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The Euro-Referendum in Denmark

Marxist Analysis · 2000-09-28

Core Argument

The article argues that the Danish No vote in the 2000 Euro referendum was a progressive expression of working-class mistrust in the political establishment, but one that remained politically confused and directionless because it lacked any socialist alternative. The central thesis is that the referendum revealed a deep and growing contradiction: the Danish working class will not passively accept the dismantling of the welfare state, yet the left-wing parties campaigning for a No vote offered nothing beyond nationalist or reformist illusions. The real lesson is that neither inside nor outside the Euro can defend working-class interests under capitalism — only independent working-class struggle and a socialist perspective can do that.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is grounded in the Marxist understanding of the state and the capitalist mode of production as a world system. It draws on the classical Marxist critique of the nation-state as a framework for working-class emancipation, and on the tradition's insistence that the welfare state was a historical exception — a product of a specific period of capitalist expansion and class struggle — not a permanent conquest. The article applies a class analysis to the referendum results, showing that voting patterns correlated with income and dependence on public services, not with geography or party affiliation. It also deploys the Marxist critique of reformism: the Social Democrats are not betrayers of an otherwise sound project but are structurally compelled to implement cuts because they govern within capitalism. The rejection of the "lesser evil" logic — that the left should choose between pro- and anti-EU bourgeois positions — is consistent with the revolutionary Marxist tradition's refusal to subordinate working-class independence to any wing of the bourgeoisie.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article is written in the immediate aftermath of the 28 September 2000 referendum, in which 53.1% voted No on an 88% turnout — the highest participation in a Danish EU referendum since 1972. The conjuncture is defined by several specific features:

  • The Yes campaign was backed by the entire political establishment: the governing Social Democrats and Radikale Venstre, the opposition Conservatives and Venstre, the main trade union federation (LO), and the employers' organisations. The Yes side massively outspent the No side.
  • The Yes campaign shifted from economic arguments (discredited by a report from "independent experts") to threats: Prime Minister Nyrup Rasmussen explicitly warned that a No vote would trigger cuts and unemployment, and that plans for austerity were already prepared.
  • The No vote was highest among working-class suburbs west of Copenhagen and among women and lower-income groups. The only areas with a Yes majority were wealthy residential areas north of Copenhagen.
  • The article connects the referendum to the contemporaneous "illegal" strike by childcare workers in Copenhagen against Social Democratic-led council cuts — a strike that won, forcing the council to reverse its proposals with support from SF and Enhedslisten.

The broader conjuncture is one in which the welfare state is being steadily dismantled across Europe, but no mainstream party dares to openly advocate its abolition. The article identifies this as a symptom of the gap between what capitalism requires and what the political elite can admit.

Where the Argument Continues

The article leaves several threads open. The most important is the relationship between the Euro referendum result and the subsequent strike wave — the article presents the childcare workers' victory as a more important development than the referendum itself, but does not develop the strategic implications of this shift from electoral to industrial action. The argument about the left-wing No campaign's failure to offer an independent working-class perspective is stated but not elaborated in terms of what such a perspective would concretely look like in the Danish context. The article also does not address the longer-term trajectory of the Danish People's Party, which emerged as the most visible face of the No vote in the media — a problem that would become more acute as right-wing populism grew. These questions are taken up in subsequent In Defence of Marxism articles on Denmark, the EU, and the relationship between nationalism and working-class politics, as well as in broader Marxist analyses of the European Union as a political form of capitalist integration.

Connections

The article should be read alongside other Marxist analyses of EU referendums — particularly the 1992 Danish Maastricht referendum (which the article references as a precedent for re-running votes until the "right" result is obtained) and later referendums in France, the Netherlands, and Ireland. It connects to the broader Marxist literature on the welfare state as a historical exception, notably in the work of Ernest Mandel and Chris Harman. The critique of the left's entanglement with nationalist and bourgeois No campaigns echoes Lenin's warnings against "revolutionary defencism" and Trotsky's analysis of the united front in reverse. The article's insistence that the working class must build its own independent alternative, rather than choose between bourgeois camps, is a recurring theme in the Marxist tradition from the Communist Manifesto to the present.

Key Quotes

  1. "The Danish working class has fought to build a civilised existence through the welfare state — this was probably as good as it could get under capitalism and it was only possible as an historic exception in a special period of capitalist development. In our present period capitalism will be forced to remove many of the gains of the past, and the government — whether reformist or bourgeois — will be forced to carry out this policy."

  2. "The Marxists think that the No vote is a positive development — it is a big blow to the so-called 'political elite', bourgeois and right reformists alike, and it shows that a majority of the Danish working class will not be prepared to accept cuts and 'reforms' to the welfare state without protesting. But at the same time this is a very confused No. It is a No to a lot of things, but it is not a Yes to something else — there have never really been any alternatives."

  3. "Without a clear Socialist perspective these arguments are really hollow: 'We still want to be able to control our own economy' — yes, but we, i.e. ordinary working people and youth, don't have any control over the economy and we will never have that under capitalism, inside or outside the Euro or EU."

  4. "The only way to progress is the unity of the working class itself, its understanding of its own strength and its will to fight against the cuts of capitalism and for a new socialist order, which is the only real guarantee for a life with welfare and progress."

  5. "One of the spokespersons of the strikers said on the radio that the best thing about this strike was that it had showed that the class struggle was not dead."

  6. "The No represented — for many people — a vote against uncertainty, opposition to any cuts and fear for the general future of the Danish welfare system, a vote of big mistrust in the established leaders of all the main parties and 'the elite' in general."