LORD Howe, who is credited with bringing Thatcher down, now seems to be about to perform the same service for PM David Cameron, with a little help from outgoing Bank of England Governor King.
Howe told the Observer that Tory leaders are ‘running scared’ of Tory MPs by offering to renegotiate the UK’s relationship with Brussels. He issued a warning of the ‘grave effect’ that leaving the EU would have on the UK’s influence.
Howe spoke up after a Cameron adviser was alleged to have called Tories campaigning for an EU referendum ‘mad swivel-eyed loons’.
Among cabinet ministers supporting these ‘loons’ is Education Secretary Gove.
However, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, a former Murdoch cheerleader, yesterday saw no crisis at all, and made an ass of himself with a declaration that the party was ‘united’.
Howe, a tried-and-tested undertaker, however insists that Cameron has ‘opened a Pandora’s box politically and seems to be losing control of his party in the process’, and has allowed ‘a deep anti-Europeanism to infect the very soul of the party’. He is a former foreign secretary, chancellor and deputy prime minister.
He even hinted that support for a Tory government was not the main issue, saying what was needed was a ‘mixture of clear thinking, strong leadership and an overriding concern for the national interest, not party management or advantage.’
In fact, the Tory party has never been a European party. It was based on the existence of a worldwide empire that was won in a permanent struggle with the French and maintained and then lost as the outcome of two world wars with Germany.
It has always sought to establish a favourable balance of power in Europe so that it could operate freely in Africa and Asia.
However, the empire has gone, and Britain has been driven back to a pile of rocks presided over by a bankrupt ruling class of bankers and bosses.
Bending the knee to the German bourgeoisie does not come any easier now, after empire, than it was before, despite the fact that continuing US support for the UK rests on it being its man in the EU.
The world crisis and its impact on the EU has made it clear that the EU cannot be united under capitalism. At the same time, the obvious superiority of Germany is now ripping the Tory Party into shreds, as the UK ruling class seeks to find a role for itself as the US’ indispensable odd-job person.
Meanwhile, the outgoing Governor of the Bank of England has issued a grave warning to the government.
Sir Mervyn King has warned that a government scheme to create a housing market must not become permanent.
Under the plan, due to run until 2017, the state will guarantee up to 15% of a mortgage on homes worth up to £600,000.
Sir Mervyn is pointing out the danger that the UK is emulating the US, where government-backed mortgage schemes, run by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, had to be bailed out at colossal expense during the financial crisis after the US banks went bust during the sub-prime mortgage crisis.
King is warning that if Chancellor George Osborne’s Help to Buy scheme becomes permanent, it will end in taxpayers having to cover billions of pounds in private mortgage debt for years to come, which would be absolutely unbearable and explosive for the state and capitalism in the UK.
Clearly the EU’s capitalists cannot unite Europe, and the Tory Party is not going to survive this critical experience!
The trade unions must act now to bring this crisis-ridden Tory-led coalition down with a general strike, before it causes more massive damage to the working class, middle class and the youth. The unions must not emulate do-nothing, say-nothing Miliband!
What is required in the UK is a workers’ government and socialism. This is also what is required throughout Europe. Only the working class can do this job.
Forward to a workers’ government in the UK!
Forward to the Socialist United States of Europe.
