SO THE Prime Minister fired the starting pistol for a referendum on the EU constitution yesterday. Actually, no. Tony Blair’s statement to the Commons is likely in the end to prove about as significant as David Beckham’s text messages to Rebecca Loos. It will go the way of Mr Blair’s other grand pronouncements on Europe — remember all those times we were witnessing the start of the campaign to join the euro? — and drift off quietly into a little corner of history marked “guff”.
You wouldn’t think it, granted, from the passion of the Prime Minister’s words yesterday. “Let the Eurosceptics whose true agenda we will expose, make their case. Let those of us who believe in Britain in Europe not because we believe in Europe alone but because, above all, we believe in Britain, make ours,” Mr Blair roared. “Let the issue be put. Let the battle be joined.”
But what issue? And what battle? The Prime Minister never once used the word “referendum”, which can hardly be an insignificant oversight. There is every possibility that there will never be a referendum. Which doesn’t mean that Mr Blair doesn’t want to have the battle anyway. One close ally of the Prime Minister wondered yesterday whether Mr Blair sees this referendum argument — or the argument over Britain’s destiny in Europe, as Mr Blair would prefer to put it — as “an opportunity for redemption”. The Prime Minister feels a little guilty that he marched the country to the top of the hill on the euro, and then let it drift chaotically back down again. Mr Blair is at his most passionate and his least rational when he finds a “cause”, and the slightly dated, grandiose language of religiosity is often the giveaway. “We will not yield,” he said at Camp David last week. He has a “vision of hope” for Iraq. That Britain should be at the heart of Europe “is its right and its destiny”, he told the Commons yesterday. But no term as grubby as “referendum” sullied his speech. If Mr Blair has found his destiny it must be in a grander space than a little box marked X.
And a safer one. A referendum would be a most dangerous step, risking the end of his premiership with a defeated whimper not a bang. Had the Prime Minister wanted to win the case to put Britain at the heart of Europe — as he always has done — the time to do so was in 1997, after he was elected on a wave of public adoration. Now his trust ratings are below zero, the electorate’s faith long since exhausted. The idea that a fresh mandate after the next election will give the Prime Minister the boost he needs to sweep all before him in a referendum is fantasy politics. Voters were unenthused by Mr Blair at the last election; now they are actively fed up. In 2001, the turnout was 59 per cent. Labour was re-elected with the votes of just one in four of the electorate. Voters who would not be marched into the polling booths three years ago by Mr Blair will not be marched into Brussels by him next year.
If it happens then. If it happens at all. There are so many ifs. If an agreement is reached in June. If the legislation gets through the Commons and the Lords before the next election — plenty of opportunity to trip up there — if the Lords reject it, if too many Labour MPs oppose it. Parliament could stretch this out for years. Then there are the other countries in Europe — if the Danes vote the constitution down, or the Czechs do, and what if the French say “ non”?
Sitting next to Tony Blair in the Commons yesterday was Gordon Brown. He, above all, was instrumental in persuading the Prime Minister that a referendum was needed. Not, like John Prescott, also a significant force in the decision, because he believed it would be hypocritical not to have one, but because the Chancellor could see an opening for the Tories at the next election and wanted to close it down. Mr Brown will do anything to minimise the Tories’ opportunity at the next election, so that he inherits a party with as big a majority as possible. Voters who care nothing for the EU constitution get very worked up at the idea of not being “given a say”.
But if the short-term strategy to take a hit by executing a humiliating U-turn (and note who takes it, Tony not Gordon), and the medium-term strategy to neutralise the issue for the election, are clear, what is the longer-term strategy here? Aides at No 10 have watched aghast as the apparent referendum decision taken behind their backs unfolded before their eyes. They knew nothing about it. There had been no polling, no consultation, no focus groups. There was no plan. All polls show overwhelming opposition to the constitution (admittedly based on ignorance). What realistic chance does Mr Blair stand of winning a referendum on a constitution that his Foreign Secretary has described as not essential, where more than half the media will be firmly against it, when the public is overwhelmingly opposed and doesn’t like or trust him? Mr Blair’s advisers think that if he holds a referendum, then he is most likely to lose.
A still unconfirmed decision taken for political expediency, then, by a Prime Minister blowing in the wind. Another indication that Mr Blair is not really set on the idea is that in the Commons yesterday he barely touched on the positive case for the EU constitution. Instead, he said the debate was about a Tory campaign to persuade Britain that Europe is “a conspiracy aimed at us rather than a partnership designed for us”. This is what has really got the Prime Minister’s goat: a prevailing view that if Britain signs up to the constitution, we shall have to join the euro, Brussels will set our taxes, and decide our foreign and defence policy.
“It has been an unrelenting but, I have to accept, partially at least, successful campaign”, said Mr Blair. “It is right to confront this campaign head-on.” The Prime Minister sees this as a fight against the Tories and their Eurosceptic allies, not as a fight for anything.
And if the Prime Minister is not making the case for the constitution, the Chancellor certainly will not either. A referendum soon after the next election would pose tricky problems for the Chancellor, to put it mildly. How could he pull off looking unshakeably loyal and supportive of the Government without being damaged himself by defeat? The Chancellor is the finest strategist in the Government; he will have thought all this through. He will know the odds.
But he also has a solution: no constitution. Mr Brown is still very unhappy with the draft constitution and not optimistic that it will be ready in an acceptable form to be agreed in June. What is more, with the British public now so suspicious of it, his allies point out that voters need to see a fight, “a bit of a struggle”, to believe that British interests have won. Even to begin to turn public opinion, the Government first has to admit that the document is significant — more than the tidying-up exercise they initially dismissed it as — and then it has to admit that there are difficulties, and then it has to persuade people that those difficulties have been resolved. Sounds like a lot to achieve in two months? “I don’t think June matters that much. It should take as long as it takes,” said one aide to the Chancellor. If the constitution is still unacceptable in June, then the Government should refuse to agree it. “The very fact that we’re going to have a referendum means we have got to be prepared to block it.” The Prime Minister, he added, “will be extremely keen to ensure that the whole Cabinet is comfortable with it.”
Ho hum. This is not something that is going to be resolved neatly by June. And if it is not signed in June, then who knows when it might be agreed — and in what format. If there is a referendum, a Treasury source suggested, it will end up being on whether the British people are content to remain part of the EU. “This constitution word is slightly unhelpful, to be honest.” Now if the Prime Minister cannot bring himself to talk about a referendum, and the Chancellor cannot quite see a constitution . . . Back in the starting blocks, boys. Mr Blair may have fired the starting pistol but, after all, the bullets are only blanks.
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