Ed Miliband must commit Labour to hold a referendum on EU membership if he wants the party to have any hope of victory next May, Britain's top communist said at the weekend.

The Labour leader was told he must "stop being a cheerleader for the EU" and commit the party to a referendum on Britain's membership, Communist Party (CP) general secretary Robert Griffiths said on Saturday.

And party international secretary John Foster stressed the need the need to make a progressive case against the EU on the basis of its promotion of privatisation, the austerity agenda and opposition to collective bargaining.

In his keynote address, Mr Griffths went on to say that if Labour is "serious about winning the general election" it should commit to "taking the railways, Royal Mail, gas, water and electricity back into public ownership."

He claimed it would cost £370 billion at present share prices to take a whole raft of services including the banks into public ownership - just £5bn short of the amount that the Brown and Cameron governments provided in quantitative easing to bail out the banks.

Mr Griffiths also warned Labour that the time around the general election will be crucial for workers' future faith in the party.

It will be a time to judge "whether the labour movement can and will reclaim the Labour Party or whether major sections of the movement will have to consider what steps should be taken to re-establish a mass party of labour, one capable of winning general elections, forming a government and enacting the reforms in the interests of the working class."

Proposing the resolution for "a united militant and political labour movement," EC member Carolyn Jones declared that the CP "should work through the Labour Party but not the new Labour clique."

Further resolutions pledged the CP to step up its campaigning to save the NHS, condemned the government's discriminatory policies against the disabled and called for greater communist work among student and young workers.

• The following 30 people were elected to the Party’s Executive Committee: Andy Bain, Ben Chacko, Andy Chaffer, Tony Conway, John Foster, Pauline Fraser, Alex Gordon, Bill Greenshields, Moz Greenshields, Robert Griffiths, Tim Gulliver, Anita Halpin, Zoe Hennessy, Leo Impett, Steve Johnson, Bernadette Keaveney, Thomas Kirby, Eleanor Lakew, Martin Levy, Peter Middleman, Tommy Morrison, Mark O’Neill, Liz Payne, Ben Stevenson, Graham Stevenson, Joanne Stevenson, Ruth Styles, George Waterhouse, Anita Wright, Nick Wright.