‘United Struggle For Popular Sovereignty’ -
CP General Secretary Robert Griffiths and International Secretary John Foster have today (26Dec) released the following statement on the UK-EU agreement on Trade and Cooperation.

This new deal frees Britain from the sovereignty 1/17

of big business, whether British, European or the U.S. It seeks to maintain the domination of capitalist free market rules and new UK-EU arbitration mechanisms. The Communist Party has consistently pointed out that the big monopoly capitalists of Britain and the EU have 2/17

sufficient interests in common to reach a deal, however unlikely the prospect at any particular time.
But such an agreement was never intended by either side to benefit the working classes and the People’s of England, Scotland, Wales or the countries of Europe. 3/17

This new deal frees Britain from the sovereignty of big businesses, whether British, European or U.S. It seeks to maintain the domination of capitalist free market rules and policies across a European single market,enforced through British law, World Trade Organisation rules 4/17

and new Uk-EU arbitration mechanisms.
Under the new agreement (Title IV), capital will remain free to shut down operations and invest anywhere in Britain and Europe, regardless of job loses, regional inequalities and the requirements of balanced economic and social 5/17

development. However, access rights for the City of London to Eurobond and other EU financial markets remain to be worked out in detail (Title II).
Importantly in the case of public procurement contracts and compulsory competitive tendering the agreement (Title VI) ratifies 6/17

full operation of the WTO’s governments procurement agreement for public services. This means opening them up to full competition, with the EU and UK agreeing to extend such regulations mutually to gas and heat distribution, private utilities, telecoms, education and 7/17

‘other business’ sectors across Britain and Europe.
On the capitalist free-market level playing field and competition law the agreement (Title XI) commits both sides to maintain the present high standards, including legal enforcement under their own sovereignty and through 8/17

their own respective courts- With resort to the WTO and mutually agreed settlement procedures between Britain and the EU.
At the same time, the new agreement certainly improves on the terms set out by Theresa May’s Tory Government, which would have tied Britain 9/17

-locked in by Northern Ireland arrangements to the customs union, to single market rules under the jurisdiction of the anti trade union European Court of Justice and to large general contributions to EU funds.
The anti-Brexit scares about planes not flying, imports of 10/17

vital medicines stopping, cooperation against terrorism coming to an end and the imposition of a hard border across Ireland have all proved baseless, as the Communist Party has declared they would.
Normal sovereignty for working people. The new agreement does not 11/17

for example, lawfully permit a future left government in Britain, Scotland or Wales to plan economic development and direct policies of the big capitalist corporations. Leaving the EU and it’s customs union fully on “Jan 1st 2021”, may make it easier in the long run
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to achieve these objectives. Obviously this is not what the Tory government has in mind m. Instead Johnson’s UK single market act 2020 seizes economic and industrial powers from the devolved parliaments of Scotland and Wales, challenging the limited regional and National
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economic democracy won either by their people’s over the past three decades.
Big battles lie ahead in the fight for jobs, incomes and public services. Free trade agreements between Britain and other countries which include provisions for greater privatisation of public 14/17

services, or for incoming investors to overturn the democratic policies of the central and developed parliaments, must be resisted.
Arising from the UK-EU deal, we also need to ensure that government spending on regional, social, scientific and agriculture support
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is maintained; that standards for workers, consumers and the environment are defended and extended; and that scores of policy-making powers repatriated from Brussels
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are devolved as promised to the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.
@CPBritain @CPBScotland @WelshCommunists @ycl_britain
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