POLITICS
Mr Major is open to suggestions from the Emperor of Patagonia
NOEL MALCOLM
When M. Jacques Delors announced last weekend that the European Commis- sion acted out of 'full respect for British traditions', he did so with a smirk on his face. So, at least, the news reports had it, and I can see no reason to doubt them.
One can picture that smirk quite clearly: it is a very special expression, now becom- ing familiar, which can be found on the faces of EEC officials whenever they pre- tend to acknowledge the existence of a point of view different from their own. It flickered over Sir Leon Brittan's avuncular features last year, when he explained that the pound sterling need not be abolished if the EEC introduced a single currency, since the Ecu notes which would replace our currency in Britain could have some notional value in pounds printed on the other side. It is a smirk which says: 'Don't worry, I'm not really insulting your intelli- gence, of course I don't expect you to believe that I believe what I'm saying.' Thus too M. Delors, expressing his pro- found respect for British parliamentary traditions with a fine old Euro-smirk, a real sourire de mepris communautaire.
Jacques Delors had more than one reason to feel pleased with himself. The idea he had just put forward — that the United Kingdom should agree in principle to the formation of a single EEC currency, while postponing its own decision to join that currency for a few more years differed from his previous argument on this subject only at the level of tactics. Some- one (Sir someone) has taken M. Delors aside and explained to him that this way he can get the same results in the end, but with less trouble in the meanwhile. Instead of trying to force the British into immedi- ate submission, he can simply neutralise them, isolate them and deal with them later from a position of much greater strength.
There is nothing novel about this prop- osal. For the last couple of months, it has been generally assumed at Brussels and Strasbourg that monetary union would go ahead, with a few cosmetic face-saving clauses for the British Parliament. Every time I have asked Tory MEPs what they thought would happen in the economic Inter-Governmental Conference, they have seemed surprised by the very idea that there could still be any doubt about its outcome. And yet, merely by saying open- ly for the first time what so many of his Euro-confreres have been saying in private all along, M. Delors has achieved a public- ity coup of the first order. 'Delors lets Major off the hook', ran one headline; 'M. Delors has allowed Mr Major . . . 'M. Delors has conceded to Britain . . .' ran the stories. Considering that M. Delors actually has no standing whatsoever in this matter, no more standing than the Dalai Lama or the Emperor of Patagonia (re- member that a new treaty is not a piece of European legislation, but a matter for the treaty-making powers, i.e. the national governments), he has not done at all badly out of the story.
At first it sounded like a pretty good publicity coup for the Government too. There were 'hopes', said the BBC at the weekend, that the disagreements in the Tory party over monetary union would now be at an end. It was made to sound like a triumph for Mr Major; but the Government's bemused silence over the next few days suggested otherwise. Nor, when the Prime Minister had to reply to a question on this in Parliament on Tuesday (not from his own benches — they had been warned to stick to nice easy Labour- bashing questions about taxes and public spending), did his almost cryptic reply sound terribly triumphant either.
There are several reasons for this coy- ness. One is that, by bringing these plans into the open, M. Delors may have in- creased the quality of disagreement on the Conservative benches rather than eliminat- ing it. Arguments about a two-speed Europe will reveal a three-speed Tory party. There are some, like Mr William Cash, the chairman of the backbench European affairs committee, who realise that this 'sign now, join later' proposal is just a clever way of neutralising the British veto, and therefore oppose it on principle. There are those in the middle who think it is a solution to various short-term tactical problems, and therefore support it out of expediency. And thirdly, there are those on the Europhiliac wing of the party who want Britain to be a front-runner in any monetary union — and who therefore oppose this plan on principle too.
The Government itself is awkwardly placed, straddling the second and third of those positions. Ever since Mr Major, in his days as Chancellor, started putting all his emphasis on the magic word 'imposed' (as in the phrase `no imposed single curren- cy'), it was clear that he was angling for a compromise. But on the other hand all his rhetoric about the EEC since he entered No. 10 has been about working from the inside, leading Europe from the front, playing an active role at the centre of things, and so on. It will be hard to keep talking like that, once he has accepted M. Delors' kind offer to lock him in the larder and deal with him later.
This presents a real tactical problem for Mr Major and the Government; but it is a problem they have already been staring at for quite some considerable period of time. So has this publicity offensive from Brus- sels really changed anything? The answer is that it has: it has got people — even Tory MPs — talking about the subject. Some of them are even thinking about it too. And that is something which alarms the party managers, just as a poultry-farmer would be alarmed if he discovered in May that copies of his schedule for December were already circulating among the turkeys.
In recent months, the energies of the whips and the Foreign Office ministers have been devoted to stifling any real debate on this subject. Even key docu- ments, such as the latest plans for political union from the EEC Presidency, have only became available to the House of Com- mons because individual MPs (usually Mr Cash) have got hold of them and placed them in the library. Last month's row over the Bruges Group gave the whips a good chance to rattle the thumbscrews at their MPs, and they did not miss the opportun- ity. (Nor was it only the MPs who were rattled at, apparently; have you wondered why Mr Brian Walden, in a 50-minute interview with Mr Major, never asked a single question about Europe?) It is in accordance with well-known laws of his- tory, I suppose, that the people who act in private like this are always the ones who hold a public philosophy of niceness.
The ultimate justification for this policy of enforced silence is clear enough: party divisions can lose elections. That is true. But it is also true that popular policies can win elections. Try telling government ministers that a robust stand on Europe might actually be popular with ordinary voters, however, and you will see an odd expression creep into their faces. 'Oh them . . . ordinary voters', it seems to say. They have not quite mastered the Euro- smirk, but they seem to be learning fast.
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