Political commentary
The Messina illusion
Ferdinand Mount
In dealing with the Continentals, Mr Callaghan used to remind us, we are defending 'the language of Chaucer and Milton.' So far as Labour's attitude towards the EEC is concerned, it is definitely the language of Chaucer as spoken by the downmarket sector of the pilgrims. No Pardoner or Summoner could have surpassed the greasy evasions or the choleric distrust with which Labour Party spokesmen habitually address our partners.
Mr Callaghan's speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet was a vintage example. He wanted to find an excuse for not joining the proposed new European Monetary System at its outset, but it had to be an excuse which did not involve admitting that he was to blame for Britain's economy being too weak to join. So while paying routine tributes to the achievements of the EEC, he linked his doubts about fixed exchange rates to the old complaint about the amount Britain has to contribute to the EEC Budget. In effect, he claimed that it's not our fault we're too weak to join the system; it's your fault because you are bleeding us white.
Now our contribution to the Budget may be deplorably high, but it has little or nothing to do with the European Monetary System. The only indignation to be mustered is against the feather-brained Foreign Secretary who accepted the formula which has committed us to these ever-growing contributions out of all proportion to our national wealth. The deed must have been done in, oh, let's see. . . the spring of 1975 or thereabouts when the Wilson government was `renegotiating' the British terms of entry and the Foreign Secretary at that time was, ah, Callaghan, Rt. Hon. L.J.
There is a certain lack of plausibility about the complaint, which enables the complaint itself to be made light of. British politicians, both Labour and Conservative, still find the right tone of voice difficult to hit in the European conversation. The anti-marketeers believe that the French and the Germans will negotiate only under threat of total withdrawal.
Yet playing hard and nasty seems to produce remarkably few concrete results. As John Silkin shows, you can obstruct but you cannot extract. Sometimes obstruction is the best policy; it probably is for British fishermen. But why is it that Britain seems to make so few positive gains from EEC negotiations? What precisely is this quality of being 'communautaire' which we are always being told that we lack as a nation?
It is worse, I fear, than hostility to Brussels. It is boredom, sheer, irresistible, unconcealable boredom. The direct elec tions to the European Assembly which are already a matter of such eager debate on the Continent — as Sam White reports on page nine — have scarcely stirred a ripple here. The only questions being asked are who will pay the campaign expenses and whether the turn-out will be derisory or merely. adequate. No cartoon of recent years has left a deeper mark than the Private Eye cover of people snoring in deckchairs captioned The Great Debate.
The ripest recent example of the Chaucerian language of the Labour Party was at this month's launching of the European Socialist Parties' campaign in Lille. Francois Mitterand was the host. West Germany sent Willie Brandt. Portugal sent Mario Soares. Joop den Uyl, the former Dutch Prime Minister, came too. Socialist Mayors flocked in from the great cities of Western, Europe. And the British Labour Party sent. Councilor John Mills.
In fact, they didn't exactly send him, because Transport House was rather sticky about paying his travel expenses. Councillor Mills is the Deputy Leader of Camden Council, but, to avoid embarrassment, in Lille he was addressed as M. le Maire, every French politician being mayor of somewhere. To make matters worse, Mr Mills is fiercely opposed to direct elections. It was suggested that the other invitations were not taken up because M. Mitterand and the Mayor of Lille had inconsiderately written them in French. Transport House later pleaded that there had been no political involved. One official said 'It was a pure case of an administrative cock-up.' For a party organisation which so far this year has managed successfully to dispatch intrepid delegates to events as farflung as the Congress of Finnish Social Democratic Party Congress at Espoo and the International Commission of Enquiry on Chile in Algiers, the failure to organise a representative delegation to hop over to Lille to celebrate the opening &f the campaign for the first international elections in European history seems more than accidental.
For the Tories to criticise the kind of brutish indifference displayed -in The Mayor's Tale is easy enough. Yet this is hardly enough to constitute a Conservative style in dealing with the Community. Mrs Thatcher occasionally delivers lofty Gaullist-flavoured speeches, usually to foreign audiences. At home, she says as little as possible. She is, we are told, a little surprised by Mr Callaghan's complaints about the Budget, but not so audibly surprised as to provoke anyone to ask: well, wouldn't you complain? Her view is that the Common Market is a Good Thing, but not an important Good Thing. Her spokesmen on foreign affairs are by temperament and function brought closer to the awkward questions. And they all, even Mr Douglas Hurd tend to adopt some variant of 'the Messina argument.' If we had gone in earlier — preferably as early as the Messina meeting of 1955 — and with greatec enthusiasm, we would have had no difficulty in securing far better terms. At each subsequent stage, therefore, it remains important to be in on the ground floor. Andyet even at the outset of the European Monetary System the Germans do no' seem noticeably eager to offer any e°11cession which might compromise their ste reme national priority of controlling infla' tion. This is not to say that our partners ate, unready to correct patent absurdities anu unfairnesses, as they have done before in the case of Britain's contribution to the Budget and will do again — whether or not Mr Callaghan makes a huge fuss about it But the belief that we could have got as radically different sort of Common Iviarke. if we had gone in at the beginning seems t(,) me an illusion; and to deduce from thr belief the further proposition that it always best to be in at the start, iS t° perpetuate the illusion. Progress towards Ii unitedunited Europe is not one long panicky das.11 to catch a series of boats which if missed WI never pass this way again. The French and the Germans weret determined to subsidise their inefficiett farmers; and whoever went in with the° was going to have to help subsidise those farmers too. But as time goes by, there ales fewer and fewer of them to subsidise .acs farming technology accelerates the dri" from the land. The Messina illusion sprang from a 113,isapprehension about the nature of the Of inal Treaty. To put it simply — and it was Pne simply — most people believed at the that what was happening was thatefficie; German industrialists were prepared t.is subsidise inefficient French farrneis return for free access to French illar,kep.i. Somehow it was overlooked that the mans too had a great number of ineffieie'of farmers. In Bavaria there were still plentY to peasants in straw hats pitchforking haY t/sti4'.tic fluffy stacks, just as there were in Auvergne. In other words, the Treaty of Romewas not a grand trade-off between states wInt different interests but rather an agreerne.o to pursue similar policies — policies whits_ did not suit us with our tiny farming P°Pot lation and high proportion of obsolesced industries. It was much more aijg estioner. converging and harmonising than of Nilo The paradox is-that if we were not airea in the Common Market, now would betbe better time to go in, as the economies larger countries of Western Europe begi'vy share the same problems of declining Ile; c industry and rising unemployment' sting case for British membership is ge:re if stronger not weaker. And it would be n'haa someone would say so. Better late t"..v. never, and quite often better late than eat I
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