THE German magazine Der Spiegel says British PM David Cameron warned EU leaders that the UK could leave the EU if Luxembourg’s ex-PM Jean-Claude Juncker became president of the European Commission.
It reported Cameron as saying that the appointment could destabilise his government, which may bring forward referendum plans on EU membership. Downing Street has not yet commented on the revelation.
Juncker’s European People’s Party won the largest number of seats in the European parliament in the May polls. The centre-right party, which also includes German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, won 213 out of 751 seats in the Parliament and chose Juncker as its candidate for the presidency.
Juncker is known for his role in chairing the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers that had to make tough decisions about struggling debt-laden countries. The decision is to be made by the end of June.
It is clear that Cameron is running scared of UKIP cutting into the Tory vote at the May 2015 general election, and is now fearful that the threat will grow if Juncker, who believes in a United Europe run by a coterie of EU Commissioner and the European Central Bank, becomes the EU President.
However, if the EU leadership reject Cameron’s bluster he is likely to be hoist by his own petard, when UKIP taunts him as being ‘chicken’, and demands he bring forward the date of the already-promised EU referendum (in 2017) to before the next general election in May 2015.
If such a development emerges he will have two crisis referendums on his hands at the same time.
One he has called for this September, on whether the Union between England and Scotland should be abandoned.
Currently, it is neck and neck over whether Great Britain should be wound up and the basic ‘union’ which provided the foundation for the industrial revolution and the development of British capitalism be destroyed.
Not content with that, Cameron is now threatening to completely split the ruling class by bringing forward the referendum over EU membership that would see British capitalism also put out of Europe. It will be forced to take its chances in the world market as a minor trader, with all of the implications this has for the price of the the pound sterling, the stability of the banking system, and the future of capitalism itself.
Cameron has clearly been driven to a desperate gamble. However, the crisis is not of his making, since it is in reality the historical crisis of British capitalism that has come to the fore.
Britain has lost its empire, its basic industries have been wound up, and its banking system is bankrupted. The denouement has reached the point where the ‘sex industry’ already plays its part in the calculation of GDP!
Its historic losses are compounded by the fact that the historic gains of the working class, the benefit system, the welfare state, the NHS and the power of the trade unions, although under heavy attack, have not been eliminated.
The only way that British capitalism can survive is by busting trade unions, by putting the whole of the working class on zero-hours contracts, by more anti-union laws, by NHS privatisation and the abolition of benefits.
For the British bosses, EU laws such as the Working Time Directive, and other regulations are drains on their profits.
They demand complete deregulation so that the bosses and bankers can reorganise themselves on the bones of British workers and the poor.
It is this historical crisis of British capitalism that is driving Cameron and the Tories to risk all by trying to drive Britain back centuries.
However, more fundamentally, it is this historical crisis of British imperialism that is driving forward the British socialist revolution, at breakneck speed.
British workers want a socialist Britain as part of a Socialist United States of Europe. They are opposed to a Europe run by a central bank which is destroying countries like Greece, as they are opposed to a banker- and bosses-run Britain.
This is why the programme of the British workers must be to take advantage if the historical crisis of British capitalism by overthrowing it with a socialist revolution that will bring to the UK planned production to satisfy people’s needs.
This revolution will be part of the European socialist revolution, where the workers of Europe expropriate the bosses and bankers of the EU and bring in a socialist planned economy throughout Europe. This is the way forward. This is what has to be done!
