IV485 - June 2015

In the run up to the British general election on May 7, Conservative leader and Prime Minister David Cameron promised the Eurosceptic right wing of his party and the even more rightwing UK Independence Party (UKIP) that if he won the election he would hold a binding “in, out” referendum on whether or not Britain would remain a member of the European Union. Those forces to his right want to leave the EU, while he himself does not. The commitment is that the referendum would be framed as “should Britain stay in the EU”, thus a “yes” vote is for staying in, and a “no” vote for leaving.

Having won the election, to most people’s surprise, he is moving ahead with plans for the referendum for which a firm date is not yet set, but the commitment is at least by the end of 2017, and possibly in 2016. We publish the article below by a leading member of Socialist Resistance considering the role and character of the EU, the implications of the referendum itself, and consider how the left should vote. This is the start of a discussion within SR and a contribution to the debate on the British radical left on the position to take in the referendum.[IV]

This summary of the report by the Debt Truth Committee was published by CADTM on 17 June 2015.

Reducing working hours is more than a path to full employment. It could help millions live more fulfilling lives. Since its introduction at the end of the 1990s, France’s statutory thirty-five-hour workweek has been a source of ongoing controversy. Originally developed as a job creation measure by the then newly elected “plural left” government of Lionel Jospin, the proposal for a mandatory cut in working time for private-sector employees generated such a furious backlash from business that its implementation (via the two Aubry Laws, named after Labor Minister Martine Aubry) led to the wholesale reorganization of France’s main employers’ lobby.

In the last months, student and staff protests have taken the University of Amsterdam by storm. The protest movement against UvA’s decade-long neoliberal reforms seems very recent but its foundations were set some time ago.

Public policy in Detroit, the nation’s largest majority Black city, seems structured to create blight and force the current population out of their homes. Sixty-two thousand properties are set for foreclosure, this year, more than half of them occupied. “This could result in the displacement of as many as 100,000 Detroiters, or about one seventh of the city’s population.”

Facing the risk of the establishment of a more authoritarian and openly autocratic regime under the presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the appeal by the HDP (Democratic Party of the Peoples) to “broad humanity” was heard by millions of voters, allowing it to cross the 10% threshold necessary for entering parliament.

It was one of best votes for any left candidate in decades during any general election held in Pakistan, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan. The imprisoned Baba Jan, a candidate of Awami Workers Party, got around 4641 votes and came second in the list during the Gilgit Baltistan legislative assembly elections held on June 8 2015.

The French situation has often been approached as an "exception" in Europe. We speak of the French exception, referring to a history still marked by the French Revolution of 1789. This term covered, in fact: a certain type of social gains, a strong public service, a strong state, a strong and dynamic worker’s movement, a high level of class struggle, social rights and democratic and secular freedoms won through historic popular mobilizations.

In the run-up to Argentina’s national elections in October, a scramble for power has divided the incumbent Peronista party into warring factions. Founded by Juan Perón in 1946, the Partido Justicialista ruled through sometimes radical nationalism, state intervention in the economy, clientelist patronage and control over trade unions, and the loyalty of sections of the bourgeoisie and an elite political class of bureaucrats. After the dictatorship of the 1970s, the party emerged as the main beneficiary of the return to democracy, only to be buffeted by a severe depression in 2001, accompanied by the mass uprising known as the Argentinazo.

After the electoral battle of June 7, 2015, the picture in Mexico is as follows: a 55% abstention rate that makes the “party” of non-voters (whether abstaining consciously or through lack of interest) the majority group by far. If we take the almost 5.5% of voters who chose to consciously spoil their vote along with blank votes representing a little less than 10% of the 45% who voted, or about 4% of the electoral roll, and add this sum to the 55% of abstainers, this brings the total of protest no votes to almost 60% (i.e., 6 out of every 10 Mexicans).