Thatcher, Mitterrand join forces aaainst USSR

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Writeback to 28 Middle Lane London N8 THERE HAS been a singular lack of comment in the British left wing press on the subject of the recent Thatcher-Mitterrand talks, and the degree of unanimity expressed by both participants. This wide area of agreement covered not onls economic questions such as the projected Channel Tunnel and discussions on fishing rights but extended to the domain of foreign policy.

It was in fact on that issue that their agreement was most striking.

Yet it should hardly be surprising considering the anti-Sovietism which is the hallmark of both Mitterrand's and Thatcher's foreign policies. While maintaining the traditional French governmental stance of a relative independence from American State Department positions, as compared to the slavish bootlicking of successive British governments, Mitterrand has shown a greater willingness than previous French Presidents to come under the American nuclear umbrella, as in the deployment of 2 Cruise missiles.

This relative indepen+ dence allows the Mitterrand regime a greater leeway for opportunist manoeuvIes than is afforded, to other European regimes, as is exemplified by the stance adopted along. with Mexico towards the dictatorship in El Salvador.

Hopefully few on the left would be so naive as to accept French ploys in that area as a "logical and positive". response to the repressive policies of the El Salvadorean regime, a description penned by the Secretary of the Chile Solidarity Campaign in a recent issue of Socialist Challenge.

Sophisticated

This common response of Mitterrand and Thatcher towards the Soviet Union has distinctive characteristics in each case. Mitterrand's anti-Sovietism is arguably more sophisticated in that it is within the framework of giving the EEC a specific foreign policy independent of the two major superpowers in terms of making its own initiatives on the world arena.

Thatcher's response rises little higher than the conditioned reflex of a blue rinse Tory backbencher.

Yet, whatever their distinctive features, it is this common hostility to the Soviet Union that draws them together.

This development should also be set within the context of the moves presently proceeding within the EEC on the questions of "security" and defence. The search for common policies and initiatives in these areas has moved forward recently with a paper presented by the German Foreign Minister Genscher, and discussions which are reported to have taken place "in a stately home in Hertfordshire"

Genscher strongly believes that agreement on these issues is essential to hold the Market together. Recessionary pressures can only mean increased in-fighting threatening the existence of the EEC farm policy and budget.

A greater degree of unanimity on the political issues, defence and "security" become the cement that holds the rotten edifice together.

Whilst a good deal has been written in the bourgeois press about the essential elements of . a common foreign policy (eg. East-West . relations, Middle East, etc.) Little has been revealed on what is meant by "security" policies, a field not specitically covered by the Treaty of Rome. That this is now moving further up the agenda suggests not just more cooperation in suppres sing urban "terrorism'? but also a growing awareness of the necessity to cope with working class unrest.

As these political aspects of the EEC become prioritised, it is all the more surprising find John O'Mahoney in a recent issue of Socialist Organiser (in a review of Tony Benn's article ("Britain as a Colony") referring to EEC membership as "formal relationship". This is then counterposed to the "real" question which is the economic crisis of capitalism, the determinant of the course of the class struggle in Britain irrespective of membership of the EEC.

This is economic reductionism with a vengeance.

To highlight the growing political role of the Market is not to depict it as a "con. spiracy" but is draw attention to the very real political handcuffs being shaped for 'the European working class.

The possibilities now emerging of the election of a Papandreou-led left wing government in Greece on an anti-EEC platform, strengthens those forces ir Britain campaigning on a socialist programme foI British withdrawal and the break-up of the EEC, not as the prelude to a retreat to a "siege economy" mentality but as the essential precondition for a true internationalism.

IAN MOCALMAN