DAVID CAMERON will face an upset in the EU referendum if he negotiates away workers’ rights, Unite leader Len McCluskey has warned.

 

The top trade unionist stepped into the European debate as Tory former  foreign secretary William Hague threw his weight behind staying in.

 

Mr Hague said a vote to leave the bosses’ club would “end up destroying the United Kingdom and gravely weakening the European Union.”

 

He said Scottish nationalists would use an Out vote as an opportunity to reopen the debate on independence.

 

But SNP Europe spokesman Stephen Gethins said Mr Cameron’s attempts to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with Brussels were more akin to “something out of a Laurel and Hardy Christmas special rather than any serious strategy to achieve real, lasting and beneficial reform.”

 

“While it is welcome progress to see senior Tories finally ceding that it would be completely unacceptable for Scotland to be dragged out of the European Union against its will, we still have no answers as to how they will ensure this does not happen,” he said.

 

In an exclusive article in the Morning Star, Mr McCluskey said: “Cameron’s mission to get his restive rightwingers to learn to love the EU will crash and burn.

 

“Should he fail to defend the social chapter that provides some protections to British workers, when he appeals to six million trade union members to help him carry the day in the polls, he’ll find we have scores to settle.”

 

Mr McCluskey’s intervention follows an escalation of anti-EU rhetoric this year from GMB general secretary Paul Kenny, who has accused Mr Cameron of “prostituting himself for the pimps at the CBI” in negotiations.