24 February 2021

Revision to the Draft Programme (Europe)

Agreed at a joint aggregate of CPGB and LPM members on January 23 2021. A report of the discussion of the theses was published in Weekly Worker 1332, available on the WW archive here

 

Old version of section 3.1.6 (Europe)

Communists oppose all programmes and demands for a British withdrawal from the European Union. By the same measure we oppose the EU of commissioners, corruption and capital. However, as the political, bureaucratic and economic elite has created the reality of a confederal EU, the working class should take it, not the narrow limits of the nation-state, as its decisive point of departure.

The constituent national parts of the EU exhibit a definite commonality due to geography, culture, history, economics and politics. Put another way, the EU is not an empire kept together by force. Nor is it just a trading bloc. Far from capitalism pushing through what is objectively necessary – the unity of Europe – on the contrary capitalism has held back European unification.

For the working class that necessitates organising at an EU level: campaigns, trade unions, cooperatives, for the levelling up of working conditions and wages across Europe to the best status quo currently in force, and the fight for extreme democracy. Communists want not a quasi-democratic, confederal EU, but a united Europe under the rule of the working class.

Abolish the EU commission. Abolish the council of ministers. Power to the EU parliament. For a democratically controlled European Central Bank. Towards indivisible European unity. Naturally, to the degree the working class extends its power over the EU it will exercise attraction for the oppressed peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Such a bloc would be able to face down all threats and quickly spread the flame of universal liberation.

New version of section 3.1.6 (Europe)

Far from pushing through the unity of Europe capitalism has held back what is objectively necessary. National rivalries, short-term interests, stoking-up national chauvinism and subordination to US imperialism has allowed for nothing more than a weak, creaking, bickering quasi-democratic European Union.

Communists stand for the abolition of the EU commission and council of ministers, of the treaties which require unanimous agreement of states to amend them, and of the unaccountable Court of Justice. Instead we seek a united Europe democratically ruled by the working class.

Towards that end we have a vital interest in organising across Europe: trade unions; cooperatives; campaigns for the levelling up of wages, conditions and rights; coordination between communist groups and parties; etc.

No European country alone is capable of taking decisive action on a global scale. Those days are long gone and will never return. True, a workers’ Europe might be subject to blockades and attempts to isolate it, but that will not be easy. The flame of liberation will surely spread to Asia, Africa and the Americas.

 

Note: The text as well as the other immediate demands are available here

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