The moment David Cameron announces the date of a referendum on Britain’s European Union (EU) membership, the Tory party will plunge into turmoil.

The outcome will decide his future as prime minister.

He will be forced to call a cabinet meeting immediately after the EU summit on Friday if a deal “renegotiating” Britain’s membership is agreed.

Home secretary Theresa May, welfare axeman Iain Duncan Smith and Commons leader Chris Grayling are all for Britain leaving the EU. Others may join them.

Cameron hopes to use the referendum to end Tory divisions and rebuff Ukip.

If Cameron’s deal with the EU is racist enough towards migrants and cushy enough for the banks, many Tories are likely to back it.

The proposed deal with Europe’s leaders is a thoroughly reactionary document. The campaign to stay in the EU will not be anti-racist, or in defence of social rights.

Socialist Worker calls for a vote to leave the EU.

If the EU is so beneficial to ordinary people, why are big corporations and the core of the political elite so in favour of it?

Grinding

If the EU is so benign, how come it is grinding underfoot the population of Greece because people there dared to vote against austerity?

If the EU is so internationalist, why does it force desperate migrants to risk death on flimsy boats to seek sanctuary in Europe? And why does it deploy Nato gunships to repel them?

The EU is a capitalist project designed to promote the interests of the corporations and major states of Europe. It is an institution that we can and should oppose.

Rather than surrender the terrain of the referendum to David Cameron and Nigel Farage, the left must present its own distinctive case for an exit.

This case must be based on genuine internationalism, anti-racism and opposition to the neoliberal offensive being conducted by the EU against ordinary people in Europe.

The Observer newspaper columnist Andrew Rawnsley argued that, “David Cameron faces the most severe challenge of his career and only Labour can solve it for him.”

But why should any of the left or the workers’ movement be saving Cameron’s bacon?

We need to break from the EU on a left basis—and bury Cameron as well.