A tale of mystery and imagination
`Britain's balance of payments is now improving after a period of deficit. A sus- tained improvement is essential whether we enter the EEC or not . . . In the long term pressure within the Community towards greater efficiency should make Britain's exports more competitive. If this happens we would strengthen our balance of payments and increase the rate of economic growth which can be sustained in Britain'.
This is not a quotation from Mr Wil- son's White Paper published on Tuesday.
It is a quotation from Background to the Negotiations, a booklet pro- duced by Mr Macmillan in May 1962.
But the superficial similarity hides a fun- damental difference. Mr Macmillan believed that he could sell the operation to the British electorate as the passport to an economic eldorado (with political implications about which the less said the better) which would win the next election for the Conservative Party.
Mr Wilson, by contrast so far from see- ing this as an election-winning ploy for the Labour party, regards it as a potential loser. He has come to see his original decision to apply for membership in 1967 as a concession, in a moment of weakness, to the wider 'Europeaps' in his Govern- ment. Now, he feels, he is lumbered with the consequences of that aberration. Thus so far from this week's White Paper being a reaffirmation of Britain's EEC applica- tion, it is the prelude to its withdrawal.
There was no obligation upon Mr Wil- son to produce it at all. He had, as he reminded the House of Commons, prom- ised it to his party conference last summer; but he does not usually regard promises to his party conferences as being of special sanctity, and besides, he need never have given that promise in the first place. 'What the cost [of entry] will be can be ascertained only in the course of negotiation', says the White Paper. Even this is not true: even at the end of the negotiation many of the factors which go to make up the equation—the course of Community policy towards agricultural surpluses, the price-elasticity of exports and imports, the effect of liberalising capital movements—will only be the sub- ject of educated guesses. But at the pre- sent time, when the Community has still to work out its own negotiating position, the whole exercise is nothing more than a tale of mystery and imagination. 'Your _ Market bill, madam-50s a week': was the headline that greeted the publication of the White Paper. And presumably, was the headline Mr Wilson wanted.
The calculations in the White Paper, Mr Wilson announced on Tuesday, `do not allow for what we would hope to achieve in the course of the negotiations'. Fair enough, it might be thought: anything else would be dishonest. Unfortunately the publication of the crude figures—and crude is the word—will not only give every comfort to the opponents of British entry: they also reflect the two conflicting purposes within the Government itself. For the Prime Minister they provide the excuse for a change of front which he can no doubt already foresee as one of his options if the General Election is post- poned and the opening of detailed negotia- tions becomes unavoidable: and option, moreover, which would enable him to take advantage of the substantial anti- Common Market majority in the public opinion polls—and even, hopefully, to dish Mr Heath. For the Foreign Office they are a demonstration of our willingness to contemplate the full financial rigours of the Community rules as they stand in order to isolate the wicked French and prove our Europeanness.
There are other instances of this second intention in the White Paper. It starts with a quotation from Mr Wilson's May 1967 speech, and the key passage is this: . . the Government's purpose derives above all from our recognition that Europe is now faced with the oportunity of a great move forward to political unity . . (our italics). Let him put that in his pipe and smoke it when next he is asked about federalism on Panorama.
Nor is there any sign of recognition, from the beginning to the end of the White Paper, of the fact that none of the existing members of the European Com- munity would dream of applying the strict letter of its rules when it did not suit them to do so. No one reading the section on capital movements, for example, would imagine the French government maintains a foreign travel allowance which applies to all countries—members of the Com- munity included. No one reading the agri- cultural section would imagine that French dairy farmers are still accustomed to the receipt of what amount in all but name to deficiency payments.
However the damage is done, as the ?iff 1. 14( L• st37. n99, ;41 fi, genuine Europeans in the Government are already bitterly aware. And the con- solation which they may seek to draw from the lacklustre description of the `unquantifiable' long-term benefits of membership for Britain is more apparent than real. What it adds up to is an asser- tion that Britain will enjoy a sudden burst of 'growth' as a result of participa- tion in a larger market which will enable her to take the entrance fee in her stride. This may be so; but the views of the Confederation of British Industry, on which the authors rely. is scarcely evi- dence. And certainly our membership of EFTA has had no such effect.
The omens for a successful negotiation were not very good before the White Paper was published. Now they must be significantly worse. Yet the way ahead is there, if only we have the sense to identify it. It is almost precisely the reverse of the approach outlined by the Government this week. Instead of scaring ourselves out of our wits with estimates of the cost of participating in the Community's farming follies, we should seek to demonstrate the essential common interest of France and Britain in far cheaper farm support prices. Instead of trying to pretend that we share with the Italians a burning desire for a directly-elected, supranational Parliament at the earliest possible moment, we should acknowledge the pre- ference we share with the French for a step-by-step approach to integration.
(Elsewhere in this week's SPECTATOR Marc Ullman argues that supranationalism is a dying issue among the Six: in Britain it is only now beginning to come alive.) Instead of taking. a masochistic pleasure in assuming economic burdens which are already proving intolerable to the exist- ing members of the Community, we should be calling for urgent collaboration in the fields where it is still so glaringly absent: defence, both nuclear and conventional, foreign policy, technology, corporate law and policy towards direct investment by third countries.
Mr Wilson has been seeking an escape route in case he needs it later; the Foreign Office has been seeking a banner to wave against the French. The White Paper offers both. What is needed now, if the reunification of western Europe is not to be frustrated once more, and perhaps for the last time, is a meeting of minds between Britain and France.
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