DAVID CAMERON’S letter to European Council president Donald Tusk, supposedly setting out four “challenging” demands to adjust Britain’s relationship with the European Union, smacks of amateur dramatics.

His performance is calculated to distract his back-bench eurosceptic colleagues from pushing for Britain’s immediate exit from the EU by persuading them that the bloc can be reformed.

Or, failing that, to ensure that they remain calm for a short period rather than knifing him in the back.

Cameron had a grandstand seat, as former chancellor Norman Lamont’s bag-carrier, when the Tory government was forced to exit the EU exchange rate mechanism — precursor to the euro — in 1992 after pushing up interest rates to 15 per cent.

He knows that many of his Tory colleagues want nothing to do with this supranational body.

They made this clear throughout John Major’s 1992-97 Tory government, waging constant guerilla war against him because of his pro-EU stance.

The Prime Minister is as pro-EU as Major and, whatever the result of his “negotiations,” the only certainty is that he will campaign for a Yes vote in a referendum.

That is the well-grounded fear of his eurosceptic backbenchers who understand that the City of London backs British membership and that Cameron takes his lead from the City.

Their comments in Parliament yesterday made clear that they see the Prime Minister’s four-point negotiating opener as cosmetic.

Proposals of no discrimination against non-euro EU member states, continuation of the EU “competition” programme and no obligation on Britain to work towards “ever-closer union” are not exactly taxing.

That’s not so with his fourth demand — to reduce migration to Britain from other EU states, especially by denying benefits to workers for four years.

This would be a clear case of discrimination against citizens from other EU states, contravening the bloc’s principle of freedom of movement for labour, goods, services and capital.

Would Cameron take a punt at the referendum, pointing to success in his first three points to be set against disappointment over the fourth?

Or could it be that he has already been tipped the wink that his fellow neoliberal leaders will agree to a deal, however flimsy, temporary or conditional, on in-work benefits that casts him as a supreme negotiator?

More likely as a latter-day Neville Chamberlain with a piece of paper in his hand signifying surrender.

Just as Cameron will certainly plump for Britain remaining in the EU in a referendum, whenever it comes, the Morning Star can be depended upon to take the opposite position.

Our paper has maintained since the days of the six-member Common Market that the bloc set up on Treaty of Rome free-market principles is a bosses’ Europe.

Too many labour movement representatives have been seduced into pro-EU positions by sweet talk about a “social Europe” that ensures fair treatment of workers, paid annual holidays, family-friendly legislation and much more.

Where was this social Europe when the Greek working class was being nailed to the cross of bankers’ bailouts?

This social Europe Shangri-La is actively promoting privatisation, zero-hours contracts, casualisation and frozen pay levels.

Social Europe mumbo-jumbo has not saved a single job as market forces are cited to justify wholesale sackings, short-time working and curbs on workers’ pay and conditions.

Even the European TUC, which swallowed the social Europe whale whole, complains now that “cuts in salaries, cuts in public services and weakening collective bargaining rights are all on the agenda.”

Liberal media outlets will claim that leaving the EU is a right-wing project by dint of being backed by Ukip and Tory backbenchers.

However, there has always been powerful labour movement opposition to the EU because of its undemocratic and anti-working class orientation.

That movement has to play a vanguard role in exposing Cameron’s negotiating pretensions and demanding that Britain exits stage left from this neoliberal bloc.