July 13, 2016

BREXIT Referendum

SWP, defender of AN “INDEPENDENT” IMPERIALIST GREAT BRITAIN
…Paying lip service to Socialism and in fact embracing chauvinism

Yes to Brexit, No to Brexit… It is heard on the streets of London, Edinburgh and throughout Europe. All across Europe left currents also discussed at the same time than the bourgeoisie if England should or shouldn’t leave the EU, carrying the UK exploited right to the trap of the referendum.
Both "stay" in and "exit" from the European Union, are two policies of imperialist bands; at the end of the day the workers always pay for the costs of the crisis. 

While thedifferent capitalist bands in the British Empire divided between the "Stay" or the "Leave", discussing over how best their transnational could be located in their disputes against the other imperialist powers in the EU, the New Left currents entered the trap of the referendum and wanted to make the masses believe that they had two options ahead for improving their life conditions going behind either band of the imperialism, be it Cameron or the other Tories or the Labour Party.

Neither the SWP-in anelectoral front with the British Communist Party-, and the RMT (Transport Workers Union) -that called to leave the EU-, nor the other British left currents linked to the bureaucracy of the TUC, or the British party linked to the French NPA, that called the working class to vote stay in the EU, in a "Maastricht United", have shown the workers any working class alternative. None of these currents declared war against the trap of the referendum, against the deception it meant for theworkers. Not a word was said about the breakthrough from the hardship suffered by the UK workers being a fight like and alongsidethe French youth and workers following thesteps of French May, of the Paris Commune,whohad gone to the streets with their factory and action committees in their thousands facing the labor precarization and the slashing of their conquests that the Government of Hollande wanted to impose.  French workers and youth showed the way, taking the solution of their problems in their own hands.

So today all these social imperialist currentshave placed themselves as conveyors of what the bourgeoisie need for being more aggressive and disputing their areas of influence in the world: to have a social base -broad sectors of the petty bourgeoisie and the labor aristocracy -. I.e. social base that support "British" bourgeois policies so that Britain can go to the world to dispute against the other imperialist powers with which it is in a trade war. What is to come will not be more health and education for the British people and immigrants as the SWP says, but more exploitation, plundering and misery in the colonies and semi-colonies, and worse life and work conditions for the British working class.

English SWP, fervent advocate of imperialist Britain, told the masses of the world that the best policy for Britain was voting in the referendum for leaving the EU with this rationale: being against “the EU that supports the TTIP (Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership)", and "the austerity programs imposed to Greece and other countries under the Troika", among other arguments.  The SWP wants the British and global working class to forget that the policy of 'their' British bourgeoisie, which with his Queen and all of their transnationals, super exploit the world workers and plunder entire Nations in Africa and all over the Pacific, is part of NATO, and has one of its military bases in the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands, that is a territory in the Argentina occupied by British imperialism.

To give just one example, when the heroic miners in Marikana in South Africa rose in 2012 and 2014, the SWP and its sister parties throughout southern Africa, did not raise that the Anglo American should be expropriated at "home" in London, and that pulling down the Queen of England the oppressed peoples would be liberated. The only thing they did was sending blankets and food to Marikana, such as any NGO.
It is not surprising that today these same currents have called workers to vote for "leave" the EU. They seek a more independent imperialist Britain… What does this mean? We are not speaking about a colonial or semi-colonial country, but of an imperialist power that plunders and exploits other Nations.

Both those who called to stay in the EU and those that called to vote to leave the EU are encouraging British nationalism and saying that the breakthrough for the British is within Great Britain lining up with a sector of the bourgeoisie. This leads to permeate the movement worker with social-chauvinism: "During the war (the 1WW) most of the worker parties of theadvanced capitalist countries turned to the side of their respective bourgeoisies." Lenin called this trend social-chauvinism: socialism in the words and chauvinism in the facts. … "The ideological-political content of opportunism and social-chauvinism are identical: class-collaboration rather than class struggle; support for its ‘own’ government when it is in dire straits instead of using those difficulties in favor of the revolution." (L.Trotsky: "Lenin and the imperialist war", 1938).

The bourgeoisie does not defend the homeland, but markets, the foreign concessions, sources of raw materials and spheres of influence. The bourgeoisie never defend the homeland for the sake of the homeland. Capital does not acknowledge borders. When its profits and its businesses are threatened, it is defeatist in its own nation. UK capitalists defend their business with the EU and Wall Street... not the working class of the United Kingdom, as the SWP would have us believe. That is the emergence of the capitalism about in its imperialist phase: greater decomposition and misery for the majority of the people.

"Imperialism hides its peculiar objectives - the conquest of colonies, markets, sources of raw materials and spheres of influence- covering them with ideas such as... ‘defense of the homeland’, ‘defense of democracy’, etc. These ideas are utterly false... Whereas none of the imperialist sides wages the war in defense of the homeland or democracy but to re - divide the world and enslave the colonies, a Socialist is not entitled to prefer some bandits against the others. .. Combating Philistine and bourgeois chauvinism and 'patriotism' in all countries should be relentless."  (Idem)
This is the big lie that the British SWP wants to impose on the labor movement: that a bourgeois fraction "defends the homeland, the nation". But this is small surprise: its policy is continuity of the policy of the Trade Unions, which according to the Labour Party, said "British jobs for the British workers" and left the immigrants and their children, who fought in 2011 for work and better living conditions -to their fate blaming them for the crisis the capitalists have created.

The New Left endorsed the referendum; they were part of this trap, silencing that the imperialists may unify and divorceat will in order to exploit us best, so we continue paying for the cost of the crisis. So did the German social Democracy that on 4 August 1914 voted for the German government war budget, carrying workers to that carnage, the 1WW, that is, to kill each other for "their" imperialist governments’ business.

Thus, today, the British imperialist bourgeoisie has scored a reactionary triumph because it began to develop a social-chauvinist movement against Germany, France and other imperialist powers, which they are facing in a trade war, i.e., leaning on the upper layers of the working class, well-to-do middle-class managed to gain support for British imperialism with the deception of "defense of the homeland". Once again, as Lenin used to say: "the economic basis of social-chauvinism and opportunism is the same: the interests of a tiny layer of privileged workers and the petty bourgeoisie, who defend their exceptional situation and their "right"to receive a few crumbs of the benefits 'their' national bourgeoisie gets from the looting of other Nations, the advantages that gives it its Great Power status" ", etc." (Idem)
A real class-war by the workers and exploited across Europe is due against imperialist governments and regimes. The "new left" has raised the opposite, and thus it has isolated the British working class -and some time agothe Greek or Spanish State working class-, from theirclass brothers and sisters of France, Germany and the rest of Europe, when it is precisely there where the attack on the Greek and European working class can be stopped.
Any revolutionary policy must rise clearly: "The enemy is at home!" So also is it for the German, French, Greek and British working class. This is the only way to conquer the unity of European workers.

British SWP and the Communist Party end up as spokesmen of the Anglo-American and the Queen that plunder Africa and world minerals, over-exploiting the working class and killing as in Marikana… That’s why UK is in the NATO, and fills the world with military bases, as in the Malvinas (Falkland for UK) Islands, which is sort of a "land aircraft -carrier" aiming at Latin America.
Meanwhile, the NPA acts as spokesman of the imperialist French employers that are for "Maastricht’s union"... The New Left is living its "4 of August"...