4 JANUARY 1997, Page 9

THE ELECTION: YES, THERE IS AN ISSUE

The only trouble, from the Tories' point of view, says Niall Ferguson, is that Mr Major has not

used it (so far)

STOP! Stop! Rewind the tape! Take two!

This business about an inevitable Labour victory in 1997 is all a terrible historical mistake. What was meant to happen was quite different. This election was meant to be about Europe. And the Tories were meant to win it by putting clear blue water between themselves and Labour on the issue.

You must admit that having an election in 1997 which is not about Europe is a little like having an election in 1832 which is not about electoral reform, or an election in 1886 which is not about Irish Home Rule.

After all, Europe is the issue of our time. It is now undeniable that, as a result of the Single European Act and the Treaty of Maastricht, this country is on the point of becoming part of a fed- eral European state, in which ultimate sovereignty is vested in supranational institutions, name- ly the European Court, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. All that is missing is the extension of quali- fied majority voting to all areas of government competence; but as the recent European Court judgment on working hours revealed, we are in practice much closer to the loss of our right of veto than we realised.

It is equally clear that the central objec- tive of the Maastricht Treaty — the cre- ation of a single European currency - would have disastrous economic conse- quences not only for those states who join up, but also for those who do not, especial- ly if it is combined with the kind of punitive `stability pact' which the German finance minister craves.

Yet both the major parties are going into the election with more or less indistinguish- able policies on Europe, and particularly on the single currency. The policy is that they are not sure. They will wait and see.

And if they do finally make up their minds in favour, they will hold referendums. As a consequence, an election which ought to be dominated by the Europe question, will largely ignore it. We are likely to hear more about Tony Blair's hairstyle than about the single currency; more about Norma Major's nickname than about the European Court. It is, of course, arguable that this demo- tion of the European question is simply a response to the internal divisions which afflict both major parties; or to the appar- ent indifference of the electorate on the subject. But it did not have to be this way.

This election could have been about Europe — and the Tories would be poised to win it — if only John Major had lost the last one.

What if Labour had won in 1992? Such `counterfactual' speculations are conven- tionally dismissed as mere day-dreaming a parlour game for bad losers, as the late E.H. Carr said, in the days when dons still had parlours. Yet such historical determin- ism is the Marxist vice. It blinds us to the unpredictable and indeed chaotic quality of history — in Ranke's phrase — wie es eigentlich gewesen.

`As it actually was', all but a few hard- ened cynics and trend-buckers expected Labour to win the last election. The polls were unanimous (even today, when poll- sters ask people how they voted in 1992, the results imply a Labour victory). And some of those marginal seats really were marginal: remember the Vale of Glamor- gan, won from Labour by just 19 votes, and Ayr, which the Tories held against all expectations with a majority of just 85? The expected outcome at the time was therefore that Mr Major would enter the history books as the third most ephemeral Prime Minister of the twentieth century, after Bonar Law and Alec Douglas-Home. True, a few of us put money on a Tory majority of 20 or more; but that was an act of bravado more than rationality, and the money we won was scant consolation for what was obviously a serious historical mistake.

Consider the consequences of a Labour victory in 1992. Just six months after Neil Kinnock's apotheosis he, rather than John Major, would have presided over `Black Wednesday' — sterling's ignominious departure from the Exchange Rate Mechanism. And how we commentators would have gloated! Yet another Labour sterling crisis, in the great tradition of 1967 and 1976. Yet more proof of Labour's fundamental financial incompetence.

True, Prime Minister Kinnock would probably have made a scape- goat of his Chancellor John Smith, just as Wilson replaced Callaghan with Jenkins in 1967 — unless, that is, the shock of devaluation had killed Mr Smith two years ahead of schedule. But the Kinnock government would have been holed below the waterline. The recession so cruelly magnified by our entry into the ERM would have been blamed — rather unfair- ly — on Labour. So would the immense public sector deficits caused by the reces- sion (and think how immense they would have been with Michael Meacher in charge of Social Security). And so would the ensuing tax rises. Nor would the post- devaluation recovery have helped Labour, any more than it is helping the present Government.

Meanwhile, the Tory party in opposition would have been able to adopt the coherent policy on Europe which has eluded it in government. Perhaps Mr Major would have seen the light about the Maastricht Treaty and expressed that clear opposition to the abolition of the pound which his party's activists have for so long yearned to hear. Had he failed to do so, however, it would surely have proved impossible for him to cling on to the party leadership. Out of office, he would have lacked the means to buy victory — as he did in 1995 — by giving Messrs Heseltine and Clarke the power of veto over policy. Out of office, more credible challengers than John Red- wood would have had less to lose from throwing their hats into the ring. Things might have turned out very differently for the hesitant Hamlet of the Right, Mr Portillo.

It would have been Neil Kinnock who would have clung on to his party's leader- ship in the fastness of Downing Street. Gordon Brown — John Smith's successor as shadow Chancellor — would have remained morosely loyal to his patron next door; Tony Blair would have remained a minor figure at the Depart- ment of Employment. The stage would therefore now be set for a resounding Tory revanche in 1997. With the right leader and an anti-Maastricht manifesto, the Conservatives would be braced for a resounding victory, untroubled by such phantoms as the Referendum Party and the UK Independence Party.

Thus (to adapt A.J.P. Taylor's phrase) 1992 was a turning point at which the Con- servative Party failed to turn. For it is pre- cisely the knowledge that the Conservatives won in 1992 which makes their defeat in 1997 inevitable. Not only that: it makes their defeat in 2002 highly likely too. Though it is a parlour game to make politi- cal predictions, it is at least plausible that the Conservative Party's failure to resolve its internal divisions over Europe will be as disastrous for its political prospects as the fateful split over the Corn Laws 150 years ago; to say nothing of what Ireland did to the Liberals.

The difference is that at least then the issues were finally settled by a good, clean general election. Not, alas, in 1997.

The author is Fellow and tutor in Modern History at Jesus College, Oxford.