Bringing the Market into the open
Patrick Cosgrave
It is agreed almost universally that, in the New Year, Britain will enter a period of almost unmitigated crisis. On all sides, and most recently from that most superannuated of political commentators, Mr Derek Marks, we hear a call for people to come together, for politicians, left to right, to sacrifice their convictions and join in a coalition, whether overt or covert, to take measures somewhat vague and undefined, to save the country. Yet, in the same period, in the weeks running up to Christmas, we have seen a blanket placed by just such people, in the political parties and in the press alike — a blanket placed to smother fire, just as the Red Indians smothered fire to create smoke — over the one fundamental and crucial issue of British politics, our membership of the European Economic Community. Yet, no other question in politics touches so nearly the identity of the nation; and without a sense of identity the nation, surely, cannot come together to make the sacrifices which even the coalitionists feel we must make.
Let me try to strip away some of the hypocrisy, and some of the fear. The hypocrisy of the pro-Europeans is not merely self-evident, but vicious. On the one hand they say — and they say at the most fashionable London dinner tables as well as at that home of appeasement, All Souls College—that they are confident that the people will support the Treaty of Brussels. On the other hand they lay their plans, and calculate their numbers in the House of Commons, on Labour as much as on Tory benches, to frustrate any referendum Bill which may be introduced. I recall now, as I have recalled before, a conversation with an All Souls Fellow — a dear friend — held when we were looking over the meadows and streams of Oxford. He had been critical of our membership of the EEC, but said, "Patrick, if we don't go in the elite of the country will be bitterly disappointed." I said that, in that event we would have to get another elite.
So it is. There is no hope whatever of any politician — be it Mr Wilson or Mr Heath — persuading the various factions which now fill our islands to follow or support this policy or that until we have decided who we are. Mr Benn's weekend letter to his constituents on the subject of the Common Market was admirable, because he attacked the propensity of the Council of Ministers to act as a parliament, although they have no elective authority. It is essential that we get the battle of identity over before we even begin to try to persuade the citizens of our country to come together in a programme for attacking inflation, or whatever evil besets us. However, when so distinguished a journalist as C. Gordon Tether is, almost weekly, censored by the editor of the Financial Times because of his antiMarket views, it becomes clear that the pro-Market lobby is not prepared to play the game straight.
It is now almost impossible to avoid a referendum for, whatever the feelings of Mr Wilson and Mr Callaghan, the Labour Party, patriotic at last, will insist on one; and neither Mr Wilson nor Mr Callaghan has the strength to resist that tidal force. Once the referendum campaign begins (and I will spare a parenthesis here for those who think they can frustrate a referendum Bill in the House of Commons, merely to say that such an action would bring Parliament so violently into conflict with the commitments of parties and the will of the people as to ensure the sweeping away of Parliament) other factors will come into play.
Mr Powell, the member for South Down, has just been chosen, for the third year running, as the World at One's Man of the Year, on a poll of listeners. It is not, as pollsters and victor alike admit, the most scientific of polls (but when, after all, have scientific polls been very accurate?). The World at One is, however, probably the most popular and effective of broadcast current affairs programmes. None of its presenters, and none of its editors could be said to be sympathetic to Mr Powell, or to his views: most would regard them with incomprehension, if they did not look on them with hostility. Yet, even in this most unfavourable of environments Mr Powell has come out tops; and that is a fact to be dealt with.
Nobody, I think, could seriously doubt that Mr Powell, with a speech or two, could seriously alter or at least influence a referendum campaign. No doubt he will try to do so. Indeed, pro-Marketeers, Tory and Labour alike, walk in fear of his influence. He, as the foremost parliamentarian and orator of our time, is the ace in the anti-Marketeer hole. But there are — and here I return to my All Souls friend— substantial forces on his side. All the most energetic and life-giving forces in the country are against our membership of the EEC: the trade unions are against it; all intelligent economists are against it; the Tory Party in its heart is against it; Mr Ralph Harris of the Institute of Economic Affairs is against it. And we shall find, I think, that the people are against it as well.
But — and here I would like to draw together the question of our continued membership of the EEC and the economic prospects of the country—how much press and broadcasting coverage will Mr Powell and his allies have during the referendum campaign? What preparations have programmes like World at One made for balancing (that favourite word of whips and BBC mandarins) the proand the anti-Market case? Sir Charles Curran, who has been so free with statements of policy in the form of letters to newspapers recently, could oblige us with a statement of BBC policy on this crucial issue. It may seem unfair to single out the BBC, for the same problems must be faced by a number of IBA companies. I mention the BBC only because I want to introduce a particular example of their practice. I was myself banned for nearly eight months from that same World at One programme whose listeners elected Mr Powell man of the year, at the fiat of one Mr Ian Trethowan, Managing Director of BBC Radio, because of representations made by Mr Heath's whips. Various causes were adduced against me, viz., that I was a Powellite (which was not true), that I thought Mr Heath was not a very good leader of the Tory Party (perfectly true), and that (this in an official statement from Conservative Central Office) I had been allowed, on the programme in question, to represent myself as a Conservative (which I am). If — not to make too Heepish a point — so humble a person as myself could be so traduced in one small area of public service broadcasting, what will be the fate of the national, the anti-Market, cause in the campaign to come?
Mr Heath recently launched a campaign for our continued membership of the EEC and, with the kind of cheek which only he possesses, purported to put the Conservative Party behind it. That campaign has sunk without trace, which is a consummation devoutly to have been wished. I suppose that Mr Heath's campaign was ignored by television and radio because it had no news value — which, indeed, it had not. But I want to know, and I suspect a great many people want to know, what contingency plans the broadcasting companies, including the BBC, have made for covering the referendum campaign. My own experience leads me to suppose that the command of the whips will be awaited at the BBC as at the IBA; but I hope it will not be so.
For if, and this is my central point, we are to tackle as a united nation our economic problems and all the social problems to which they lead, there must be, at some stage, a grand occasion for the reconciling of various national interests. Politician after politician, and analyst after analyst, calls, begs and pleads for a united nation, a united spirit of self-sacrifice. There are, however, no leaders, and no policies, whether of the right or of the left, which can hope to evoke the required spirit, for none carries quite that amount of conviction. At the moment, it may seem that the European issue does not possess the requisite weight either; and that may continue to seem to be the case at least until Mr Powell begins to speak in what will be a modern version of the Midlothian campaign. However, the more serious people in the pro-European camp, as well as all of us aligned against our continued membership of the EEC, know that we are coming to a decision crucial for the future and for the identity of the nation. Let us, therefore, have all the arguments out in public, let us accept what the people decide, yea or nay, and let us then turn to the other problems of the nation.
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