By ROBERT WILkInSOn

THE USA is the centrepiece ofthree new trade agreementsbeing negotiated outside of thestructure of the World Trade

Organisation on which the BRICScountries (Brazil, Russia, India, China andSouth Africa) are regarded as now havingtoo much influence. The Trans PacificPartnership is being established alongsidethe deal being done with the EUCommission on the TTIP and the finalnail in the coffin of national economicsovereignty is the Trade in ServicesAgreement that aims for the absolute and

permanent privatisation of services.US and Uk banks are eager to include

financial deregulation in the secretive talksdrawing up the TTIP with minimalscrutiny by national or Europeanparliaments. The control of energy is alsoa major element looking to achieve thereplacement of European reliance onRussian gas with the expansion of theextraction of US shale gas.

The most obvious concern so far inBritain has been the threat that the TTIPwould pose to the nHS and other publicservices like education, water andtransport. Some trade unions havealready expressed deep reservationsabout the impact that the TTIP wouldhave upon health and safety standards,financial services regulations, consumerand environmental protection, productstandards and employment rights. TheEuropean Commission has been clearthat the biggest trade ‘barriers’ underdiscussion are not tariffs on the importsof goods but ‘different safety orenvironmental standards’. Harmonisationdiscussions are likely to be used to leveldown standards in a race to the bottomwith strict limitations on the role of

governments to act in the public interest.most restrictive of all will be the power

given to a new legal process known as theInvestor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS)mechanism that GmB described as‘effectively limiting the power of nationalgovernments and public authorities whilstgiving unelected and unaccountableforeign businesses and investorsunprecedented control to challenge stateactions which they perceive to be a threatto their private investment’. Anarbitration panel of lawyers, operating ina jurisdiction of the corporation’s ownchoosing, will consider any dispute purelyon the basis of ‘free trade’ values with noregard for public health, environmentalprotection or labour or other socialrights.

The Unison annual conferencecondemned the ISDS as a mechanism that‘would allow multinational companiesthat take over public services to sue thegovernment if their contract wasthreatened…. Governments could befaced with a lawsuit saying their policiesimpinge on their company profits’.

continued on back page

Unity!@TUC 2014

www. co m

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Unity!@TUC 2014

Unity!By TOm mORRISOn

OnLy PROGRESSIvE federalismcan serve the interests ofworking people across Britain.

A ‘yes; vote will be a blow to workers onboth sides of the border

The polls may be close but be we needto very aware of the consequences of a'yes' vote. Scotland would 'separate in 18months when Scottish mPs will leaveParliament .

This will have an immediate spin off inWestminster because even if a majorityLabour government were to be elected inmay 2015, it would fall unless it had a safemajority because 44 of the currentLabour mPs represent Scottishconstituencies!

Communists in Scotland do not support'independence' on the SnP's terms. Sincethe 1930s, the demand by communistshas been for a future based onprogressive federalism, a position thatwas backed in the 1970s by the STUCand the majority of the Scottish labourmovement.

So what does ‘progressive’ mean? It isfederalism that is not simply aconstitutional fix but one which facilitatesthe struggle for progressive social changeacross the nations of Britain — whichenables a redistribution of wealth andpower.  

Under progressive federalism thefederal government at British level wouldcontrol overall economic policy and beconstitutionally required to redistributeincome geographically in proportion tosocial need. Parliaments in Scotland,Wales and, if supported locally, in theregions of England, would have thepower to take utilities into public control,to intervene industrially to sustainemployment and to increase the powerof working people over the resources oftheir country.  

This was the vision of the ScottishAssembly of 1972: for a ‘workersparliament’, one whose actions wouldhelp lift struggle elsewhere, to unite notdivide. The ‘independence’ offered nowby the SnP in its White Paper is verydifferent and is a trap for working people.It will weaken and not strengthen theirposition against that of big business andthe banks.

The White Paper’s recipe for economicgrowth is to lower corporation tax. Itseeks to offer stability for Scotland’smassive financial sector by remaining inthe sterling area and to guarantee therights of external big business, whichowns over 80 per cent of Scottishmanufacturing industry, by seekingmembership of the EU. Without a centralbank or its own currency, Scotland’sbudget would still be set by Westminster— and after 2015 most likely aWestminster run by Tories. Austeritywould continue. And it would be policedby the EU. 

Once in the EU, Scotland would have toincorporate the 2012 Stability Treaty intoits written constitution, and the newgovernment would need to ensure thatits annual deficits did not exceed 0.5 percent and, if long-term borrowing ornational debt exceeded 60 per cent ofGDP, it must be brought down by 5 percent a year. Scotland’s debt is currentlycalculated as at least 85 per cent of GDP.

Hence SnP independence would makeausterity cuts even worse. As for publicownership or ‘state aid’ for industry,forget it - it’s absolutely outlawed underEU rules. 

TOm mORRISOn IS

SECRETARy OF THE

COmmUnIST PARTy In

SCOTLAnD AnD IS CHAIR

OF UnISOn WEST

DUnBARTOnSHIRE

Fake independence‘A trap for the left’

Partnership for profitThe Transatlantic Trade and

Investment Partnership (TTIP)is the biggest ‘free trade’ deal

in history and a vast powergrab on behalf of the world’s

biggest capitalist corporations

Sunday 7/Monday 8 September 2014

continued from page 1

Dave Prentis argued that ‘The TTIP is coupled with the new EU public procurement directive that weakens public control

and encourages a market-driven approach to public services’.However far too many unions have simply called for their

sector to be exempt from the requirements of the TTIP ratherthan calling for the negotiations to be abandoned. The approachof the AFL-CIO and the European TUC also fails to face up tothe need for a complete rejection of the TTIP in favour of alisting of conditions that in reality are not at all likely to beacceptable to the major corporations. Pious appeals for ‘greatertransparency’ and seeking ‘an active role in the consultationprocess’ for the trade unions ignore the power and influence ofthe corporate lobbyists such as Business Europe and theEuropean Services Forum as well as a dangerous assumptionthat the EU Commission is not already committed toimplementing the TTIP as soon as possible.

The TUC needs to recognise the dangers inherent in the TTIPand ‘adopt a clear position of outrightopposition’ (Unite motion) rather thancontinue the equivocal position that it hastaken in previous years on the EuropeanUnion in general.

ROBERT WILkInSOn

IS An nUT DIvISIOn SECRETARy

The truth about TTIPCommunist Party Fringe meeting. Tuesday lunchtime, 12.45pm at Jurys Inn,

Suite 4, first floor. Speakers include Anita Halpin and Robert Griffiths

FIGHTING FOR OUR FUTUREThe Morning Star and trade unions in 2015 and beyond2015 will be the most important General Election year since thesecond world war. Everything we have struggled for and gainedsince 1945 is now on the line.

All of us in the trade union and labour movement, the People’sAssembly Against Austerity and many others must be part ofthe struggle to save our society.

Every movement needs an educator, agitator, and organiser.The movement has all three and more in the Morning Star,Britain’s only national daily socialist newspaper, fighting forpeace, socialism and a better world.

Join us at our fringe with UNITE General Secretary LenMcCluskey and others to debate a fighting way forward to 2015,and a better future.

Monday 12.45Hall lla, BT Convention Centre Chair: Bob Oram Refreshments provided

neoliberal economics and US-nATOmilitarism.

The failure to confront the EU, which isdriving austerity and privatisation acrossEurope and destabilising the formerSoviet republics, is handing a gift to UkIPwhich opposes the EU from the rightwhen Labour should be doing it from theleft.

While last month's Labour nECelections produced some welcome gainsfor the left, the Special Conferencereforms will entrench centralised diktatand further weaken the links with thetrade unions, perhaps fatally.

In this context, the proposals to form atrade union party, linked to Labour atleast for the time being, are worthy ofserious consideration.

In the meantime, we need the trade unions,the People's Assembly and the peace andother progressive movements to campaigntogether against austerity, privatisation and war,in favour of the kind of policies set out in thePeople's Charter.

On every front, the prospects forsuccess would be stronger if we hadmore readers for the morning Star andmore members for the CommunistParty.

The labour movement needs itsown mass party. But it also needs amilitant party active on every front,based on marxism, rooted in theworking class, part of aninternational movement and with itsown programme for revolutionary

change, namelyBritain's Road toSocialism.

If you agree, join us!

ROBERT GRIFFITHS IS

GEnERAL SECRETARy OF

THE COmmUnIST PARTy

This new pamphletoffers a Communistperspective on thelabour movement, theLabour Party and thecrisis of working classrepresentation. Itfeatures a series ofarticles published in theMorning Star byCommunist Partygeneral secretaryRobert Griffiths as wellas relevant excerptsfrom Britain’s Road toSocialism.

This is a contribution to the debate that's certainto be ongoing in both affiliated and non-affiliatedtrade unions in the run up to the 2015 generalelection and beyond.£2 from www.communist-party.org.uk

THE QUESTOn can be forgivenbecause its feeble response to theissues facing the people of Britain

indicates otherwise. Indeed, cynicalvoices are being heard suggesting that itmight be better to let the Tories dealwith a resurgent economic and financialcrisis after may 2015 while Labour bidesits time until the crisis passes.

Any such perspective betrays the hopesand interests of the workers and peoplesof Britain. Labour cannot abdicate itsresponsibility to govern in their interests.

The problem is that it would fail to doso unless it radically changes its policies.Despite Tory crowing about Britain'seconomic recovery, we still have morethan two million unemployed (over 6 percent of the workforce), half of themyoung people (17 per cent).

It means nothing when we are told monthlyby the monopoly media that 'more people areemployed than ever before'. Britain'spopulation and workforce have increasedalmost every year since the end of the BlackDeath in 1350.

Certainly, we have more low-paid,part-time or precarious jobs than everbefore. What's needed now is a massiveprogramme of public and private sectorinvestment in public services, publicsector housing, green technology andmanufacturing.

That means taxing the rich and bigbusiness, closing down tax havensaround the world under Britishjurisdiction and directing private capitalto where it is most needed.

yet at the moment, Labour threatensto continue the Tory-LibDem austeritydrive against public services and thepoor, albeit more softly and over alonger period as 'austerity-lite'.

While Labour's pledge to reintroduce a50p top rate of income tax is welcome, amodest Wealth Tax on the very richwould wipe out Britain's public spendingdeficit overnight.

Repealing the Bedroom Tax would enda nasty assault on the unemployed anddisabled. Allowing councils to use theproceeds of council house sales to buiildnew homes would signal another stepforward. But Britain's housing crisis criesout for a wave of public sectorhousebuilding, backed up by trainingprogrammes to help create millions ofnew jobs.

Cancelling plans to renew Britain'snuclear weapons system would free upto £100 billion for socially usefulinvestment. The dithering over renewingor replacing Trident continues as Labourmaintains its loyalty to the US andnATO, instead of adopting anindependent foreign and defence policyfor Britain.

The two Eds, miliband and Balls, witteron about a 'cost of living crisis'. yet they

refuse to control the costs of food andclothing while the retail monopolies pileup the profits. nor will they commit thenext Labour government to a substantialrise in the statutory minimum wage orcompulsory equal pay audits in theprivate as well as the public sector.

As the slogan of the TUC demonstration on October 18 puts it, 'Britain needs a pay rise'.

Workers in the public and privatesectors, together with the unemployed,pensioners, students, carers and peoplewith disabilities all need a substantial risein incomes to boost economic demand -instead of building a castle of sand basedon house price inflation, household debtand yet more subsidies to the banksthrough 'Quantitative Easing'.

Labour's proposals to freeze householdenergy charges will bring only partial andtemporary relief, even prompting the BigSix monopolies to get their price rises inearly from the end of 2012. Appointing anew regulatory body would be a wasteof time.

Britain managed to expand andmodernise our gas, electricity and waterindustries without parasitical privatedirectors and shareholders for fivedecades from the 1940s. Who needsthem now? Public ownership would be avote winner, with even the right-wingtabloid newspapers supportingrenationalisation.

A massive investment programme innon-nuclear renewable energy, gasstorage and a national water grid wouldcreate long term energy security andcreate more than a million jobs.

Furthermore, instead of subsidisingBritain's railways so that shareholderscan receive fat dividends, the wholeindustry should be taken back into publicownership. Instead of tinkering with thefranchise system, the next Labourgovernment should legislate to shortenthe franchises and then renationalise eachsection for free as these expire.

What a vote winner that would beamong the million of rail passengers whopay the highest fares in Europe for oneof the worst services!

Then there is the distorting dominationof the British economy by the spivs,crooks and gamblers of the City ofLondon. A Labour government shouldextend public ownership and control intothe banks and markets and channel theirfunds into low interest investment in newhousing and sustainable, productiveindustry.

However, the prospects for Labourchanging course and winning the GeneralElection on may 8 are poor.

The manipulated national Policy Forumin June laboured to produce a weakmouse or two. miliband's leadership hasnot clearly broken from Blair-Brown

Unity!@TUC 2014

By AnITA HALPIn

AGEnERATIOn AGO JacquesDelors told TUC delegates thatthe ‘European project’ would

guarantee jobs, workers rights andsafeguard our welfare state. But thisvision of Social Europe was unachievable.

The future direction of the EU hadbeen crafted two years earlier in theSingle European Act (SEA) of 1986. Itsclearly stated objective was theelimination of all obstacles to the freemovement of capital, labour, goods andservices within the boundaries of the EU.

The Act contained a commitment toestablish a single currency, thus creatingboth economic and monetary union andall the institutions and directives haveonly one purpose. to serve the interestsof monopoly capitalism.

The maastricht Treaty of 1992 openedthe door even wider to big business tocapture public services and utilities in aprivatisation scramble that has leftmillions of Europeans with mountingenergy bills, failing public services andsoar-away fares

The free fire zone for big business andthe banks has given us an unemploymentcrisis, youth unemployment tops 60 percent while millions of women are drivenout of the jobs market or suffer forcedpart time working.

Over the years directives stemmingfrom the SEA have required memberstates tol end the public ownership of basicutilities including transport, postalservices, communications, energy andbanks;l end ‘state aid’ for industry;l introduce compulsory competitivetendering in the public sector; l end local government direct labourschemes; l introduce private pension schemes.

The devastating effects of thesedirectives have been exactly the oppositefrom what so many trade unioniststhought Delors had promised them over25 years ago, and a stark reminder ofexactly how much power the EU has todictate domestic policy to memberstates.

And now, the jewel in the crown of ourwelfare state - the nHS - is under direthreat, as is the whole range of stateeducation with the proposed EuropeanUnion/US Transatlantic Trade andInvestment Partnership (TTIP). It wouldbe naïve in the extreme to imagine thatthe provision of health and educationwould be safe from unscrupulous,

privateering vultures. One third of people in this country now

live below the poverty line. The grimreality of austerity Britain today is that 21million are unable to heat their homes;18m have no proper homes, and 4mdon’t have enough money to eatproperly.

This is criminal in the fifth richesteconomy in the world. But the blamedoes not lie solely at the door of fouryears of ConDem misrule. It has to beseen within the context of the EU’smandatory deficit reduction targets whichare stifling growth and decimating publicservices across the EU.

In opposing the 2012 'no deficit' FiscalCompact even the European TUC had toadmit that 'economic governance is beingused as a means of restricting negotiatingmechanisms and results, attackingindustrial relations systems and puttingdownward pressure on collectivelyagreed wage levels; to weaken socialprotection and the right to strike andprivatise public services.'

I am finding it harder and harder tounderstand why so many trade unionistscontinue to believe that the small benefitsthat ‘social’ Europe delivered in the pastsomehow excuse all the EU’s otherdraconian measures that are driving

austerity, poverty andunemployment.

AnITA HALPIn IS THE

COmmUnIST PARTy’STRADE UnIOn

ORGAnISER

This pamphlet argues that theanswer to austerity for the peopleof Euope is to withdrawal from theEuropean Union.

£2 from www.communist-party.org.uk

Does the Labour Party

leadership intendto win the next general election

asks ROBERTGRIFFITHS?

ARE WEDOOMED?

Unity!@TUC 2014

Euro con trick

‘What's needednow is a massiveprogramme ofpublic andprivate sectorinvestment inpublic services,public sectorhousing, greentechnology andmanufacturing’