THE PARIS TRIP
Mr Macmillan's visit to General de Gaulle at Rambouillet and Mr Wilson's in 1967 were both, fortunately, unsuccessful. Each time, the United Kingdom's application to join the EEC foundered on the great Frenchman's rock-like animosities to, wards and suspicions of the Anglo-Saxons.: It is to be hoped that Mr Heath's visit to Paris next week also fails—supposing, of course, that its true object is to take us into Europe. With President Pompidou in place of the general, it is the unhappy case that `alas we can no longer rely on the French saying "No",.' We cannot rely on them saying `Yes' either and, this being so, it is questionable whether we can rely on the French saying or doing anything except whatever they happen to think at any particular time to be in their national interest.
Although the French, lacking political wisdom, usually lose in the long run, they have some record of success, thanks to a clever native wit, in the short run. After all, it is something of a series of achieve- ments for France first to have had Mr Macmillan trot over to be told `Non' and second to have had Mr Wilson to trot over to be told 'Non' and now to be having Mr Heath trotting over not knowing whether he is to be told `Oui 'or 'Non'. Whether or not we are capable of acting like good Europeans, we certainly seem capable of acting like good Frenchmen told what to do by M le President. When this particular observant episode in our history comes to be written, it will be remarked that at no other time in the story of these islands had three successive leaders voluntarily delegated the power of decision on a matter of supreme national importance to the French. If that 'broad sweep of history' which the apologists for the Market are so fond of talking about and so often commend to the British people, were looked at, then Mr Heath's visit to M Pompidou would be seen to have about it something of Mohammed's to the mountain, of Emperor Henry tv's to Canossa, and of Mr Chamberlain's to Munich. When Mr Heath goes to Paris next week, he will look 'in the broad ! sweep of history' to be going as a man who can do nothing else, as a supplicant, and as one who hopes to bring back with a smiling face, yet another scrap of con- tinental paper.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially when that little knowledge is historical. Our eager marketeers possess between them a great amount of little knowledge, and little if any, historical sense. They do, however, possess a good deal of political skill. Without such skill it is unthinkable that they could have advanced their cause as far as they have done, in the face of a public hostility which has increased steadily despite the almost overwhelming weight of pro- Market propaganda presenting British entry as both good and inevitable. The more the public has learned of the Common Market—and they have learned from predominantly pro-Market sources— the less has it liked it. Yet our applica, tion is sustained.
A kind of bi-partisan truce remains in being, despite Mr Wilson's latest musings about the possibility of entry becoming an electoral issue. No 'great debate' has been allowed to break out. The confidence trick —the debate cannot take place until the terms are known, by which time it will be too late for the debate—still works. It is difficult not to admire the ability with which the game has been played, and harder still not to wish that a quarter of the political skill that has been deployed in conning the country, against its sense and its will, into the Common Market had been deployed in serious exploration of the great opportunities in staying out. But this was not to be. In the world of poli- ticians and of publicists much the same kind of fashionable and ignorant assump- tions about the nature of this country's relations with the continent which pre- vailed in the pre-war establishment have - prevailed again, in new guises, since the war.Our establishment has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. And if one were to ask oneself which man has spoken most' consistently from 1933 to the present age about what he regards as the most desir- able relationship that should exist between Britain and Europe, the answer would, of. necessity have to be Sir Oswald Mosley.
There are some consolations in the present situation. The chief of these come from contemplation of the ramshackle state of the Common Market itself—its members unable to agree either on a common formula under which the British application could decently be treated, or on a common answer to the German cur- rency problems created by the attractions of the under-priced D-mark and the de- tractions of the over-valued us dollar, and thus allowing France alone to determine the one and Germany (with outside Swiss help) the other. The Benelux countries and Germany and Italy mouth polite plati- tudes while the French haggle, being sugary on sugar but not buttery on butter: and here again, in this undignified com- mon market-place, this country is not treating with a European commission or negotiating with a European body but is instead conducting itself with a France which has, in effect, successfully appointed herself sole negotiator and sole arbiter and sole judge. The negotiations themselves demonstrate the sham that is called the European Common Market.
The other consolation is more specula- tive. It is possible that Mr Heath's visit to M Pompidou is not that of a man who can do nothing else and it is possible that he will not be travelling as a supplicant hoping to return with a scrap of paper. It may be that he has come to see the Com- mon Market for what it is—a continental instrument designed to inflate French pre- tensions and endow Germany with respect- ability—and that he now sees that to pur- sue the application at a price set by France would be to fall into the trap set by France. It may also be that he under- stands also the political trap being pre- pared for him with great skill by Mr Wilson and that he wishes to avoid falling into this trap also. In this case, Mr Heath will be travelling to the continent not determined to do a deal at all costs but determined to safeguard this country's interests at all costs. In hoping that this last interpretation may prove correct, we wish Mr Heath well in Paris.
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