POLITICS
An ideal time for someone to found Forza Inghilterra
SIMON HEFFER
Had Mr Major and fixed principle not been such strangers, he might have found the strength to face down our European partners on the question of European vot- ing rights. They might have been odious to him if he had, but he has endured so much odium since 1990 that a little more would not have hurt. Instead he caved in, a breathtaking inversion of his John Bull act of last week. It is a humiliation for him on a scale of that suffered when Britain was booted out of the ERM. In some respects, indeed, it is even worse.
Mr Major pretended the Maastricht Treaty, which he forced through, was the last sacrifice of sovereignty we would have to make until the next inter-governmental conferences. Instead, it diluted sovereignty so that in some cases it became morally and in others practically impossible to resist fur- ther erosions. Worse, he spent much of last week engaging in foaming histrionics about how the Leader of the Opposition, and not he, was the poodle of Brussels. Now Mr Major is not so much eating humble pie as Winalot. Worse still, having performed in this curious way, he then did a U-turn faster and more comprehensive than any most seasoned observers can ever recall.
If some Tory MPs are to be believed, this could be the greatest mistake of Mr Major's career. 'I just feel disgust,' said a loyal supporter. 'He's finished.' He has done the 180 degree turn before, but sel- dom so fast, and never with such bad tim- ing. The breach of promise on taxation is only now biting. The ERM farrago hap- pened when elections were not imminent. His failure to deliver on Northern Ireland is obscured by vagueness and prevarication. But nothing has been so clear, so quick, and promised such disastrous political effects as his defeat on voting rights. 'We shall not,' he told the Commons only last week, 'say yes to everything that comes out of Europe. . . The right hon and learned Member for Monklands, East [Mr Smith] is the man who likes to say yes in Europe — Monsieur Oui, the poodle of Brussels.' Who's barking now?
At Plymouth last, weekend, at the Con- servative Central Council, Mr Major's troops were in poor humour. They have to fight local elections immediately, and they know electors will vote against them because of the poor record of the Prime Minister and the Government. Then• they must fight the European Elections. 'I'm glad,' an activist told me, 'that at last we're making a stand on something.' That was then. There is now not even that crumb of hope for Tory canvassers to offer voters who seek a party that stands up for our interests. The campaign will to be one of the great shambles of recent history.
So worried was the party organisation about troublemaking at Plymouth that it shipped in 200 agents. The theory was that the agents would go around spreading cheer to the 600 or so representatives; but by Friday lunchtime even the agents were fed up with pretending. This was before Mr Major was kicked back into his kennel. Once constituency activists realised on Sun- day that Mr Major would be caving in on voting rights too, MPs' telephones started to ring, and the message was unequivocal.
'I'm fed up to the f—ing back teeth,' a parliamentary private secretary told me on Tuesday. 'The last six months have' been bad enough but this is the last f—ing straw.' A senior minister volunteered the view that Mr Major had made a leadership election 'certain' by accepting the `compromise'. Another said, after the defeat, 'The mood down here is absolutely stinking. It's not just the Euro-sceptics. It's ordinary middle- of-the-road backbenchers. They've ceased to take Major seriously.'
With anger rising in anticipation of Tues- day's events, the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers formally conveyed its con- cerns about the Government's and the Prime Minister's credibility to Mr Ryder, the Chief Whip. Backbenchers went about protesting to the whips about the absurdity of Mr Major's backing down following the force of his rhetoric last week. 'The whips thank us for our views and smile weakly. Even they are bloody embarrassed by this incompetence,' said one MP.
All that now remains to be decided is when the covert assault on Mr Major will become open mutiny — although, as Mr Tony Marlow showed on Tuesday when he called for Mr Major to resign, in some quarters that point has already been reached. One or two backbenchers are making it clear they would be prepared to serve as stalking-horses. Nobody, with the possible exception of Mr Heseltine, has been properly prepared for it, because nobody could quite believe Mr Major could be so inept as to turn an embarrassment into a disaster. Mr Heseltine may not have believed it either, but he was prepared because, having the political equivalent of priapism, he always is. Mr Heseltine may not know some of the things that are done in his name, but at least one backbencher was told on Monday night by a Heseltine supporter that he should not take it for granted that the president would have no reservations about the compromise; just as it could not be taken for granted that Mr Heseltine had no reservations about a cover-up in the Matrix Churchill case.
Not for the first time, Mr Major has cooked up a serious political and personal crisis out of remarkably modest ingredi- ents. The negative feelings of his back- benchers towards him are well document- ed. Now, though, many in the Government and some in his Cabinet have barely con- cealed contempt for him, and they are not by any means all right-wingers. Ultimately, though, the willingness of the Cabinet to endorse Tuesday's humiliation diminishes all its members, particularly those who (unlike the Heseltines and Hunts of this world) claim to be motivated by more than just short-term political expediency.
The continuing damage being done to Britain's interests by a weak, disorientated, vacillating, badly advised and inadequate prime minister is something for which the whole Cabinet is responsible, and not just in literal constitutional terms. If they were to withdraw consent from Mr Major, he would be finished. By not yet withdrawing con- sent, they signal their willingness to contin- ue to be complicit in the damage. It may well be, as that senior minister said, that the decision to roll over on voting rights will make a leadership election 'certain'.
Perhaps that is how ministers unhappy about Mr Major's way of doing business justify to themselves, in their shaving mir- rors (or wherever Mrs Bottotnley looks in the morning), their ill-judged and unpatri- otic behaviour. Even when reality confronts our governors so forcefully, even when they would lose nothing by making a stand, they still prefer to rely on others to do their dirty work for them. No wonder politicians are held in such contempt, and some elec- torates are looking for replacements. It is time for an English Berlusconi. What a shame so many of our own media magnates are either foreign or, if not, wisely cannot bring themselves to live here.
Previous page
