JOHN MAJOR'S decision to bring the Maastricht bill back to the Commons by the new year represents a desperate move. The Tories' European and monetary policies are in shreds; day after day mass redundancies are announced, further wrecking manufacturing industry.
Recession and the collapse of the ERM have brought about the biggest Tory crisis since the ejection of Thatcher in 1990. The crisis stems from the simple fact that to implement the 'Europeanist' option of those who removed Thatcher requires a savage deflationary course to achieve monetary and ultimately economic union.
All the traumatic wounds of the Tories' deep divisions between 'Europeanist' and 'Atlanticist options have been reopened; there is open talk of bringing back Thatcher.
Panic
The devastation of small businesses and manufacturing industry is spreading alarm bordering on panic in Tory ranks. This government is in deep, deep political trouble. Both Lamont and Major are surviving by the skin of their teeth.
This should now be the occasion for a tremendous anti-Tory onslaught from the labour movement. The balance sheet of 13 years of Tory rule is now so utterly clear that the Tories themselves hardly bother to deny it.
Disarray, crisis and panic pervade the back benches. ‹biggest defeat for Britain (read: British capitalism) since Suez.
If this prime minister and this government survive it will be in large part because of the able assistance rendered by John Smith, and the Labour and trade union leaders. Instead of putting the boot in they are throwing Major a lifeline stake. Tory papers openly talk about the be opened. scale of wages which has protected Auf Wiedersehen, arriverderci, au revoir??
If Labour now stated openly that it would vote down the Maastricht bill, and if the popular demand for a referendum was fought for, the credibility of the government would plummet further. With only a small majority and a substantial number of back benchers opposing Maastricht, its survival would be at If, in addition, the Labour and union leaders openly called for the government to resign and for a new election; and if they mounted a serious campaign against the cascade of redundancies, a new political situation would Campaigning against redundancies means not just cracking jokes at conferences or moaning and whining, but organising a fight, declared. than further decline. three weeks have shown. in the 19th century. attacks on the working class. this issue to bring down the Tories. manding worksharing with no loss of pay, the banning of overtime and occupations and work-ins to resist redundancies being deThe present Tory crisis, and its intractability, is a product of the whole post-war cycle of decline of British capitalism. Searching for a new international orientation in an epoch of deep recession, the ruling class find that there is none on offer which implies anything other Exports Staying out of Europe when such a high proportion of exports go there would be disastrous; going with Europe has its own massive deflationary overheads, as the past The fault line' over Europe is as deep in the modern bourgeoisie as that which divided the ruling class over free trade and the Corn Laws Socialists are of course totally neutral over which capitalist option is chosen historically by the ruling class; we are neither Atlanticists or capitalist Europeanists. But that does not mean we are neutral on the EC or Maastricht. Both the institution and the treaty imply huge The fact that a ragbag of reactionaries are also opposed to Maastricht is irrelevant; from a working class point of view Maastricht is a class issue. The defeat of the motion at Labour party conference calling for a referendum was a blow against any serious campaign to use However, this is not the end of the matter. Labour's attitude to a parliamentary vote on the treaty is not finalised. Many Labour and Tory MPs will vote against the bill. In every labour movement body the fight to defeat the Maastricht treaty must be raised anew.