DUTCH voters have delivered a hefty kick in the crotch to the EU Presidency currently held by Holland, also to the European Commission, the Dutch government and the Cameron government in the UK, who were depending on a ‘yes’ vote in Holland to remove trade barriers with the Ukraine, to pave the way for a victory for the ‘Remain’ faction in the UK referendum on the EU next June 23.
This rebuff was on a 32.2% turn-out – above the 30% threshold for the vote to be valid – and the deal was rejected by 61.1% of votes, compared with 38.1% in favour.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the government may have to reconsider the deal.
The vote was widely seen in the Netherlands as a test of public opinion towards the EU – not solely towards the Ukraine as such – that EU officials hoped would set the scene for a resounding victory for Cameron on June 23.
This scenario has now been shattered after an internet petition begun by Eurosceptics attracted more than 400,000 signatures. The result is a slap in the face for the Dutch government that currently holds the EU presidency and the Dutch parliament which approved the EU Association Agreement with Ukraine last year as well as all the other 27 EU member states that have already ratified the deal!
A spokesman for campaign group Leave.EU, Brian Monteith, said: ‘This humiliating rejection of the Ukraine agreement demonstrates that people don’t have to support the EU and its expansionist agenda to feel European.’
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev also welcomed the result, tweeting that it was an indication of the European attitude to Ukraine’s political system. The plain fact is that the Dutch people are opposed to the EU drive to the East that saw high EU officials addressing neo-fascist mobs in Maidan Square in 2014, an intervention that led to the EU-US-backed coup that overthrew President Yanukovych and imposed a government that immediately made war on the people of eastern Ukraine, a war that is still continuing and has killed thousands, creating many more refugees.
In the background to this vote was also the the killing of 298 people, when a Malaysia Airlines flight from Amsterdam was shot down in July 2014 over Ukraine. Holland lost 193 of its citizens. This attack was blamed on Russia by the US-UK and EU, who refused to consider just why the Ukrainian authorities were allowing passenger planes to fly through war zones!
The Dutch vote shows that the Dutch people are opposed to the EU’s imperialist drive eastwards, do not blame Russia or the people of the eastern Ukraine for the downing of the civilian jet and want nothing to do with the gangs if neo-fascists that currently masquerade as the Ukrainian government.
It is not only the Dutch workers that are opposed to the European Commission dictatorship that wants to expand the EU eastwards and also wants to privatise the EU wiping out all of the gains that workers have made. At the same time as the Dutch vote against the European Commission, French workers are taking to the streets to defend their rights, and Greek workers are fighting the latest massive attacks on their pensions and their pay!
It seems that the Dutch referendum result is causing severe panic attacks in the Tory government. It is now throwing caution to the winds and spending millions on pro-EU propaganda, as referendum day approaches. More and more, they are relying on the leadership of the UK trade unions, the TUC, and the leaders of the Unite and Unison trade unions to try and deliver the ‘Remain’ vote for them, regardless of the way that the EU is signing treaties internationally that will make privatisation irreversible, while it is treating refugees disgracefully, and creating new wars by its insistence on driving eastwards!
The fact is that the Dutch workers have struck a major blow for freedom. Their action must inspire the UK workers to sink the EU with a massive ‘Leave’ vote on June 23.