Socialist Alliance votes "no to euro"

Submitted by martin on 13 October, 2002 - 9:17

The "no to the euro" motion won at the Socialist Alliance euro-conference, on 12 October, by 202 votes to 108 with one abstention.

Our "active boycott" composite lost by 107 votes to 199 with two abstentions. A "no" motion from Hyman Frankel on explicitly nationalist grounds was defeated with only one vote in favour. Dave Landau's motion which recommended continuing the debate was lost by 75 to 213 with 4 abstentions.

In the opinion of all the comrades I spoke to, we won the debate on the merits of the argument. Speeches for our case which were especially appreciated came from Kat Fletcher and Faz Velmi of AWL and Mark Hoskisson of Workers' Power. The "no" motion was moved by Alan Thornett of the ISG, and supported from the floor notably by John Rees and Alex Callinicos of the SWP.

Evidently the SWP's last-minute efforts to mobilise a sufficient chunk of their membership were sufficient. On our side we suffered from poor attendance by pro-boycott "unaffiliated" Socialist Alliance members and from Workers' Power.

Maybe 50 comrades attended an after-conference get-together at a pub near the conference hall. There was some argument over Dave Landau's motion between AWL and RDG, who had supported it, and CPGB/WW, who had opposed it. The CPGB/WW did agree that they would continue to argue for the "active boycott"/Workers' Europe line rather than considering themselves now bound by SA discipline to support the "no".

We all agreed that the SWP is now likely to try to take the Socialist Alliance into a "Stop the Euro Campaign" modelled on the Stop the War Campaign, together with the CPB, Bob Crow, Mick Rix, Tony Benn, etc. This will contradict the letter of their "no" motion at the 12 October conference, which called for a "no" on a non-nationalist basis (as if such a thing were possible). AWL comrades argued that in the trade unions we should oppose support for such a "Stop the Euro Campaign".

Comments

Re: Socialist Alliance votes

Submitted by AWL on Sun, 13/10/2002 - 14:04

Comrades who are faced with a 'No-euro' campaign in their unions might like to check out the No-euro.com site, where I found this:

'The Eurozone economies have far higher levels of business regulation. France has recently introduced a 35-hour week on all businesses, and Germany has increased the power of Works Councils. Despite British Government rhetoric that the Eurozone is reforming, this is not the reality of what is happening. The recent Barcelona Summit on economic reform ended with no genuine policies agreed. Inside the euro we would find it far more difficult to resist moves towards increasing levels of red tape.

By keeping the pound we can keep control of our economy, maintain our stability, and protect our business climate. '

Sign up now for the non-nationalist, socialist, pro-pound campaign. Who wants a 35-hpur week or health and safety 'red tape' anyway?

e-mail: office at workersliberty.org

Re: Socialist Alliance votes

Submitted by Clive on Sun, 13/10/2002 - 23:51

I was intrigued by the parallel drawn at the conference by Alan Thornett, moving the 'no' motion, between the Euro and military dictatorship. Since we are not indifferent to whether there is dictatorship or democracy, comrade Thornett suggested, we should also not be indifferent to whether there is the Euro or.... Well, logically the pound, though he was also dismissive of the argument that being opposed to the euro means you favour old-fashioned sterling. It's worth thinking this analogy through. If we were living under military dictatorship, it's true we would want a return to democracy. (We'd fight for more than limited bourgeois democracy, but certainly it would be preferable to rule by the army). If we had the euro, though - as many countries do - would we favour abolishing it? In Portugal, for example, would we be in favour of scrapping the euro and returning to the escudo?

It seems to me not only would we not be in favour of such a thing, but if anyone was proposing it, we would denounce them for the absurd nationalist blind-alley they were putting forward. Portuguese workers face attacks on their living standards, etc... and the answer is... back to the escudo! The idea is too narrowly, absurdly nationalistic and idiotic to require much discussion.