back to front - dirty dealing
WORKERS, JULY 2004 ISSUE
IT LOOKS like we now have a new word in the language: "toilettage". And a fitting word it is to describe the process of attempting to remove the stench from the European Constitution in order to convince the nations of the European Union to accept it (there will be a full analysis in the next edition of Workers). Blair talks of a triumph, but then he talks about everything as a triumph. In fact it is the biggest shift of power from Britain since the Roman invasion. We'd better all prepare for a massive barrage of spin.
Meanwhile, a new level is to be added to the EU superstructure - a European diplomatic service. Under new proposals to be incorporated into the constitution, the "European external action service" will promote the new common foreign and security policy.
There are already 123 EU missions abroad, which deal with trade and "aid" (interesting that these two are put together - they are one and the same: Nothing to do with charity and everything to do with profits). The diplomatic posts will no doubt be highly sought after by existing national diplomats and civil servants from the EU council of ministers. Welcome to the gravy train.
Why does the EU need a foreign minister with a fully-fledged diplomatic corps? Because the clear intention is to create a European state machine, armed with its own constitution and laws that take precedence over national laws. Member states' control over this body will be nil, as the commission effectively takes the decisions, with the European parliament existing to provide the semblance of democracy.
How could a parliament in Brussels possibly represent rule by the peoples of the 25 far-away member states? This set-up is an obvious sham, and the recent European elections showed that the peoples of the member states know this very well.
And what do the low turnouts in the elections show? The local elections showed that workers don't believe that the Labour party can run local services. In London, only the sheer awfulness of the Conservative candidate let Labour back in. And the Euro elections, once again, showed how much we detest the EU.
The government's introduction of postal voting for four regions in the local elections was a fiasco, a disaster, cynical and incompetent gerrymandering - and that's just what The Independent wrote! It didn't save Labour from losing Newcastle, Leeds and St Helens, or from its worst ever performance in local elections, coming third behind the Liberal Democrats. Clearly, Labour itself is an electoral liability.
As for the BNP, nationally it now has 17, rather than 16, councillors. In Burnley it came fourth, winning only one of the eight seats that it was contesting and losing the only one it was defending. The British working class has far too much sense to vote for the BNP, and we don't need the parliamentary parties and the "left" to tell us not to vote for it.
In the Euro elections, the United Kingdom Independence Party's vote rose by 11%. Labour yet again went for the wrong target: it was not the BNP that was threatening it, but UKIP.
Across the European Union, turnout dropped to another new record low. In the ten new EU members, turnout was only 28.7%. Workers in all the EU member nations do not support the EU. We have all refused our rulers any mandate for signing their sullied EU Constitution.
The results reflect the national disgust with Labour's permanent delusion that only outside forces can solve Britain's problems. Allying with the USA does not make us safer or freer. Being in the EU does not make us richer or freer.
The election message is that workers are rejecting the parliamentary parties and want Britain to be independent and sovereign.