POLITICS

Mr Major has proved more difficult to assassinate than Rasputin

BORIS JOHNSON

S edition is amongst us again. It does not take much to get the Tory back benches muttering, and the provocation has been ample. Parliament is prorogued until next week, but the plotters plot. It will come as no surprise that the susurrations once again concern the ways and means of precipitat- ing Mr Major's early departure from Downing Street. Who can say what precise- ly changed the mood of politics in October and early November?

Some will point to the Post Office pri- vatisation retreat, the sight of Mr Hugh Dykes effortlessly forcing a climb-down, which has sent the Right into transports of fury. Others are citing the interesting deci- sion of Mr David Martin to resign as PPS to Douglas Hurd. When quiet, loyal chaps like him kick up a fuss, we are told, it is a portent. The sacrifice of his status on the government payroll has been imbued with all kinds of moral significance. The loyalists say, Tchah, he did it because he had a small majority, and wanted to play to the gallery. The sceptics say he did it because he despises John Major. The reality, perhaps, is that Mr Martin, who came into politics because he was depressed by the Heath U- turn of 1972, resigned because he no longer felt like biting his tongue in the face of the Government's inertia, 20 points adrift in the polls.

Mr Major had a good summer. For weeks, months, the veto of Mr Dehaene gave him kind of a Reddibrek glow. Sud- denly, though, the devilish glint is back on the thick spectacles of his deadliest adver- sary. The loud-chalk-striped frame is back on Newsnight, the lanky bowler who almost got a Blue at Lincoln, the man the Tory whips see as a kind of Antichrist. There is a climate of treason abroad, and Cash is king.

A golden opportunity presents itself, in the coming months, for a repetition of the Maastricht revolt, only this time, so Bill Cash and the plotters hope, successfully. The casus belli is the EC budget, and, though the spending was agreed two years ago amid general apathy, the requisite indignation has been speedily confected. The EC 'future financing' bill has now been anathematised, partly because the Govern- ment caved in last month, in the most invertebrate way, and allowed the Italians to escape an £800 million fine for milk fraud: the biggest milk fraud in Rome, you might say, since 753 BC, when Romulus

6 THE SPECTATOR 12 November 1994

and Remus persuaded a she-wolf to suckle them.

With this and other excuses, the EU bud- get will be the object of rebellion when it is brought to parliament in the coming months, some say as early as December. The Government majority is likely to descend to 13 after the Dudley by-election. That means the rebels need only a couple of taxis-full. 'The numbers are stacking up,' says one rebel head counter. Oh really? What, ten? 12? 'Far more.'

Perhaps the Government will be able to buy off the Ulster Unionists, with the promise of local government in Northern Ireland. That becomes less likely, though, with every murderer sprung from an Irish jail. Still, the sine qua non of a proper revolt is a Labour wrecking amendment. That will be difficult to contrive, but not impossible. One could imagine a form of words by which the Labour Party could hook on a clause opposing VAT on fuel, or demand- ing reform of the Common Agricultural Policy; something, at any rate, with which the Tory sceptics could concur heartily enough to defy their whips.

`You mark my words, Labour is going to have a depth-charge', says one of the scep- tic camp, who has been secretly confabulat- ing with Labour strategists. 'They'd be mad not to.' In the coming weeks and months, then, we are going to see what kind of an opponent is Tony Blair. The potential insurrection will provide evidence of whether this is truly the beginning of the kinder, gentler politics or whether he is more like the young Octavian, the chill and subtle tyrant. Officially, Labour denies all contact with the Tory rebels. We are not yet in the fever of the Maastricht crisis, when Cash was in constant communication with the Labour whips. Officially, there can be no action which undermines Labour's pro-European credentials.

Well, far be it from this column to egg anyone on. But if the British parliament threw out the budget, it would be nothing like the pan-European disaster that John Smith was prepared to provoke. Had Mr Major lost that crucial Maastricht paving motion, had he not put his arm round the shoulder of the wavering Michael Carttiss, the Treaty would have been dead and European history would have jumped the points and gone down a different track. This time, at least in European terms, the worst outcome would be that Europe would have to renegotiate the budget. In Brussels the Commission, the parliament and other institutions would bang their heads against what they call the 'Own Resources Ceiling'. Instead of continuing their relentless upward progression from £54.5 billion this year to £56.5 billion next year, the funds would freeze. The immedi- ate shortfall, apparently, would be about £400 million. They might have to cancel the odd EC buffet reception, or MEPs' trip to Guadeloupe.

In its impact on British politics, though, a successful revolt would be the end of an era. If parliament threw out the budget, it would not just be a question of defeating a government bill. It would be to reject one of John Major's great Euro-triumphs, the preservation of the £1 billion rebate on British contributions. Never mind that it was a slightly synthetic victory at Edinburgh in December 1992. As some of Mr Major's colleagues who negotiated the rebate will admit, it was never really in peril. But its symbolic importance is such that its loss, think , would be fatal to the Prime Minister.

So there you have it: a serious revolt brews, which might topple John Major. But I wonder, again, whether Blair really wants to jugulate him now. The Euro-sceptics might be perfectly happy to push Major out and run the risk that Clarke or Heseltine might be the beneficiary. But Blair might not. It seems quite possible that Labour might simply abstain, in the interests of Euro-purity, in which case the Tory revolt would fizzle.

In all discussions of Mr Major's mortali- ty, one circles back to the truth that he is remarkably durable. He has proved more difficult to assassinate than Rasputin. All the elements are ready, on this Euro-bud- get question, for a first class ambush: the poison, the revolver, the bludgeon, the frozen river. The would-be assassins sense a chance. Maybe they are right. I feel it only fair to point out, though, that they have been here before.

Boris Johnson writes for the Daily Telegraph