This comes from The Morning Star.
EUROPEAN elections on June 4 will be electrified by new left-wing electoral alliance No2EU – Yes to Democracy, which launched on Thursday.
Candidates are set to reach out to millions of voters across Britain, forcefully challenging the neoliberal economic onslaught from the authoritarian EU.
Rail union RMT general secretary Bob Crow, who is convener of the new platform, said millions of working people “feel abandoned by the main political parties.”
At the Westminster launch event, Mr Crow warned of a grave danger that, in the midst of the economic crisis, too many voters will be duped into voting for far-right parties such as the BNP. He denounced the EU as “basically an arm of global capital designed to extend privatisation and make bigger gains for big business.”
He explained: “No2EU – Yes to Democracy is an electoral platform, not a party, and our candidates will not sit in the European Parliament in the event of winning any seats.”
Coventry councillor and former Labour MP Dave Nellist said that, once the EU elections were over, supporters of the new platform would hold a convention to discuss tactics for the future.
Mr Nellist declared that the new alliance would “shake up the political establishment” and that, otherwise, there would only be a “sterile debate” in the EU elections. He added that “you cannot get a cigarette paper” between the three major parties.
He warned of “the risk of the rise of xenophobia and the far-right parties unless a working-class alternative is put forward in this election.” The risk was particularly strong in the West Midlands and Yorkshire, he reported.
The No2EU website went live yesterday morning. It exposes the EU constitution, now called the Lisbon Treaty, as a vehicle for imposing Thatcherite economic policies at a time when “this discredited neoliberal agenda is falling apart.” A host of political activists and trade unionists have already signed up to support the new alliance.
Communist Party of Britain general secretary Rob Griffiths is among prominent supporters, along with Young Communist League general secretary Ben Stevenson.
Morning Star circulation manager Ivan Beavis joined Thursday’s launch, declaring that the paper’s support was consistent with its “long record of solidarity with the labour movement.”
Socialist Party deputy leader Hannah Sell slammed the Lisbon Treaty as a “bosses’ charter” and hailed the new electoral alliance as “part of the process of helping to solve the crisis.”
The British people “do not want a return to the 1930s,” she said.
Indian Workers Association vice-president Avtar Sadiq slammed the EU internal market rules for creating “a race to the bottom in terms of wages and conditions inside the EU and a fortress Europe mentality.”
Mr Sadiq said the association’s support for the new platform was in line with its 70 years of anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggle.
Visit www.no2eu.com for more information about the platform.
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