Caroline's statement to Greece public meeting

There will be a public meeting later today on the Greek referendum. Caroline is unable to attend, owing to prior commitments, but she is sending a message of support to those at the meeting. 

Caroline's message to the Greek referendum public meeting:

I have one message for the Troika: take a good look at Greece, because this is what democracy looks like.

The Troika’s intransigence on Greece to date amounts to nothing short of an attempted coup.

Greece is a country besieged by tragedy. People in Greece are suffering. Over 40% of children are living in Poverty, up from 23% in 2008. A quarter of the workforce is unemployed and over half of young people don’t have a job.

But they have not given into the bullying they have faced.

We have a democratically elected Government backed in a corner by the servants of capital, and yet the people have refused to be cowed. They have had their say and that must be respected. Greece is the birthplace of modern democracy, and all of us who believe in the EU as a body which should uphold human rights, value solidarity and respect the people’s right to govern themselves are united in urging the Troika to change course.

This weekend’s resounding victory for hope is underpinned by the failure of austerity in economic terms. The vast majority of the money lent by the Troika was used to bailout banks, pay off the private sector to accept restructuring, and repay old debts and interest from reckless lending. Less than 10% of the money has actually reached the people who need it most.

If this was a natural disaster we’d be doing all we could to assist Greeks in their time of need. But, because solutions to this economic disaster fly in the face of our Government’s obsession with stripping down the state, no help is at hand.

A growing number of voices have been calling for a conference of European countries to come together – much as they did for Germany in 1953 -  and allow Greece to cancel debts, and begin the process of stabilisation.

That’s the kind of action we want from our EU.

That’s the kind of vision and solidarity on offer from the trade union movement and other social movements, all around the world and to which the Greek people have responded in kind, keen to share with all of us the lessons they have learned about fighting for alternatives to austerity, for democracy, for a genuine voice.

Sunday’s referendum gave the Greek people a choice – but it also placed them at the barrel of a gun. They stood firm. Were brave and bold.

Europe’s leaders now needs to be equally brave and bold, by casting their discredited ideology aside and instead offering the Greeks a deal which allows their country to be rebuilt.

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