TONY BLAIR has at last abandoned his famed 'wait and see' stance over the Euro.
He has begun the government campaign to win the vote in a referendum which is likely to be held soon after the next election - assuming Labour win it, which looks like the only outcome at the present time.
Preparations for Britain's entry into Euroland are now going full steam ahead, with the aim not only of ensuring that Britain can qualify economically and will be technically prepared, but also lo present a virtual fait accompli Some would say to voters by the time of the referendum.
This preparation involves full compliance. with the terms of the job-cutting stability pact, which both regulates the Euro zone and controls further entry into it.
Blair is also aware that the political mood has been swinging in his direction, not least in the leadership of the trade unions, where the TUC has consolidated its position of full support for the Euro and the stability pact.
There is an urgent need to step up the campaign in the unions and the Labour Party against the Euro and its social consequences. This must be done on a working class agenda and on an internationalist basis - totally separated from the Tory right and the little Englander nationalists who want to "save the pound". This is important, not least because of the mass street protests reportedly being planned by the Tory right for next year in the run-up to a referendum. That a principled internationalist campaign can be built has been shown by the Euromarch campaigns around the EU summits in Amsterdam, Luxemburg, and Cardiff, and now the campaign for Cologne. Meanwhile we are We are told told that the launch of the Euro has that the launch of been "highly the Euro has been successful". "highly successful". Some would say "so was the "SO Titanic" - the was the Titanic" problem was that it hit as whacking great iceberg not long afterwards. Already city forecasters predict that the Euro, dragged down. above all by the growing economic problems in Germany, may fall below the US dollar in value by the end of the year - an event which would have huge political consequences, not least for Blair's referendum. It is already clear from the first two months (in which it has lost over 6 percent of its starting value) that, the fiscal straightjacket the Euro imposes on the economies of the Euro zone will tend to pull the single currency project apart. All this makes the mass protests to be held in Cologne at the end of May and the beginning of June even more important.