Referendum? Who wants a referendum?

It might seem like a side issue to you - and like everybody else I've been holding my breath while the West's crisis takes a big new European lurch - but I was puzzled by one British reaction to Papandreou's call for a referendum.

'If it's good enough for the Greeks' commented one leading lefty I read in the last few hours, 'then a referendum on the EU is good enough for the Brits!' Thus we are to face the crisis by queueing up behind the Mail, the Sun and the Telegraph.

Let me put it bluntly. Here's the truth of it. It is completely right to hold a referendum (or some sort of popular vote) in Greece about the EU and its austerity plan. It is completely crazy to focus on such a call in Britain. And for the same reason.

In Greece it is the EU that organises the Greek peoples austerity drive - as the acceptable response to the Banker's crisis. In Britain it is the British Government, backed by the City, that organises the attack on pensions, health, welfare, employment in this country. If we want and need a referendum in Britain it should be called on the need to reverse all cuts and to curb the powers of Big Money.

The EU is, almost literally, an (unelected) central committee of leading sections of European capital. Tonight, just before G20 assembles in Cannes, it is in crisis and looks on the edge of catastrophe. But Big Money's representatives in Britain are the Coalition Government. The popular vote we need now is to remove and replace them. Following the Mail, Sun and Telegraph, or the Tory 81 group who want to turn our attention from the Government's political crisis in the direction of Brussels, would be a classic mistake.