The Irish No

A socialist in Ireland looks at the vote there
to reject the EU’s proposed Treaty of Lisbon.

On the 12th of June, voters in the Republic of Ireland rejected a constitutional proposal to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. The rejection has caused ripples across Europe and provoked a lively and continuing discussion in the letters pages of the newspapers and in radio phone-in programmes. It is a quintessential example of what passes for ‘politics’ under capitalism with heated debate amongst the protagonists and yet the result is as irrelevant to most people as the composition of government here after the next election. Closer inspection of the campaign and its aftermath reveals all the pointlessness, chicanery and opportunism of mainstream politics.

The European Union (although that wasn’t its name at the time) was founded by six, reasonably like-minded European countries by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The aim then (and still now) was to make capitalism more efficient throughout the continent by organising it on a pan-European scale. The basic tenets of permitting the free movement of capital, goods and ‘labour’ (people in the real world) between member states had the intention of giving capitalists the opportunity to conduct their business in the most profitable location at any moment in time. Over the last 50 years the Union has grown so that it now has nearly 30 member countries ranging from the Mediterranean, to the Nordic states and includes most of the pre-1990 Eastern bloc. In fact most countries in Europe are now either members, candidate members, associate members or at a minimum aspirational members. Like any organisation, as it has evolved over time, its governing rules require continual amendments and the Lisbon Treaty is the latest such initiative. The main thrust of all these successive amendments has been to put flesh on and develop the principle of free movement and free trade within Europe.

The problem for the EU is that there is no longer unanimity amongst what may be termed the European capitalist class as to how the Union should develop and what are the appropriate rules for possibly completing structures for it. The Irish referendum debate and result is a manifestation of this and illustration of how the governing ideas in society are those of the capitalist elite. One section of the capitalist class, controlling large multi-national enterprises that are involved in international manufacture and tradable services are extremely concerned about global competition from the USA, China, India, South America etc. They want to see more integration of capitalism within Europe by the dismantling of any remaining national barriers in order to strengthen their position with respect to these external competitors. Some of this programme would involve having a uniform tax base throughout Europe and a ‘Services Directive’ whereby capitalists in any country in the Union would have open access to markets in all the other countries and not be hindered by any local labour or other regulations. Broadly this section of the capitalist class has the approval of the Brussels Commission, the ruling administration of the EU. Furthermore as part of this programme, they are prepared to accept a stronger social element to the EU in terms of certain aspects of workers rights to in effect partly compensate workers for the increased competitive environment in which they will have to sell their labour. This political philosophy usually goes by the name of Christian or Social Democracy where capitalist engage with the organised labour movement taking a long term view of the benefits to profits that stem from stability and social cohesion. As against that there is another rival section to the capitalist class. These generally operate smaller businesses acting in predominately national markets or trading almost exclusively with individual countries outside Europe such as the USA. They see no real need or advantage to be gained from deeper collaboration and are at a minimum, suspicious or completely opposed to these developments. To them other capitalists within Europe are as much a threat as those outside the EU. They also tend to be more resistant to the social aspects of Europe viewing it as a cost that confers no particular advantage to them.

Within Ireland, this uncertainty or confusion in the ruling circles of Europe also manifested itself. On the Yes or pro-treaty side was an uneasy and in parts unlikely alliance consisting of most of the important political parties, the employers’ umbrella organisation IBEC, the corresponding labour organisation, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and important sectional groups such as the Farmers organisations. The political parties, although they spend huge time and effort in ritualistic attacks on each other, basically share the same Christian Democratic ethos which fits in with the EU philosophy and explains their support for the Treaty. Given the predominance of multi-national companies in Ireland’s industrial portfolio (who located here specifically to take advantage of membership of the EU), it was no surprise that IBEC also solicited a yes vote. The unions’ governing body, the ICTU was won over by the social concessions in the Treaty and a desire to be in line with the mainstream labour movement on the continent.

The anti-Treaty side was even more motley in terms of its make-up and consisted of two entirely disparate streams (one from the Right and one from the Left) each in turn containing a myriad of sub-organisations. >From the right of the political spectrum were prominent businessmen such as Ben Dunne (retail), Ulick McEvaddy (airlines) and most prominently Declan Ganley (communications). Joining them were a variety of free-market commentators, staunch and unchanging Europhobes and some reactionary populists. The main plank of their opposition to the Lisbon Treaty could be summarised by the lessening of Ireland’s influence within Europe due to the proposed loss of automatic national Commissioners and less ability for Ireland to set independent tax and national macro-economic policies. This Rightist element of the No campaign also included a curious assortment of very traditional and conservative nationalists and extreme Catholics worried about threats to Ireland’s sovereignty and ability to set independent (i.e. Catholic) social policies. The Left side of opposition to Lisbon also had a multitude of identifiable sub-groups each with its own grievance. Although the Green Party is part of the government, a dissident wing of the Green Party opposed the centralising tendencies inherent in the Treaty. Sinn Fein claimed to be concerned about the effect on the position of Irish workers of unrestricted access to the Irish market by foreign capitalists and also were unhappy with the increasing role of a potential European army and its effect on Ireland’s traditional neutrality. The Greens and Sinn Fein were joined in their opposition by a large number of small groups of Leftist, Trotskyite, Anarchist, ‘Anti-War’ and some bizarre single-issue protest organisations (Rural Hospitals, Palestinian Solidarity, etc.).