By Michael Faulkner – December 18, 2011
The Europhobic wing of the parliamentary Tory party, which
these days encompasses almost all their back benchers and some members of the
cabinet, is in full-throated battle mode against the EU. At the time of writing
(8 December) David Cameron is due to arrive in Brussels for yet another crisis
summit. He does so with their demands that he “stand firm for British
interests” ringing in his ears. They insist that any proposal to revise the
Lisbon treaty must be put to a referendum in Britain. As treaty revision is
precisely what the German and French governments have in mind as a means to
pushing through a tighter fiscal union within the Eurozone, this puts Cameron
in a tight spot. Earlier this year the coalition government signed up to the
European Union Act according to which a referendum could only be called in the
event that important UK powers were to be transferred to the EU. A revision of
the Lisbon treaty which only affected the countries of the Eurozone would not
be sufficient to trigger a referendum in Britain and if Cameron were to attempt
to play that card in Brussels, he would get short shrift from Merkel and
Sarkozy – and probably from everyone else. Likewise with the demand that
certain powers be repatriated from Brussels to Westminster, Cameron is unlikely
to get very far. Tory MPs want to tear up those more progressive EU employment laws protecting workers’ rights
and conditions of work. In the
name of “defending British industry” from interference by Brussels, Cameron has
pledged to safeguard the independence of the City of London. “The City” refers
to the “financial services industry”, the big international banks and finance
houses that have over the past twenty five years or so found London to be a
safe haven of “light touch” regulation. Since the destruction of what was left
of Britain’s manufacturing base in the 1980s, this is the only “industry” that
is thriving in the UK. Safeguarding the independence of the City of London
means resisting any attempt (a) to impose a financial transaction (Tobin) tax
and (b) to separate investment from retail banking. Both these measures, were
they to be adopted, would go some way to reining in an “industry” that a few
years ago brought the whole economy to the brink of catastrophe, but has
subsequently reverted to “business as usual”.
Although the right-wing Europhobes are mostly motivated by
narrow English nationalism, they tap into a wider mood of resentment against
what is reasonably perceived as bureaucratic disdain for democracy in the halls
of EU power. This has been most evident in the peremptory way that elected
governments in Greece and Italy have been sidelined and their leaders replaced
by “technocrats” when it was felt they were insufficiently compliant, or
incapable of implementing the austerity programmes dictated as quid pro quo for
retaining them within the Eurozone. In countries of somewhat lax fiscal probity
such as Greece and Italy, popular resentment has been less against the EU as
such than against the stronger northern European states, particularly Germany. This
has become especially inflamed in Greece where memories of a brutal Nazi
occupation are deeply ingrained. In Germany itself, the folk-memory of the
great inflation of 1923 has haunted successive generations, brought up on the
belief that it led inevitably to Hitler and the Second World War. Germans have
been only too happy to exchange the discipline of the drill square imposed
between 1933 and 1945 for a democratized protestant work ethic that they feel,
with some justification, has enabled them to become the productive power house
of Europe. The darker side of this, though, may be seen in a growing resentment
and impatience against those whose perceived fecklessness and dishonesty at the
Germans’ expense now seem to put at risk their hard won prosperity. The sense
of superiority this has engendered has led to revived concerns about a new
German bid to dominate Europe. While such concerns may be exaggerated or
groundless, the erosion of democratic procedures in the EU cannot be so easily
ignored. Resentment at this is evident in the fierce defense of national
identity in the Greek anti-austerity protests. Anger and resistance are likely
to spread elsewhere as national parliaments are sidelined and austerity
measures intensified.
December 10. The two days that have elapsed since the preceding paragraphs were
written have served to render them no more than a preface to the main story.
There is a famous cartoon by David Low which appeared in the
Evening Standard on June 18 1940. It depicts a lone British Tommy standing,
fist raised and defiant, on the storm-swept channel coast facing darkening
clouds from the European continent and approaching Luftwaffe bombers. It
carries the caption “VERY WELL, ALONE”. The cartoon appeared just a month after
Churchill had replaced Chamberlain as prime minister and ten days after the
evacuation from Dunkirk. A week later France capitulated to the Germans and the
whole of western Europe lay under the Nazi jackboot. Britain stood alone.
This is the spirit that the Europhobic Tory press and the
triumphant gaggle of Tory backbenchers now invoke following David Cameron’s
return from Brussels. They seek to present his cheap and specious claim to have
defended Britain’s vital interests by vetoing the EU-wide treaty intended to prevent
the collapse of the euro, as an act of Churchillian grit and courage in the
face of overwhelming adversity. But this is definitely not Britain’s finest
hour. In fact it is more like the shabbiest act by a British prime minister in
living memory. While still in opposition, Cameron de-coupled the Tory party
from the centre-right grouping of EU conservatives, to join up with the most
right-wing ultra-nationalists in Eastern Europe. This was to reinforce his Eurosceptic
credentials with his own backbenchers. Far from recalling Churchill in 1940,
Cameron’s trumpeted defense of Britain’s vital interests is reminiscent of
Chamberlain’s return from Munich in 1938, claiming that he had defended
Britain’s interests by securing “peace in our time”. He also received a
rapturous reception in the House of Commons from an adoring Tory party. But,
just as then, the euphoria will not last long once the dust has settled.
The likelihood now is that Cameron will have isolated
Britain from the rest of the EU, not just the 17 members of the Eurozone but
also the nine that remain outside. They have refused to follow him in vetoing
the proposed revision of the Lisbon treaty and seem likely to sign up to
whatever procedures may now follow to consolidate tighter fiscal union amongst
the seventeen. To have used the veto to protect the City of London from a
financial transaction tax in the name of defending Britain’s vital interests, hardly
accords with the coalition government’s supposed commitment to tighter
regulation of banks. It will be interesting to see whether the Lib. Dems in the
cabinet will insist that the government accepts the report by the Independent Commission on Banking
recommending that high street banks be ringfenced from investment banks. But it
is doubtful whether Cameron’s action to “protect the City” will succeed. The
Association of British Insurers, which lobbied hard against a financial
transaction tax, believes that the British veto might not prevent the passage
of EU legislation that could still “damage the financial services industry in
Britain.”
Cameron went to Brussels determined to veto the proposed
treaty revision come what may. He knew that to have acceded to it would have
meant a full-scale backbench revolt which would have made it virtually
impossible to resist the demand for a referendum. This would have torn the
coalition apart. But whatever
satisfaction he may draw from the cheers of his Europhobic supporters is likely
to be short-lived. The Europhobes hope and expect that this is the first act in
a drama that will end with Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. They
also think (and hope) that the present crisis in the EU will end with the
collapse of the euro and the break-up of the union. Such an outcome can no
longer be dismissed as fanciful. But to imagine that having jumped ship the UK
can stand by and watch the European enterprise sink beneath the waves (or to
use Tory grandee Michael Heseltine’s metaphor, to imagine that the UK can drift
off into the Atlantic) is naïve in the extreme. If the EU breaks up, the UK,
whether inside or out, will be irreparably damaged. Notwithstanding the
delusions of the little Englander Europhobes, the whole of Europe, including
the UK, is sliding into a deep recession. The ruling classes of Europe will, as
always, seek to resolve their crisis at the expense of the working people who
were not responsible for causing it.
There is little to indicate that the measures contemplated
by the EU leaders are likely to be any more effective in dealing with the
crisis than those already undertaken. The present disputes reflect conflicts of
interest between the ruling classes of the strongest European powers. Germany
has the most powerful economy in Europe and as the dominant force in the EU is
determined to impose fiscal discipline on its recalcitrant southern
subordinates. But the Germans are determined to resist allowing the European
Central bank to be used to prop up defaulting and potentially defaulting
countries of the “southern periphery”. So far, there is no indication of how,
short of allowing the ECB to undertake “quantitative easing” (printing money)
on a large scale (which would be in the teeth of German opposition) the
European Financial Stability Fund will be able to accumulate the 2 – 3
trillion euros said to be necessary to meet such eventualities. Given that
there seems to be no workable solution in sight, all the “crisis summits”
appear to be doomed to failure. So, the collapse of the eurozone , and possibly
the EU itself, cannot be ruled out.
Whatever happens in coming weeks and months, one thing is
certain: the 1% will continue to try to shift the burden of their crisis onto
the 99%. Whether they succeed will depend upon how effectively resistance
develops. Every effort must be made, everywhere, to ensure that it does.