Crisis after crisis from Greece to Calais and the Mediterranean have dented the Left's belief in a European future - but they show internationalism is needed more than ever

The agreement between Greece and its European creditors has sent ripples spreading outwards across the continent. Greece, despite its comprehensive referendum rejection of austerity, has nonetheless been forced to accept harsh terms and without debt relief will still face more trouble in the long run (Smith & Stewart, 2015).

That forced capitulation has dented the belief of the Left, and of the radical Left in particular, that it can challenge and overcome the dominant neoliberal austerian narrative. That feeling of powerlessness has clearly shaken the Left's commitment to a future in Europe - though there are those such as Caroline Lucas who are argue that reform, not surrender, of the EU is still the way forward.

In Spain, Podemos - the radical Left party seen as equivalent to Greece's Syriza - has suffered from a slump in the polls (Nixon, 2015), while the mainstream Left, across Europe, is stumbling. Even Denmark's Social Democratic government, under Helle Thorning-Schmidt, has fallen (BBC, 2015). That leaves just eight EU countries with Left-of-Centre governments (Nardelli & Arnett, 2015 - including Italy and France.

There are those who have begun to argue, in the UK, for a 'Lexit' campaign, focussing upon a Left-wing scepticism towards the European project (Jones, 2015) - on a campaign critical of 'European' austerity politics.

The trouble with that assessment is that it ignores how 'Europe', and its institutions, have simply been the vehicle, rather than the originator and pusher, of the neoliberal agenda (Chessum, 2015).

"European project has been used by capital, and national governments which represent that capital, to make the poor pay for the economic crisis, and to bring down left wing governments where they seek to prevent this. With European politics at a crossroads, it is vital that the British left focusses on the real task at hand – building a radical political alternative that can challenge these forces – and not just on building an obsession with fighting the super-structure of the European Union."

National, social and fiscal conservative governments have used their positions on the European Council - the assembled representatives of the EU member states - to roll out their austerian economic scheme (Lucas, 2015).

"With the European council made up of ministers from each member state, it often simply reflects the prevailing currents in European politics. The imposition of austerity in Greece – forcing a population to pay the price for a crisis they didn’t cause – is simply an extension of an economic logic that spans our continent."

Caroline Lucas has argued that simply lashing out the EU itself isn't enough and isn't directing the blame where it really lies (Lucas, 2015). Lucas argues that the aim should be, instead, to reform the Union.

Amongst Europe's mainstream Leftists too, there are still those who are arguing for more European integration. Pier Carlo Padoan, Italy’s finance minister, wants new movement towards EU political union to be seen as the solution to the problem of national conservative member-state governments using the EU to impose their terms on Greece (The Economist, 2015).

That 'stay and fight for reform' mentality has been also been picked up by anti-austerity Labour leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn (Watt & Wintour, 2015). After being pressured to make his position clear on Europe, Corbyn said that Labour should work with European allies for reform.

In a Europe where the dehumanisation of migrants and refugees (Elgot & Taylor, 2015) and Far-Right rhetoric (Mudde, 2015) are on the rise, the answer cannot be to retreat. For the Left, walking away means giving up on internationalism and solidarity.

Instead, the priority must be to reclaim Europe. To reform its institutions, around internationalism and humanitarianism, and return to Europe a spirit of coordination and cooperation - an energy that desperately needs to felt, all across the continent, from Greece to Calais and the Mediterranean.

References

Helena Smith & Heather Stewart's 'IMF negotiator prepares to join Greek talks as deadline looms'; in The Guardian; 29 July 2015.

Simon Nixon's 'Britain Picks Up the Greek Baton With Labour's Jeremy Corbyn'; in the Wall Street Journal;

'Danish election: Opposition bloc wins'; on the BBC; 19 June 2015.

Alberto Nardelli & George Arnett's 'Only a third of the EU is governed by the centre-left'; in The Guardian; 22 June 2015.

Owen Jones' 'The left must put Britain's EU withdrawal on the agenda'; in The Guardian; 14 July 2015.

Michael Chessum's 'After the climbdown: where next for Greece and the left?'; in the New Statesman; 29 July 2015.

Caroline Lucas' 'Greece made me think twice. But I’ll campaign for progressive EU reform'; in The Guardian; 16 July 2015.

'Everything you need to know about European political union'; in The Economist; 27 July 2015.

Nicholas Watt & Patrick Wintour's 'Jeremy Corbyn backs British membership of EU'; in The Guardian; 28 July 2015.

Jessica Elgot & Matthew Taylor's 'Calais crisis: Cameron condemned for 'dehumanising' description of migrants'; in The Guardian; 30 July 2015.

Cas Mudde's 'The Hungary PM made a ‘rivers of blood’ speech … and no one cares'; in The Guardian; 30 July 2015.