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The prevailing happiness in Labour ranks at the Dead Parrot performance in Europe is becoming deleted by second thoughts. It boosts Tony`s short career prospects.
The plan was that Tony would lead the campaign for a “Yes” vote in the referendum – “wholeheartedly” the manifesto said – but not whole partledly. He’d be defeated, partly because he was leading it. Then he’d have to go. Not only is that now ruled out but Tony is ruled back. It`s as if he`d been given a full tin of PAL - Prolonging Active Life, even though it will be a dog`s life.
There`s now the enormous job of putting Euro-Humpty back together again. That will fill six months as President and sixty years thereafter. None of Tony’s prescriptions have any support in Europe because they`re exactly what the French were voting against. After that comes the next items on the agenda. Saving Africa. Then the World. Neither will take as long as saving Europe but all this will keep him out of domestic politics for years. So there’s always the hope that absence will make the heart grow fonder. In everyone except Gordon.
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I remember the days when, thanks to their freedom of information legislation and a trenchant enquiring press, it was much easier to find out what was going on in America than here in our secrecy-ridden society. Indeed if you wanted to find out what was happening in Britain you could get more information in the States than here. Clive Ponting wrote his book on Wilson largely by getting the necessary information from American archives.
The Americans know what`s going on at the top and Woodward has told us the broad outline of what went on in the run up to the invasion of Iraq but now we have more documents and details leaking out of the British civil service than ever they have. The Attorney General`s advice, the minutes of the War Cabinet, the discussion of the options have all leaked out. We know from them what you can`t find in Woodward: that Tony pledged his support to George in April 2002. That was why we then had to pretend that it was all about weapons of mass destruction not regime change. Oh dear me. Can`t possibly have that. So we constructed a whole framework of lies to avoid admitting that that was what we were doing.
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There’s a new air of discipline at the Fun Factory which is going to make life harder for we poor backbenchers. The Tories have their tails up and are attending more regularly and heavily than our side. There’s more clamour on their benches to speak and only partly so leadership contenders can show off their paces. Result: several debates recently have had more Tory speakers than Labour.
Labour lads and lasses are being hauled in one by one for a Whips` pep talk. This consists mainly of warnings that life is going to be harder, there’ll be less time off for constituency events or the death of grandparents, and pleas that if we feel any unease with any policies we must report it immediately, notify if we’re going to abstain three days before, and never ever vote against. Unless we fancy a new career as singing castrati.
My harangue included something I`ve never been told off for before. I sponsored a motion against the Identity Cards proposal, which will be another Dome but costing twenty times more. Even something as harmless as that is now to be regarded as a major crime. There’s tough times ahead.
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The French and Germans have discovered a marvellous rod for Britain`s back in the rebate. It’s anomalous. It’s unpopular. It`s something only we have and our new friends in Eastern Europe, who need money desperately, and have been much less generously treated than Ireland and Spain, can be alienated from us just when Blair was trying to use them as new allies in the fight for reform.
Tony can`t let it go. Or even have it capped. That would destroy his standing in Britain. Sensibly he’s countered by demanding cuts in the Common Agricultural Policy from which we benefit little, France enormously. The CAP is crazy. It costs every family of four in this country £30 a week. It damages developing countries who can`t play their best card of agricultural exports to Europe because of protection. All sensible arguments. None of them will prevail.
Why? Because it benefits eastern countries like Poland with a vast agriculture which wants a fairer agricultural deal so they`re not likely to want it to be cut back. More important, the CAP has already been agreed. So they`re not going to let the eggs be unscrambled.
Face it Tony. The only answer is a better, fairer system of financing Europe gearing contributions to ability to pay. Which is exactly the kind of thing that’s not going to happen. Indeed not even our Dennis MacShane, the only British MP trusted in Europe, could persuade them to that. No other nation wants it. Neither do electorates who`d be very unhappy at having to pay a Euro-tax to support all the blessings that flow from Brussels. So the Euro-tax has to be disguised in higher VAT and higher, food prices, higher levies on food imports. I eat therefore I am. Or Yorkshire’s “Tek Hod an` Sup” should be Europe’s motto. |
