Tag Archives: elections

Venezuela’s election – audit shows the vote is valid

Posted by on

Category
Articles
Tags

Venezuela election 2013Venezuela’s independent National Electoral Council (CNE) has concluded the first stage of the audit of the vote initiated following April’s Presidential election and has found “zero error”.

The audit came about after the losing right wing candidate, Henrique Capriles, refused to accept the result of April’s presidential election, that saw Nicolas Maduro elected, and instead claimed that fraud had been committed.

Venezuela has a fully electronic voting system. As well as voting electronically each voter gets a paper receipt corresponding to their electronic vote, which the voter can check, and which is then placed in a traditional ballot box. To ensure the accuracy of the electronic results, an audit of 54% of these paper ballots is automatically made on election night before the results are released and in front of witnesses from all political parties and members of the public. During this audit no discrepancies were reported by witnesses from the campaign team of Henrique Capriles. Venezuela’s fully automated electoral system underwent 18 audits before, during and after the vote. These were conducted in the presence of witnesses from all political parties who certified the system’s proper functioning and integrity. There was not one single instance of irregularity registered by these witnesses. On the contrary, all of the audits were signed off by all witnesses including those representing the losing parties. One further safeguard was the presence of over 150 electoral accompaniers from 22 countries who declared the elections free and fair.
Click to continue reading →

Link: How well did Labour do in 2013 County Council elections?

Posted by on

Category
Links
Tags

Every year Luke Akehurst writes an article looking at what the benchmarks are for Labour in the May County Council elections. Luke then follows it up with an analysis of the results. It makes very interesting reading, and a particularly encouraging sign is that this is apparently the first time Labour have made net gains in a county council election year since 1993. Continue reading the full article

Plaid makes advances in Ynys Môn

Posted by on

Category
Articles
Tags

Leanne Wood Plaid Cymru

Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood has hailed her party’s excellent result in the Ynys Môn County Council (Anglesey)election with 12 Plaid Cymru councillors elected.

Leanne Wood said the results were not only testament to the hard work of local candidates and members but also reflected the desire of local people to consign the local authority’s chequered history to the past.

“This is an excellent result for Plaid Cymru,” said Leanne Wood, “winning 12 seats on the council and increasing our representation on the council is a definite sign that we are winning support up and down the country with our positive policies to boost the economy.

“I’ve said from the beginning of my leadership that the Welsh economy and job creation are the priorities. I hope that we will be able to implement this ethos on Ynys Môn now because it is something that was said to me by voters time and time again on the door steps.

“What is most important of all for Ynys Môn now is that political point-scoring is put to one side in the name of good governance and bringing to an end a difficult chapter in the history of the council.”

Newly-elected Councillor Bob Parry said:

“The interests of the people of Ynys Môn must be placed before all else. There is a lot of trust to be re-built between the local authority and the people of Ynys Môn and I know our excellent team on the island have the integrity, determination and work ethic to achieve this.

“At the beginning of this election campaign we urged voters to make ‘Anglesey/Môn proud again’ and that is what our councillors at the local authority will be focusing on over the next few years.”

Ukip: Election breakthrough demands a serious response from the left

Posted by on

Category
Guest Posts
Tags

This is a guest post by Kevin Ovenden.

Ukip 'reservation' election leafletThe surge by Ukip in the local government elections this week is nothing short of a breakthrough for the right-wing, xenophobic, nationalist party.

It demands a serious and sustained response from the broad coalition of forces which over the last decade has come together to resist fascism and racism in Britain.

That’s not because Ukip is itself fascist. It is not. But it is a racist party which has hardened and foregrounded the scapegoating of immigrants as it has risen in the polls and at the ballot box over the last 12 months. Its central slogan in the Eastleigh by-election, where it came second, was “stop open-door immigration” (which we haven’t had in Britain for over a century). Anti-immigration and anti-multicultural themes linked together the disparate campaigns it ran in this week’s elections also.

As Dr Matthew Goodwin of Nottingham University wrote last year:

‘At various points, Ukip elites have voiced concern over Muslim “breeding”, party organisers have referred to “Muslim nutters”; UKIP candidates have described Islam as “degenerate”, suggested Britain forcibly repatriate Muslims and endorsed Wilders’ description of Islam as a “retarded ideology”.’

Ukip leaders make great play of the fact that the party’s constitution bans former members of fascist organisations such as the BNP from joining. But few interviewers have bothered to ask Ukip’s Nigel Farage why such as clause is necessary.

The answer is that the anti-immigrant, Islamophobic – indeed racist – underpinning of the Ukip call to “get our country back” has more in common with the BNP’s election rhetoric when it has previously made advances in the polls. Indeed, the analysis by Goodwin and his colleagues showed that the “core” Ukip vote 12 months ago held attitudes against immigrants, diversity and Muslims which were closer to the BNP than to mainstream of even the Tory party. Goodwin wrote:
Click to continue reading →

South Shields by-election results

Posted by on

Category
Articles
Tags

Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour) 12,493 votes ELECTED
Richard Elvin (UK Independence Party) 5,988 votes
Karen Allen (Conservatives) 2,857 votes
Ahmed Khan (Independent) 1,331 votes
Phil Brown (Independent Socialist Party) 750 votes
Lady Dorothy Macbeth Brookes (BNP) 711 votes
Hugh Annand (Liberal Democrats) 352 votes
Howling Laud Hope (The Official Monster Raving Loony Party) 197 votes
Thomas Faithful Darwood (Independent) 57 votes

turnout of 39.2%

tony adds:

Far Right Flop Looms in County Council Elections

Posted by on

Category
Articles
Tags

Hope Not Hate reports:

The 2013 local elections will see the lowest number of far right candidates since 2002 and this reflects their electoral decline in recent years.

The British National Party (BNP) is standing just 105 candidates across England, compared to 450 in the county council elections four years ago. What is worse for the BNP is that they are a serious contender in just two or three seats. Even Sharron Wilkinson, who is the BNP’s only current county councillor, has decided not to defend her seat in Burnley.

The BNP could not even find candidates for the Mayoral elections in Doncaster and North Tyneside.

There is even worse news for the recently formed British Democratic Party (BDP). Set up by former BNP officers and organisers, including Andrew Brons MEP, the BDP hoped to replace the BNP as the main far right party in the UK. With just three candidates, their journey is set to be a long one.

Both the BNP and BDP will no doubt argue that the lack of candidates is a deliberate move because they realise that the rise of UKIP severely hampers their chances. While this might be a political reality, this is not the reason for the lack of candidates. The truth is simply that the far right is in complete disarray.

The decline of the BNP has long been seen as an opportunity by the English Democrats. While they are not a far right party, their leadership had hoped to attract BNP members into their ranks and the support of BNP voters through the ballot box. Last year, this seemed to work as 43% of their candidates were former BNP members. Their fortunes have deteriorated since then, not helped of course by their bizarre tie up with the thugs of the EDL and the fascists and racists of Britain First. Despite boasting only a few weeks ago of over 300 candidates, the English Democrats have only managed to stand 39, half of whom are in Kent.

The spectre of UKIP looms large over these elections. With about 1,750 candidates, UKIP poses a threat to every other political party. They are likely to do well in traditionally Conservative areas of the East Midlands, Eastern region and South West, and could eat into Labour support in the West Midlands, North West and North East. They are also likely to eclipse the BNP and other nationalist groups in the seats they are competing and this is likely to further demoralise and marginalise the far right. While UKIP is not a far right party, or even intrinsically racist, it is contesting these elections on a strong anti-immigrant message, coupled with its anti-establishment theme and so is likely to attract many former BNP voters.

The BNP has been on a downward spiral since it was heavily defeated in Barking and Dagenham in 2010. This year is likely to see that continue and as a consequence we are likely to see the far right, including the EDL and its numerous splinter groups, increasingly turn away from the ballot box.

We will be reporting on the elections as they progress on the HOPE not hate blog.

The disarray of the far right is a stark contrast to the situation just three or four years ago, and considerable credit much go to campaigning anti-fascist organisations and campaigners  like Hope Hot Hate.

Since then, the BNP has imploded with controversy over incompetence, cronyism and financial skulduggery, but those tensions have been exacerbated and in some cases even created by the non-stop scrutiny, opposition and delegitimisation. The English Democrats, who for a while occupied an ambiguous space undecided whether to become an eccentric civic nationalist party, have elected instead to vere off into the well trodden path of far right racism, accepting into membership many former open Nazis, and allowing the deeply unlovely Steve Uncles to set the tone; but their derisory vote in the Eastleigh by-election shows they probably have no future.

UKIP is not a fascist party, and in many ways they stand as unreconstructed Thatcherites, without the political pragmatism of a woman who, despite all her faults, was a greatly talented political leader. At one level UKIP could cause enormous problems for the Conservatives by splitting the rightist vote. The trouble is that they are pulling the mainstream political agenda to the right, but that is best opposed by the left and centre-left simply developing a better alternative vision of a fairer and more equal Britain, and taking that message of hope to the voters.

How the Bradford West Was Won

Posted by on

Category
Articles
Tags

Democratic Audit

The shock outcome of the Bradford West by-election  ̶  the dramatic loss of a relatively safe Labour seat to George Galloway for the Respect party ̶  generated considerable media discussion in the immediate aftermath of the result. A variety of competing explanations were offered for Galloway’s victory, ranging from Respect’s use of social media to mobilise younger voters through to unsubstantiated accusations of electoral fraud. The debate about Respect’s remarkable breakthrough in Bradford continued in May 2012 after the party won five seats in the local elections, denying Labour majority control of Bradford City Council.

This report provides a detailed research-based analysis of the events surrouding ‘the Bradford earthquake’. It identifies the factors which led to one of the most surprising by-election results in living memory. It also assesses the wider significance of the by-election, both in terms of how it stands alongside other ‘shock’ by-elections in British political history, and the lessons which can be identified for the other political parties about election campaigning and political engagement in contemporary Britain.

The report was commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust (JRRT) Ltd and written by Lewis Baston, a Senior Research Fellow at Democratic Audit. It draws on interviews with key figures in the 2012 Bradford elections, statistical analysis of the election results and fieldwork visits undertaken by the author in July and August 2012.

Downloads

The Bradford Earthquake: full report

The Bradford Earthquake: executive summary

Media coverage

A pre-publication feature on the report, including an interview with the author, Lewis Baston, was broadcast on The Sunday Politics(Yorkshire and Lincolnshire) on BBC Two, Sunday 27 January (48:38 onwards).

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Report raps Labour over Bradford West by-election selection process, Monday 28 January

The Independent: More by-election shocks ‘likely’ as party membership declines, Monday 28 January

BBC News: George Galloway Bradford West victory a ‘cry for help’ from voters, Monday 28 January

 

The Unrepresented Working Class: a Space Respect Can Fill

Posted by on

Category
Guest Posts
Tags

By Kate Hudson

This piece was originally published on Left Futures, but it was removed from the site. Subsequently, the editor of Left Futures, Jon Lansman, someone with whom Socialist Unity has a good relatonship, apologised for the situation and explained why. You can find his explanation for the removal at the end of the article.

Kate HudsonWhy have I decided to stand as Respect candidate in Manchester Central? There is no doubt that the Labour Party has a fine past track record in the service of ordinary people, liberating millions – through the foundation of the welfare state – from poverty and from the denial of basic rights and opportunities. But sadly, the emphasis here is on ‘past’ record. Labour has ceased to advance, or even adequately defend, the great achievements it made for working people. For decades now it has bought into the pro-market, neo-liberal framework which has thrown Britainand much of the rest of the world into an economic crisis of mammoth proportions. The fundamental problem with neo-liberal economics is that it is all about rebalancing the economy, away from the modest redistribution of the Keynesian welfare state and back into the hands of the wealthy. That is not an appropriate economic approach for a social democratic party, especially one founded by the trade union movement – the organised working class.

This turn away from defending and advancing the interests of the working class is a source of great sadness and frustration for many on the left and within the Labour Party itself. And as Labour has moved to the right, this has opened up a political space to its left. People have reacted in different ways to this. Some persist within Labour, wanting to reclaim the party for the policies and values it used to represent. Others grudgingly settle for New Labour-lite, especially in the run up to a general election, hoping that perhaps this time, Labour will fulfil our hopes. Still others have concluded that a different political option must be pursued: the articulation of popular pro-working class policies which Labour – to a considerable extent – used to represent. And that many people, who feel their interests no longer have political representation, require – and will choose to support – a party which stands for their interests. The Respect Party can be such a party and it is my intention – as it is of many others – to work to make it so.

This political space – and the emergence of new parties to fill it – is not just a British phenomenon. It is something that is happening across Europe and has even hit the media radar here in Britain, as a result of the recent Greek elections. Labour’s Greek sister party PASOK was decimated in this year’s elections, as it implemented vast cuts programmes, driving millions into poverty and disaster. Syriza, a new pluralistic party of the left, emerging from radical and eurocommunist traditions in Greece from the early 1990s, won massive popular support, narrowly missing victory over the conservative New Democracy. PASOK had failed to represent the interests of its electorate and so was eclipsed. In France too, this new left current has hit the headlines: Front de Gauche and its leader Jean-Luc Melenchon have made waves in French politics, reconsolidating the left beyond the Parti Socialiste.

Of course what is happening in Greece or France is specific to those countries and is not exactly reproducible elsewhere, but the fact is that parties like Syriza and Front de Gauche are eating into the votes of previously ‘socialist’ parties across Europe, and they will continue to do so because an objective political space exists. In fact what George Galloway did in Bradford was comparable to the stunning rise of Syriza and resulted in the eclipse of Labour, because Labour signally failed to work for ordinary people in that city. And Respect, in the same political stable as Syriza, will continue to advance the alternatives which Labour should itself represent.

That is why I am standing for Respect in Manchester Central. It’s a ‘safe’ Labour seat, with 52% of the votes cast for Labour in 2010. But that figure hides a sorry tale. It also has the lowest turn out in the country at 44.5%. Labour, which has run Manchesterfor a long time, has not addressed the deep problems of the city or the constituency. Manchester is the fourth most deprived local authority in the country and its two most deprived wards are in Central constituency. Clearly, Labour is not working for Manchester Central. The people are making their judgment by voting with their feet, by turning away from the electoral process altogether.

It’s time for a political alternative, articulating the interests of working people. Respect stands for that alternative.

Left Futures and the Manchester Central by-election: an apology

“Earlier today we published an article by Kate Hudson, Respect candidate in the Manchester Central by-election, entitled The unrepresented working class: a space Respect can fill. Whilst Left Futures firmly believes that “the Left’s future remains inextricably linked with that of the Labour Party” (as set out in our mission statement), this has given rise to the mistaken impression that Left Futures supports a candidate standing against Labour in a by-election. That is emphatically not the case. In order to clarify the position, I have decided as editor to withdraw the article from publication.

Those of us on the Labour Left who, whilst committed to Labour’s success, also wish to realign Labour in a more radical direction and to draw into Labour many of those who are currently outside it, must tread a careful path. It is right that Left Futures gives space to others on the Left outside Labour to present their views and contribute to our debate about policy and the future of the Left. But we must be careful to get the balance right and on this occasion we did not but, just as we have carried articles by Kate Hudson and members of other parties before, so we will do so again.

Kate Hudson, as I said in my previous report about the Manchester Central by-election, is a formidable campaigner and a comrade in the campaigns for peace and in solidarity with the people of Greece in their opposition to austerity. Nevertheless, in Manchester Central, we want to see Lucy Powell winning the by-election by running a bold and radical campaign which will bring back Labour’s lost voters rather than see them turning towards Respect.

As it happens, today I was supposed to be on holiday and did not see Kate’s article prior to publication though as Editor it is right that I take full responsibility for everything that is published. When I did see it, I saw no alternative to withdrawing it from publication, and I apologise both to Lucy Powell, Labour’s candidate, for any wrong impression we may have caused and to Kate Hudson who wrote the article for us in good faith.”

Greece: the Responsibility of the Left

Posted by on

Category
Guest Posts
Tags

This is a guest post from Andrew Burgin and Kate Hudson

In the run up to the recent elections in Greece, a number of facts became increasingly clear: the people of Greece can suffer no more austerity – they are at breaking point; Greece is being used as a gigantic social experiment and if it succeeds other countries in Europe will suffer the same fate; the working people of Greece are increasingly supportive of anti-austerity parties and there is a need – and strong desire – for unity of these forces on the left.

The elections showed a stunning result for Syriza, the main recipient of the anti-austerity vote, pushing its support to 16.7% and outstripping the former governing party PASOK whose vote fell from 44% to 13%.

The KKE vote also increased, but only marginally, to 8.5%. The other party experiencing rapid growth was the neo-nazi Golden Dawn, whose vote rose from 0.23% to 6.9%. Further polls taken since the election show Syriza’s support is now at 27%. Its popularity has been enhanced by the five demands proposed by its leader Alexis Tsipras.

They are:

• Cancelling the bailout terms, notably laws that further cut wages and pensions
• Scrapping laws that abolish workers’ rights, particularly a law abolishing collective labour agreements due to come into effect on 15 May
• Demanding proportional representation and the end to the 50 seat bonus to the first party
• Investigating Greece’s banking system which received almost 200bn euros of public money and posing the need for some kind of state control over the banks
• Setting up an international committee to find out the causes of Greece’s public deficit and putting on hold all debt servicing.

That Syriza must form a government on this basis is now the central political demand and one which reflects the political reality facing the country. It seems likely that a new election will be called for June and Syriza will emerge as the strongest party. The working class are looking to the left to resolve the problems they face in their daily lives and many middle class voters are also turning to Syriza as the mainstream parties have plunged them further and further into an economic nightmare. There is an increasing recognition from across the board that the policy prescriptions of finance capital hold no future for the country.

However, whilst support from ordinary people is increasing, the response from the left outside of Syriza has not been good. The KKE leader Aleka Papariga has refused to meet with Tsipras and the KKE have released a statement which includes this: ‘Syriza is lying that it will cancel the memorandum and the loan agreement and that it will free the people from the debt.’

The KKE calls not for a government in which Syriza can be worked with, tested out and held to its five demands, but for a strengthening of the KKE. It is likely that this isolationist policy has been shaped by its negative experience in the late 1980s when it helped form and briefly belonged to Synaspismos – the main element of Syriza – and participated in government coalitions with both New Democracy and PASOK. As a result of this experience, in 1991 the KKE began the process of reconsolidating itself as an explicitly communist party. But these experiences should not prevent the KKE from fighting for working class unity today. Syriza is not PASOK or New Democracy – it stands on a clear anti-austerity programme.

Now, more than ever, it is essential that left organisations put the interests of the class first – a principle which should be applied in Britain or any other country as much as Greece.

Any cooperation between Syriza and the bourgeois parties should be opposed but it is not currently on the agenda, and has been explicitly rejected by Tsipras. But nevertheless the KKE believes that a government led by Syriza would “meet the needs and interests of capital, the choices of the EU and the IMF.” However, this is not what the majority of the working class believes and the election results show it has made a different assessment. Syriza triumphed strongly in working class areas where it was the first party and amongst unemployed youth where it was also the first party. The second party for the young unemployed was the fascist Golden Dawn.

The KKE should now use its political weight, built largely on its undoubted courage during the second world war, civil war and military junta, to demand that Tsipras takes office in order to defend the working class. The role of communists in such a government would be to ensure practical steps forward for socialism.

What is necessary in Greece is a united front of all workers’ parties. The situation is so grave that historical and programmatic differences must be set aside in the interests of the working class. Parties can maintain their own organisational independence and slogans whilst the government centres on concrete political and economic issues for the benefit of working people.

The current position of the KKE is a tragedy both for itself and the people of Greece. At the next election its vote is expected to fall and many KKE supporters will switch to Syriza – but even then it is unlikely that Syriza will be able to form a government without the support of the KKE.

The same support for a united front should come from all sections of the left in Greece. Whilst it does not have the same political weight as the KKE, the far left anti-capitalist coalition Antarsya should also back a Syriza-led government. But as a leader of the British Socialist Workers’ Party – its British sister organisation – tweeted ‘Anti-capitalist left Antarsya will not prop up SYRIZA govt but is calling for joint-action to beat austerity in strikes, occupations’.

Antarsya is not in a position to prop up any government – they got 1.2% of the vote and polled 75,000 which is down on their result in the 2010 local elections when they polled 97,000. However, Antarsya contains many good activists and they have been at the forefront of anti-fascist activity and the call that they make for united action on the streets is important. On some demonstrations in Greece this is beginning to happen in practice, notably in February when cadre from the KKE opened their lines to protect Syriza supporters from the riot police in Syntagma Square.

But the lessons from Germany in the early thirties show that united action on the streets has to be supplemented with clear agreements between working class parties in defence of the class as a whole. We cannot repeat the errors of the left at that time, when calls for a united front from below isolated social democratic workers from communists and split the movement, allowing Hitler to take power. Of course there is not an exact parallel between then and now, and as yet neither a military coup nor a fascist take-over are in prospect. But it cannot be denied that the consequences of unbridled neo-liberalism and the effective dictatorship of finance capital are already creating the most devastating consequences for the people of Greece and must be understood as a most savage onslaught whose consequences will ultimately equal those that would be experienced under political or military dictatorship and may in fact lead to either of these being established. Those would be the consequences if the left fails. At the moment what is in prospect politically is the ascendancy of the working class. How can the left contemplate anything other than a united front to take that possibility forward and reject any possible resurgence of the right?

By the same token, the left across Europe should express the strongest possible solidarity with the working people of Greece in whatever practical and political ways can be established. Seventy-five years ago, the left from across Europe gave unstintingly and often with great personal sacrifice to support the Spanish republic against fascism. How can it now do less, in ways appropriate to the situation today, in support of the Greek people and to advance the prospect of a working class government?

At the moment the working class in Greece is undefeated and the opportunity to take the movement forward must not be rejected.

What Happened in Bradford? Debate Between Labour & Respect

Posted by on

Category
Events
Tags

Manchester TUC debateThis should be an interesting public meeting. Following the fantastic results for Respect in Bradford recently, Manchester TUC has organised a debate between Labour & Respect about what happened, why, and what it means for the future.

The debate is between Lucy Powell, who has just been selected as Labour’s candidate for Manchester Central in the forthcoming by-election and long-standing Manchester activist and Respect Party National Secretary Clive Searle. It would be great to get a big turnout and a lively debate.

The meeting is next Wednesday, 16 May at 8pm, at the Mechanics Institute, Manchester – click here for a map.

Hollande – a New Wind from Paris

Posted by on

Category
Articles
Tags

As Michael Meacher points out today, the victory of the left in the French presidential election is accompanied by advances for the left elsewhere

Ten out of the 17 Eurozone Heads of State have now been unceremoniously ditched since the financial crisis began 4 years ago. Merkel, the bulwark of the EU Right, is now more isolated than ever: her close ally, the fiscal disciplinarian Dutch PM Mark Rutte was ejected two weeks ago, now her most important ally Sarkozy, and in her German homeland her party has just been removed from office in the Schleswig-Holstein elections.

Coupled with that there is an outright rejection of ultra-austerity in Greece, Spain and Italy, and the Left has made big gains in Denmark and Slovakia and now of course in the UK. It begins to look as though the fixed rigidity of Right-wing economics won’t hold.

The most important implication is Hollande’s commitment to growth rather than austerity. It is important to understand that the economics of growth do not mean a retreat from the goal of deficit reduction, but the strategy is predicated upon increasing government income, rather than decreasing government expenditure.

Hollande wishes to add a “growth chapter” to the fiscal compact treaty, which members of the French Socialist Party often call the “austerity treaty”. This would include a stronger role for the Europeans investment bank, and the creation of Euro-bond backed funding for large scale investment projects. According to EurActive, a memorandum on growth is currently being prepared by leading Socialist personalities, including Elisabeth Guigou (former EU affairs adviser to François Mitterrand) and MEPs Catherine Trautmann and Pervenche Berès.

The current German inspired fiscal compact treaty emphasises monetary stability and seeks to oppose inflation through austerity; while backing long term refinancing of the banks through an injection of 520 bn Euros to restore liquidity. They hope that this will restore investment into the real economy, but the mechanism is left to the market, and the private decisions of risk averse finance houses. Even in its own terms it is impossible to see how such a plan could restore growth in Southern and Eastern Europe.

Nevertheless, despite seemingly polarised approaches, both Merkel and Hollande have recently praised the approach of Mario Draghi, President of the European Central bank (ECB), and while the Germans back the idea of Euro-bonds for debt reduction, the new French government favours their use for financing investment. The question therefore becomes one of politics as well as economics, to what degree will Paris and Berlin be prepared to compromise, in the interests of the institutional stability of the EU. Quite divergent policies may be fudged together out of political expediency, especially as Hollande’s approach more closely aligns to the priorities of Obama’s White House.

The German government says that the fiscal compact treaty cannot be renegotiated, but the shift in political balance across Europe may mean they find a pragmatic accommodation with the new wind blowing from France. Hollande’s electoral mandate is based only upon a narrow victory, it was nevertheless emphatic, and his new government cannot afford to retreat without concessions. Therefore, however much the unelected bond dealers conspire, the French government is likely to prevail, at least in part.

This will reinforce the credibility of an alternative economic policy in the UK based upon investment, jobs and growth. A Euro-sceptic and economically incompetent UK government will appear increasingly out of step.

It is vital that the left and centre-left in Britain align ourselves with the broad thrust of the anti-austerity policies of Hollande, even though we may not agree with every detail. Michael Meacher spells out the lessons for Labour:

This is that the mantra ‘the Tories are cutting too far, too fast’ simply won’t do any more. The answer to stagnation in the UK is not cutting less and cutting less quickly, it’s a full-hearted jobs and growth strategy. Nor is it plausible to suggest that the Ed Balls’ 5 points adequately represent the momentum required. They are certainly better than nothing, but nowhere near enough to turn around a double-dip recession, a collapse of business and consumer confidence, unemployment rising steadily to 3 million, or the most drastic hacking back of public expenditure for a century.

Instead it requires a National Infrastructure Bank to launch a big increase in capital investment including for house-building, a revival of the role of the State in reversing the vicious spiral of economic decline, and a major rebalancing of the economy from an over-cossetted banking system to a lean and hungry manufacturing industry.

Furthermore we should acknowledge the possibilities of left governments and parties co-operating towards achieving a social Europe.

The traditional rejectionist approach of the left towards the EU has been predicated upon the desire to exercise political and economic sovereignty. While sovereignty is indeed one of the most important prerequisites for democratic government to impose its will upon unelected capital; as China established by joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO), it is also necessary to participate in the global superstructure of international trade, and thereby leverage the benefits of membership while seeking to use political, economic and diplomatic pressure to shape a win-win outcome. The paradox is that to exercise meaningful sovereignty, in the modern world of multi-national corporations and globalised trade, requires some mediation of sovereignty through international institutions.