Socialist Resistance

An archive of socialistresistance.org, 2002–2022

Socialist Alliance votes to campaign against the Euro

Socialist Resistance no2  |  page 18

This is scanned newsprint, not web text. The original PDFs carried no text layer at all, so every word here was read off the page by OCR. Expect dropped opening letters, run-together words and wrong characters. There was no contents page to cut the paper up by, so the articles were found from the size of their headlines: a headline may carry its kicker, and where an article ran beside a boxed panel a few lines of the neighbour can appear. The scanned issue is the authority; this text is here so the words can be found at all.

Just over 320 members of the Socialist Alliance conference on Europe, from across the country, attended the conference on European politics, held on October 12. The conference was divided into two parts, a decision making morning session designed to adopt a voting position in the Euro in the event of a referendum on British entry, and a more general discussion on European politics entitled: uniting the left across Europe. The first session debated four resolubons:

• one supported by the ISG, the SWP and others calling for a rejection of the Euro on a socialist, working class, and anti-nationalistic basis.

• the second called for an active boycott (in reality an abstention).

• the third called for a rejection of the Euro on the basis of its effects on national sovereignity - which was rightly opposed by the movers of the main no resolution.

• the fourth called on the Socialist Alliance not to take a position on the Euro on the basis that it is not an issue of profound principle

The resut of what was a very interesting and well argued debate was 207 to 108 in favour of the first no

The other resolutions were defeated.

i was good that. the SA had conductNV Tories have a free hand to put across their racist propaganda, but those who want to opposed the Euro for the best working class instincts, like many public sector workers would be un-represented. A no vote in a referendum would not only be a political blow to new Labour • it would be a political blow to an antiworking class project (the Europe of Maastricht) which is designed to attack the welfare state and strengthen the neo-liberal agenda. It was clear from the debate at the TUC on the Euro, that a change has taken place in the unions, with a growing challenge to John Monks' slavish support for the Euro which was dominant throughout the 1990s. Not only is the biggest union in Britain (UNISON) campaigning against the Euro, but most of the new left-wing general secretaries are against it as well. This mean that a non-nationalistic no campaign could gain significant trade union support. excerent speakers including Rifondazione Comunista from Italy, the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR) from France, the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), the English mobilisation committee for Florence, an FBU member reporting of the fire fighters dispute, and a speaker from the Stop the War Coalition.