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LABOUR faced mounting pressure to offer a progressive alternative to “Thatcherite” Ukip yesterday and back an EU membership referendum amid uproar at an unexpected £1.7 billion bill from Brussels.
City wideboy Ukip leader Nigel Farage gloated yesterday as PM David Cameron faced backbench pressure to reject the EU commission invoice drawn up after a reassessment of Britain’s economic performance over the past four years — taking this year’s bill for membership of the bloc to £10 billion.
Other member states will get bumper payouts, including £614 million for Germany and £788.7m for France.
Pro-workers’ rights alliance No2EU spokesman Brian Denny described the move by Brussels as “demands with menaces” and “outrageous.”
Yet people should not be hoodwinked by “Thatcherite” Ukip’s posturing against Brussels, he said.
“This financial raid will be a gift to Ukip and a major headache for all the other parties which have an automatic pro-EU setting,” said Mr Denny.
“But to confront Ukip, the labour movement must not line up with the Establishment but expose the true neoliberal and autocratic nature of the EU which, in the end, has the same Thatcherite politics as Ukip.”
Anti-worker opportunist Mr Farage revelled in the timing of the announcement for Mr Cameron, who has spent recent days talking tough about a renegotiation of Britain’s EU membership.
Immigrant-bashing Mr Farage gloated: “He’s in a very weak position. He can do nothing about this.
“I think, really, he’s now being pushed into a position where, unless he brings forward his referendum promise, I think he’s in real political trouble.”
Communist Party international secretary John Foster urged Labour and the trade union movement to act in the face of mounting public opposition to the EU.
The furore over the £10bn price tag of EU membership — similar to an NHS England budget black hole revealed yesterday — “underlines the need for Labour to back the call for a referendum made by Len McCluskey of Unite (pictured) and Paul
Kenny of GMB,” he said.
“The left needs a progressive agenda that challenges that of the right and highlights the real role of the EU as the driving force behind austerity, the erosion of employment conditions, privatisation and big business treaties like TTIP.”
