The Beast at large
Ferdinand Mount
In all properly furnished Houses of Horror, there is a Keeper. The task of this functio nary, typically a smooth, well-tailored fig ure, sometimes possessing medical qualifications, is to look after and keep under sedation the Beast or Nameless Thing. And there usually comes a point in the story when the villain, ashen-faced, gasps: 'Good God, Carrington (or, as the case may be, Dr Carrington), you've let it out.'
Until now, the way this government's foreign policy has been conducted is that the Prime Minister is allowed to go ape and rattle the bars at intervals on the understanding that the Foreign Secretary sees she doesn't escape — at least not for long enough to do any lasting damage. But, on the question of Britain's contribution to the EEC Budget, Mrs Thatcher has been con tinuously on the rampage for weeks now; as fast as the Foreign Office tries to tether her to the conventions of European diplomacy, she rips the stake out of the ground and charges off through the undergrowth. In the House of Commons, as in Dublin, she was unstoppable.
You could go to sleep as Herr Schmidt did. You could try and avoid the subject as Mr Callaghan appeared to in a curious and oblique series of questions about worksharing and energy. You could ask what she was going to do next,.as Peter Shore and Tony Berm did with limited success. What you could not do was stop her talking, sometimes repeating herself, sometimes nervously gabbling.
All the week before, the opposition had been setting cute little traps for the govern ment, attempting to commit various Fore ign Office spokesmen to drastic action if 'broad balance' in Britain's contributions to the EEC was not achieved. But on the return of the intended victim from what ought to have been a humiliating rebuff at Dublin, she charged through these delicate snares like an elephant on LSD, terrifying her own side almost as much as she frus trated the opposition. Hers is an unfamiliar method of disguising a retreat towards compromise. It is anybody's guess what she will settle for in the end — £600 million off the present £1000 million deficit? And what tactics are to be used? Not the empty chair, nor the threat of withdrawal, it seems, but simply the legitimate jamming of the works. Herv a certain vagueness is to be detected which looks less like cunning than lack of forethought.
Now there is a lot to be said for playing rough. It is an essential preliminary to any real renegotiation and thoroughgoing reform (as opposed to Mr Callaghan's bogus exercise in 1975) that Britain's discontent should be made known crudely, forcefully and often. Intemperate and even obsessive language creates a useful impression of being unpredictable — the 'Mad .Factor' which Mr Nixon employed, quite deliberately and successfully, to disconcert the Russians.
Some thought, however, ought first to be given to what you do next. Homework has to be done. A little professional coordination is required. The embarrassing split is not between Britain and the Community. Accounts have got to be squared with Brussels, sooner or later. The lack of rapprochement, detente and esprit communautaire is between the Prime Minister and the Foreign Office.
What has gone wrong is that the energies of the Foreign Office and the Foreign Secretary have been totally consumed by Rhodesia. 'What I keep asking is when we are going to start having a foreign policy', one junior minister lamented recently. Not merely has the Foreign Secretary dedicated three months to these immensely complicated negotiations; because Lord Carrington is in the Lords, Sir Ian Gilmour, the Lord Privy Seal and Deputy Foreign Secretary, has to dedicate himself to Lancaster House with equal intensity, in order that the Commons may not complain of being fobbed off with an under-informed, impotent underling. Indeed, one may properly speak of Carrington-Gilmour as one might speak of Carlton-Brown or Wortley-Montagu. They represent a wellcast double barrel of lucidity and upper-class pessimism, neatly aligned with the institution they are in charge of.
L'Affaire Lawson is a perfect illustration. The European Parliament sent up to the Budget Ministers a nifty proposal to cut farm spending, particularly on dairy farming. The money saved — £180 million — would be used to pay off surplus farmers and so reduce future demands on the British taxpayer. Just the ticket for Britain, you might think. But Mr Nigel Lawson, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, voted against the proposal on our behalf; Britain's vote made up the qualified majority to squash it.
When Stanley Johnson, a Euro-MP, wrote to The Times complaining about this betrayal, Mr Lawson wrote back in pained terms. The government was sympathetic to the proposal, but it was only a symbolic step and wouldn't really save money. And anyway the Council had put out a statement that 'early action by the Council is an essential step to secure a better balance within the agricultural sector.'
This is well below Mr Lawson's standard. Saying that you think early action is essential is not an excuse for not acting now. Statements move no butter monntains. It is also unlike Mr Lawson to catch the nasty modern habit of Ministers writing to newspapers, started, I fancy, by Mr Michael Foot (Ministers have quite enough time to explain themselves elsewhere). Besides, Mrs Thatcher said something quite different when she was asked why the government had not supported the European Parliament, to wit, that although, 'I personally agreed with part of what the Parliament put up,' nonetheless 'there is an enormous principle at stake here'. Funny, Mr Lawson didn't say anything about a principle; for him it was purely a matter of tactics. If Mr Lawson was instructed to vote as he did to please the Foreign Office, because the French had let it be known that this would help Britain's case at Dublin, then the Foreign Office was suckered.
If the European Parliament is to have any influence at all, its influence is likely to be consistently on Britain's side. This is because it represents the great weight of industrial voters in Western Europe and is not under pressure to seek the support Of members from rural areas in order to form a government.
Under Labour, Whitehall 'was alwaYs trying to soften the line, avoid a crunCh, tO trade off fish or give on North Sea oil. They are by nod and wink trying today to do the same to Mrs Thatcher's new toughness'. I'IT1 sorry, that last passage came from Dr Davi° Owen's address toRichmond Fabians; don't know how it crept in — come to that, don't know why Dr Owen didn't stop the nonsense himself when he had the chance. A0 the same, he is on to something. Look at Lord Carrington's speech in Brussels hint:, ing that we would soon be ready to take fait part in the European Monetary system which cannot help but could harm Britain s recovery. The diplomatic service is obsessed with 'good relations', that is, with corn: promises achieved after long and intricate negotiations between the diplomats of tv..1° nations; they like to make amusing work 0r themselves. Success in the Common Ma,'.. ket, by contrast, is usually achieved „ means of bad relations and yanking 04 lever that comes to hand — in effect, bY most brutal and unprincipled acts national will. What matters about .rfai European Parliament is not its theoretl'ise role in an ideal Europe but whether it eall,15 „ of use to us here and now. If it gets 1° of use to us here and now. If it gets 1° for its boots, it can be sat on later. mains Carrington-Gilmour, though, re ,e01.. excessively inhibited by diplomatic tad (0 ogy. When asked whether he want° earl strengthen or weaken the Eur°,,1170 to Assembly, Sir Ian replied 'I am O 1ar": At come to a judgment on this ma tt,e_ pact, least, according to Hansard he did. what he said was more like: 'Um a. I am unable er . . . I cahb0c".:, this ah . come to a judgment on, on, or ,"' l matter.' And what's more, neither0 unti the Foreign Secretary will be able tilted their energies are more fully coneenin to on the continent which we hapPe occupy.
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