Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

One would have the impression, from listening to much of the media commentary surrounding Brexit, that the European Union is a friend of working people in Ireland. The negotiations are posed as a battle between a progressive EU, with an Irish Government wrapped in a tricolour on the one hand doing battle with a backward little-Englander Tory Party Government. The reality is that working class people have no representatives in these negotiations. They are negotiations between a capitalist Government on the one hand and a capitalist institution on the other. It is what Connolly described as, "Committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class". The British capitalist class are on one side and on the other side is the European capitalist class, which includes the ruling class in this country.

Neither side represents nor cares about the interests or concerns of working class people on this island, North or South. Their interests demand that there be no increased Border between North and South or between Ireland and Britain. Neither is acceptable because either would deepen sectarian division. The European Commission has found it useful, for its own negotiating purposes at this stage, to use the Border, but the reality is that if it suits it can be forgotten at a later stage and it does not have to be a part of the final withdrawal agreement. We have to restate the reality of what the European Union is. We do not have to go far back in time to remind ourselves. Only yesterday, the Amnesty International report which Deputy Boyd Barrett mentioned concluded that the EU is knowingly complicit in the torture and abuse of refugees and migrants in Libya. In order to stem migration the EU is actively supporting: "A system of abuse and exploitation in Libya". This is fortress Europe.

Yesterday Jean-Claude Junker, the President of the European Commission, tweeted:

She is awake. The sleeping beauty of the Lisbon Treaty. Permanent Structured Co-Operation is happening. I welcome the operational steps taken today by member states to lay the foundations of a European defence union. Our security cannot be outsourced.

The Irish Government tries to maintain that there is nothing to see here concerning PESCO. This is a Europe of war and imperialism. Every single day we see the impact of the neo-liberal nature of the European Union in this country. There is the housing crisis and the refusal to use the money that exists in NAMA and the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. That relates to the EU rules and its neo-liberal nature. It is the same in the case of the starving of our public services of investment. The EU, together with successive Governments, have been decisive in creating this new norm of permanent austerity by writing austerity and neo-liberalism into law in the fiscal treaty and the various fiscal rules in the interests of bankers, bond holders and big business in Europe. That is the European Union we are talking about. It is a racist, militarised, neo-liberal institution. That is the EU that working class people in Britain voted to leave.

The unfortunate reality is the bargain-basement Brexit which the Tories are driving towards will also be a disaster for working people. Their Brexit is a Brexit in the interests of the city of London and of agri-business, with a further race to the bottom in terms of taxation and regulation on environment, consumer and labour issues. Any trade deal done by the Tories and negotiated with the EU post-Brexit will again be done in the interests of big business. It could potentially be a back door, via a Britain-US trade deal for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP, for access to the EU, which is rejected by the vast majority of people because it will lead to a race to the bottom. We oppose the attempts to use the crisis around Brexit to attack workers' rights and conditions. Trade Unions have to take immediate measures to ensure that workers and small farmers do not pay the price of competition between vested economic interests.

What is the answer? The alternative is a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour government implementing socialist policies and breaking with what he has described as a rigged system of neo-liberalism and capitalism, which includes taking the key sources of wealth into public ownership. Corbyn has suggested that he may be open to staying in the Single Market, but the reality is that the Single Market would act as a substantial block on implementing many of his most popular policies, including the nationalisation of transport, energy and the development of a national investment bank. That is because it pushes further the liberalisation and privatisation of public services.

It is a barrier to nationalisation. It drives a race to the bottom in terms of workers' wages through European Court of Justice, ECJ, rulings such as those on Viking Line and Laval. If Corbyn or an Irish left government was to implement a left-wing socialist programme, it would inevitably result in a major clash with the EU, just as there was when the Greek people attempted to reject austerity before the betrayal of the Syriza Government. Corbyn would also be forced to exit the European Union and the Single Market, not on the basis of the race to the bottom proposed by the Tories, but on the basis of appealing to workers in Ireland, Greece, Spain and across Europe to build a very different type of Europe - a democratic socialist Europe. Right across Europe we need left socialist governments to break with the rigged system of capitalism. With left governments here, in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, the question of a border would not arise. New relations of co-operation, of trade on a fair and equal basis and of mutual assistance would operate to ensure that borders were brought down rather than erected. Together, these governments would build a democratic socialist confederation of Europe.

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