One of the questions on which the Labour lefts" did most tub-thump ing at the General Election was the Common Market. According to them the promise of a referendum was simply a first step to withdrawal from the EEC. Only two weeks after the election it is already clear that the Labour leadership has quite different ideas.
The first development has beon around the sugar negotiations. Here Britain could relatively casily negotiate a low price sugar contract with Australia not because the Australians are great believers in "the Common wealth", but simply because this particular gang of capitalist bandits happen to have miscalculated and landed themselves with a glut of sugar. Instead however, the Labour Government is negotiating for the EEC to subsidise sugar purchased on the world market and then resold the Australian sugar had been bought; but Labour will hail it as a great "concession' showing that we must remain in the Common Market.
The second important development has been Callaghan's hasty retreat. Even before the election he announced that by "renepotiation" he did not mean tampering with the Treaty of Rome, the foundation of the EEC, but simply altering a dew of the secondary agreements. Now, how ever, he las gone further and ordered the renegotiations to be rapidiy completed which means dealing only with absolutely trivial questions.
Behind all this is Wilson's new strategy for getting himself off the EEC hook. On the one hand, he calculates that he cannot get out of a referendum but on the other hand staying in the Common Market is now a virtual life-or-death question for the British capitalists. So to keep up his policy of class alliance Wilson must not actually finish up by withdrawing from Europe. Furthermore the Labour leadership know that if they did try to put an Act through Parliament for with drawal the Jenkinsites would simply split from the party and prevent the Act from being passed. would not even be able to call and win a General Election to destroy the Jenkinsite opposition. For all these reasons the Labour leaders have to find some way of staying in the EBC despite having the referThe choice of strategy is now very clear. Wilson calculates correctly that nove of the European capitalist classes have an interest in socing the EEC collapse or Britain withdraw. Furthermore quite a few of them are fed up with subsidising French peasant farmers through the more expensive aspects of the EEC's Common Agricultural Policy. Therefore Wilsott reckons to carry out a little arm twisting and get a few real concesOn this basis he can then hold the referendum, but with a firm recommendation from the Cabinet-which he will claim is the voice of the Labour Party-calling for a YES vote for continued membership of the EEC. This operation must be carried out with the greatest possible speed, so as to steamroller the issue through before opposition can organise itself within the working class. id 'renegotiation SERIES OF TASKS Faced with this strategy by the Labour leadership, Marxists have a whole series of tasks. The first is to demand that Labour withdraws immediately and unconditionally from the EBC. However it is extreme This may well result in a higher price to consumers than if Wilson, with his abject right-wing policies.
This explains Callaghan's call for more rap Rod Weekly 24 October 1974 Page 3