world is almost exactly offset by the surplus which West Germany has managed to ring up.
Thus the BEC's "balance of payments crisis is due to the fact that Italy, Denmark and Britain have had to protect their home industries from imported goods because these countries who have earned big surpluses in foreign dealings are refusing to pool them with their EEC partners.
Such a 'pooling' is, in fact, not really practical unless there is a common EEC currency, and.common economic policies. So, we are back once again to the 'case of the missing "superstate"
West Germany faces a purticularly difficult choice regarding its attitude to the Common Market. Of all the big imperialist countries, West Germany is the most stable and prosperous, It has the lowest rate of inflation, its exports to other countries are growing rapidly, it benefits from a big surplus in its dealings with the rest of the world, and its unemployment rate (despite recent serious increases) is relatively low.
German big business now tinds itself caught between two evils -and it can t make up its mind which is the worse. If it agrees to try and bolster up the Common Market it will have to loot the bill for the serious trade deficits and rocketing inflation suffered by its three major partners - France, Italy and Britain. The future of the Common Marker would then be paid for out of the pockels of the West German capitalenough to play a significant tole in at defence prechely needs a European de all its power, is increasingly incapable system. This is why the United States, as the purely inter-imperialist compenition ted the creation of the EEC but devoted to join it. The collapse of the EEC might sean rivals but most important of all it hole. And while socialists do not take a lisms, they most decidedly do take a d relaticin of focces between the imperasing it.
L TO THE EEC? and Britain - would have to follow the roud of Denmark and faly and set up new trade barriers.
The sum lotal of these measures would be to knock the main prop out from under West Germany's prosperity - its soaring exports. West Germany's Common Market partners would then 'export the cconomic reccasion to West Germany, in retaliation for Germany's refusal to export its surplus foreign carnings to its embattled allies, WORKERS' MOVEMENT There is no denying that the Common Market is in great difficulties, but it is too carly to say for sure which way things will go. Certainly we can predict that there will be big political fights ahead between the representatives of "national' capital (who will want to return to national protection of their own interests) and Those of the multi-national giants (who will be demanding practical moves towards the creation of a 'superstate" out of the existing EEC).
In such a fight the working class and the workers movement must preserve their political independence and notidentify with any of the battling bourgeois groups. Neither the 'national interest' nor the "European ideal are anything but disguises donned by various capitalist groups in order to lead the workers to give up the defence of their own class interests.
Those who oppose the growing link-up of European capitalism and the creation of a European 'superstate' in the name of defending the national sovereignty of the existing capitalIt states are allying themselves with conservative and reactionary capitalist groups. These groups will be forced to defend their ecor omic position through altacks on the living standards of the working cluss.
Nor does the opposite view -that the working class should support the tying up of the European monopolies - have any better answer. The working class has no interes! in strengthening its own class enemies. Nor is there any reason to helieve that cross Europe super monopolies will be any kinder or more generous to the workers than the existing "national' monopolies. East Belfast. across the Six Counties the Orange Order in the Midlands in Britain. fraternal relations with extreme loyalist groups. exist at Belfast, Newcastle and Portadown. Front members within loyalism. The moves came just over a month after the organisation set up its own headquarters on the Ravenhill Road in The loyalist militancy and the break up of the Unionist monolith in the strugale of the last tive years has been seen by the National Front as an opportunity to gain a foothold.
In May, 1972, National Front leader Martin Webster spoke along side William Craig at a Vanguard rally in London. And in June last yoar the organisation had a presence in the North of Ireland itself. A candidate, Bill Annett, stood as Nation al Front Loyalist at the South Down constituency in the Assembly election He did not make a great clectoral impact, but he had placed the National Front name on the map and from there he went on to his main duty as *Northern Ireland Organiser to build an independent fuscist organisation The National Front aims to gain a base for fascism in the North and from there - through influence via - support in Glasgow and Merseyside, and UDA clubs Since June eight branches have been founded, some branches in name such as that to 'Commie Irish only but nevertheless with a local representative. Some have been set up by local men who formerly were members of the National Front in Britain, such as another failed election candidate lan Major of the Drom quarters, with expressions of support ote and Gilford Branch, and all have benefited from the organisațion's And not all their representatives are failures. The Lurgan Branch 1s headed by a local councilor, Phillip Black while their leader in the Moira area is George McCartney, the deputy Mayor of Lisburn. Other branches As yet the Northern Ireland branch is crude and amateurish in comparison with the mainstream brigade" of the organisation. in Britain the National Front is working to gain a respectable working class image. Conscious of the crisis of capitalism and the dissatisfaction with both the Tories and the Labour Party, in the classic tradition of fascism, it has taken up a mask of community politics and selective activity within the trade union mogement against official union policy.
But il the NF in the North does not appear so sophisticated, it does not need to be. The presence of Lindsay If you're gonna shoot 'em, do it right boys' Mason within the organisation is not an embarrassment but a bencfit, for the NF bases its propaganda on racist anti-catholicism and anti-communist abuse. The three local NF papers, West Briton, the Elster Constitution, and its latest, the Mister Worker, combine paragraphs of hate and references Republican Animal James Cobnolly' with plaintive appeals for the return of Lindsay Mason's stolen bike or insults at whoever stole the union jack trom outside the NF headfor the nurses in their struggle for better conditions, or complaints about increased bus fares The Vister Conspitation is Lindsay Mason's long established, barely literale, paper, but the most clear exposition of the tactics of the NF in the North comes in The Vister Worker first published in May. It is dedicated to fight communisin wherever it is found. Around the lyrics of British militaristic chauvinist songs, it condemns the former Icadership of Unionism -and calls on die Ulster Loyalist Front, which has the support of the UVF, and the UDA to join with them to formulate a realistic workers', farmers and the loyalists are trapped in the historic