'There are at least three major pressures on the Tories to attack the welfare state in Britain - first they are ideologically opposed to it, secondly the economy is in a mess and they are running a huge pubic sector debt, and thirdly, and ultimately the biggest pressure is the requirements of European integration; the Maastricht Treaty.
At its root the Maastricht process is a strategic attempt by the most powerful sectors of European capital to shift the balance of power further against the working class in order to restructure European capitalism and make it more competative as it faces increased competition from the powerful trading blocks of North America and the Pacific Rim economies.
Central to the process is European Monetary Union and the single currency, leading eventually to political union and a European super state. Fundamental to this stage of the process is the so-called economic convergence the precondition for a single currency. Under this no country will be allowed to have a budget deficit of over three percent - a fraction of the current debt being run up by the Tories in Britain. It is true that this process is in crisis, and that there is likely to be more than one rescheduling of the criteria along the road to convergence, but the core countries of the EU remain absolutely committed to the strategic objectives they have set and any EU country left on the side lines in this process will face a huge trading disadvantage within the Union.
It is also true that the Torics are split down the middle on the implications of this process (over a European or a global role), that Major has been forced to make confessions to the Tory right, and that the Tory Government itself is not politically committed to the process. Despite all this (and the so-called optouts) however, it is in the end a Treaty obligation and an economic necessity and continues to exert a decisive pressure towards altacking the welfare state and the reduction of public spending. 'Maastricht 2'
It is this apect of the Tory splitover the EU and its implications for integration which makes the evolution of the Kinnock Smith\Blair Labour Party so important.
There is a discussion amongst some EU Governments that next years intergovernmental conference, the so-called 'Maastricht Two', designed to lay the ground work for a process of political union, should be put off until 1997. A part of the reasoning behind this, as well as the problems of monetary union, is that there might well by then be a Labour Government in Britain which will be far moré pro-Europe and far more
likely to deliver than the split and divided Tories.
There is no doubt that they are right in their calculation. Every utterance of Tony Blair on Europe confirms it. It is even briefly enshrined in his new draft of Clause 4. Nor is it just a British phenomenon. The trend of European social democracy is to the right and towards being the parties most committed to the European process. Blair is just on the leading edge of it.
This stance has huge implications for the actions of an incoming Labour Govemment.
Monetary Union will exact a heavy price from the European working class. The banks will have a free hand to impose monetarism, economic restructuring, create a more mobile and flexible labour, manipulate mass unemployment - and above all attack the welfare state. This will create the framework in which a future Labour Government will be forced to operate. It would not be allowed, even if it wanted to, embark on a programme of increased public spending designed to repair the damage to the social infrastructure reeked by the Tories. Instead it would have to drastically cut public spending.
Much of the support for Europe in both the Labour Party and the unions is justified by support for the fraudulent Social Chapter and the goodies which are supposed to be in it. This has been the stance of the TUC since Jacques Delors was invited to address its Congress. They have held the forlorn hope that the EU will defend workers rights without them having to lift a finger. The so-called social Europe, however, was never about the generosity of the bosses. It was always much more about cajoling the Labour and Trade Union leaders, and the working class, into European integration. Unfortunately for them with the British opt-outs and the strengthening of the idea of subsidiarity there has been a full-scale retreat from the idea of a 'social Europe' , weak as it was in the first place.
The attitude of the Trade union and Labour leaders, however, is at base related to their historic role of attempting to modernise sections of British capital on Keynesian lines. Today's model for them is the other EU countries - particularly Germany. This way social democracy can find a niche for itself within the new capitalist order emerging in Europe.
This is where the Smith Blair project in Britain has been particularly successful. There is a now a substantial sector of British capital, particularly manufacturing capital, which is firmly behind Blair and his European project. It is this more than anything else which will tie him to the European Union and all its implications - in particular attacks on the welfare state. If he finds cuts hard to deliver it will be their pressure, not the resistance of the working class which he will be under most pressure to respond