The Future of the Left – Where next for Britain’s labour movement?

‘The Conservatives are not invincible – splits over the forthcoming EU referendum and their small majority in parliament are only two signs of their weakness. Together, the Left can stem the tide of austerity’, these were the words of the TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady. In front of a full lecture theatre with 300 people, she delivered the first Ken Coates memorial lecture, organised by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and co-hosted by the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ) and the local University and College Union (UCU) association. In this post, I will draw out some of her key points.

Austerity and Resistance: The politics of labour in the Eurozone crisis.

Europe is haunted by austerity. Public sectors across the EU are cut back and working class gains from the post-war period seriously undermined (see also Reflections on the Eurozone crisis). In this blog post, I will assess the causes of the crisis, its implications for workers and discuss the politics of labour in response to the Eurozone crisis.

Croatia joined an EU at war – class war!

Photo by Council of the EU

When Croatia joined the European Union on 1 July, the country joined an EU at war. It is a class war in which capitalist forces, the Troika (the EU Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund), national governments and the new European oligarchy have gone on the offensive to dismantle the welfare state and defeat the trade union movement. Croatia’s accession to the EU will, in other words, serve some Croatians’ economic, social and political interests while it will undermine and weaken others’ – mainly those of workers and trade unions. In this guest post, Asbjørn Wahl analyses from a labour perspective the dynamics underlying the current state of European integration.

Reflections on the Eurozone crisis: austerity, neo-liberal restructuring and resistance.

Over the last 14 months, I have published several posts dealing with aspects of the Eurozone crisis and the struggle against the imposition of austerity across Europe. In this post, I will bring them together in one narrative. My general focus is on uneven and combined development in Europe as the underlying structural dynamic of the crisis, neo-liberal restructuring and its limits, the move towards authoritarian government as well as issues of resistance in the European core and periphery.

The Greek Left and the Rise of the Neo-Fascist Golden Dawn

The imposition of austerity on Greece by the troika of EU, European Central Bank and IMF has resulted in enormous social hardship and societal conflict. The rise of the fascist party Golden Dawn in Greece is one of the most worrying phenomena in this respect. In this guest post, the Greek social scientist Panagiotis Sotiris looks at the underlying causes of the party's increasing popularity and discusses the challenges for the Greek left in resisting and combating fascism.

The Eurozone crisis and potential future scenarios

Neo-liberal restructuring in Europe has come up against its internal contradictions. It has reached its limits. Germany’s export strategy, based on cuts in wages and working conditions, cannot be replicated by everybody else. If one country has such a drastic surplus in trade, others must absorb these products. Even more severely, the Eurozone crisis has highlighted the unevenness of the European political economy. Super-profits reaped in core countries such as Germany were re-invested in state bonds of peripheral countries only in order to purchase yet more goods from the core. This circle could not go on forever and there is no potential solution from within neo-liberalism able to cope with this crisis (see Europe and the limits of neo-liberalism).

In this post, I will assess several potential future developments including an extended period of muddling through based on increasingly authoritarian rule in the periphery, a right-wing xenophobic backlash as well as progressive responses moving us beyond neo-liberal restructuring.

The imposition of austerity and the move to authoritarian government – Part II

The pressure on Greece to cut back its budget in order to receive another bailout package continues. The country is asked to implement 325m euros of further spending cuts before payment is made. But Greek people can take no more. With unemployment figures above 20 per cent and shortages in all areas of the public sector, people reach breaking point. Unsurprisingly, in order to enforce the draconian cuts there has been a shift from democratic government to authoritarian rule. Initially, this was done through establishing a technocratic, unelected government in November 2011. Now, the EU demands direct oversight over Greek budget spending in order to ensure that promised cuts are actually implemented (BBC News, 16 February 2012).

When analysing the dynamics of capitalist outward expansion in the early 20th century, Rosa Luxemburg had already identified this gradual shift to ever more direct intervention into a country’s economic affairs to secure the transfer of profits.

The imposition of austerity and the move to authoritarian government - Part I

While bankers have caused the global financial crisis, it is now working people who are asked to pay for the bill. Austerity programme after austerity programme is passed across Europe. But people fight back and make clear that they are not prepared to accept this without a fight. Unsurprisingly, it is in this situation that there is a clear shift towards undemocratic, authoritarian government.