This means therefore that both the (very weak) left campaigns in the UK; to counterpose an abstract 'Peoples Europe' to the EU as a platform for a 'no' vote, or to counterpose an abstract 'Peoples Europe' made of possible alliances with anti-austerity forces across the EU - this time as a platform for a 'yes' vote, are equally detached from any 'concrete analysis of the concrete situation.'
The only class interest evoked by the UK's EU referendum is to try to deny any triumph for the racists and the new right by voting 'yes' - to prevent a new political recomposition consolidating (with its 4 million UKIP votes at the last General Election) in British politics.
And the other referendum?
If the right do win Britain's EU referendum and UKIP supporters are regrouped inside the Tory Party or elsewhere; solidified as a real base for populist reaction, then there will be another referendum - in Scotland. And while the next Scottish referendum would nominally be based on EU membership, the real content of such a referendum would actually be formed by the question: Do the Scottish people wish to be led in their politics, economics and at the level of their society, by England's new right wing?
The April 16 demonstration brings together the active leaders and supporters of the growing challenge to austerity - for jobs, over Education and Housing, and most importantly in terms of the Junior Doctors' strikes, in Health. As Prime Minister Cameron's grip on Britain's right wing, both inside and outside Parliament falters, through his reluctant exposure of his own greed, the Chancellor's failed budget and the emergence of the leadership contest to come, Cameron himself will feel the first impact of any regroupment of Britain's right wing. Now is exactly the time for the anti-austerity movement to take the initiative and show this failed leader to the exit. April 16 will also raise that call across society.
Meanwhile the 'official' EU debate gets underway.
It was well understood that 'Team Cameron' went for the referendum to hold back a Tory split before the last 2015 election. His achieved 'reforms' from the EU since the 2015 election are frankly laughable. No senior commentators or political leaders in any major country (except Britain) regards them as anything other than a fig leaf for those who want to remain officially inside the EU. (See for example FT Comment , 9/10 April, Andrew Moravcsik, Politics Professor, Princeton U.) Equally, and not surprisingly, the ridiculously dubbed 'big beasts' arguing for exit are now led by the main alternative leader of the Tory Party to the Cameron clique. Note; Boris Johnston placed himself as the darling of the Tory Party members over his EU opposition in the first instance by saying Britain could always have another referendum when we had shown the EU how serious the UK really was about its sovereignty. He has not the slightest idea of what a real non EU Britain would be.
Despite being ridiculed in mainstream political life the 'double referendum' ploy is not as stupid as it sounds. Both Ireland and Denmark have called a second referendum to make sure of their EU allegiance in the past. More to the point it shows where 'big beasts' like Boris and ex leader Michael Howard who first talked about a second referendum, really are on Europe. None of these people have the slightest intention of unravelling Britain's links to the EU. They believe, (as does David Cameron) that in the event of a 'no' vote Britain would immediately have to remake exactly the same arrangements for access to the EU free market as it has now - whatever concessions were required.
What all of these ex public school 'beasts' want is not a rupture with the EU, it is domestic political power. That is why the significance of the EU referendum is very little to do with what will happen to European capitalism, including the UK, and instead a great deal to do with regrouping a potential racist, anti-union, anti-welfare and pro nuclear right, first inside the Tory Party if possible and then as the leadership of society in the UK as a whole. Johnston and his pals are quite ready to have a prolonged (and entirely spurious) argument over terms with the EU to get the real prize, their 'sovereignty' over the UK.
Massive trade blocs form the key structures of modern, late capitalism. From a democratic socialist perspective none of these blocs, or their institutions, or their leaderships are reformable. The latest example of the political collapse of the Greek Syriza leadership is yet another proof that a reform programme in the EU is far too weak to make any sizable inroads. Yet to the degree that trade blocs respond to modern global life, a radical perspective needs to encompass the prospect of united states and federations of nations on a voluntary and democratic basis. That choice is not of course an option in the coming UK referendum, which is primarily and predominantly a domestic contest.
This means therefore that both the (very weak) left campaigns in the UK; to counterpose an abstract 'Peoples Europe' to the EU as a platform for a 'no' vote, or to counterpose an abstract 'Peoples Europe' made of possible alliances with anti-austerity forces across the EU - this time as a platform for a 'yes' vote, are equally detached from any 'concrete analysis of the concrete situation.'
The only class interest evoked by the UK's EU referendum is to try to deny any triumph for the racists and the new right by voting 'yes' - to prevent a new political recomposition consolidating (with its 4 million UKIP votes at the last General Election) in British politics.
And the other referendum?
If the right do win Britain's EU referendum and UKIP supporters are regrouped inside the Tory Party or elsewhere; solidified as a real base for populist reaction, then there will be another referendum - in Scotland. And while the next Scottish referendum would nominally be based on EU membership, the real content of such a referendum would actually be formed by the question: Do the Scottish people wish to be led in their politics, economics and at the level of their society, by England's new right wing?
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