Statements by the CP's on Brexit (Updated)

NEW COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE NETHERLANDS:

"Majority of Britons reject EU membership and choose Brexit

The New Communist Party of the Netherlands congratulates the British working class and the Communist Party of Britain on the referendum result. The UK's Brexit camp has won the referendum by 52% of the vote. Popular rejection of the so-called EU elite, and the expectation of being better off with a Brexit, has turned out greater than expected in ruling-class circles. However, the confrontation with the British ruling class will soon turn it into an illusion. It remains to be seen how the result will impact all the different European countries, but it is clear that European capital is doing everything in its power to protect its interests. see more

 

NEW COMMUNIST PARTY OF YUGOSLAVIA (NKPJ):

Congratulation message to NCPB and CPB

Dear Comrades,

The referendum decision on leaving the EU represents the glorious victory of the british working class who clearly said no to retrograde politics of Brussels. It is the most progressive event in the history of Britain since the republican revolution led by Oliver Cromwell in 1653. After Iceland refused to continue the negotiations on joining the EU, citizens of the UK decision to leave clearly indicates that the working people through Europe saw retrograde and anti-peoples policy of the imperialist European Union whose only goal is making the poor poorer and the rich richer. Great Britain remains an imperialist power and a member of criminal NATO military formation but New Communist Party of Yugoslavia (NKPJ) believes that the vote of  exit from the EU made the first step in the just struggle of the working people of Britain to crush capitalism and the growing fascist reaction and the formation of people's democracy and social justice. This was also the first step towards breaking the imperialist EU.

Comradely greetings

Batrić Mijovic,

General Secretary of the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia (NKPJ)

COMMUNIST PARTY OF BRITAIN:

Statement from the Communist Party of Britain on the EU referendum result

The referendum result represents a huge and potentially disorientating blow to the ruling capitalist class in Britain, its hired politicians and its imperialist allies in the EU, the USA, IMF and NATO. 
The people have spoken and popular sovereignty now demands that the Westminster Parliament accepts and implements their decision. The left must now redouble its efforts to turn this referendum result into a defeat for the whole EU-IMF-NATO axis.
But it is clear that the Cameron-Osborne government has lost the confidence of the electorate and cannot be trusted with the responsibility of negotiating Britain's exit from the European Union. It should resign forthwith.
The Communist Party also has no confidence that a Tory government led by other pro-big business, pro-imperialist and pro-neoliberal MPs such as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Liam Fox and Iain Duncan Smith would withstand the pressures from the City of London, big business, the US and NATO to prevent Britain's exit from the EU.
If no alternative government can command a majority in the House of Commons, a General Election must therefore be called without delay.
This makes it all the more important that the Labour Party leadership immediately pledges to respect and implement fully the referendum decision. Moreover, it should make clear its determination to negotiate exit terms and future treaties with the EU and other countries on the basis of new arrangements that put the interests of working people here and internationally before those of big business and the capitalist 'free market'.
In any event, it will also be vital to counteract the upsurge of xenophobia and racism unleashed by leading forces on both sides of the referendum campaign.
The unity and mobilisation of progressive and labour movement forces is essential in order to explain the benefits of immigration and counter the divisive and anti-working class appeal of UKIP and other right-wing and far-right parties. 
We now need to fight to ensure that a Britain outside 'Fortress Europe' uses its freedom to welcome people to work, study and live here from around the world and leads Europe in providing a safe haven for asylum seekers and refugees.

Robert Griffiths

General Secretary

 

COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRELAND:

Another Europe is possible—another EU is not

The Communist Party of Ireland expresses its solidarity with and welcomes the decision of the British electorate, with working people having played a decisive factor to vote to leave the European Union.

The decision of the people is a victory over Project Fear, unleashed by big business, global banks and financial institutions, with the EU and the ruling elite throughout the EU, including the Irish government, playing back-up. We congratulate those in the north-east of Ireland who had the opportunity to vote in the referendum and voted to leave.

We call for a new referendum here in the Republic on continued membership, coupled with a halt to any further or deeper integration within the EU. We need to reassert national democracy and sovereignty. Also required is an end to the secret negotiations by the institutions of the EU and the United States regarding TTIP.

The working people of Britain have sent a resounding message to London and Brussels, that they have had enough of the bullying, enough of permanent austerity, enough of putting the interests of big business above those of the people. This is also significant rejection of the straitjacket economics of the EU. The political and economic strategy of the EU is an affront to democracy and the ability of people to democratically decide their countries’ economic and social priorities and possible alternative direction.

Throughout the EU, millions of workers will welcome this vote to leave, which may well mark the beginning of the end of the EU itself. Project Fear, masterminded by the EU, has been used to bully the Greek, Spanish, Italian, Cypriot and Irish people into accepting debt slavery, that there was no alternative but to bail out the banks and speculators over the rights of the people. But not only them: this strategy has been used against all working people right throughout the EU, using fear to impose the feeling that there is no alternative, using it to mask savage attacks on workers’ rights and conditions, and the further erosion of democracy and national sovereignty.

The cycle of fear has now been broken. Working people need to take the opportunity now presented to assert their own demands throughout the EU, to assert themselves and build unity of action against these massive assaults.

Now is the time for the mobilisation of working people to assert that there is a progressive left democratic alternative to the the plans and strategies being imposed big business through the institutions of the EU. 

 

COMMUNIST PARTY (SWITZERLAND) :

Exit the EU on the basis of socialist policies

We welcome the democratic choice of the british people to leave the European Union: it is a strong signal against imperialism and neo-liberalism. However we do not have to do illusions because London remains firmly in the hands of those who supported anti-popular policy.
Today the idea has prevailed of the non reformability of the EU. But only if Britain will resume its sovereignty in strategic economic and social sectors so severely damaged by the EU-policies of austerity and even if it can free itself from the warmongering practices of the NATO and opening up to greater cooperation with emerging BRICS countries, we will be able to say that the Brexit constituted an element of progress for all european nations.
The european leftwing organisations should abandon a romantic view that confuses the internationalist solidarity with cosmopolitanism and instead go back to rediscover the concrete thought of socialism: the "Leave" won in fact in areas of greater social and economic pain and the left should immediately return to give answers.
Our Party, who defends the independence and neutrality of Switzerland, hopes to build with the militant trade unionists, socialists and communists of Great Britain, unified anti-imperialist and internationalist solidarity actions for a new people’s sovereignty and a real workers’ democracy against monopolies. 

 

 

Parti Révolutionnaire Communistes (France):

 On the United Kingdom exit
Statement by the National Secretariat

Over 70% of the UK electorate took part in the EU referendum, and 51.8% of UK voters opted to leave the European Union. This Leave vote is first and foremost a rejection by those most harshly affected by the damaging effects of current policy: the working classes. It is a rejection of successive UK governments and a rejection of capitalist Europe. Brexit will not change anything for British workers; capitalism will continue to exist in the UK, and the people will continue to pay the price. The policies pursued by UK governments and the policies pursued by the European Union are the same policies serving the cause of capitalism. The real question for all the peoples of Europe today is how to get rid of the capitalism that is running Europe and the globe. Capitalist Europe and global capitalism cannot meet peoples’ needs. There can be no capitalist solution for any of Europe’s peoples. The only answer is unequivocal anti- capitalist struggle. In Europe and the world in general the contradiction between capital and labour is becoming more acute, and there can be no middle ground, no ‘arrangement’ with this Europe. We shall not be duped by sham solutions and political hijacking. If we fail to combat this capitalist Europe, the situation can only get worse. Our party expects the sovereignty of the people in every country to be respected in every field; we are opposed to all supranational agreements, supranational governments and supranational political or military organisations and in favour of initiating a genuine policy of peace and disarmament and the dissolution of NATO. We call for an uncompromising struggle against capitalist Europe, just as we call for struggle to achieve fundamental social and political change in our country.

 

WORKERS PARTY OF BELGIUM: [ES] [DE]

Brexit: ya es hora de cambiar esta Europa de la competencia y la desigualdad 

Al final fue el Brexit: la mayoría de los británicos se decantó por abandonar la Unión Europea. "La Europa de la competencia y la desigualdad - la peste - alimenta el nacionalismo y división – el cólera", escribía en 2011 Peter Mertens, presidente del PTB, en su libro "¿Cómo se atreven?". Hoy, en una primera reacción, subraya: "No debemos cerrar los ojos. Se necesita otra Europa: con más democracia, más transparencia y más solidaridad, para hacer posible un cambio radical en términos sociales y ecológicos."

Entre la población trabajadora británica, aquellos que votaron por el Brexit están hartos. Hartos del asfixiante dumping social de trabajadores extranjeros mal pagados, un dumping organizado por los empresarios británicos con la ayuda de la Unión Europea. Hartos de que su industria sea destruida y de la desaparición de empleos. Hartos de que su ferrocarril sea destruido por la privatización. Hartos de ver que su servicio sanitario puede sufrir el mismo destino. La política del sálvese quien pueda del primer ministro británico David Cameron - amigo de Bart De Wever -, organiza la destrucción salarial y divide a la gente.

Los partidarios del Brexit instrumentalizaron las aspiraciones sociales de la población. Prometieron el fin del dumping social y 350 millones de libras más para los servicios sanitarios. Aunque en realidad, los líderes de la ultraderecha a favor de Brexit quieren menos derechos sociales, no más. Por eso promueven la división, el nacionalismo y el racismo. Los británicos tuvieron que elegir entre la peste y el cólera, entre una Unión Europea neoliberal y los ultraliberales británicos. Dentro de estos límites, los británicos optaron por aquello que veían como un cambio.

Este referéndum confirma una vez más el enorme abismo existente entre la élite europea y la población. Hace un año, la elite europea escupía sobre los griegos. Mediante un referéndum, los rebeldes griegos exigían el fin del dogma de la austeridad. La élite europea los aplastó. Del mismo modo que impuso el tratado constitucional a los franceses y holandeses tras haberlo rechazado en sendos referéndums en 2005. Charles Michel, François Hollande y Ángela Merkel todavía no lo han comprendido, y pretenden mantener el rumbo. La gran coalición europea de liberales, socialistas y democristianos pide más austeridad aún, más competencia y más dumping social. La orquesta del Titanic Europeo debe continuar tocando mientras el buque hace agudas por todas partes.

Esta Unión Europea no ofrece ninguna alternativa a las políticas antisociales de Cameron. Mientras la población del Reino Unido sufre los salarios bajos y el dumping social, la Comisión Europea ataca el salario mínimo de los camioneros fijado en Francia y Alemania. Mientras la población del Reino Unido critica el pésimo estado de su ferrocarril privatizado, la Unión Europea impone su cuarto paquete de liberalización del transporte ferroviario. Y mientras las multinacionales apenas pagan impuestos, el Comisario Europeo Pierre Moscovici favorece un enfoque "no vinculante" respecto a los paraísos fiscales.

Todos los trabajadores de Europa ven este desarrollo con angustia y con desconfianza. Es necesario un cambio de rumbo. Hay que poner fin a esta Europa de la competencia y la desigualdad, que sólo da la posibilidad de elegir entre más autoritarismo o el regreso de los nacionalismos. En lugar de dumping social, necesitamos un salario mínimo europeo al alza. En lugar de privatizaciones y liberalización, necesitamos más inversión pública en empleo, en infraestructura y en servicios públicos. En lugar de paraísos fiscales, necesitamos un impuesto europeo a los millonarios que haga contribuir a los ultra-ricos. Lo que necesitamos es una Europa de la solidaridad y la cooperación.

 

COMMUNIST PARTY, TURKEY (KP):

We salute the will arising in Britain

 

The referendum taken place in Britain regarding the continuation of EU membership ended up in the direction of “exit” mostly as a result of preference of the poor classes.

Communist Party, Turkey salutes this will arisen in Britain.

CP, Turkey salutes this will since it itself has been campaigning against the EU and Turkey’s membership thereto. As an imperialist union, the EU has nothing to do with the interests of the working class.

CP, Turkey salutes this will because the crisis of the European Union gives way to new opportunities in the struggle against the capitalist class, which has been systematically pursuing its attacks on the working class based on the union for years.

CP, Turkey salutes this will because the EU myth, which has been promoted as an irrevocable integration process for years, has taken a major blow.

CP, Turkey salutes this will because now it will be harder for the capitalist classes to persuade or suppress their people by passing the buck on EU regulations and resolutions when it comes to accounting for their anti-labor and anti-democratic politics.  

CP, Turkey salutes this will because the crisis of imperialism is now gaining a new character.

CP, Turkey salutes this will because the demagogic propaganda of the EU promoting itself as libertarian and defender of human rights and veiling its fundamental responsibility for the rising racism and immigrant crisis, has failed.

CP, Turkey salutes this will because the revolutionary forces in Europe did not leave the anti-EU position to the monopoly of some nationalist, racist and reactionary forces during the referendum campaign in Britain.

CP, Turkey salutes this will, and while uttering its solidarity with the forces defending the interests of the working classes in Britain once again it also comradely apprises of the fact that strengthening the independent political line of the working class is to gain even more significance for the coming period.

With the referendum, in Britain, neither the character of the ruling class has been transformed, nor the conditions of the working class have been improved.

Capitalism has nothing to promise or offer to the working class. This comes to mean that not any element of the World imperialist system and not any single capitalist state can play a constructive role in the course of history.

With regard to working classes of both Britain and the rest of the World, British capitalism is a system to be abolished, whether in or out of the EU. It is a must to struggle against any sort of illusion and distortion regarding the outcomes of the exit.

If the European working class, notably the British working class, fails to seize the opportunity to organize and create a struggle impetus, the deepening crisis of the EU may result in devastating effects. For this reason, CP, Turkey is of the opinion that the international working class movement should be even more vigilant against solution seeking within the limits of the system.

Raise the revolutionary struggle against the imperialist EU!

Down with the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie!

Down with nationalism and racism!

Long live socialism!

Communist Party, Turkey

 

COMMUNIST PARTY OF GREECE (KKE):

STATEMENT OF THE PRESS OFFICE OF THE CC OF THE KKE

ON THE RESULT OF THE REFERENDUM IN BRIΤΑIN IN RELATION TO BRITAIN'S WITHDRAWAL FROM THE EU 

24/6/2016

"The result of Britain's referendum demonstrates the increasing discontent of the working class and popular forces towards the EU and its anti-people policies. However these forces must disentangle themselves from the choices of sections and political forces of the bourgeoisie and acquire radical and anti-capitalist characteristics. The result records the dissipation of the expectations, which had been fostered by all the bourgeois parties-in Greece as well-together with the EU's mechanisms that the peoples could allegedly be prosperous inside the framework of the EU.

The fact that the issue of the departure of a country from the EU was posed so intensely- and indeed a country the size of Britain-is due on the one hand to the internal contradictions in the EU and the unevenness of its economies and on the other to the confrontation taking place amongst the imperialist centres, which sharpened in the conditions of the economic recession. These factors reinforce the so-called euroscepticism, break way trends, but also trends that seek a change in the form of political management of the EU and Eurozone.

Vehicles of reactionary "Euroscepticism" are nationalist, racist and fascist parties, like the UK Independence Party of Farage (UKIP), the National Front of Lepen in France, the "Alternative for Germany" and similar formations in Austria, Hungary and in Greece, e.g. fascist Golden Dawn, National Unity of Karatzαferis and others. But  "Euroscepticism" is also expressed by parties that use a leftwing label, criticize or reject the EU and Euro, support a national currency and seek other imperialist alliances, with a strategy that operates within the framework of capitalism.

These contradictions and antagonisms permeate the bourgeois classes of every EU member-state. The economic and political processes underway, both in G. Britain and in the EU, the negotiations concerning the position of the British bourgeoisie the day after, can lead to new temporary agreements between the EU and Britain. What is certain is that as long as capitalist ownership of the means of production and bourgeois power remain in place, the developments will be accompanied by new painful sacrifices for the working class and popular forces.

The result of Britain's referendum exposes the other political forces in Greece, which glorified Greece's participation in the EU during all the previous years, presenting it as an irreversible process or sowing illusions about the need for even "more Europe of democracy and justice» It also exposes those forces that consider a national currency as being a panacea that will lead to the people's prosperity. Britain with its Pound Sterling took the same anti-worker and anti-people measures as the other countries that are in the Eurozone. It will continue to take the same measures outside the EU as well, as this is imposed by the need for its monopolies to be competitive and profitable.

It is certain that over the next few days the voices and "tears" will multiply, both on the part of the SYRIZA-ANEL government and on the part of the other bourgeois parties about the "need to reestablish the EU", about the "EU that lost its way and needs to return to its roots" etc. However the EU since its creation has been and is a reactionary alliance of the bourgeois classes of capitalist Europe, with the aim of bleeding the workers dry and robbing other peoples of the world, in the framework of their competition with other imperialist centres. It was not and will not be a permanent arrangement, just as similar alliances in the past were not permanent. Capitalist unevenness and competition, the change in the correlation of forces sooner or later will bring contradictions to the surface, which will no longer be able to be bridged by temporary and fragile compromises. Simultaneously, new phenomena, processes for new reactionary alliances will be come to fruition on the terrain of capitalism.

The interests of the Greek people, the British people, of all the peoples of Europe must not be placed under a "false flag». They must not be placed under the flags of the bourgeoisie and its various sections, which determine their choices and international alliances according to their interests and on the basis of the greatest possible exploitation of the workers. The necessary condemnation of capital's predatory alliance, the EU, the struggle for the disengagement of every country, to be effective, must be connected to the necessary overthrow of capital's power by workers'-people's power. The social alliance of the working class and the other popular strata, the regroupment and strengthening of the international communist movement are preconditions to pave the way for this prospect of hope."

For Arabic and Russian see the link

 

PORTUGUESE COMMUNIST PARTY (PCP):

'On the victory of the exit from the European Union in the referendum held in the United Kingdom'

Joao Ferreira, one of the PCP’s members in the EP made a statement on the victory of the exit from the European Union in the referendum held in the United Kingdom. 

Explaining the PCP’s position on the referendum results in the UK, Joao Ferreira stated “the victory of the exit from the European Union in the referendum held in the United Kingdom was an event of tremendous political magnitude for the people of the United Kingdom and also for the peoples of Europe.”

He stressed that “the PCP greeted in particular the British Communists and other left-wing forces who – rejecting false dichotomies and opposing reactionary and xenophobic stances – had assumed and asserted in the referendum their voice in defense of the values of democracy, labour and social rights, progress, tolerance, solidarity and cooperation between the people.”

He concluded that “in a context in which it was undeniably evident that the European Union did not correspond to the needs of the workers and the peoples, the PCP underscored the necessity of courageously confronting the constraints emanating from the process of European capitalist integration, and at the same time, of embarking on a path of cooperation, based on sovereign States with equal rights.”

Finally he underlined “the need and urgency of Portugal preparing to free itself from submission to the Euro, which had brought about so much harm to our country, in order to guarantee rights, jobs, production, development and sovereignty.”

For the full text see the link

 

COMMUNIST PARTY OF BRITAIN:

'Communists urge 'Leave vote' and criticise pro-EU 'pessimists and defeatists'

 

Communist Party chair Liz Payne has criticised EU supporters in the labour movement for 'talking as though the working class are passive victims who rely on a bountiful EU for their rights'. 

'Our trade unions and Labour governments fought for the right to join a union, collective bargaining, the right to strike, equal pay, maternity rights and health and safety at work - they weren't granted to us by the European Commission or the European Central Bank', she told her party's political committee on Thirsday evening.

She pointed to France, Belgium and Italy where employment and trade union rights were under attack, as well as Britain, and predicted that anyone who told workers in thouse countries that the EU defends them would be 'jeered off the platform'.

Ms Payne, a trades council secretary and long-time Unison activist, and also rejected claims by past and present TUC leaders that Britain's exit from the EU would lead to the wholesale scrapping of workers' rights.

'Who is going to carry out such an epic assault - a hopelessly divided Tory government fighting half of its parliamentary party, most of big business including the City of London, as well as the EU-IMF-NATO axis?', she asked, adding that the labour movement would not 'run up the white flag' contrary to the predictions of pessimists and defeatists.

Britain's communists also warned that many of the policies pursued by a left-led Labour government would face sabotage and punishment in accordance with the two basic EU treaties.

'Public ownership to rescue or invest in strategic enterprises and industries, so-called 'people's quantitative easing', large-scale government borrowing even at low interest rates, substantial cuts in VAT and the direction of capital are all unlawful under EU rules', Ms Payne pointed out.

In particular, she highlighted decisions of the EU Court of Justice in the Viking, Laval, Ruffert and Luxembourg cases which ban trade union or regional and national government action to enforce equal employment terms for 'super-exploited' imported workers.

'This is how ruthless monopolies and gangmasters use "free movement of labour" in the EU to drive down the wages and conditions of all workers', Ms Payne argued.

The CP political committee congratulated Lexit the Left Leave Campaign on its work putting the left-wing, labour movement and anti-imperiliast case against the EU and urged a big working class vote for 'Leave' on June 23.

For Spanish see the link

 

ALSO SEE on ICP:

Special interview on the EU referendum with Ella Rule, Vice Chair of the Communist Party of Great Britain - Marxist Leninist (CPGB-ML): 'Leaving EU is an anti-imperialist step'

Special interview on the EU referendum with Andy Brooks, General Secretary of the New Communist Party of Britain: 'Leaving EU will represent a defeat for the bourgeois'