FOREIGN FOCUS

And so to Brussels

CRABRO

The timing of the general election has had at least one important advantage. The risk that one or other of the two major parties might have succumbed, in desperation, to the temptation to purchase votes by reneging on their commitment to Europe—and there was a risk—has been avoided. But only a fort- night after the votes have been counted, and before the new Parliament assembles, the winning side, whichever it is, has a date with the Six: and, whoever wins, the Common Market is going to be the issue overhanging the next Parliament.

The result which the opinion polls are currently predicting is probably, on balance, the one which offers the best chance of a successful outcome to the negotiations to follow. If either party were to win by the sort of margin which would necessitate an- other election in eighteen months' time the prospects for a successful negotiation would be distinctly poor. I doubt whether many MPs will emerge from the election campaign with their personal commitment to Europe strengthened: whatever the leaders may have said, the electorate will have seen to that. Then, during the course of the bargaining in Brussels, problems will inevitably be thrown up which will only reinforce the pre- sent disenchantment of public opinion. With another hard-fought election immediately ahead, it would only be a question of time before one or other side decided to make a bolt for the exit from Europe.

If the Tories were to win a five-year mandate, Mr Heath would certainly be entitled to regard this as giving him clear authority to complete the task he started in 1961-3. But unless the Labour party were to decide to replace Mr Wilson with Mr Jenkins—and that seems a pretty improb- able turn of events—I cannot see Labour's belated conversion to Europe sticking for

very long. And if Labour swings back to its pre-1966 position then Mr Heath is going

to have his work cut out keeping the Tory anti-Marketeers in line, at any rate unless there is a marked change in public opinion. If, on the other hand, the polls are right, and Mr Wilson is going to emerge with his majority virtually intact, then it seems to me

the omens will be somewhat brighter. Mr Heath will no doubt be replaced. But he is

not going to be replaced by Mr Enoch Powell; and all the other possible replace- ments are, ostensibly at least, committed to the party's European line. No doubt Mr Powell will emerge as the leader of a power- ful potentially dangerous anti-European lobby. But the Conservative party, having changed its leader once again, will for the most part want to rally round the new man.

And precisely because Enoch Powell will be rocking the boat the attraction of the policies he advocates will be correspondingly diminished. I That is so long as the negotiations are proceeding. But the real uncertainty remains: what sort of a deal will emerge in the end, and will it prove possible to sell it to Parlia- ment? It is here that it is most difficult to be optimistic. Mr George Thomson will presumably carry on as Labour's `Mr Europe'. Mr Thomson is a likeable, straightforward and conscientious man who has made a very good impression in the Community. But he is a. Foreign Office captive balloon (and if

he were to be shuffled out of his previous job it is difficult to think of any alternative

who would not be managed by the Foreign Office, with the possible exception of Roy Jenkins).

Now unfortunately the Foreign Office is already showing all the signs of approach- ing the Community—for the umpteenth time —from the wrong angle. Shortly before the election Mr Thomson was put up to explain, on several occasions, that the only problem about the Common Market's farm system was its implication for our balance of pay- ments. This, or so it seems to me, is rubbish: the product of what might be called 'the fixed exchange rate mentality'.

For there are all sorts of ways in which the cost of our contributions to the Com- munity's agricultural fund, and the extra foreign exchange cost of food imports from third countries, could be balanced out. De- valuation, coupled with invocation of the Community's arrangements for mutual financial aid, might be one way; a much heavier reliance on mutual aid without de- valuation another. Borrowing from the other members to pay the club subscription may not be very elegant: but then they would probably prefer this to the wholesale coloni- sation of their domestic markets by British manufacturers which would be the other way to balance the books.

Admittedly any of these solutions (except perhaps wholesale reliance on Community mutual aid) would involve a loss of potential consumption in the British market. But the loss would be once-for-all, and thereafter British industry could bask in the order- hooks it would have had to fill to meet the bill.

No, the real trouble is not the balance of paymerits, but the common agricultural system itself. It is a farce and a shambles— and all six Community governments know it. The only people who refuse to admit it are the bureaucrats in Brussels. For it is their pride and joy: the one example to date of a genuine Community operation.

So the logical course for us would be to seek to work out with the six governments a thorough-going reconstruction of the whole agricultural system, without shib- boleths: a reconstruction which might very well involve, for a time at least, a reversion

to national markets for foodstuffs. The object would be to switch the emphasis in Community farm outputs from the com- modities for which demand is static to the commodities for which demand is growing, and to concentrate the large element of pro- ducer subsidy so that it goes where it is genuinely needed, and not where it is not.

Instead the Foreign Office is all set to parade as the model pupil of Brussels. This is a hangover from the days when the French were arguing that we were 'not European': our diplomats are still determined to counter this ploy by trying to prove that we are more European than anyone else.

Well, they—the diplomats—may be. But the nation is not. And if George Thomson, or whoever it may be, converts the negotia- tion into a simple exercise in time-scale, a haggle over the length of the transitional period, with complete commitment to the existing agricultural system with all its knobs on, then I am very much afraid that Enoch Powell's anti-European mount could prove a winner.