THE GUESTS AND GHOSTS AT KING HENRY'S COURT

Hampton Court, on the banks of the Thames near Kingston, was the scene of legendary orgies thrown by Henry VIII.

The tyrant king would remove himself to this country retreat to satisfy his ferocious appetite for hard-drinking and wenching.

The colossal palace, set in acres of rolling parks and a deer forest, was built in the 16th century by Cardinal Wolshe king's chancellor. (Wolsey was a kind of early version of Henry Kissinger.)

During the protracted haggling with Rome over his divorce from Catherine, Henry moved his mistress, Anne Boleyn, to Hampton Court. When Wolsey failed to get satisfactory divorce terms, Henry had him convicted of high treason. But he died before he reached the gallows.

Henry was excommunicated and in retaliation established his own Church of England. His troubles weren't over, however. Anne bore him daughter, not a son and heir. The day after Anne's execution, he married another of his mistresses, Jane Seymour.

She died at Hampton Court giving birth to Edward VI in 1537: The palace was to have continuing associations: two other marriages—to Catherine Howard and Catherine Parrwere consecrated in the Great Hall.

It was to this hall, with its magnificent hammerbeam roof, that Edward Heath, senior members of his Cabinet and the leaders of British industry went on Tuesday night.

Shortly after nightfall and as the fog settled, the 250 guests made their way through the Trophy Gates, built by George II, to a banquet marking entry into the Common Market.

Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, Jaguars—limousines of every description-swam silently towards the palace like a shoal of sharks in the shallow.

The security precautions were stringent. Uniformed police patrolled Branch ounds while Special men stood in overcoats recording the faces of everyone who went in.

Only six handpicked journalists from the capitalist Press were invited to attend. And one photographer. A television crew from the BBC was permitted inside to film Heath's speech and the opening remarks by the guest of honour, Sicco Mansholt, retiring president of the EEC Commission.

As the cars drew up, liveried footmen opened the doors. The chauffeurs then drove to the rear of the palace where, as the invitation cards stated, refreshments will be provided in the depot canteen'.

It seems clear that the food consumed by the guests was not from the canteen.

They began with turtle soup, followed by lobster, then pheasant with asparagus and finally a giant icecream cake. Thi feast was demolished with no less than four wines (two red two white), champagne, por and brandy. Free cigarette and cigars were on every table Of the 250 guests, onl about 20 were women. Youn girls presented the representa tives of the other eight EEC countries with expensive piece of china. As one woman com mentator said acidly: "The pre sentation ceremony. revealer the first of the Euro-bunnies Little sex kittens made thei appearance and then dis appeared off-stage' During the two-hour mea minstrels played folk musi from the gallery. They wor fancy costumes as if to des perately recreate the forme grandeur of the state occa sions in the Great Hall.

In his speech Lord Harlect the former UK Ambassador i Heath arriving at Hampton Col holt, president of the EEC Commission noted: 'It was very dull really. Hampton Court Dr Sicco Mans eech welcoming British entry. From the Nobody got drunk, nobody who retires today, gives his sp of the European Movement, the Lord said "Boo" to anybody. It was lett: Lord Harlech,. president Chancellor, Lora Malsnam, Manzini and Walter Behrendt, Washington and the chairman of the British Board of Film Censors, also harped on the theme of the 'emotional' and 'historical' atmosphere in which the banquet was being staged.

Nobody could deny the history which has been enacted at Hampton Court. It was behind those walls that Henry conspired to start the Anglican Church and to seize the powerful land holdings of the Church of Rome. He also planned the construction of the Royal Navy which enabled the expansion of British imperialism to the four corners of the world.

But at the end of Victoria's reign she threw Hampton urt. Above right: In the Great Hail at nansnoi, ine Halan Ampassauur, mi shaa Amsha adAr Mr president of the European Parliament Court open to the public. Since then probably millions of tourists and sightseers have picked their way over the building and its famous hedge maze in the gardens. They have viewed the State Apartments, the Great Kitchen (where a whole ox can be roasted), the cellars and the tennis court built for Henry VIII-the first tennis court in the world.

All these treasures of bourgeois history can be seen for 20p. For children under 14 it's 5p. You can get there by catching any of the following buses: 72, I11, 131, 155, 201, 206, 211, 216, 264 and 267. Heath's show of ostentation Hampton Court has got to be seen in this context. The venue for the banquet was deliberately chosen to impress the television audiences and to convince the bourgeoisie itself of its own history of greatness.

It is the depth of the economic crisis facing British capitalism which drives Heath to the Tudor fortress on the Thames and to summon these ancient trappings of power.

But as one of the guests very formal and unbending. In fact, everyone seemed a little bit on edge. A bit nervous.' I bet they did! Heath and the rich idlers who stuffed themselves with lobster and pheasant know that they still have to settle accounts with the working class. The Tories have passed legislation and signed treaties-none of which is accepted by the working class.

The working class will fight his anti-union laws, his state pay laws, his attacks on council housing, his deliberate creation of mass unemployment. If there was 'edginess' on Tuesday night, it was because the ruling class knows that it has to do a lot more than make bombastic speeches and wear Tudor fancy dress THE BANQUET?

Harold Wilson, the Labour Party leader, did not attend Tuesday night's banquet at Hampton Court. The Tory Press made huge play of the fact that Wilson had 'snubbed' the festivities.

It was presented to the working class as though Wilson was carrying out Labour Party and TUC policy by not having anything to do with the Tory 'Fanfare for Europe' (FFE).

But Wilson's non-appearance at the Thamesside palace is the most monstrous piece of hypocrisy. Why? We! shall explain • • The banquet was organized and paid for by an organization called the European Movement.

This is a body largely unknown to the mass of the population. Its publications in favour of the EEC are prolific. Bu tha sid LOI del Pal kir.

Ge kel Pa: org da: cel ml sai co1 un we Sh Ch da chi na Mr Pa me Jin La anı

But about its own finances and operation, little is made public.

Its patrons are none other than Edward Heath, Jeremy Thorpe and ... Harold Wilson!

While three of its five presidents are also Labourites Lord George-Brown, the former deputy leader of the Labour Party, his successor Roy Jenkins, and Sir Frederick Hayday, the ex-national officer of the General and Municipal Workers' Union.

In other words, the Labour Party is up to its teeth in the organization which ran Tuesday night's gala evening to celebrate entry.

There is another myth that must be nailed. The Tory Press said that the Labourites 'boycotted' the function. This is untrue.

Labour Party members who were present included: Lord Shackleton, Labour leader in the Lords and a member of the Shadow Cabinet; Lord Chalfont; Sir Frederick Hayday of the G&MWU and former chairman of the TUC international committee; Mr Tom McNally, head of the Labour Party's international department at Transport House; Mr Jim Cattermole, a former Labour Party regional organizer and now full-time director of the Labour Committee for Europe; and three Scottish MPs Dr J. Dickson Mabon, R. MacLennan and J. P. Mackintosh.

The centre-piece of the Labour collaboration was, however, the presence of Mr George Thomson, a former member of Wilson's Cabinet and now the Tory-appointed Commissioner to Europe. The beaming Thomson received a special blessing from Heath.

In his speech Heath expressed his gratitude to all those who had made entry possible. He specifically thanked those in 'the other political parties'. . It was an oblique but well-understood reference to Roy Jenkins and his 68 rightwing friends who voted with the Tories for entry on October 22, 1971.

By trooping into the Tory lobby they not only secured British membership of the EEC, but also saved Heath's government from falling. If Wilson, Jenkins, George-Brown, Michael Stewart, Shirley Williams, Douglas Houghton, Harold Lever and Anthony Crosland were absent from the banquet, they were forced to do so by the strength of the working class.

A year ago Jenkins and his friends were able to flaunt their pro-European views in the face of the Labour and trade union movement. Whenever Heath needed votes during the passage of the EEC legislation, they would oblige.

Now, however, the meaning of the Market is becoming clearer. The working class sees that entry is bound up with the whole Tory strategy to link up with the West European monopolists in a last-ditch stand.

Entry is a desperate bid by the Tories to regroup their dwindling strength in an effort to smash the trade unions and take away basic rights of trade unions, a decent standard of living and decent housing.

That Labourites belong to the European Movement is an act of flagrant class-collaboraThis body, which had an income of some £500,000 last year, was founded by Sir Winston Churchill in 1946. Not long ago it took up plush new headquarters in Europe House in Whitehall Place, which places it within a few hundred yards of No 10 Downing Street.

Its financial resources come almost entirely from big business. Its backers include the big banks - Barclays, Lloyds, Midland and National Westminster - the influential merchant banking fraternity, Rothschild, Warburg, Sassoon, Schroder Wagg and the big British monopolies:

Sir John Partridge's Imperial Tobacco, British Petroleum, Burroughs Machines, Lord Kearton's Courtaulds Limited (George-Brown is a director), Distillers Limited (the marketers of thalidomide), Dunlop Rubber Company (Reginald Maudling used to be a director), Esso Petroleum, F. W. Woolworth, H. J. Heinz Company, IBM (UK) Limited, Johnson Matthey Company (Lord Robens is a senior director); British Ropes (Anthony Barber's Yorkshire-based firm), Kellogg Company of Great Britain, Kodak Limited, Lord Sieff's Marks and Spencer (which contributes to Tory Party funds), Robert Carr's old firm, Metal Box Company, Morgan Crucible Limited, Sir John Clark's Plessey Limited (another big contributor to the Tory coffers), Rank Hovis McDougall, the Rentokil Group, Rowntree and Company, Shell International, Tate and Lyle, the sugar monopoly, Watney Mann and W. H. Smith and Company (which gave L22,775 to the Tories in 1970).

When the European Movement began its £100,000 advertising and poster campaign for the Market, 71 leading industrialists signed a manifesto which appeared in "The Times'.

Apart from this *mighty backing, the European Movement has another intriguing source of revenue-the Foreign Office. When Lord Chalfont was a junior minister at the Foreign Office in Wilson's administration he had the subsidy to the movement raised from £2,500 a year to £7,500.

It is also interestnig to note that when you join the Europe House Club, which is comfortably installed in the new Whitehall Place address, you pay your membership cheque to Coutts and Company, account No. 21495670. The account is in the name European / Movement (British Council) Limited.

And we all know what the British Council gets up to!

Despite the Press and television ballyhoo and despite the two-faced manoeuvres of its leadership, the rank and file of the Labour and trade union movement remains implacably hostile to the EEC.

As the cost of living continues to soar, this hostility can only intensify. The Tories may have signed the Treaty of Rome, but they've signed the death sentence of British capitalism as well.

On November 13, 1972, Workers Press published the full text of an 'open letter' sent to us by the organizers of the Conference of Radical Scholars of Soviet and Eastern European Studies held in London on October 20-22. This letter replied to our earlier criticisms of the conference and we duly replied to it in the same issue of Workers Press. Now Workers Press has come under fire in 'Intercontinental Press' (December 18) from George Saunders of the United States Socialist Workers Party, an organization politically sympathetic to the Pabloite 'Unified Secretariat', of which Tariq Ali's International Marxist Group (IMG) is a section. Here we publish the full text of Saunders' attack, together with our own reply.