The past few weeks have not been easy for the Cabinet. Had its members wanted to devote their spare time to the analysis of 1,738 pages of dense economic text they would have gone for a career in academia. This was not why they joined the Labour Party. They did that for good, old-fashioned class politics.

The question they must have asked as they worked their way through 18 volumes of euro assessment is “why do we have to go through all this?” At 9 o’clock this morning, when the Chancellor publishes the assessment for the edification of Parliament and the world at large, doubtless many others will be asking that too.

It is a perfectly valid question. After all, a dozen countries are already members of the eurozone. None deemed it necessary to attempt to blind people with economic science in the process. There were no 1,738 pages; no five tests.

In fact, the euro’s political founders made it clear that the motivation was not economics at all. They saw the creation of monetary union as a necessary part of the process of deeper political union.

Indeed, they saw it as virtuous to make economic sacrifices in order to achieve that political objective. Germany, once the powerhouse of Europe, has more than four million unemployed. With an independent monetary policy it would have had lower interest rates much sooner. But its political leaders are willing to accept a eurozone-wide interest rate — and the consequent unemployment — as a price worth paying for the objective of political union.

They are perfectly entitled to hold these views. The creation of political union is an entirely legitimate ambition. And, to their credit, it is not an ambition which they have sought to hide.

The problem for the British Government, however, is that it is not an ambition shared by the people of Britain. So only in Britain are we told that the motivation behind monetary union is economics. Only in Britain do we have the rigmarole of five tests, 18 volumes, 1,738 pages and one and a half million words.

For the Prime Minister, too, the question of euro membership is a political not an economic one. Last October he told the Labour Party conference: “The euro is not just about our economy but our destiny.”

If he believes that, for him it will be a question of when — not whether — we join. He will do all he can to bring that membership about. If the nation’s destiny is at stake, he will not want to let mere economics stand in the way.

The timing is a political decision, too. Who does not believe that if the opinion polls showed that 90 per cent of the British public would vote in favour of euro membership today, the results of the Chancellor’s “tests” would turn out differently?

Other political factors are also driving the debate about timing. When the Prime Minister’s friends went around briefing that the Chancellor wanted to delay euro membership until he could take Britain in as Prime Minister, were they motivated by an analysis of the 18 volumes?

When the Chancellor’s friends counter-briefed that his next-door neighbour was really interested in his place in history, was it a passionate assessment of the 1,738 pages that led them to do so?

The recent furious faction fighting in the Government has been driven by ambition and personal animosity. The national economic and public interest has come a distant second.

After all, the economic evidence is clear. How can it be in Britain’s economic interest to abandon the ability to set interest rates which suit our economic conditions, and instead to accept a one-size-fits-all rate for the whole eurozone? After all, the incoming Governor of the Bank of England said it would take two or three hundred years’ of data to find whether our business cycle has converged with those of the eurozone.

I am opposed to giving up the pound. Euro membership would not be in the national economic interest. And by removing such a vital tool of economic policy it would strike at the heart of our democracy. People should be able to hold governments to account for their management of the economy, their record on living standards and their ability to raise the money to safeguard our public services.

Today, the Government should end the damaging uncertainty for business caused by its feuding. And it should abandon its obsession with something people do not want — the euro — and concentrate on what they do want — better public services.

So in reality the Government’s policy has precious little to do with economics, and the Cabinet’s crash course in econometrics has been in vain. But probably it knew that all along. It knew that the five tests and the 18 volumes were one of the most elaborate and time-consuming smokescreens in history. But its members have enjoyed briefing against each other. They are, after all, indulging in the thing which caused them to join the Labour Party in the first place: putting personal and party advantages above the national interest. Unfortunately, the country is paying the price.

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