THE UNEXPLODED bomb of Britbelly of the Tory Party, but few Labour activists and even fewer voters are aware of the scale of the threat they face.
While top Tories tear each other's eyes out in the wrangle over a single gnores the issue, presenting it as obcure and abstract, while the TUC actively argues and lobbies for a catastrophically wrong policy.
The reality is that the single currency, and the rigid mechanisms and rules that would enforce it, would seriously hamper the struggle for socialism or even the fight for serious reforms within capitalism for the indefinite future.
No matter which government won the next General Election in Britain (or any other European country), economic policies would be dictated by the six unelected Executive Board members of a new European Central Bank, to be located in Frankfurt.
This grotesque Euro-quango could not be removed from office by any EU government or even by the Council of Ministers: it would hold office for eight years. It has been aescribed by the Financial Times as "the most powerful and politically unaccountable central bank in the world. "
This Central Bank's primary objective would be to deliver low inflation and fixed interest rates.
Brutal sanctions will be employed against member states which break the to the Central Bank.
The Bank of England would have to ish politics is ticking angrily away inthe be operationally independent of the Treasury and empowered to participate in the new European system of Central Banks.
The incoming British government will be obliged to take an immediate European currency, the popular press EMU, and if so, to instantly implement decision on whether or not to enter the the savage cuts in public spending needed to reduce Britain's budget deficit.
The latest calculation is that the gap to be bridged is £19.5 billion-equiva lent to the entire hospitals' budget, or the total schools budget.
Despite the enormous threat posed by the single currency, Blair's team, Economic policies would be dictated by the six unelected Executive Board members of a new European Central Bank like the TUC, appears strongly inclined to join up. With Major's gang hopelessly divided on the issue, Blair is seen by Germany's Chancellor Kohl and other European leaders as the person most likely to pull British capitalism into EMU. In this stance he is also seeking to ingratiate himself with an influential section of the CBI.
Blair's line relies upon the ignorance or indifference of many Labour MPs, few of whom have expressed any coherent view on the single currency. Of course, as on the minimum wage, rules, including punitive fines payable Blair's team will not declare their policy openly at this stage.
This means that, as with the Maasbe privatised under Maastricht rules, to tricht Treaty itself in 1992, British workers will have no opportunity to cast a significant vote against the single currency: with the Liberal Democrats ardently supporting EMU, only the cranky right wing nationalists of Sir James Goldsmith's Referendum Party are standing on an anti-EMU ticket.
There are limited signs of opposition within the labour movement Ken Livingstone was the first in the field with his Alternatives to Maastricht' campaign, this time without the support of the GMB's John Edmonds.
Perhaps more attractive is the 'People's Europe' campaign launched in the summer by MPs including Alan Simpson, Denzil Davies and Llew Smith:
this now claims support from over 70 MPs and MEPs-but has barely pricked the surface of the trade unions and wider popular support.
People's Europe goes beyond calling for a referendum: it demands that "Labour should clearly state in its General Election Manifesto that a Labour Government would not join a single currency on the terms contained in the Maastricht Treaty.
And it raises the obvious warning "Any attempt to cut public expenditure in order to meet the convergence criteria, with all the consequences for unemployment and the welfare state, could split the Cabinet and break a Labour government.' However, trade union leaders, including many on the left, have failed to firmly oppose European Monetary UnTRE