Speaking tonight (November 18th) at the Annual Dinner of the Chemical Industries Association in London, John Monks, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) will say: "If the EU Constitutional Treaty is not endorsed in the British referendum which the Government is committed to hold, or alternatively, if a Conservative Government repudiated the Treaty, then what is the future for us? In my view, it will become impossible for the EU to contain the UK.

Yet where is the voice of British business in this debate? Where is the CBI?

Britain needs Europe and vice versa. And we need a business community that is not afraid to say so, powerfully and regularly. The Chemical Industries Association knows it and so should business generally. Turn our back on shaping a community and a huge growing market of over 4 hundred million people? That is now a real risk if the nationalists, the nostalgics and certain media tycoons are able to dictate and be unchallenged on the European agenda for much longer.

The Government has a big part to play but the CBI and British business needs to wake up to a real and present danger and mobilise now to ensure that the UK stays at the heart of Europe. We must never marginalise ourselves."