Powell, Labour and Europe
THERE OUGHT to be nothing at all startling in the thesis which Mr Enoch Powell stated in Stockport last Friday and further developed and elaborated in radio and television discussions at the beginning of this week. Anyone who is neither a party hack nor a political nincompoop will have no difficulty in acknowledging that the Common Market raises issues which may easily transcend considerations of party loyalty. Politicians from all parties and irrespective of their Common Market attitudes have exPressed this view time and again. It is an historic fact that the legislation last year which enabled this country to accede to the Treaty ot Rome and surrender power to the institutions of the European Economic Community successfully passed through the House of Commons by the Conservative Government through the active support, in and out of the voting lobbies, of the Labour Party's pro-Market faction. However, at no time has the Common Market been an issue at a general election, and politicians have not in practice had to choose between deserting their principles on this matter, precisely because the country has been denied the opportunity of making its own choice through democratic electoral procedures.
HAD MR GAITSKELL not died when he did, it is likely that no Labour government would ever have applied for entry; and in this event, the Labour Party would probably have adopted a policy of opposition to entry as a matter of straightforward principle. But when Mr Wilson succeeded Mr Gaitskell, although it is very doubtful indeed whether he was ever much more enthusiastic about Europe than his predecessor, he was unable to resist the opportunity provided by office of stealing the Conservative Party's European clothes. Wilson's application to join the Common Market was a tactical move of some elegance, but it was and remains estrategic disaster from which the party and the nation may never fully recover. The argument at the time was that the only way to find out what the terms would be was to apply to join; and the vital decision whether or not to join could be taken later, when the terms were known. This device was tantamount to • a conspiracy which has prevented then and ever since the Common Market issue from being properly determined in and by Parliament and voted upon by the British public.
IT WOULD have been entirely different had the Labour Party (or the Conservative Party, or even the Liberal Party come to that) been led differently and had determined to oppose adherence to the Treaty of Rome on principle. The Tories could have done this very easily, not only as the party which traditionally has prided itself upon its patriotism, but as the party most devoted to upholding the constitution and the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom and most loyal to the institutions of Parliament, national church and Crown. The Liberals would have found it even easier to oppose the European policy, for they share the constitutional devotions of the Tories but are more jealous of individual liberties and have been traditionally the party of cheap food and free trade. The Labour Party, with its close ties with the European socialist parties and its susceptibility to foolish enterprises masquerading as noble objectives, its ' internationalism ' and its doctrinal readiness to believe in the virtues of ' progress' and change,' would obviously experience great theoretical difficulties in opposing British entry on principle; but in its role as the chief representative institution of the British Working class, which as the main body of the country is both deeply patriotic and deeply traditional in its instincts, a Labour Party opposing a continental entanglement on principle would be true to its constituency if not to its doctrine.
IT HAS ALWAYS been clear that if the Common Market should become a party political issue at a general election, then the clear auty ot those whose views on the Common Market are firm must be to act so that their views take precedence over normal party political loyalties. It would be both ludicrous and shameful were this not so. There will always be temporisers, trimmers and hacks who will find ways of supporting their party even when they are convinced that its actions are detrimental to the country; but any honest socialist who believes that it is right and proper to hand over the direction of economic and social policies to European institutions should vote Conservative if that remains Conservative Party policy and ceases to be Labour Party policy; and any liberal who believes that the liberties of the subject are best preserved by a Brussels bureaucracy should also vote Conservative if no liberal candidate is to hand. By the same token, any conservative, or any liberal, who believes that Parliament defends his liberties, that the House of Commons must again become the place where our future is determined and our laws made, and that what he loves and is part of is this country and not some polyglot and artificial collection of continental states, must be prepared and indeed anxious to vote Labour should the Labour Party become the party which, for the time being, is the repository of the national interest, the patriotic party, the parliamentary party and the party which seeks to preserve rather than to subvert and destroy this country's independence. Should such a choice be presented, then all other party political considerations and loyalties are of secondary importance. The domestic policies of political parties are easily changed and none are irrevocable. The European policy of the Prime Minister, if it were to be allowed to continue would bring about the end of the United Kingdom and its irrevocable submersion into a European state and there would be no more' domestic ' policies left. Enoch Powell is saying nothing less than the simple truth when he states:
In this present parliament the formal session has been accomplished of the supreme right of the Commons to tax, to legislate, and to call the executive to account. In the next parliament will be accomplished the absorption of Britain into the new European state as one province along with others. Between these lies one event, one hurdle to be cleared, one barrier across the way — a general election .
THE ONLY WAY the absorption of Britain into Europe can be prevented, the only way the supreme right of the Commons to tax and legislate and call the executive to account can be preserved, the only way Parliamentary sovereignty can be restored to the British people, and the only way therefore that their historic liberties may be preserved within a nation-state which their elected representatives govern, is by the defeat of the Heathdominated Conservative party. The only practical way that can be brought about is by the victory of a Wilson-led Labour party. Heath will assuredly keep us in for good, Wilson will probably take us out. Those who truly love this country may well be faced with an agonising choice, but they can have no doubt where the true course of patriotic duty must unavoidably lie, should they agree with Mr Powell that" independence, the freedom of a self-governing nation is . .. the highest political good," and should only one major political party offer them the opportunity of voting for that independence, that freedom, that political good.
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