The plans for creating a single EU state have met an immovable obstacle — the peoples of Europe's nations. The French working class decisively rejected the proposed Constitution by 55% to 45% on a 70% turnout. 80% of blue-collar workers and 60% of white-collar workers voted No. The Dutch voted against by 62% to 38% on a 63% turnout.
The results have thrown the euro-establishment into crisis, so much so that the European summit on 16 and 17 June broke up without agreement on what to do about either the Constitution or the budget. In Italy government ministers are talking about leaving the euro.
In France, some of the left campaigned on the slogan Europe Yes, Constitution No. But this is a muddle. The EU Constitution, with its 92 references to the market, puts into words the EU's capitalist reality, its overriding commitment to the free market, as spelt out in the Thatcher-inspired Maastricht Treaty. The Constitution makes the free movement of capital, goods, services and labour into a constitutional obligation (Articles I-3 and 4, Articles III-130, 166 and 167). So, for example, any attempt to manage immigration so that Britain no longer robs Africa's countries of their scarce nurses and doctors could be judged illegal.
Article III-147 allows the EU to enforce liberalisation (that is, potential privatisation) of public services like health, education and social services. The European Central Bank has ordered reductions in public pensions, measures to raise the effective retirement age, greater private involvement in healthcare financing, extension of working hours, containment of labour costs and abolition of overly rigid labour market regulations. What is social about this market, this Europe?
After the votes, various EU oligarchs showed their contempt and loathing for democracy. Lord Kinnock described the Dutch people's vote as a triumph of ignorance. The European Green Party stated, "No in France and Holland does not mean no to the European Constitution." Liberal Democrat MEP Andrew Duff said that the No votes were not a brake on the European project, but were proof that we are not going sufficiently fast.
 |
Blair signed the EU Constitution in Rome.
He didn't ask us if we wanted it.
He hopes to avoid ever asking us what we think.
That's why we need a referendum here.
|
|
He signs, he smiles: watched by flunkeys, Blair put his signature on the Constitution at the signing ceremony in Rome on 29 October 2004.
|
Vote again?
The EU wants to impose the Constitution anyway, overriding the opposition of the nations. Valery Giscard d'Estaing said, "What we'll say at the end is that those who have not voted for the Constitution, we will ask them to revote." Peter Mandelson said, "No single member state has a veto over a constitutional treaty of this sort. France will have to consider its position: whether it is going to maintain a No or whether it is going to revisit the question and possibly come forward with a different view." MEP Elmar Brok said, "In the end there will be the Constitution because there is no alternative in Europe" — a familiar tune!
Lord Patten, an ex-Tory minister and ex-EU Commissioner, said that parts of the Constitution should be implemented under the existing treaties: the job for the UK in the presidency will be to pick out the bits of the Constitution which don't require treaty change. Baron Brittain, also an ex-Tory minister and ex-Commissioner, agreed, saying that the EU should now cherry pick parts of the Constitution and implement them.
John Monks, now Secretary General of the European Trade Union Congress, said, "The treaty is not dead. I think that by suspending the referendum, Blair acted with opportunism or with realism. He knows that, if there had been a referendum in Great Britain, he would have lost it...Keeping the referendum would have been suicidal...In six or twelve months the 25 could publish a political declaration and put it to ratification, with the Constitution eventually modified."
Trade unions and the constitution
Think of the time, respect and debate trade union members dedicate to their own constitutions. We study carefully what governs us. A quick EU bounce to totalitarianism was therefore never for us. A quick rejection was not on the cards either, so the French and Dutch have now opened a deeper debate. We need to leave the EU altogether. The Constitution is the tip of the iceberg.
In Britain trade unionists came in painfully late, and without Trade Unionists Against the European Union Constitution (www.tuaeuc.org.uk), who knows what would have happened? Certainly there was a danger that, had the unions solidly supported the EU Constitution, Blair may have sold off our rebate and stormed ahead with a public campaign for a Yes vote. As it is, forces are now mustered for Britain to contemplate seriously leaving the EU and thereby fulfil our internationalist and socialist aspirations.
Governed by corpses
It was trade unionists, socialists and communists in France and the Netherlands who led the campaign for a no vote on the EU Constitution. It was the same in the nine countries, especially Germany, where referendums were denied but the people were opposed. Only workers in Spain, through their mass abstention in their referendum, lagged behind. The Constitution would not have stood the test of the people in any other country in Europe. You can't resurrect a corpse, but we are governed by corpses in the shape of the Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice treaties and a government with no interest in our own destiny as an independent nation. The current treaties are enough to create the imperialist momentum of the EU.
TUC an embarrassment
Strong opposition to the single currency has been consistently expressed at the TUC over the last few years and this was a major factor in preventing Britain joining that particular disaster — despite a TUC international department so consistently bad that the week after the French Non vote, it was again pumping out misleading information as if nothing had happened, extolling the virtues of the EU. Quite simply, Tony Blair and John Monks could not get their funders to back them on either the euro or the Constitution. They will now get nasty.
The call we successfully made for a referendum should any government be foolhardy enough to propose joining the euro was also important. It was members of TUAEUC who started to turn around the mindless acceptance of all things European Union in the trade unions this year who ensured that none of them, including the four largest, would support the Constitution in a British referendum.
There has been a real mood change as a result of holding honest debate in the official structures of the movement. Something the TUC General Council never did.
|
The EU never wanted to put its Constitution to referendums. As Dutch foreign minister Bernard Bot said, "We always said that this subject matter was far too complex to be made the subject of a referendum."
So why did they risk referendums? Because, in the 2005 election and after, Labour promised us a referendum on the Constitution, in order to stop its unpopular pro-Constitution policy being an issue in the election. On 13 May, Blair said, "Even if the French voted No, we would have a referendum. This is a government promise."
Well, we all know what that's worth.
When the French voted, Blair declared immediately, through Stephen Byers and Kinnock, that the Treaty was dead and there would not be a referendum here. Given the EU's history of seeking second referendums in countries who defeat them, as previously in Ireland and Denmark, Jack Straw, once a fervent anti-Common Marketeer of course, kept the door open to a future referendum here, and to cherry picking from the defeated document. Opportunists never change. A referendum remains the best way of ending the uncertainty and war of attrition that the EU will now launch. (See CPBM-L statement)
But now Blair is terrified of a referendum and of debate, because the debates in France and Holland produced the No victories. The Constitution says (in Article IV-443) that if, after two years from the Treaty being signed, twenty member states have ratified it and others have encountered difficulties, the matter will be referred to the European Council. Ten have so far ratified it; seven are due to have referendums. Blair is desperate to stop any other countries having referendums and failing to ratify the Constitution.
He promised us a referendum in order to get out of one fix, now he wants to break the promise in order to get out of another. He is trying to ditch the promised referendum, not the Constitution.
Blair signed us up to the Treaty Establishing the Constitution for Europe, without asking us, on 29 October 2004. We are stuck with it, until we say that we are not.
In the real world, every nation affected by a treaty has the right to veto it. Even the treaty's Article IV-447 says it cannot enter into force until all 25 EU members have deposited their instruments of ratification. The French and Dutch votes mean that the French and Dutch governments cannot, as things stand, ratify the treaty, so it cannot enter into force.
The French and Dutch peoples have wounded the Constitution, but it is not dead yet. Saying that it is already dead would mean sending us all back to sleep. The treaty will not be dead until we make them withdraw it completely.
The more countries that have referendums, the better: each one makes it harder for the EU to impose the Constitution, in whole or in part. A Mori poll held after the French and Dutch referendums found that 67% of us want a referendum on the Constitution.
Finish it off
We should not drop this referendum weapon that has so hurt the Constitution. We must demand the promised referendum so that we can finish it off. Blair admits that the referendum would benefit what he calls the europhobes, that is, most of the British people — an ICM poll shows that 64% would vote against the Constitution and just 20% for.
After rejecting the Constitution, we must go on to reject the EU's unwritten Constitution, its capitalist essence, by leaving the EU.