THE latest attempt to advance, by sleight of hand, to a united capitalist state of the European Union for the benefit of the continent’s bosses and bankers has failed, after the Irish workers voted no and threw the Lisbon treaty into the dustbin of history.
This reveals that such a European capitalist state will never be established with the consent of the people, and that the Hitler method of imperialist war is the only way that it can be done.
So far fourteen countries out of the 27 have completed ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. This has been done by their parliaments substituting themselves for the people.
Through this method the hope was that the treaty would come into force on 1 January 2009.
However, over the last seven years the clear opposition of the working class of Europe to an EU state, run for the bosses and the bankers, has been emerging.
In 2001, the Irish workers almost wrecked EU plans to expand eastwards when they rejected the Nice treaty.
It was only passed when the Irish government called a second referendum and threatened the population with hell on earth if they dared to vote it out again.
Then in 2005 when the anti-working class, bosses nature of the EU had become much clearer, the draft constitution for the EU was rejected in referendums by the French and Dutch workers.
This led to the scrapping of the remaining referendums in the remaining EU states, and to the scrapping of the draft constitution.
The Lisbon Treaty was meant to establish the constitution through parliamentary votes, leaving the mass of the people out of the action.
The British Labour Prime Minister has been in the forefront of this attempt to cheat the people, insisting repeatedly that there could be no British referendum on the Lisbon treaty.
The Irish government would have liked to have done the same, but were cornered by the fact that a referendum was a requirement of the Irish constitution.
Yesterday, with every party except Sinn Fein supporting a ‘yes’ vote, the masses voted ‘NO’!
This has scrapped the Lisbon treaty
Three million Irish voters have acted for tens of millions of European workers.
Yesterday the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union trade union spoke out to reveal just how the class nature of the EU has impressed itself on Irish workers.
The General Secretary Designate Eamon Devoy welcomed the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty.
He said: ‘Unfortunately recent key judgements by the European Court of Justice show that the pendulum has swung against workers’ rights and in favour of big business. In the circumstances it would be foolish to provide the institutions of the European Union with any more power.
‘Our concerns were heightened by the refusal of the Government to give any commitment to SIPTU to vindicate the right to collective bargaining of Irish workers if they voted for the Treaty. We have seen a sustained attack on working conditions since the adoption of the Nice Treaty. Why would workers vote for more of the same?’
British workers have also experienced the class reality of the EU, the latest outrage being the Balpa pilots’ strike action against wage and pension cuts being declared illegal, after the Treaty of Rome was said to allow a company to establish a branch in another EU state and pay much lower wages and impose much inferior conditions.
It now seems clear as millions of road hauliers, fishermen, teachers, civil servants rise up throughout the EU that the game is up.
The trade unions are now organising internationally.
The working class will have to do the same politically.
This means establishing sections of the Fourth International in every European country to organise to clear away the rubble of the European Union and advance through socialist revolutions to the Socialist United States of Europe.
This will develop a European wide planned economy based not on superprofits but on satisfying people’s needs.
