comment from the DM campaign team
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The
victory of the Greek far-left in the country's recent general election could have two very
important knock-on effects for Britain. The first is psychological; the second relates to the £10 billion our then chancellor, Alistair Darling, was obliged by Brussels to contribute to the initial Greek bailout fund in 2010. This money is now seriously at risk.
On a positive note, the success of Syriza, together with the votes gained by the centre-right, eurosceptical Independent Greeks and the overtly anti-euro Communist party, is an act of brave collective defiance by a national electorate.
The Greeks have been told repeatedly by successive conservative and social democratic governments in Athens, as well as by the EU elite and mainstream media, that 'there is no alternative' to accepting the terms of the austerity and reform packages imposed by the 'trioka' of Brussels, the IMF and the European Central Bank.
All kinds of terrible consequences have been predicted for the Greek people should they dare to fail to defer to their external, neo-colonial rulers.
In Britain a similar, if more low key at this stage, campaign is being run by the largely taxpayer-funded pro-EU lobby and its allies in the CBI, Goldman Sachs, and other manifestations of big business.
We are told that, should we leave the EU, 'three million jobs' could be lost; that old myth destroyed conclusively 15 years ago by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, the body that had been paid by the New Labour controlled Britain in Europe campaign to perpetuate it!
All political movements trying to perpetuate the status quo use fear to try to prevent voters even contemplating the possibility that positive change is possible. The pro-EU lobby enjoys psychological hegemony at present because it has succeeded as a consequence of its massive financial advantage in dictating the terms of debate; the focus at present is solely on the supposed 'risks' of change.
Alexis Tsipras and his party were able to win, in part, because they had the guts to challenge and deconstruct the self-serving interpretation of 'common sense' being communicated by the Greek and international political and business elites.
This is what the pro-independence alliance now needs to do in the British context: we have to take on the myth that the EU is a constitutional Godhead that must be deferred to for all time. We have to start changing the way in which the debate about EU membership is framed: we need to point out that there are serious risks to our future economic prosperity, as well as political viability, if we stay in.
The EU is a declining economic and demographic bloc which is in the process of becoming ever more centralised in order to cope with the inherent flaws and contradictions of the Single Currency system. Inevitably if we continue to remain inside, we will become hit with ever more laws and demands for money dictated by the Eurozone bloc of countries voting as one caucus in the Council of Ministers.
The second implication of the Syriza triumph might not be so good for us as a nation: The new Greek premier, Alexis Tsipras, has threatened to renege on his country's debts. This could have serious implications for Britain.
We were coerced into putting up £10 billion towards the initial bailout package. Our then chancellor, Alistair Darling, at a meeting of the council of ministers in May 2010, initially refused to commit UK taxpayers money on the grounds that as a non-euro country we could not be expected to contribute. The EU then threatened to evoke Article 122 of the treaty, a measure which commits member states to provide assistance to those countries experiencing 'natural disasters'.
Had Mr Darling taken it to a vote, he would have been defeated because of Qualified Majority Voting. And this was all despite the treaty stipulating that there should be no bailouts of governments in the single currency.
This episode shows that the rule of law does not actually apply in Brussels; the Commission as the guardian of the treaty, backed by the legally elastic interpretations of the ECJ, can redefine the rules as they so wish. Yet we are told by the CBI and the pro-EU lobby that Britain will lose 'influence' if we leave the EU. What influence?
For the time being, let's focus on the positive aspects of this Greek drama. The election result may herald the refusal of mass electorates to comply with the elite as never seen post-war. This could be a revolutionary moment in more ways than one.
