Less EU empire building and more republicanism

BY MICHAEL BURKE
Independent economic commentator and writer for Socialist Economic Bulletin

Cameron refused to make a deal with other EU leaders in a bid to protect British high finance

JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS, the DUP won a vote for a motion it tabled in the House of Commons. It is extremely unusual for an opposition party to win a parliamentary vote. But the DUP is not really an opposition party at all and the motion was to congratulate the Tory-led Government on its disastrous handling of the recent Brussels summit.
Politically, given the potential for a rift between the Tories and their LibDem coalition partners, the motion sent a clear signal. It was the DUP telling the Tories that they can be counted on in the event of any coalition break-up.
In the British parliament the unionist parties tend to be dominated by those elements who will not accept the realities of power-sharing in the Six Counties. They are mainly hold-outs against the Peace Process. But the British Prime Minister refused to make a deal with the other EU leaders explicitly in a bid to protect the interests of the British high finance in the City of London. What is the link between the unionist naysayers, Tory backwoodsmen, David Cameron and London’s financial district?
The City dominates British political life not because it is highly profitable. Its net profits and losses over the last 10 years are somewhere close to zero. It has been a net drain on taxpayers and large chunks of it have been nationalised to save it from bankruptcy. It is important because it dominates all other sectors of the economy and it is one of the very few areas in which Britain competes successfully.
The EU agreed a system of permanent cuts at the Brussels summit. It wants to sugarcoat this extremely bitter pill by increased regulation of the financial sector. Much of this is cosmetic, like the so-called ‘Financial Transactions Tax’. But if it does curb financial excesses at all, it is the City of London that will be the biggest loser. Tory Eurosceptics delight in anything that upsets EU plans but it is clear that Cameron believes everything else can be sacrificed except the City.
Yet the unionists behave like the City’s lapdogs even though there is no benefit  to anyone in Ireland from promoting the interests of London’s financial centre. It is isolationism that the unionists welcome as Britain looks increasingly isolated in Europe — they have been practising it themselves now for 90 years. In the Commons debate, unionist MPs explicitly talked of the threat to the County Down fishing industry and the agri-foods businesses of the North from integration with Europe. No mention of the EU market of 500million people, all of them needing to eat and so potential customers for Irish fish and Irish farm produce, or any other goods or services.
This is because the EU provides the market, it does not provide the customer. To win those, businesses have to invest. The business sector in the North of Ireland is cut off from the rest of Europe because of its political dominance by Britain. With a tiny domestic market it has never invested sufficiently to compete internationally. As a result, it sees a huge market as a threat, not an opportunity. Economically, unionist isolationism is the political expression of the uncompetitive business sector of the North of Ireland.
The republican tradition has always been the opposite of narrow isolationism. Freedom from British rule was sought so that Irish people could enjoy the freedoms granted to all nations. Tone, Emmet, the Fenians and Connolly were all internationalists to their marrow. They placed the struggle for Irish national freedom in the context of the international struggle for freedom and equality.
But of course that does not mean now supporting the latest permanent programme for cuts that has been agreed in Brussels, which is designed to bind all EU countries to the diktats of unelected EU officials in the way that has already happened in Ireland and in Greece. That is not integration but empire building, and the Irish have had enough of that already.
And it does not mean adopting a version of unionist isolationism or supporting David Cameron. His great promise to the British people is that, ‘I refuse to accept EU bureaucrats imposing cuts and dismantling the welfare state. That’s my job’.
Instead, progressive forces all across Europe are looking for leadership on an alternative programme. Many are militantly opposed to the cuts. Some have begun to call for shifting the burden of the crisis towards the rich, the banks and big business. Sinn Féin has adopted a programme of increasing investment to overcome a depression whose main cause is the lack of business investment. This is a policy which can unify all the forces in Europe genuinely opposed to cuts.
For the North, this means more Europe, not less, and begins with integration of the two separate economies, North and South. For the whole of Europe this means less empire building and much more republicanism: a commitment to much greater freedom, equality and justice for the people of Europe.