Britain to loose its prestigious triple a credit rating, austerity has failed

As we learn today that Britain is to loose its prestigious triple A credit rating this can only be reported as a humiliating turn of events for the chancellor George Osborne. Osborne banked his whole economic policy on maintaining this triple a credit rating now it looks to be crumbling under his nose surely it leaves the Tories and their economic plans in tatters and the coalition in a huge crisis. Moody's credit rating Cut 'shows UK economic policy failure' On Friday, Moody's became the first agency to cut the UK from its highest AAA rating to Aa1. In announcing the ratings cut, Moody's cited the "challenges that subdued medium-term growth prospects pose to the government's fiscal consolidation programme, which will now extend well into the next parliament". It added that the UK's huge debts were unlikely to reverse until 2016. This is a huge condemnation of the Tories economic policy for ministers like Danny Alexander to shrug it off like credit rating agencies do not matter is laughable as it was only last year they were all talking up how proud they were to still have their credit rating at a maximum status. It seems that just like the polls you support them when they support your policy and reject them as nonsense when they appear to be speaking against you. But this could be hugely serious for Britain from a capitalist perspective with borrowing bound to be more expensive for the government on the bond market now it’s lost its prestigious credit rating. However the Tories wish to dress this up it is a failure of mamouth proportions even on their own standards. Only a socialist solution to the crisis will solve the underlying issues. No tweaking of the capitalist system now will solve the under lying issues this is not a cyclical crisis which we can just recover from this is a fundamental crisis of capitalism and only a system change to a democratic planned socialist system will do. Its time to ramp up the pressure on this gov by continuing to build for a 24 hour general strike and force them out whilst building TUSC a working class socialist alternative to the madness of the market.

What could a 24 hour general strike achieve?

I’ve heard it a lot of late what can a 24 hour general strike achieve and in many ways I can understand those voices saying one day will not be enough we need more and I’d be agreeing with them. But and this is a big but we are starting from a very low level of consciousnesses we are not in the 1980’s trade union militancy is not what it was and we are having to start from a very low position. This is not to say that we cannot achieve big gains on the way back up but we have to realise and start from where we are not from where we’d like us to be. Some may say we are not doing that by calling for a one day general strike but we feel the working class and certainly the most advanced layers are ready and are at that stage now. Last year our calls for a 24 hour public sector general strike were taken up and made the property of the working class and turned into action on November the 30th. Now we are under no illusions that just by calling for something it wills just happen we are not that naive but slogans are important and how they are put across is important. A lot of work is needed to build for such an action we are under no illusions we face a huge task in front of us. But we must start now. At the 20 October anti-austerity demonstration, three trade union general secretaries - Len McCluskey of Unite, Bob Crow of the RMT and Mark Serwotka of the PCS - reflected the feelings of the majority of trade unionists in calling for a 24-hour general strike. Urgent plans must be drawn up now to give flesh to this call with an early date set for a strike to take place. However, it would be a mistake to imagine that the whole trade union movement is convinced and united in agreeing, let alone carrying out, the strike call, which was also endorsed by the last TUC Congress in September. It was noticeable that other general secretaries did not, in their speeches, either support or join in the general acclamation in Hyde Park for the general strike call. This indicates that right-wing trade union leaders will attempt to hamper and frustrate a strike taking place. They will seek to hide behind the 'difficulties' - particularly the hurdle of Thatcher's anti-union laws - in organising such a strike. Right-wing trade union leaders who habitually betray their members should take a warning from the recent splendid and heroic actions of the South African miners. Kept in the dirt by ruthless South African capitalism, their suffering was compounded by their 'leaders' in the NUM and Cosatu , who have shamefully collaborated with the bosses. Consequently, the miners have elbowed their former leaders aside. A similar fate awaits those trade union leaders in Britain who let trade unionists down at this momentous time. A mass campaign of explanation should drive home why a one-day strike is necessary to stop the government in its tracks. The trade unions have marched together; now it is necessary to strike together in one massive demonstration of the power of working people. Imagine the scene; with factories, workplaces and transport - apart from the essential means of getting to demonstrations, etc - all falling silent on one day. It would bring home that society cannot function without the working class. The same could not be said for the parasitic capitalists who, through their government - the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition - are dragging the British people into a social abyss. The British working class has not had such an experience for 86 years, since the time of the 1926 general strike. Greece has had 20 general strikes in the last two years alone. Spain, Portugal and Italy have trod a similar path, France and Belgium likewise. Britain did come close to a one-day strike at the time of the jailing of the dockers in 1972. Even the right-wing then general secretary of the TUC, Vic Feather, was compelled to threaten the Tory government of Ted Heath with a general strike unless the Dockers were released. He did this knowing he would not have to carry out his threat because the government had already indicated that the Dockers would be released through the medium of their own 'fairy godmother', the Official Solicitor, who few people had ever heard of before! This demonstrates the lengths to which the British ruling class will go to in order to avoid setting a new benchmark - a one-day general strike - for workers resisting them. It also illustrates that they can be compelled to make concessions when they are threatened with the power of the trade unions and the working class. It is no accident that the issue of the general strike is back on the agenda of the workers' movement. There are similar features in Britain today as in the early 1920s, which culminated in the 1926 general strike. The scale and the depth of the economic crisis of British and world capitalism are devastating. Like then, the capitalists want to impose the cost of this crisis onto the backs of the working class. They prepared a savage programme of cuts, outlined in the Geddes report of 1922. A similar scale of cuts has been proposed by Cameron and Osborne today, with the working class and poorest sections of the population, such as the disabled and low paid facing benefit cuts, etc, most affected. Unemployment - the most visible expression of the sclerotic state of 'modern' capitalism - stands at 200 million worldwide, according to the United Nations' International Labour Organisation. That is fully 30 million higher than before the crisis started in 2007-08. 40 million more people have also dropped out of the labour market since then. Yet by 2013 the figure of worldwide unemployment will have risen by at least seven million to 207 million. Cameron and British capitalism offer nothing different. A month ago, Cameron said the crisis would last at least until the end of this decade. Larry Elliott of the Guardian speculates that Britain may experience not one but possibly two or even three 'lost decades'. This will be characterised by economic paralysis, resulting in stagnant and falling living standards. Yet Cameron tries to hide his nakedness by triumphantly waving the latest 'growth' figures, prepared for him by the 'Department of Wild Guesses', and the 'Ministry of Thin Air'! These are just one quarter's figures. They largely arise from the Olympics, which had an effect almost solely in London. Even here they merely boosted part-time jobs and the self-employed, usually on miserable incomes, while the rest of the country outside of London still looks like an economic wasteland. In fact, the crisis is so deep and profound, the sacrifices demanded of the working class so severe, that some workers say, why just strike for one day? If we come out for one-day, why not then take it further into an all-out general strike? It is a question here of soberly estimating the stage through which the working class and the labour movement are passing. An all-out general strike is one of the most serious actions the working class can take, posing as it does sharply the question of power in society. Either the working class takes power and establishes a new socialist society or the capitalists can inflict a crushing defeat. Sometimes, as in 1926 with the Baldwin government, a general strike can be provoked by the capitalists without the working class being properly prepared, and its defeat can have lasting consequences. Therefore, before engaging in such a decisive battle it is necessary to go through a preparatory stage, maybe a number of limited strikes of one day or even longer, as in Greece. It is vital to understand the rhythm of the workers' movement at each stage. Today, a one-day strike is the most appropriate and effective action the working class can take. Even the six million workers organised in trade unions - encompassing 26% of the labour force - coming out in a one-day strike would shake this rotten government to its foundations. The trade unions should lose no time in organising the most massive display of working class power seen in generations - a colossal and effective 24-hour general strike! With extracts taken from http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/740/15596/31-10-2012/prepare-for-a-24-hour-general-strike

Ireland, reject the treaty reject austerity !

The “Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union” is a treaty to institutionalise synchronised austerity across Europe at the expense of basic democratic rights. If implemented, it will mean a further assault on the living standards of working people and will further deepen the economic crisis.
The central reason why this is an Austerity Treaty is the enforcement of the “balanced budget” rule contained in Article 3. This rule imposes a maximum structural deficit of 0.5% for a country with a debt to GDP ratio of greater than 60%, and 1% for other countries. Exceeding that amount will trigger an automatic “correction mechanism” - which means cutbacks and extra taxes.
What is a structural deficit? Essentially, it is a measurement of the deficit in an economy when cyclical movements in the economy and one-off expenditures are taken out of the equation. However, how to determine it is a matter of a lot of debate between economists with the result that different institutions can come up with very different figures. For example the IMF estimates that Ireland ran a structural deficit of 5.4% of GDP in 2006, while the EU Commission estimated a surplus of 2.2%! It also is really something that can only be measured with the benefit of hindsight, with the result that structural deficit estimates differ radically over time.
Countries that are in bailout programmes are shielded from these targets until they exit. Ireland is currently due to exit in 2014. The Department of Finance estimates that in 2015, Ireland will have a strucutral deficit of 3.7%. Bringing that down to 0.5% would mean at least €5.7 billion worth of extra cuts and taxes. It is more likely that the Commission would give Ireland a few years to meet the target. A target of 2017 would simply mean extending that austerity over three years, with around €2 billion of extra austerity per year. Those cuts would further reduce GDP, therefore necessitating yet more cuts!
If it is passed and implemented across Europe, this Treaty will not bring stability and growth, it threatens an absolute disaster. Austerity is already destroying lives and economies across Europe – with the Greek economy in freefall as a direct result, the Portuguese economy continuing to shrink and the Irish economy set to become the first in the EU to have six consecutive years of declining domestic demand.
According to the European Commission, in 2013, 18 countries out of 25 will have a structural deficit greater than their target, with an average deficit of 2.6 per cent. Reducing these deficits to the target levels in 2013 would mean at least €166 billion worth of cuts and extra taxes. That would have a devastating impact on the European economy. If a longer timeframe is given by the Commission, this will simply mean the same savage austerity drawn out over years.
A bondholders' Treaty
Article 4 requires countries with a debt to GDP ratio of over 60% to reduce it by one twentieth of the excess per year. In theory, there are two ways in which this ratio could be reduced. GDP could be increased or the debt itself could be reduced through paying back the principal. In practice, because of the austerity policies already being pursued and the implications of Article 3, the option of significant GDP growth is effectively ruled out.
Therefore, this Article in effect calls for a massive pay back of debt to the bondholders! In the Eurozone as a whole, the debt to GDP ratio is at 85%. Reducing that to 60% without GDP growth would require a reduction of €2.3 trillion of debt. This is a recipe for yet more austerity that will provoke a further contraction across Europe.
Ireland's debt to GDP ratio is likely to be around 120% in 2015. Reducing the debt to GDP ratio by one twentieth of the excess per year will therefore mean paying back €4.5 billion per year in principal to the bondholders on top of the €9 billion a year we will be paying in interest rates. This debt will only be paid back on the basis of yet more savage austerity imposed on working people.
Restrictions of major public investment
Articles three and four together demonstrate how this is an austerity Treaty in the interests of the bondholders and speculators. This is not simply one off austerity, but an attempt to enshrine it “through provisions of binding force and permanent character”. They mean that engaging in expansionary fiscal policy will be effectively made illegal.
While it is the case that often achieving a structural balance would be a worthwhile aim, it also often makes sense for a state to engage in borrowing and deficit spending in order to create employment and develop the economy. The need for massive public investment is particularly evident right now in Ireland. 450,000 people are on the live register and private sector investment has collapsed. Despite an increase in profits for the private sector (the gross operating surplus of non-financial corporations increasing by €2.6 billion in 2010) investment continues to decline (by €30 billion since 2007). On the basis of relying on the private sector, it is simply wishful thinking to suggest that the financial resources will be put together with the available skills and talents of labour to create jobs and wealth in our economy.
That is why massive public sector programmes are needed to get people back to work, as well as improving our infrastructure and developing our economy. If big business is not willing to invest, the key sections of the economy should be taken out of private ownership and into democratic public ownership and a democratic plan developed based on massive public sector investment to redevelop the economy.
Attack on democracy
The Fiscal Treaty is part of a process, with the economic crisis, that has seen significant attacks on democratic rights within the EU. For example, the unelected and unaccountable European Central Bank has become increasingly powerful – sending detailed prescriptions of austerity measures to the Italian governments for them to carry out. The unelected European Commission has played a central role in the removal of elected governments in Italy and Greece and their replacement by bankers' governments. This treaty is a significant attack on the basic democratic right to elect a government to decide on budgetary and economic strategy. It does this in two key ways.
Firstly, with the balanced budget rule it effectively ties future governments to the same economic policies as this one – neo-liberalism and austerity. It rules out governments running structural deficits – which could be used for investment in vital public works, to engage in necessary public spending and so on. It is surely one of the most basic requirements of a democracy that people are free to vote for different economic policies.
This has not come out of the blue – it is part of a process whereby economic policy has been technocratised. There has been a conscious attempt to use the crisis (a crisis of capitalism caused by speculators, bankers, neo-liberalism and deregulation, let us remember) to move economic policy out of the sphere of democratic discussion and to turn it into a purely technical question. So neo-liberalism is not posed as a policy choice, it is simply “responsible” behaviour.
The second key proposal diminishing democracy is the mechanism for countries to be effectively placed in administration. This is contained in Article 5 of the treaty, which says that countries in an “excessive deficit procedure” have to put in place a “budgetary and economic partnership programme including a detailed description of the structural reforms which must be put in place and implemented to ensure an effective and durable correction of their excessive deficits.” These programmes will be endorsed and monitored by the European Commission and Council. In this way there is a surrender of budgetary powers to the Commission and Council; consequently it will not only be countries in receipt of bailout funds like Ireland, Greece and Portugal that will have their budgets effectively written by these powers.
A neo-liberal Europe
With the economic crisis, the illusions that so-called social democrats promoted about a supposedly social Europe have been smashed by the reality of a neo-liberal Europe. This Treaty goes further along that road of diminishing democratic checks and accountability of the leading bodies in Europe, in order to create a Europe where the interests of the bankers and billionaires come first. This Treaty writes economic policy into law in their interests, at the expense of the vast majority who will suffer under austerity. It must be met with a vigorous No campaign in the referendum but also with struggle in the streets and workplaces by workers across Europe against their agenda.



With thanks to Paul Murphy MEP of the socialist party ULA in Ireland for this e xcellent article on the bits I don’t fully understand.

Austerity and Anger in Greece

As my post yesterday on my thoughts on the NSSN conference went i detailed that a Greek Bus union leader had come to speak. I've managed to get hold of his speech in full if you'd like to read it underneath. Thanks must go to Martin powell-davies for this as it was originally posted on his excellent blog at.
http://electmartin1.blogspot.com/2011/06/austerity-and-anger-in-greece.html

Apostolis Kasimeris, one of the leaders of the OASA bus workers’ union in Athens, gave this speech to the National Shop Stewards Network Conference in London on June 11 2011:


Dear brothers and sisters,
I want to thank you for your invitation and to stress how important it is for me to be able to speak to British workers – workers who have provided excellent examples of determined class struggles. In particular, struggles like those of the Miners and against the Poll Tax have inspired many of us abroad.
Over the last two years, the Greek working class has faced a massive attack on its living standards and rights. It has been an unprecedented attack, worse even than that faced by the British working class at the time of Thatcher.
The Social-Democrat government of PASOK, together with the EU and the IMF, have cut the basic net wage from 670 € to 520 €. Our salaries are lower but the cost of living in Greece is no lower than that in Britain. Prices for food and clothing are the same. Petrol now costs 1.7 euros a litre. Neither do we have any rent subsidies or low-cost council housing for the low-paid and unemployed.
In the public sector, where wages are supposed to be better than the private sector, we have seen our wages cut by 30% on average over the last two years. Their plans are to cut them by a further 35% over the next two years. Before the intervention of the EU and the IMF, the take-home pay of a teacher with 10 years’ experience would only have been around 1300 euros a month. But now pay has been slashed to perhaps just 1000 euros.
At the same time they plan to sack 150,000 public-sector workers over the next 4 years. This is when official unemployment has already reached 800,000 - 16% of the labour force. But real levels of unemployment are about 1 ½ times the official estimates.
They have made huge expenditure cuts on education, health and social services. In our public hospitals, a third of beds have been cut – 13,000 out of 35,000. Many universities are forced to close down for certain periods of time because they cannot pay electricity bills, or in order to save on other costs.
What is the Government’s answer to this desperate crisis?
They are now planning to sell-off all our public utilities – electricity, water, railways, the docks.
They want to smash collective bargaining and change the law to make it easier to sack workers.
They are raising taxes – both direct and indirect. VAT has gone up by 4% - to 23%.
Pensions have been massively cut. The retirement age has been raised to 67. But, even then, you can only get a full pension if you have completed 40 years of work with paid social insurance.
I will give you an example to explain the terrible results of these attacks. Two months ago, Athens council workers occupied the city hall for 26 days, fighting for their jobs. Among them was a contract worker aged 72 who had no option but to continue working as he had not completed the working time needed to qualify for a full pension. Even if he manages to work on for long enough, his pension will only be 400 euros!
The attack of the IMF, EU and European Central Bank has no end. After a year of savage attacks they have now concluded that the huge cuts are still not deep enough. They are imposing a second ‘memorandum’ demanding further attacks on Greek workers.
Why is all this happening? Supposedly, in order to pay for the sovereign debt. This debt was created by the piling up of annual deficits. But who created these deficits? Various EU economic ‘experts’ claim that the debts were created because Greek workers were lazy and corrupt; because “we lived beyond our means”. But who has been living beyond their means? The one million Greek workers, nearly 25% of the labour force, who earn just 600 to 700 euros a month? The pensioners, 65% of whom earn less than 600 euros? The unemployed, who are only paid unemployment benefit of around 400 euros for 12 months before it stops altogether?
We have been facing repeated waves of austerity for the past 25 years. Austerity policies began back in 1985, in order, supposedly, to raise the competitiveness of the Greek economy. And the result is this new wave of barbaric attacks, worse than all the previous years of austerity put together.
The people who are lazy and corrupt, liars and thieves, are those in power, the ruling elite together with their friends the big capitalists, not Greek workers and pensioners!
They created the deficits, they created the debts. The governments did this consciously, particularly over the past two decades, by transferring wealth to the rich and to big capital, by using the state budget as a conveyor belt.
How was this done? Let me give you a simple example. In the mid ‘90s taxation on corporate profits was 45%. Today it is 20%. But even this 20% is only about 10% in reality. The capitalists receive ludicrous donations, “incentives”, and all sorts of hand-outs so that they can claim back about half of the taxes they have paid.
Government revenue was thus continuously undermined. This led to deficits, which in turn led to loans to cover them. But they want us to pay for them.
Here’s another example of how they are trying to make workers pay for their crisis. Since the start of the banking crisis in 2008, Greek governments, both PASOK and “New Democracy”, have provided the Greek bankers with hot cash or “guarantees” to a total of 108 billion euros. This equals about one-third of the total sovereign debt.
Where do Governments find such huge sums when they are on the verge of bankruptcy? They borrow them – from the EU, the ECB and the IMF. Then they squeeze it out of the Greek working class.
But take a note of the following. They have handed out 108 billion euros in cash or guarantees to the Greek banks when the total value of the Greek banking system on the Greek stock exchange is only about 15 billion euros. In short, the Greek government could have easily bought the whole banking sector, seven times over! But no! Why? Because if they did, they would be admitting that the private sector is hopeless, that capitalism is catastrophic, and that the bankers are parasites.
Now workers are told that, if the Government don’t get loans from the EU and the IMF – under the harsh terms imposed by the EU and the IMF – they won’t have money to pay for wages and pensions. Again, this is lies.
The only reason that they need new loans is to pay back the previous loans. For example, over the ten years between 2000 and 2009, the Greek governments received loans totalling 485 billion euros. Over the same period they paid back the lenders 450 billion euros. So, in 10 years, only 35 billion euros went into the economy. The vast majority just went back to the lenders, into the pockets of the bankers who make loans to the Greek state, into the pockets of the Greek, German, French Swiss, and British bankers. These parasites borrow money from the ECB at 1 – 1 ½ % interest rates and lend it to the Greek state at interest rates of between 5 and 7 %!
According to a recent poll, one year after the first IMF – EU memorandum was applied,
34% of Greek households live below the poverty line,
50% will not have sufficient heating next winter,
45% do not feed themselves properly,
29% are not in a position to pay their utility bills
So it is not a surprise that there is massive anger in Greek society. This is reflected in struggles.
At the moment, there are strikes taking place on a daily basis. There is a demonstration in the centre of Athens nearly every day – often two or three.
But these struggles have not been able to achieve victories. This is because Union leaderships have not been carrying out struggles with the intention of winning them. That’s because the overwhelming majority of union leaderships are under the control of the two political parties which alternate in power in Government, PASOK and New Democracy.
These union leaders call strikes but without a clear timescale, and without any clear plan – just to let off steam. For example, when the government recently announced the closure of nearly 2000 schools, the response of the Teachers’ Union was to call two 24hr strikes - but without any serious plan to continue action in order to stop the closures.
What is worse is that these Unions never coordinate the struggles between them. Every sector fights it out on its own. But, in the present period, no sector on its own can defeat the government, the EU and the IMF – who all work together. The trade union leaders know this very well.
The position taken by the national leaderships of the TU movement – the TUC, in both the private and in the public sector, has been particularly scandalous. Compared to what is happening in the rest of Europe, seven 24-hour general strikes last year and three this year, may seem huge. But, given the traditions of the Greek working class and, above all, compared to the scale of the attacks the Greek working class is facing, this is far from being enough.


Working people understand the treacherous role of the Greek TUC leadership and are boiling with anger. Last year, on the day of a general strike, the TUC leader Panagopoulos tried to make a speech at the workers’ rally but was physically attacked by strikers. He was chased through the crowds, but no trade unionist stepped in to defend him. Since then, he has only been seen in public accompanied by six bodyguards.
It isn’t just that the trade union leaders don’t respond to the needs of the situation – it is also that they systematically sabotage the development of the struggles.
Take the example of my Union, the Bus Workers’ Union of Athens and Piraeus, which has about 6,000 members. When the government began its attack against us last December, the leadership of the Union, under the control of PASOK and ND, tried to justify why they were not calling for militant strike action. Their excuse was to blame workers, saying that they were not willing to fight.
But, when the brutal cuts were announced, they were forced to call for strike action so as not to be completely exposed. Strike action took place over a period of about 3 months. But the leadership was not really determined, there was no plan of action, no escalation, and above all there was absolutely no attempt to coordinate the struggle with other sections of the wider public sector that were also under attack.
Towards the end of February, the majority in the leadership decided that it was time to call off the action. They launched a blatant coup d’état against the Union. They refused to call executive committee meetings, they refused to go the meetings called by other members of the Union executive, and they hid, so that a mass-meeting of the bus-workers would not be called. They knew that if it had been, it would have voted in favour of continuing the struggle.
They then went ahead with a fake ‘referendum’ planned to formalise the decision to stop the strikes. It wasn’t only against the Unions’ constitution, it was also against the law, since they forged the signatures of other members of the Executive Committee, in order to achieve the necessary majority required to call a referendum. All this was done in order to disappoint, to demoralise, to break the will of the bus workers to fight.
There had been three months of struggle. Our action inevitably caused a lot of disruption to the people of Athens and Piraeus who used public transport. But, despite this, they were on our side. Right up to the end of our dispute, 60% of people were in favour of the strike, despite all the massive government propaganda conducted through the mass media. They tried to present the bus workers as evil people determined to make ordinary people suffer so as not to lose our privileges. The public support showed their understanding of the situation and their class solidarity.
For these Trade Union leaders there is only one word: traitors. If my sector had been the only sector which had been sabotaged and betrayed, the damage would not be too great. But this is what they do everywhere.
Despite defeats like ours, the Greek working class will continue to fight. It has no other choice because the attacks that we face will continue and they will be immense.

The last development in the struggles of Greek society has been the movement of the “enraged”. They have followed the example of the Spanish ‘Indignados’ and inspired by the revolutions in the Arab world. Last Sunday, without any exaggeration, 500,000 assembled in the central square in Athens. This was perhaps the biggest gathering of people since 1981.
Greek society is at boiling-point. But in order for this anger to find a way forward and for our struggles to win, we have to do everything we can to rebuild our Trade Union movement.
Trade union organisations must pass into the hands of the rank and file. To be democratically controlled by the membership, the struggles must be in the hands of the movement itself.
At the same time we need to rebuild the political organisations of the working class, because today’s mass left parties have lost the plot. They have shown themselves to be absolutely and entirely inadequate for the tasks of this period. This is one of the reasons why in the most recent polls abstention has reached the unprecedented level for Greece of 50.9%, with support for the mass left parties stagnant.
These are the tasks that we have ahead of us. For these we shall fight in the next period with all our strength.
But there is another task that we must never forget. This is internationalism. This is not a struggle of the Greeks alone, but also of the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Irish, the British and more, because we are all being attacked at the same time.
All over Europe, big capital is united against us, but the working class is not able to put up a united resistance. This is the fault of the leadership. Our strength is immense but it is not put into action. We have to make sure that workers begin to realise their strength and fight together, in united struggles, across the continent.
Let me finish with a message of solidarity for all those taking action on June 30. Get out on the picket lines, on the streets and demonstrations, and show Cameron that, united in action, working people will defeat their attacks.