MORE than 200 people attended a rally on the EEC elections last Friday organised by …InE Marsist Group. The IMG is standing Tarig All in the West constituency as part of a common revolutionary campaign organised by the Fourth International in all nine EEC countries and the three (Greece Portugal, Spain) which have applied to join.
The platform internationalism. Helow some of the main contributions.
TARIO ALI: The role of the FEC is to co-ordinate capitalist efforts repress the working class and all struggles against imperialist exploitation. We can only fight the EEC by lighting alongside our brothers and sisters for a common goal.
We need a European congress of labour. And one item that obviously wouldn't be on the agenda of such a meeting would be import controls!
We also need to fight the division of Europe through solidarity with the struggle for democratic rights against the burcaucratic regimes in Eastern Europe.
It's possible to fight now for a free confederation of socialist republics on a European scale. But one of the main lessons of the last ten years is TRILE need organisation to lead that light.
ANNE SPEED (People's Democracy): The national campaigning was shown for us in the British election campaigo. The systematic efforts of the Make Ireland an Issue' campaign and others were really important for the morale of the nationalist people in the ghettos and on the blanket in H Block arendette for which to the campaign for election agent in Derry marvellous opportunity forward the central Issues: support RUC/Army torture, withdruwal of British troops, and for the self-determination of the Irish peopie as a whole In Crossmaglen, for instance, old Republicans have been coming up to London reflected this we report ANNE SPEED of People's Democracy at the rally H Block.
Only the supporting the FI's campaign.
revolutionary of interагу unity, and is to put Fourth International, campaigo.
working ciass has usand saying that they ve never voted since 1918, but this time they'll be dot lor the men or We say that the repression in the doorstep of Europe must be raised throughout Europe.
Fourth International is doing that in these clections. That is why PD, many campaign activists, and Bernadette McAliskey herself are VAL COULTAS (IMG Political Committee): This is a particularly appropriate time to deal with the role of the abour lefts. because it was the EEC referendum debacle which most clearly showed the need for a socialist alternative at a national level - herce the IMG's campaigo for revolutionfight initiatives such as Socialist Unity.
But it's not just needed nationally If you look at the insular traditions of the British revolutionary movement, it'sabsolutely clear that you also need a framework whereby you can look at the British situation from outside -That's why the IMG is part of the and why W'C appeal to you to join with us in this BARBARA GREEN (Revolution youth paper): One section of the been at ine BARBARA GREEN from Revolution youth paper forefront of the struggle since the year youth. We've scen it Zimbabwe, we've seen it in Iran, as well as all over Western Europe since May "6H.
Yet youth have no rights. We make up per cent of unemployed in the EEC - yet the labour movement bureaucrats don't lift a finger for us. Youth aren't allowed to organise at school, they're harassed (particularly black under "Sus" and similar laws all over Europe, they're chained to the family, young women are denied acceas to abortion and contraception facilities.
Our comrades in France and Spain have already set up youth organisations. We're hoping to do the same carly next year out of Revolution. But finally we need to for a revolutionary youth intersational.
ERNEST MANDEL (United Secretariat of the Fourth International, candidate in Belgium): The working class in Western Europe temporarily caught off balance by the economic crisis which began in 1974. For years it had been misled by the reformist leaders into believing that a steady rise in its living standards was guaranteed through the cconomy, the welfare stale, bourgeois democracy. And now these self-same leaders were going along even initiating austerity policies.
It took the working class some time to react, bur its recent struggles have sharply limited the evential results of the bourgeois offensive and revealed the real relationship of forces The possibilities for an international struggle in steel symbolise what it means to be for a workers" Europe against the Europe of the bosses. They underline the need for overall socialist sotutions. The Fourth International is proud that it has been able to mount such a campaign: not only against austerity. women's rights, against imperialist repression of the type we sec in Ireland, against the nuclear threat.
in Fences" vote but for Evening Gazette's columns simply contained familiar calls for import controls, vague appeals to 'develop lechnology, and "support for developinz countries at UN confer La piece of token His real Little England' approach - uniting bosses and workers - was typified in his statement that the EEC has plans to grab our ou and gas. Since when did British workers have control over these resources? Socialist Worker 'HOW we vole on 7 June doesn't matter too much [but it you de vote, Labour- really matters," argues lan Birchull in last week's Socialist Worker, 'is to get on with the job of building the only alternative to the Common Market.. Thrwaghout Europe we have to make