- The Observer,
- Sunday October 19, 1997
My reading of Mr Brown's interview with a Euro-sceptical Murdoch newspaper is that the Prime Minister's political caution is currently prevailing over his Chancellor's Euro-enthusiasm. By choosing to make the announcement himself, Mr Brown, a proud man, saves his face. Ruling out British entry in 1999 tells us little new. There never was much prospect of that being ruled in. It appears unlikely that the Government will try to join before the next election, but I say appears because nowhere in that interview did the Chancellor actually exclude the possibility.
This is the interpretation that was put on it afterwards by his spin-doctors, the same people who have spent the past few weeks encouraging expectations of early entry. The moral of this saga is: put not your trust in spin.
The upshot is that nothing fundamental has been settled. It alters the tone of the speculation, but it does not end it. Nor does it resolve the dilemma at the heart of the argument. Messrs Blair and Brown must reconcile their shared ambition for a two-term Labour Government with their mutual desire to make Britain a leader in Europe. That latter ambition was repeated as recently as Mr Blair's party conference speech. The Prime Minister wants to dine with the Germans and the French at the captain's table. Europe may be prepared to take a reservation for Britain, but our partners will demand from the Prime Minister and Chancellor at least a rough idea of what time they plan to turn up. Otherwise, excluded from the most important project the continent has ever embarked on, Mr Blair will find his pretensions to leading in Europe are unlikely to be taken seriously. The Prime Minister could find himself dining below the Euro-salt, making small talk with the Greeks and the Danes while the French and Germans take the big decisions.
For Mr Brown, it remains a question of when, rather than if, we join a single currency. Mr Blair's preoccupation is with the how. The public is unprepared for a single currency, the press is unsquared. The rest of the Cabinet have yet to even discuss the subject. No decision on EMU could be made without the agreement of the full Cabinet - not when any Ministers who could not bring themselves to campaign for a 'Yes' vote would be obliged to resign from the Government.
Talking to other members of the Cabinet, I sense a growing restiveness that they know no more about this momentous issue than what they gather from the newspapers - and what they read there is a miasma of misinformation produced by the spin machine. There is no grouping in the Blair Government to compare with the Major administration's bastards, no set of Ministers which will see sterling abolished over their own - or preferably their leader's - dead body. But there are EMU-sceps in the Blair Cabinet, quite a lot of them. Among the more prominent, I would count John Prescott, Ann Taylor, Frank Dobson, Margaret Beckett, and Jack Straw.
Those close to the Home Secretary indicate that he does not buy the Treasury's line that it is essentially an economic decision. He will press his colleagues to examine the political consequences, especially drawing their attention to the fact that every currency union in history has ineluctably led on to political union.
Are British voters prepared to contemplate having their mortgage and tax rates ultimately set in Brussels and Frankfurt? Intriguingly, it is suggested that the Prime Minister might encourage Mr Straw in his scepticism. 'Tony will use Jack,' it's said, in the same way that he used the Home Secretary in the Cabinet debates about devolution - to test, if necessary to destruction, the enthusiasts' case. The People's Prime Minister's next and higher hurdle is the people. EMU cannot happen without their approval in a referendum. Though he went along with the idea when the Major government adopted the policy, Kenneth Clarke privately now describes the referendum as 'idiotic'. Gordon Brown, I suspect, shares the sentiment. It adds a further complication to an already horrendous calculation. Not only do the British and continental economies have to be synchronised, it has to happen at the same moment that the British Government is sufficiently popular to secure public approval for EMU.
The referendum is winnable. On the 'Yes' platform would be lined up most of the CBI, the TUC, the Labour Government and the Liberal Democrats. Even then, I doubt Mr Blair would want to proceed if he could not be certain of recruiting pro-European Tories to the cause. Mr Clarke has told friends that he would not join a 'Yes' campaign unless Mr Blair himself was going to lead it from the front. The leader of the Tory Europhiles is not prepared to put his own reputation on the line unless the Prime Minister does the same. There is no option for Mr Blair of contriving to float above the EMU decision, detaching himself from it in case it went the wrong way. He would have to stake himself on a 'Yes' vote. It would be EMU or bust.
And it would not be enough simply to win a referendum; he would have to win big. A close vote - 51 in favour, 49 against - would not be a stable mandate for such an irreversible decision. The target should be a majority of two-thirds, which would have to be achieved in a hostile media environment. Broadcasters would be obliged to give equal airtime to the antis. Newspapers would divide unequally for the Noes. Some of the Chancellor's men believe they can convert Rupert Murdoch to Europhilia. And I have just watched a squadron of kangaroos fly over the white cliffs of Dover. The Sun's endorsement of Mr Blair at the election was time-limited to the moment Labour came out for a single currency. The Mail is ferociously hostile. Among the broadsheets, the Times and the Telegraph would be fiercely against. The Guardian would be divided, as would this newspaper. The Government could find itself enjoying the unequivocal support of only the Mirror - support that would be confined to pieces on page 23 below adverts for slimming aids.
Running a campaign in the teeth of a hurricane of opposition from most of the newspapers is not a prospect which has Alastair Campbell hugging himself with glee. He sees all his work turning the Tory tabloids to New Labour going up in a puff of smoke.
To take Britain into a single currency would require Mr Blair to overcome the profound doubts of senior members of his Cabinet, face down the hostility of tabloids, and gamble with his personal authority and his Government's popularity. To fulfil his ambition to lead Europe, Tony Blair will first have to demonstrate some extraordinary leadership at home. He is not, it seems, ready to do it yet.
