[A-List] Paul Foot on the EU

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Some interesting slips of the pen from Comrade Foot. The severest critic of
Harold Wilson now wishes for the restoration of social democracy in the
Labour Party. People treasure their right to vote so much that a majority
doesn't bother when given the chance. The euro is not the currency of choice
for many big, powerful corporations which are telling us frantically how
dastardly it is: for example, News Corporation, Hollinger, Associated
Newspapers, Dixons, Vickers Defence Systems, GKN, Carlton International
Media, and Tate & Lyle, to name only a few of the backers of "Business for
Sterling". And is there any state in the world where central bankers are
made democratically accountable for their decisions? How much more corrupt
than the British state are the institutions of the EU, given how much we
know of the arms trade, dirty war in Northern Ireland, the Hutton inquiry,
etc.? Other than that, his general points seem reasonable enough.

-----

Swede smell of democracy

Paul Foot
Wednesday September 17, 2003
The Guardian

Consternation in high places is always a cause for rejoicing. The gloom that
struck down important people throughout Europe after the result of the
Swedish referendum on the euro was utterly delightful. Every big political
party, every major national newspaper, every representative of Swedish big
business and the stock exchange, they all called for a yes vote. In a huge
turnout, the neglected element - the Swedish voters - by a substantial
majority voted no.

In Britain, the issue seems more complicated. The Conservative party, for
instance, is against the euro. The Tory arguments are founded either on
silly old-fashioned chauvinism, or an equally absurd sentimentality about
the currency.

There is very little evidence that people give two hoots about the currency.
Before the last election William Hague toured the country shouting "You have
only a few weeks left to save the pound!", but no one took the slightest
notice, and theTories were smashed.

Nor is there much evidence that the Swedes who voted no cared a jot for the
krona. If "Save The krona!" had been the only issue in the campaign, the
political and financial establishment might well have won. A far more
important issue was, and is, the euro's threat to democracy, the right of
people to have some say in the nature and behaviour of the governments that
represent them. Most people treasure their right to vote and get very upset
if anyone tries to muck about with it.

This is an especially crucial issue for socialists. Capitalism is a
fundamentally undemocratic system. The big companies, banks and financial
institutions operate on the principle of oligarchy. The great, the good and
the rich rule their fiefdoms without having to put up with any impertinent
interference from the people who do most of the work or buy the goods. So
the right to vote - representative government - is a constant threat to
them. Much political history since the advent of universal suffrage has been
a story of the battle between unelected capital and elected social
democracy. The real significance of New Labour in Britain is the abject, and
I hope temporary, surrender of social democracy to corporate power.

When the European common market (the forerunner of the EU) was formed in the
1950s, the capitalist oligarchs were determined to protect their domains
from the growing social democratic forces. The institutions set up to run
the common market were exclusively oligarchical; none was elected, and all
governed, and still do, in the interests of the world's rich against the
interests of the world's poor. The European commission, the European bank,
the European court of human rights and justice, all were kept far from any
democratic process.

A European parliament, elected by the people, was belatedly set up, but it
was kept well clear of the activities of the commission. Even its buildings
were hundreds of miles away. The chief activity of MEPs seemed to be
collecting their (grotesquely large) salaries and expenses and
rubber-stamping the decisions of the corrupt oligarchy they were meant to
regulate.

Since the abject surrender of New Labour in Britain, individual parliaments
in Europe have become ever more servile to the great corporations that run
the world. The EU and its institutions, however, are more servile (and
corrupt) than the directly elected parliaments. It is this feeling of
increasing democratic impotence in the face of vast, irresponsible
corporations that tells us, I guess, what persuades people to vote no in
referendums on the euro.