Trump is a wake up call. I am glad DiEM25 is awake – Brian Eno
I had a bet with my American friend Stewart Brand that Trump would win. He wrote to me this morning: “You called it right. And I called it wrong. Groan. Now the weirdness!”
I wrote back to him:
“Welcome to the post-Liberal world. I think I know exactly how you feel – I remember the morning after Brexit, and the realisation that I lived in a country I didn’t really know anything about.
It’s a genuine revolution – but one we didn’t recognise because we had nothing to do with starting it. We always thought we were at the centre of things, but it turns out we’re not. It’s us, not them, who are in a bubble.
Is there any good news? My post-Brexit feeling – after the initial shock and disappointment – is that there is, along with a lot of danger and uncertainty. Liberal America will now have to take a good hard look at itself, as Liberal England has been doing. There has never been so much future-oriented socio-political discussion here, never so much a sense of ‘We haven’t been paying attention’. New groups and coalitions are springing up daily and the whole landscape is changing. Everyone is thinking…effectively trying to save or if necessary reinvent liberal democracy.
One reassuring side to this though: it destroys any conspiracy theories about secretive cabals pulling the strings. They weren’t in this at all. It’s very conspicuous that even FOX was taken by surprise; that even the revolting Koch’s didn’t put their pennies in. This was, for better or worse, a genuine people’s revolution ( – so it can happen).”
I see this as an opportunity – which is why I’m less distressed than my American friends. For years I’ve been hearing ‘We don’t do politics’ from so many intellectuals – as though it’s something shameful, a bit like public masturbation. Now I think perhaps we’ll sideline our Virtual Reality iPads and dreams of Colonies on Mars for a little while and start thinking about what’s happening here, on Earth.
This is a wake-up call for many people. I’m glad that DiEM25 is already awake.
Brian Eno
A day of victory for the politics of fear, loathing and division
Donald Trump’s victory marks the end of an era when a self-confident Establishment preached the end of history, the end of passion and the supremacy of a technocracy working on behalf of the 1%. But the era it ushers in is not new. It is a new variant of the 1930s, featuring deflationary economics, xenophobia and divide-and-rule politics.
Passion has returned to politics but not in a way that will help the 80% left behind since the 1970s. Passion is now fuelling misanthropy. Passion is exploiting the anger of the 80% to re-arrange power at the top, while leaving the 80% moribund, betrayed and divided. And it is our job to stop this. It is our job to harness passion in the cause of humanism.
The Establishment’s folly is causing its demise. Unable to come to terms with the economic crisis they created, they crushed the Greek Spring because they could. They pushed the majority of British families into austerity-induced hopelessness. They committed millions of Germans to mini-jobs. They conspired to keep Bernie Sanders at bay. And when Golden Dawn, Brexit, the Alternative für Deutschland and Donald Trump were the result, they responded with a mixture of condescension, denial and panic.
Politics is undergoing a shake-up that the world has not seen since the 1930s. A Great Deflation is now gripping both sides of the Atlantic, re-kindling political forces that had been dormant since the 1930s. President Trump’s use of Mussolini-like tactics and narratives is a mere symptom of the rendition of that bleak era.
What should we do?
The spectre of a Nationalist International that is upon us (from Trump and the Brexiteers to Poland’s and Hungary’s governments, the Alternative für Deutschland, Austria’s next president, Marine Le Pen) can only be defeated by the Progressive International that the Democracy in Europe Movement, DiEM25, is building in Europe.
But, clearly, Europe is not enough. Progressives in the United States, those who supported Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein, must band together with progressives in Canada and Latin America, to build a Democracy in the Americas Movement. Progressives in the Middle East, those who are shedding their blood against ISIS, against tyranny as well as against the West’s puppet regimes, must band together with progressive Palestinians and Israelis to build a Democracy in the Middle East Movement.
In 1930, our ancestors failed to reach out to other democrats across borders and political party lines to stop the rot. We must succeed where the others failed.
Today, on a day of victory for the politics of fear, loathing and division, we pledge to take the fight to the Nationalist International, to form an effective Progressive International and to bring passion back into the service of humanism.
Carpe DiEM!
PHOTO: Donald Trump speaking at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C. (credit: Gage Skidmore)
A Call to American Friends and Comrades
By Thomas Seibert and Yanis Varoufakis, members of the DiEM25’s Coordinating Collective
As in the case of Brexit, we refuse to respond in a binary manner (remain or leave, Clinton or Trump) to the question facing voters.
For us, Clinton and Trump are the two sides of the same effaced coin, redolent of the fading illusions of global capitalism’s neoliberal turn. The virulent clash between them, just like the clash between David Cameron and Boris Johnson in the Brexit campaign, is masking the fact that the establishment’s pro-globalisation camp (Clinton and Cameron) and the populist anti-establishment camp (Trump and Johnson) are, in truth, accomplices – that they feed off each other and, together, keep off the agenda all the things that matter in the lives of the vast majority.
This, however, does not mean that we must remain neutral. While we shall not be endorsing any of the two candidates, at the same time we will not sit on the proverbial fence. Our message to our American friends and comrades is to do their part in preventing a Trump presidency without endorsing Hillary. What does this mean in practice? It means that, in states that seem already decided, the principles of DiEM25 suggest a vote for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. But, in states that are in the balance, as Noam Chomsky, our DiEM25 fellow Coordinating Collective member, has recommended, “we close our nose tightly and vote for Clinton”.
We are issuing this appeal for two reasons: First, because Trump is intentionally reviving the language of hatred and bigotry in order to harness the rightful anger of the citizens who feel discarded, and so as to press them into the service of organised misanthropy. Yes, Clinton is geopolitically dangerous, slavish to Wall Street, deeply contemptuous of democratic process (as evidenced from the manner in which she conspired with her ‘mates’ in the Democratic Party to deprive Bernie Sanders of basic opportunities that ought to be afforded to all candidates in the primaries). But, Trump’s deployment of (to quote Hegel) the “fury of destruction” presents a spectre of doom for democratic politics. We say that it is better to face an enemy hiding behind a rhetoric of betrayal then to face an enemy showing his real face in his rhetoric of resentment.
The second reason is a strategic one. No government, not even the best possible one, will ever deliver democracy to the demos. Governments can help, but with the best intentions they hinder democracy, because democracy means rule by the demos – not by some elected elite. For this reason DiEM25 will never back a government unconditionally. With this thought in mind, we would vote for Clinton in a swing state only because a Clinton presidency will create more room for the continuation and further cultivation of the ‘political revolution’ started by the Sanders Campaign.
Our aim tomorrow, as democrats, should be this: Vote for Jill Stein to register our opposition to both Clinton and Trump, except in swing states where we vote for Hillary to create the space for fighting against Trump’s nativist fascism and its accomplice, a Hillary White House intent on dangerous geopolitics, reproduction of privilege and servility to Wall Street.
How the EU’s Greek Tragedy Became a British Farce
British citizens took to the polls to cast their “Leave” ballots—and their grievances—in the now-infamous Brexit vote last June, seeking to escape the overarching power of the European Union. Their triumph stunned British and global elites, but shouldn’t have; the odds were stacked in the Leave camp’s favor.
The groundwork for the Brexit debacle was laid the previous summer when Europe crushed the progressive pro-European SYRIZA government elected in Greece in January 2015. Most Britons were not directly engaged with the Greek trauma. Many surely looked askance at the Greek leaders. But they must have noticed how Europe talked down to the Greeks, how European Commissioners scolded the Greek officials for their supposed lack of fiscal rectitude, and then imperiously dictated terms for any debt restructuring. The British public witnessed how the European Union made the rebellious country into an example, so that no one else would ever be tempted to follow the same path.
If the submission of Greece to the political will of the EU and its bankers helped set the tone for European disharmony, the Leave campaign won by turning the British referendum into an ugly expression of English nativism, feeding on the frustrations of a deeply unequal nation and concerns about the EU dictating migration policy to member states. Americans can surely relate, both to the ugly nativism and to some of its underlying causes.
Fellow academics and media pundits spend a lot of time decrying the public’s embrace of destructive, so-called “populist” politics. But we should be spending more time evaluating just how out of touch our technocratic elites have become these days. These elites have only themselves to blame for the fact that people are looking for options, and often landing on unsavory ones.
That the Leave campaign could prevail testifies to the high-handed incompetence of the establishments on both sides of the English Channel. Remain ran a campaign based on fear (of recessions and other bad things that happen when you aren’t prudent in the eyes of bond markets), condescension and bean-counting, as though Britons cared only about the growth rate and the pound. And the Remain leaders seemed to believe that such figures as Barack Obama, George Soros, Christine Lagarde, a list of ten Nobel-prize-winning economists or the research department of the International Monetary Fund carried weight with the British working class.
So far, since the vote, the economic effects of the vote have been more muted than initially expected. And the political effects will be rather protracted: New Prime Minister Theresa May has announced that formal divorce negotiations won’t start with Brussels until March 2017, with the United Kingdom expected to actually leave the Union in 2019. Meanwhile, markets have settled down and British life has continued normally, undermining the scare campaign waged against a Brexit last spring.
Over time, however, as they apply to the United Kingdom, the structures of EU law, regulation, fiscal transfers, open commerce, open borders, and human rights built over four decades will start eroding. Exactly how this will happen—by what process of negotiation, with what retribution from the spurned powers in Brussels and Berlin, by what combination of slow change and abrupt acts, with what consequences for the Union of Scotland to England—is clearly unknown to the new pro-Leave Tory government.
And Europe’s crisis of confidence will likely continue spreading across Europe: In Holland and France, but also in Spain and Italy, as well as in Germany, Finland, and the East. If nativist populism can rise in Britain, it can rise anywhere.
And if Britain can exit, so can anyone; neither the EU nor the Euro is irrevocable. And most likely, since the apocalyptic predictions of economic collapse that preceded the Brexit referendum will not come true, such warnings will be even less credible when heard the next time.
The European Union has sowed the wind. It may reap the whirlwind. Unless it moves, and quickly, not merely to assert a hollow “unity” but to deliver a democratic, accountable, and realistic New Deal—or something very much like it—for all Europeans. Technocratic elites have to stop bemoaning the ignorance of voters in their countries—be it in Greece, the UK, or closer to home—and start looking at their ineffective and out-of-touch policies that are triggering the “populist” backlash.
Originally published in Zocalo.
PSOE’s Penchant for Repeating PASOK’s Disappearing Act
History may repeat itself but never as quickly or as mindlessly as it does within Europe’s social democratic family. Spain’s socialists jettisoned Pedro Sánchez to allow Mariano Rajoy to form a government as if in a bid to replicate the disappearing act of their Greek counterparts, the once formidable PASOK.
In 2011, after having backed the calamitous troika Greek ‘programme’, PASOK’s socialists ousted their leader, George Papandreou, to facilitate the formation of an essentially conservative government. Under pressure from Greece’s oligarchy, the socialists forgot they once were the conservatives’ sworn enemies and thus became their discredited accomplices – the tail that an unpopular, regressive government wagged with glee. Six months later, in the June 2012 elections, the socialists slid from the 35% to 45% electoral range they had been used to since 1981… to a depressing 5%.
Observing PSOE’s recent travails conjures up more than a déjà vu. Just as in Greece in 2011, when the ousted socialist leader cited oligarchic interests as the forces that pushed him out, so too did Sánchez cite pressures from corporate circles, naming former Telefónica CEO César Alierta and undisclosed financial groups.
In Papandreou’s case the oligarchs decided he was a spent force who could no longer push through parliament the bills emailed to Athens by the troika. They needed these bills to be implemented because they were the prerequisites for loan tranches that the Greek oligarchy needed to extend-and-pretend its bankruptcy. In Sánchez’s case, the Spanish oligarchy judged that, to continue to benefit from the easy money policy of the European Central Bank, the lax regulations of Spain’s troubled banks and the constant redistribution from Spain’s weaker citizens to themselves, Rajoy was their best runner. (What’s more, Sánchez was threatening to trip up Rajoy with a Portugal-style coalition of the Left.)
Another similarity between the Spanish and Greek socialists’ suicidal thinking is their argument that they had a national duty to do whatever it takes, as ‘responsible’ politicians, to stop the country’s drift under caretaker governments. Just as PASOK did in 2011, PSOE is today arguing that their country can’t afford another election and further delays in the formation of a ‘proper’ government that can take decisive action over the budget and troika-inspired ‘reforms’ (even if it ends up being one their citizens didn’t voted for). Really?
Since the crisis erupted, the only periods in Greece when the recession eased were those with governments either too weak or – as in the case of the first SYRIZA government in which I served as finance minister – too unwilling to comply with the troika’s demands. Similarly, in other Eurozone member states, political paralysis has proved to be highly convenient! During the euro crisis’ worst days, Belgium had the strongest growth in Europe because – rather than in spite – of repeated failures to form a ‘proper’ government: the lack of a parliamentary majority meant no government could implement the self-defeating austerity that had slashed incomes in member-states featuring ‘proper’ governments. Spain’s economy, too, has paradoxically benefited from not having had, since last December, a clear parliamentary majority for the contractionary policies demanded by Brussels.
A strong government, backed by a healthy parliamentary majority, is a good thing if it has either the freedom to implement sensible economic and social policies or is committed to practising what we in the transnational movement DiEM25 refer to as Constructive Disobedience. That is, saying ‘No!’ to policies detrimental to recovery and social justice (the ‘disobedience’ part) while tabling rational, common sense policies whose adoption across Europe would bring widespread advantages to Europeans and to the EU’s struggle for survival (the ‘constructive’ part).
It is highly doubtful that Sánchez before he was ejected from his post, or Papandreou in Greece five years ago, would have practised Constructive Disobedience. However, the fact that there was a chance that they might have, and the certainty that their conservative opponents would not, was the reason the unnerved oligarchy had them removed. Furthermore, the curious fact that their own parties participated in their dethronement was the reason PASOK bit the dust and PSOE is heading in precisely the same direction.
Originally published in eldiario.es.
Spain’s ousted opposition leader reveals where the real power lies: with the country’s oligarchs
Let Mariano Rajoy stay in power or bring on a third round of elections. Those were the only choices that the former Secretary General of the Socialist Party, Pedro Sánchez, said he was given by the country’s top media and corporate oligarchs in a prime-time interview last night.
Sánchez, who was ousted from his post after a Socialist Party revolt on October 1, announced his resignation as a Member of Parliament in tears last Saturday. Hours later, his fellow socialist MPs abstained in a crucial vote to allow Mariano Rajoy a second term in office.
“No means no”
Following two inconclusive elections, which held the country in political paralysis for almost ten months, Sánchez’s maintained his party’s firm opposition to a minority government led by Rajoy’s Popular Party. He also persisted in seeking to form a government with other progressive forces in parliament; in essence, a leftist coalition with Podemos with the support of the Catalan pro-independence parties.
But pressure has been mounting both inside and outside the Socialist party to force Sánchez to do a U-turn. In recent weeks, Sánchez became the target of vicious attacks from Spain’s leading newspaper El País, which featured editorials calling him an “unscrupulous fool who would rather destroy the party he has led so calamitously than recognise his enormous failure.”
High-ranking members of the Socialist Party, as well as prominent figures from the party’s past like Felipe González, upped the ante by publicly going against their Secretary General and saying that it was best to let a Rajoy-led government through rather than go to third elections.
Financial and corporate elites unite against a left coalition
During his television interview last night, Sánchez, who became the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party Secretary General in July 2014 after winning the party’s first-ever primary elections, confirmed that his “No means no” campaign against Rajoy had been met with stern pressure from El País. According to Sánchez, management at the paper – which is jointly owned by some of Spain’s most powerful corporations, including the country’s biggest bank – told him that any potential alliance to form a government with Podemos would be met with the harshest response.
Sánchez also cited pressures from IBEX35 corporations, naming the former CEO of Spain’s largest telecoms provider Telefónica, César Alierta, as one of those pushing him to let Rajoy stay in power. “He [Alierta] and others worked together to maintain a conservative government in this country,” Sánchez revealed. He also said that there were also financial groups pressuring him not to form a government with other forces of the Left, but declined to disclose their identities.
That real political power in Spain lies with the financial and corporate establishment will not be news to many Spaniards. However, that such a “revelation” came from the person who led one of the country’s two main parties until just a few days ago is quite astonishing.
Minutes after Sánchez’s interview was aired, Podemos’ Secretary General praised his former socialist rival’s courage on Twitter. Iglesias’ has long railed against the de-facto hijacking of Spain’s democratic processes by oligarchs entrenched in a battle for survival since the outbreak of the crisis back in 2008.
Spain’s future: A weak government, a fragmented parliament and Brussels growing impatient
As the Socialist Party crumbles like Greece’s PASOK and Mariano Rajoy is forced to steam ahead with further budget adjustments ordered by Brussels, it is hard to see how Spain’s resistance to the troika’s diktats can take place with a fragmented parliament.
Meanwhile, Sànchez has announced his intention to travel the country in an attempt to galvanise his party’s grassroots and gain support to run again.
Our Pan-European Movement is Picking Up Speed
By Reto Thumiger, DSC News Editor
A quick recap of where DiEM25 is today: The movement kicked off in Berlin last February, quickly followed by two other important events in the Spring: the launch of DiEM25’s Transparency campaign in Rome, and its Refugees and Migration Assembly in Vienna. The summer saw DiEM25 get organised: it established itself legally, thousands of its members across Europe developed and voted on the movement’s Organising Principles, the teams that will guide and coordinate its activities (the Advisory Panel and the Coordinating Collective) were voted in, and the Validating Council was opened for nominations.
But DiEM25’s summer days were not just about internal processes! Throughout the season, its volunteers and activists from every corner of the Union undertook actions and hosted events based on DiEM25’s Manifesto. These volunteers and activists make up the movement’s DSCs (DiEM25 Spontaneous Collectives), the essential grassroots element of a bottom-up transnational struggle to democratise the European Union.
In the weeks following DiEM25’s launch, 17,000 members quickly signed up on the website. 70% of these new members wanting to volunteer. “We decided to give members broad autonomy to create local DiEM25 groups (DSCs) that would organise activities and discussions in every city in the EU and even beyond,” said Judith Meyer, DiEM25’s Volunteer Coordinator. “This was absolutely the right decision. Thanks to the work of the DSCs, DiEM25 is now able to be in many places at once and listen and react to the concerns of people all over Europe,” she continued, as DiEM25’s membership rapidly expands to hit the 30-thousand mark.
It’s inspiring, indeed, to see what several collectives of this still-young movement have managed to accomplish in such a short period. To understand the phenomenon better, let’s look three different collectives and their progress thus far.
Amsterdam: Big on debate and policy
Virginia Alvarez from the Amsterdam DSC shared some of their highlights with me. One of them was a motivating discussion on some of DiEM25’s policy pillars with Saskia Sassen (the renowned sociologist noted for her analyses of globalisation and international human migration, and a member of DiEM25’s Advisory Panel). Saskia met the group after speaking at the Redesigning the democratic institutionalisation event at a sold-out venue in Amsterdam.
Members of the Amsterdam DSC meeting with Saskia Sassen.
VU University generously provides locations for regular seminars about topics like Transparency, TTiP and Democracy, DiEM25’s ‘European New Deal’ and more. These seminars are held by DiEM25 members and external lecturers, and participation is free and open to everyone. In line with the movement’s aim to embrace plurality, the participants in those seminars tend to be very diverse too.
Amsterdam DSC meet with Yanis.
Barcelona: On a mission to expand DiEM25
Heading south on our European tour of DiEM25’s DSCs we reach the city of Barcelona. The group, which first gathered last June during Yanis’ visit to the “rebel city,” is now focusing on becoming organised and on discussing and developing political content. But don’t get the wrong impression! Here you’ll find true activists. Chatting on Skype with Emma Igual, one of the two Barcelona DSC coordinators, she told me that she was sick at home. I apologised for inconveniencing her, but she told me not to worry: “It prevents me from sitting here getting angry.”
The Barcelona collective is made up of 20 regular members who attend their physical meetings, plus some 15 who participate online. They have set up different committees dealing with matters of organisation (communications and social media, video production, event planning, etc.), as well as workgroups focused on developing content for DiEM25’s Progressive Agenda for Europe. “These workgroups were originally meeting on a weekly basis, but we realised we were going way too fast and had to slow down. Now, we meet every two weeks,” said Emma. I could feel the energy and enthusiasm in her words.
Barcelona DSC at work
As they continue to grow and consolidate their group, the folks behind the Barcelona DSC have started to search online and offline to reach out to people in Catalonia who may be interested in creating a DSC in their own towns and help get them going. So there’s the chance that new DSCs will take root in Girona, Tarragona and other places in the very near future. With the newly-formed collectives in other Spanish cities like Madrid and Oviedo, the Barcelona DSC is actively engaged in sharing their experience with them and help grow the movement beyond Catalonia.
Barcelona DSC at anti TTiP demonstration.
South Bohemia: Joining the struggle against nationalism and xenophobia
Time to visit central Europe, more specifically the south of the Czech Republic, where the South Bohemia DSC is located. Eight members meet regularly in the city of České Budějovice. They are mostly political activists coming from the ProAlt movement (an initiative critical of government reforms and austerity measures), members of the former local coalition “Together” which participated in the last municipal elections, as well as local members of the Pirate and Green parties.
Antonín Hořčica, South Bohemia DSC coordinator.
The South Bohemia collective started its activities by translating the manifesto and other important DiEM25 documents into Czech. They engaged in the campaign “Transparency in Europe now!” and participated in the Assembly in Vienna last May. A main focus for this DSC has been networking with other organisations and DiEM25 members spread around the country, and promoting the creation of other DSCs.
Debate on European integration organized by the South Bohemia DSC with cooperation of the Ecumenical Academy.
These are just a few examples of the activities DiEM25 members across Europe are engaged in and how DSCs are contributing to the construction of a Europe of the people. Would you like to offer some insights into your DSC too? Do you want to share an interesting experience? Or maybe you want to know how other DSCs deal with certain issues? Drop us a line to get in touch! Or just stay tuned to this section for more news from DiEM25’s DSCs, and connect with our growing volunteer network through our directory.
How to revitalise progressive politics in Brexit Britain
Below is a speech that Yanis gave at the DiEM25-Another Europe event at the LSE on October 8, 2016.
Before the referendum DiEM25, our Democracy in Europe Movement, and Another Europe Is Possible, joined forces to argue the ‘IN the EU and AGAINST this EU’ line. In town hall meetings, on the streets, on radio and television, in newspaper interviews and articles, we traversed the country to convince the people of Britain that another Europe is possible.
We failed! On June 23, the people of Britain opined that another Europe is not possible. Aided and abetted by an official Remain campaign that was disrespectful of the people, of the truth, of arithmetic even, Brexit won.
The question now is: How can progressive politics be reinvigorated in post-Brexit Britain? How can we salvage the genuine advantages that the otherwise problematic EU has conferred upon the people of this country and of every member-state? How can we prevent a bonfire of rights to environmental standards, labour standards, not to mention of freedom from the scars on the planet’s face also known as border fences? First, we need to grasp the constituents and the extent of our failure:
To a people craving instant change, and a drubbing of the status quo, we offered a worthy policy: IN and AGAINST. A policy which, nonetheless we would need to be in government on June 24 to deliver. Except that we were nowhere near in government. So, if Remain had won – as we recommended – we wouldn’t be in Downing Street with the Parliamentary majority necessary to confront Brussels’ from within as we were proposing.
So, a Remain victory would be grist to the mill of the David Camerons, the Tony Blairs, the IMF, the European Central Bank, the Bilderberg Group – and it would be interpreted by the establishment as a licence to continue business-as-usual – the one thing that voters opposed the most.
Does this mean we were wrong to oppose Brexit? Of course not. But it does mean that it was not foolish of voters hankering change to turn their backs on us. The lesson here is simple: Unless we back up our views on Europe with a surge throughout the country that will see these views implemented from the commanding heights of 10 Downing Street, the people will turn to those who offer them realistic change NOW. Even if it is the wrong kind of change.
Taking a more Archimedean perspective, our failure is fragrant of the overarching progressive forces’ failure to harness the anti-establishment rage caused by two simple facts:
- For forty years now 80% of the people are being taken to the cleaners 95% of the time by the most privileged 20%
- For thirty years now 30% of the people are being treated like discarded persons whose opinions do not matter, squeezed out of influence by the tyranny of the shifting median voter.
Want to know why Brexit won? UK government statistics reveal that over a period of 13 years, the median British voter suffered a fall in real incomes after taking into account housing costs. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, “It is the austerity, stupid!”
“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows”. It’s not an accident that this is a line from the Tempest. Our Tempest today takes the form of a political shake up that the world has not seen since the 1930s. A Great Deflation is now gripping both sides of the Atlantic, re-kindling political forces that had been dormant since the 1930s. I have news for you: Just like no UK government can stem climate change on its own, no UK government can address this Great Deflation breeding the Great Discontent.
This is why passion is returning to politics, but not in the way we’d hoped. Passion is now fuelled by fear; to generate loathing – mainly of the ‘other’, the ‘foreigner’ who becomes the proxy for the unseen economic forces condemning masses of people to the heap of the discarded – workers too expensive and too indebted to be coveted by employers or bankers.
Before the referendum, we were aghast when fellow progressives backed Brexit hoping that it would divide the Tories and would allow the Left to reconnect with a working class lured by the sirens of UKIP. We warned them of their folly.
- We warned that the Tories, the quintessential class warriors, unlike Labour, would never be divided. For they know how to salvage unity out of the jaws of division by prioritising the services they must offer their class – the ruling class. (If only Labour could do the same, what a wonderful world it would be?)
- We warned them against the illusion that it was possible to win a bidding war with right-wing isolationists, by offering a version of immigration-phobia-light.
Our world is shaped today by a monumental new political clash, not only in Britain but in continental Europe and America. On the one side there is the global troika of neoliberalism, financialisation and globalisation, represented by the likes of David Cameron, Hilary Clinton, the Brussels-Frankfurt-Berlin triangle. Opposing it is an emergent Nationalist International, of right-wing Brexiteers, Donald Trump, Le Pen, Austrian fascists, Hungary’s Orban, the list is endless.
The trouble with this clash is that it is both real and misleading. Brexit showed that it is real. But it is also misleading because the Global Establishment and the Nationalist International are accomplices, not enemies – as Theresa May’s easy conversion to a hard Brexit illustrated. They feed off each other. They reinforce one another. For they are both reflections of our Great Deflation – of the deep crisis of capitalism and of our environment that deepen as this faux opposition unfolds.
To break up this fake opposition, that is poisoning our planet and dragging down our peoples, we need a Progressive International. It is this Progressive International that DiEM25 is building throughout Europe, based on the simple thought that our greatest challenges will defeat us unless we reach out across borders, across existing political parties.
But let me get back to the referendum for a moment. How must progressive internationalists respond?
Our first task is to reconfirm in our hearts and minds that we were right to argue against Brexit. Already, it is becoming obvious that the final verse of “Hotel California” was accurate: Checking out was easy. Leaving is a real and unmitigated mess. The paradoxes mount: Do free marketeers truly believe it is logically coherent and believable, to say to continental Europeans “Britain is open for business but you are no longer welcome to come here at will”?
Our second task is to prevent the major error of alienating those who voted for Brexit: The balance was tipped by those who yearned for the change that we failed to convince them we could deliver. So, instead of talking down to them, we should accept the responsibility for our failure to convince them that we can gain power to implement a progressive internationalist economic and political agenda for a UK within the EU.
Our third task is to put forward a roadmap for Brexit that respects our democratic agenda and our Progressive Internationalism. While I understand why some of you have been thinking, and speaking, of a second referendum, I will risk telling you that it is a colossal error. When Irish voters rejected the Treaty of Lisbon in 2008, the EU forced them to vote again until they delivered the “right” outcome. Do we want to alienate the people of Britain by proposing something similar? Especially at a time when the rush to a hard Brexit is gathering pace? Do we really want to be Owen Smith’s last disciples?
Here is what I propose: (1) Demand that Theresa May triggers Article 50 today, beginning the two-year de-coupling process immediately. (2) Announce now that London will, during these two years of negotiations, seek an off-the-shelf Norway-like arrangement for the full Parliamentary term that commences after the end of the two-year period. (3) Commit to a full debate, in Parliament and within British society, during that Parliamentary term on what future arrangements the people of Britain want.
This way we shall have a seven-year period of: (1) certainty for business and those whose lives straddle the UK and the continent, (2) at least one full Parliament that has the time and space to debate the kind of links Britain wants with the rest of Europe and the world, (3) simultaneous respect for voters who opted for exiting the Union and for voters aghast at the thought of a tiny circle of insiders choosing amongst the infinite varieties of Brexit.
This proposal offers progressives in this country a seven-year period during which we can succeed in doing that which we failed to do last June: To show to the good people of Britain that they do not need to settle for bad change overseen by the wrong, regressive, isolationist type of government that we have now. That good government in the UK is a realistic prospect opening up the road toward strong links with a better Europe.
Friends,
Brexit is a mere symptom of a disintegrating Europe that causes the xenophobic Right to be rising everywhere. New electrified fences are rising everywhere. Hope’s candle is trembling in the cold wind of a nationalism that is fanned by pan-European austerity. We cannot fight this wind except through evoking the old adage: United We Stand, Divided We Fall!
Today, our organisations DiEM25 and Another Europe Is Possible are taking decisive steps in this direction. We are here to discuss our joining forces. I am gratified by the internal poll of AEIP members favouring this merger and happy to report that this merger enthuses thousands of DiEM25 members from Ireland to Turkey and from Finland to Portugal. United we are determined to stand! This is why we are here today.
Since its formation on February 9 in Berlin, DiEM25 is doing in every European country what Another Europe Is Possible was doing in the UK in the run up to the referendum: forging an alliance of progressives keen to bring about a surge of democracy throughout Europe. It is only natural that the two organisations merge.
The referendum was a slap across our faces. Voters looked us in the eye and said: “No mate, we don’t believe you that another Europe is possible”. The only way of changing their mind is by demonstrating to them that another Britain, the Britain they want, is only possible if another Europe is possible. And explaining to them, convincingly, of exactly how this other Europe can come about. This means that Another Europe Is Possible, the organisation and the slogan, must now spread its wings with the power that only a pan-European movement can provide.
DiEM25 is that movement. For we refuse to be a confederacy of national organisations or chapters. We demonstrate our disrespect toward borders by traversing them. There are, I understand, those of you who wish to retain your UK-based legal and organisational structure. We respect this. However, recall what Winston Churchill once wrote: “We are with Europe, but not of it” – “We are linked but not comprised”. Well, DiEM25 implores you: Don’t be Churchillean. We must demonstrate to the people of Britain how we can work together in a trans-national, pan-European movement that respects no borders. Comprised, not just linked. If we don’t demonstrate that Another Europe Is Possible by leaving behind our national-based organisation, who will?
But enough words. Let’s join forces. Let’s prove to ourselves that, when the stakes are high, the course of progressive politics, unlike that of true love, can run smooth. There is no time to spare. We have a continent to win. For the sake of so many forsaken peoples.
Leading activists, artists, scholars and political figures take central role in DiEM25
Noam Chomsky, Elif Shafak, Brian Eno and Zoe Gardner are among the people who will be coordinating DiEM25’s activities from today.
We are unveiling the teams that will coordinate and guide our movement to democratise the EU – our Coordinating Collective and Advisory Panel – after a vote by thousands of DiEM25 members across Europe.
The 26-strong Advisory Panel includes Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, two-time Palme d’Or film director Ken Loach, UK Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, renowned philosopher Slavoj Žižek and pioneering composer Jean-Michel Jarre. They join a growing group of influential thinkers and doers that have taken an active role in DiEM25, alongside people like democracy activist Dániel Fehér and Naples mayor Luigi de Magistris.
Chomsky, Shafak, Eno and Gardner join DiEM25 initiators like Yanis Varoufakis, Srećko Horvat and Lorenzo Marsili on our 12-person Coordinating Collective.
“The post-World War II European project, while inevitably flawed, had many merits and considerable promise,” said Noam Chomsky. “These have been severely damaged, in both economic and sociopolitical domains, by the neoliberal austerity programs instituted from above by the Troika. DiEM25 is a bold and promising initiative to reverse the damage before it is too late.”
Slavoj Žižek added: “The usual radical left temptation is to do nothing concrete and wait for the big revolution. DiEM25 is different: with one specific demand, to democratise Europe, it is the right step in the right direction at the right moment.”
Notes
The Coordinating Collective (CC) coordinates all DiEM25’s activities. Every year, half of the seats on the CC are renewed through an election; the next election will take place in September 2017. The Advisory Panel (AP) advises DiEM25 and facilitates the implementation of its aims.
Both bodies are new – they officially come into being today, as a result of the voting in of our Organising Principles by our membership.
Full list of AP and CC members
The full lists are below, or check out our dedicated pages for our Coordinating Collective and Advisory Panel which include photos and biographies.
DiEM25 Advisory Panel
Julian Assange, Renata Ávila, Walter Baier, Anthony Barnett, Franco Berardi, Boris Buden, Berardo Carboni, Nessa Childers, Cécile Duflot, Marcelo Expósito, Susan George, James K. Galbraith, Ken Loach, Jean-Michel Jarre, Katja Kipping, Caroline Lucas, John McDonnell, David McWilliams, Sandro Mezzadra, Gerardo Pisarello, Rasmus Nordqvist, Saskia Sassen, Barbara Spinelli, Danae Stratou, Marie Christine Vergiat, Slavoj Žižek.
DiEM25 Coordinating Collective
Noam Chomsky, Brian Eno, Zoe Gardner, Srećko Horvat, Lorenzo Marsili, Cristina Soler-Savini, Thomas Seibert , Elif Shafak, Igor Stokfiszewski, Yanis Varoufakis, Vivienne Westwood, Agnieszka Wiśniewska.
Ex Officio members of the DiEM25 Coordinating Collective
Fotini Bakadima (Secretarial Coordinator), Luis Martín (Communications Coordinator), Judith Meyer (Volunteers Coordinator), Xavier Soler (IT Coordinator).