the EU and Brexit: questions and answers

The peoples of France and the Netherlands had rejected a European Constitution in referendums in 2005. Referendums planned for the UK and five other EU Member States were then cancelled.

The Constitution was repackaged as the Treaty of Lisbon and rejected in the only referendum allowed, in the Irish Republic in 2008. The result was reversed by another referendum in 2009 and the Treaty finally adopted. It introduced Qualified Majority Voting in the Council of Ministers (the UK has about 8% of the votes), an unelected President of the Commission, an unelected High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy and a substantial military dimension for the EU. Q4. What are the EU’s ‘four freedoms'?

EU Treaties and Directives aim to ensure the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour within the internal market (and the free movement of capital between Member States and the outside world). The EU ‘right of establishment’ empowers companies in one EU country to set up and conduct operations in any other EU Member State.

These ‘freedoms’ implement the principle of an ‘open market economy’ proclaimed five times in the TEU and TFEU. They are the main reasons why most of the big capitalist monopolies and big business organisations across Europe—including the CBI and Institute of Directors—support EU membership.

This ‘open market economy’ and its ‘freedoms’ have contributed (along with an overvalued pound and high interest rates) to the huge unbalancing of Britain’s economy since 1973: unregulated imports and the shift of production to low-cost regions of Europe have helped reduced manufacturing employment by more than 4m and shrunk the sector’s share of GDP from 32% to 9%; unlimited capital exports have increased dependency on inward investment; Britain’s balance of payments relies even more heavily on profits from exploitation overseas; and the domestic economy is now dangerously over-reliant on financial, property and other services.

Q5. What about the free movement of people?

The free movement of labour and workers is also presented in EU treaties as the ‘free movement of persons’, in the attempt to humanise the main aim of maximising profit through the exploitating mobile labour power.

For travel, work and residency within the EU ‘Schengen Area’ of 22 Member States (due to become 26), passport and most other controls have been abolished (although some were partly reintroduced during the 2015 migrant crisis). The UK and the Republic of Ireland are not part of the Schengen Area and so still have the power to operate passport controls within the EU. The EU’s ‘free movement of labour’ principle and its Posted Workers Directive empower companies to employ and transfer workers across 2 the EU and Brexit