By Sir Edward du Cann
WINSTON Churchill said the essential quality for a politician is “the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next year — and to have the ability afterwards to explain why it did not happen”.
I am no longer active in British politics but I dare to make a confident prediction. And I am clear that I will not need to have cause to regret it sometime in the future.
Here it is.
In retrospect, I believe that June 2003 will prove to be the most crucial month for Britain’s membership of the European Union. Sooner or later Britain’s always uneasy relationship with her European partners has to be resolved. Sooner or later it is bound to be make or break time. I believe that time is fast approaching.
Two crucial decisions now face Britain — and there is no way they can be avoided. The agenda for action is set. It is on the table.
There are two dates in June which will be watersheds — Monday, June 9, and the week beginning on June 16.
On June 9 the British government will formally announce its judgment of the five tests on whether Britain should join the new European currency, the euro. Back in 1997 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, said the government would hold a referendum on a single currency only when those tests had been “clearly and unambiguously met”.
Cunningly, the cynics say, Brown thereby maintained the Treasury’s (and has own) control over events. Prime Minister Tony Blair has the office but not the power – in that respect, anyway.
Cabinet members have been studying the Treasury’s 18 technical studies (thousands of pages long). On the face of it, the tests represent common sense — whether there is economic convergence between Britain and the EU and if it can be sustained, what the effect of adopting the euro might be on investment, on the financial services industry and on jobs, and whether the UK’s economy can cope with change.
Said Chris Patten recently (and he is one of Britain’s Commissioners in the EU) any idea that these tests represent the economic truth is “drivel”. He is right. The tests might have been designed by Lewis Carrol for Alice in Wonderland — they can be made to mean what one wants them to mean.
Things are hotting up. Parliament reassembles on Tuesday, June 3, (and Blair returns from yet another overseas trip, including the G8 summit at Evian (a meeting of the world’s most prosperous countries). The Cabinet meets at the end of the week for a “full discussion” of both the euro and European policy in general. (It seems it will be different from most present-day Cabinet meetings, at which insiders tell me there is not usually much meaningful debate. Britain’s Prime Minister is more of a President than a Chairman.
And what will the Chancellor say in the House of Commons on Monday week?
I confidently forecast two things – first, that many of his remarks in the Commons will be trailed in Britain’s Sunday newspapers, since the government often accords a greater priority to favourable policy presentation than to Parliamentary convention.
Second, I predict that he will make favourable references to the EU (in order to assuage the pro-Europe lobby inside and outside his political party). The thrust of his argument will be that as there is still too great a degree of divergence between the UK’s economy and those of the countries making up the EU (Britain under his “prudent” stewardship of its affairs being prosperous while Europe, and notably Germany, is not) that the time is not yet ripe for Britain to join the euro.
There will be more. He will urge on the EU the need to reform the European Central Bank, the stability and growth pact and other matters (in order to satisfy the euro-sceptics inside and outside his party).
In a word, yes to the euro, perhaps – but not yet.
So the indecision will continue for some years yet. Perhaps this is inevitable. Blair is known to be keen to keep open the option to hold a referendum on the euro later in the present parliament — i.e. before a general election which must be held at the latest in the summer of 2006.
Currently, public opinion in Britain is clearly hostile to the euro. The odds are that the government would lose a referendum if it argued now for joining the euro, so it will not be held yet.
Later, the scene may change. The euro-economies may grow, as some predict. These may mean reform of the EU’s institutions. And if so, public opinion in the UK may come round to help Blair assure the “place in history” he is maliciously said to be so keen to achieve.
Meanwhile, however, Chancellor Brown has a veto and he will use it. For the time being, joining the euro is not going to happen.
Now for my second prediction. There is a constitutional time-bomb waiting to explode.
My mind goes back to 1975 when a referendum was held in Britain on membership of the Common Market, as it was then called. On a turnout of 63 per cent of an electorate of 41 million people, over 17 million voted in favour, more than twice the number who voted against (of whom, I am proud to say, I was one).
There were many reasons why I voted as I did – and voted similarly against legislation introduced in the Commons in subsequent years to reduce Britain’s independence. The chief reason was that it seemed obvious to me that if Britain was a signatory of the Treaty of Rome it would embark on a constitutional journey that could have only one terminus – the creation of a single state.
Many of those who led the public debate in that referendum argued that that would never happen. They lied in this and many other respects.
To be precise, we were told in Britain that “no one wanted” tax harmonisation. Now we are getting it in the form of VAT – and we have that in Cyprus as well. “No one wanted” the social chapter. Now we have that too (and we will get it in Cyprus, also). “No one wanted” a European army – and that too is on the cards.
They said (and I clearly remember it) that Britain would always have a veto over proposals it did not agree with – and the veto has been progressively abolished and majority voting becomes increasingly the norm.
The aim has been constant, the creation of a European Superstate. And all the time, its architects have denied it or pretended otherwise.
Fudging has been a consistent attitude of those concerned with European affairs. In December 2001 at a summit meeting of European heads of state at Laeken a European convention was established. (Tony Blair was among those present.) Supposedly it was only to consider the organisation, reshaping perhaps, of the EU’s machinery for coping with a much enlarged membership of some 30 states (of which Cyprus will be one from next year).
The convention has operated under the Chairmanship of the former French President, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. There is a 13-man steering committee known as the Praesidium. Britain has a representative on the Praesidium, a Labour MP born in Germany. She is reported to be a stalwart defender of British sovereignty, but there is no doubt that the overriding aim of the body is internationalist.
The final test of the convention’s work and recommendations will be received by the EU leaders at their meeting in Salonica (under the Presidency of Greece) in the middle of this month. The European Parliament and others have tabled some 1,500 amendments to the original draft, but the timetable provides for it to be adopted by the EU leaders next year, 2004.
The text provides for a new constitution in the EU. Its law will take primacy over all domestic legislation. In effect, member countries of the EU will be provinces of a new state.
To be precise again, the test provides for EU jurisdiction to cover almost
every aspect of national life. There will be a federal police force and a unified diplomatic service under a single Foreign Minister (the
favourite first candidate for the post, it is said, is Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister, one time taxi driver, street fighter and militant activist. He is a fervent internationalist.).
That is by no means all. EU jurisdiction is specified to take the place of member states’ own laws in the following areas: justice, home affairs, asylum policy, regional government, trade, immigration, industrial policy, fisheries, agriculture, competition, transport, energy, employment … it is indeed a comprehensive list. It seems nothing is excluded. Brussels will control every aspect of Britain’s (and Cyprus’) national life.
Giscard d’Estaing at least has been straightforward. His name for the EU’s new constitution is the United States of Europe. That’s right. No longer will there be individual countries, only the USE.
These revolutionary proposals have been described by Peter Hain MP, the Kenyan-born Secretary of State for Wales and the government’s delegate to the Convention, and like Fischer, a former street activist, as a mere “tidying up exercise”. Of course they are nothing of the sort. They represent a root and branch alteration of the constitution of the EU as some of the smaller nations which are already members (Portugal, Holland and Belgium for example) have pointed out. Their status as equal partners is bound henceforward to reduce (and there is a lesson here for Cyprus, also. Cyprus will be a very small fish in a mighty large pond.).
Recent public opinion polls in Britain show a large majority against handing more powers to the EU and in favour of Britain remaining an independent state.
Unsurprisingly, the official opposition in Parliament has challenged the Prime Minister to hold a referendum on the proposed new European Constitution, as some 10 other member states are proposing in their countries.
Referendums have become increasingly popular in Britain. More than 20 have been held in recent years – on devolution and the election of local mayors. Although Blair has said that Britain would not cede defence and foreign affairs to the EU, he has refused to allow the British people a vote on the new Euro-Constitution. If he does as he says he will and uses his veto, Blair will antagonise the French and Germans even more than did his Iraq policy.
Many may think, as I do, that it is outrageous that public opinion should not be consulted in so important a matter, fundamental to Britain’s existence as an independent nation. And it seems that the stage is set for a head-on clash between Britain on the one hand and France and Germany on the other. And if there is a battle it is lightly to be fatal — Britain could even be excluded from the EU.a decision about Britain joining the euro is postponed, as I am sure it will be, debate in Britain will increasingly focus on the d’Estaing proposals for a new constitution for the EU. Those who, like myself, are opposed to Britain’s closer constitutional involvement with Europe, have a duty to be positive.
There are alternatives to a closer political association between Britain and the EU, and there always have been. I believe that Britain should make it clear at the Salonica Summit that we will not agree to sign up to the Constitution in its present form or to join the euro. Then we should press instead for a trading agreement with the EU. This, I believe, the EU could not refuse; British markets are too important to countries such as Germany and France.
For the longer term we should aspire to form a trading association with the United States and the English-speaking countries of the world. There is no time to lose: we have already left that desirable objective too long. Because of Britain’s backing of the United States in the Gulf War we have much goodwill which we can exploit.
Will Britain’s government have the courage to turn down these far-reaching proposals for a political integration with Europe? I wish I thought it would. If I must make a prediction on that matter I would say that the proposals, amended maybe, will go through. Britain may gain some minor concessions (which will be presented by the government as a huge triumph) but if the Convention is adopted as it stands Britain will cease to exist as an independent country.
So two thousand years of British history will count for little. I pray it will not come to pass, but I so afraid it may.
I just hope I am wrong; and as Churchill advised, have the ability to explain, convincingly, why I was. It is a task on which I would happily embark.
The Rt. Hon. Sir Edward du Cann was elected MP for Taunton in England nine times. He served in the British Parliament for 31 years. He was twice a Minister in governments led by Harold Macmillan and Alec Douglas Home. Then he was Chairman of the Conservative Party under Alec Home and Edward Heath and Chairman of the 1922 Committee (the Conservative backbench MPs) during the Premierships of Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher. He is now retired – but has begun a new career as a writer – and lives in Lemona, outside Paphos.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
