POLITICS
The Hurd instinct to follow the ascent of European man
NOEL MALCOLM
It would be a mistake for anyone to suppose that, because the leader of the Government has changed, the policy will be reversed . . . . Of course, the style will change, because the choice of words will change; those are personal things. But . . . if our partners go to Rome expecting consistency and continuity in British policy, they will not be disappointed.
So now we know. With these words the Foreign Secretary, Mr Douglas Hurd, assured the House of Commons last week that while the style would change, the substance of the Government's policy on Europe would remain the same. 'He would say that, wouldn't he?' is the obvious response; and yet the words which I have quoted are not quite what one would have expected him to say after his comments on Sir Geoffrey Howe's resignation speech last month. At that time, the 'style versus substance' distinction was the intellectual property of those defenders of Mrs Thatch- er — Mr Kenneth Baker, for example — whose inclination (or, in his case, job) it was to rubbish what Sir Geoffrey had said. Mr Hurd was not one of the rubbishers; he took a much more detached line, telling interviewers that he agreed with much of what Sir Geoffrey had said and disagreed only with the conclusion he had drawn. So does he now think that the Deputy Prime Minister was complaining about purely stylistic matters, the choreography of de- bate, the froth of phraseology?
`Le style, c'est l'homme meme' — or, in this case, `la politique meme'. For Messrs Hurd and Major are talking not just about the style of presentation, but about the style of policy-making and policy-altering, which crucially affects the sort of substance you end up with. Two buzz-words are now in the air, 'consensus' and 'pragmatism' — which, being translated, both mean com- promise. With style like that, substance does not stand a chance. Mrs Thatcher's style was a consequence of her policy: having a firm view on where to draw the line on the ceding of national authority to European institutions meant that she could hardly fail to express her view in firm, uncompromising statements. The Foreign Secretary and the new Prime Minister do indeed begin with the substance of her policy as their starting-point; but they also have a new attitude which, slowly but surely, will make the policy a consequence of the style.
The first sign of this change is the introduction of the maxim, 'never say "never" '. In Mr Major's mind, this maxim takes the alternative form, 'always say "at the moment" '. Discussing with Mr Brian Walden the surrender of monetary policy to a central European bank, he declared: 'My answer to that is that the House of Commons will not accept that at the moment, and I do not think we should concede that at the moment.' Asked by Mr Walden about the pooling of sovereignty, he avowed: 'At the moment I cap foresee no chance of pooling any more sovereign- ty.' He added: 'I see no circumstances at the moment in which we could or would present legislation to the House of Com- mons to surrender more .sovereignty.' If Mr Major were editing Shakespeare, King Lear's most famous line would come out as, Not at the moment, not at the mo- ment, not at the moment, not at the moment, not at the moment.'
Mr Hurd tried to spell out the rationale for this coyness when he addressed the House of Commons last week. After listing those far-reaching changes which he did not want the political structure of the EEC to undergo (the extension of majority voting in the Council of Ministers, for example), he said: 'We should not say "never" to any change in these matters. What we can say and what we have been saying. . . is that we are not persuaded of the case for these changes . . . . We shall argue our case, others will argue theirs, and we shall see at the end how we get on.' So that's alright, then. The official position of Her Majesty's Government is that it will see at the end how it gets on. It may seem to have a few firm principles (at the moment), but they are not so firm that the Government could not be persuaded out of them over the next few months.
One might argue that this is all just psychological warfare of the canniest kind. Mr Hurd, one might say, is cleverly lulling his European opposite numbers into a false sense of harmonious tranquillity, an ex- pectation that everything will be settled by rational persuasion. This will make them less inclined to threaten us, and more susceptible to being persuaded by our own indisputably rational arguments. It's a tempting prospect, and perhaps some faint version of this effect will take place — but by accident much more than design. For the truth is that Mr Hurd does not have any very firm principles on Europe. He is one of those self-styled 'instinctive Europeans' who believe that the construc- tion of Europe (that is, of what they call 'Europe') is an evolutionary ascent, a great adventure, a never-ending process. He may say that he does not believe in the inevitability of this process, but what he means by that is merely that the whole process cannot be worked out in advance. At each stage in the process, however, he thinks that reasons will emerge which will require moving on to the next stage. But there can be nothing hard-and-fast about these reasons — otherwise the process would either be predictable (as the more triumphalist federalists claim) or at some point it would stop (as Mrs Thatcher had argued it should, with hard-and-fast reasons of her own).
That is just about the most profound explanation I can find for the shifting, sludgy vagueness of the Government's policy stance on Europe as it enters the Inter-Governmental Conferences. Other more superficial explanations must also play their part — among them, the desire to project a new image as the listening, caring, agreeing, consensus-forming party. Here is a government, you are meant to feel, which could not be charged by a rhinoceros without immediately offering to form a consensus with it. If Labour com- plain about the poll tax, invite them to form a consensus about what to put in its place. If federalist politicians in the EEC say that they want to force through a radical change in the nature of that institu- tion, don't say that you cannot accept their proposals: just say that you have your case and they have theirs. 'Consensus' and 'pragmatism', as I said earlier, are the new buzz-words. But the two buzzes are not quite the same. For the other notable development of the last few days was that having promised to produce a policy paper on Europe which would demonstrate the new spirit of consensus in the Cabinet, Mr Hurd had to welsh on his promise because the Cabinet could not actually agree. This welching was im- mediately hailed as a triumph for 'pragmat- ism', a sign that the Government would cleverly retain its freedom of manoeuvre. All I can say is, if that is what the Government's triumphs are going to look like, God save us from their defeats.
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