Here's one optimistic view about Britain entering the eurozone, from
longtime Labour Party euronation enthusiast, essayist and rightwinger, Roy
Hattersley, in today's Guardian.
I did like his phrase that "It is not power, but failure and the prospect of
failure, which corrupts."
Mark
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Roy Hattersley
Monday May 28, 2001
The Guardian
A LABOUR WIN MEANS THAT WE'LL GO IN
Last week, William Hague betrayed the anti-Europeans in his party in the
vain hope of salvaging his doomed career. That - apart from a mental
breakdown - is the only rational explanation of his sudden announcement that
Britain had 14 days to save the pound.
Opposition to membership of the single currency is the one remaining hope of
limiting the Tory defeat to a level at which he can claim the right to be
beaten again in 2005. In a desperate attempt to turn total debacle into
nothing worse than absolute disaster he has smoothed Tony Blair's path
towards the European referendum.
The ridiculous clock, which ticks away on the Tories' latest publicity
gimmick, provides a countdown to Labour's return to government. The prime
minister will take with him, for future reference, all the recent Hague bon
mots about the pound. According to the leader of the opposition, the
election is the first and most important referendum on accepting monetary
union. If Labour wins, membership of a single currency becomes inevitable.
The second referendum would certainly produce a majority for euro.
Let nobody say that the Queen's head was removed from our bank notes by
stealth. That, I suspect, was one of the prime minister's most persistent
fears. Determination to avoid the accusation that Britain will enter the
euro by sleight of hand is the most plausible explanation for the prime
minister's "patriotism" speech.
Until last Friday, few people would have believed that so accomplished a
political operator would make Europe, even briefly, the central issue of a
campaign. A massive lead in the opinion polls, combined with a chronically
unpopular opponent, encouraged the assumption that he would coast home by
concentrating on health, education and prudent management of the economy. He
took the battle on to Conservative home ground because he wanted to put his
European aspirations on the record. It is unlikely that he expected so much
help from Hague.
There is little doubt which unhappy precedent of obfuscation Blair wanted to
avoid. Thirty years ago, Edward Heath reported to the House of Commons that
he had negotiated membership of the Common Market. He gave an assurance
which has haunted pro-Europeans ever since. "Joining the community does not
entail a loss of national identity or an erosion of essential national
sovereignty."
Properly pursued, the argument about sovereignty is won by European
integrationists. For sovereignty is to nations as liberty is to
individuals - not a theoretical condition which they possess, but are too
weak to use, but the power to act in their own best interests. The more we
are integrated with Europe, the greater that power becomes.
It would be unreasonable to expect the UK Independence party or their
Conservative sympathisers to understand so sophisticated a definition. They
argue at the level of imaginary Brussels regulations which outlaw curved
bananas and double-decker buses. Thanks to Heath, they are able to claim
that Britain was cheated into Europe.
Had Blair not made his Edinburgh speech, the same people would have
complained that Europe had been swept under Labour's general election
carpet. And because of Hague's pathetically desperate last throw, the prime
minister's European credentials have been picked out in lights.
The Tory leader did his best to insist that, when the euro referendum comes,
most voters will answer Yes to the question on entry. The polls tell us that
many people will support joining the single currency because they believe
our membership is inevitable. Hague has reinforced that opinion and
therefore bolstered the vote for monetary union.
The interesting question, is how the Tory party will react, after the
general election, to the series of self-inflicted wounds. Presumably,
Kenneth Clarke, Michael Heseltine and Chris Patten will awake from their
voluntary hibernation and say a few ineffectual words on the Conservative
need to return to the middle ground of politics. But will anyone announce
that a party leader who behaved as Hague did last week proves one of the
unspoken rules of politics? It is not power, but failure and the prospect of
failure, which corrupts.
The patriotism speech - when it stopped talking about patriotism, which like
most emotions is better felt than expressed -was Blair at his best. He was
less concerned with tactics than with strategy and next year's headlines
worried him less than the prospect of next year's achievement.
More important, he said what he believed to be true. It may have lost Labour
votes, but it did the prime minister great credit. And it raised in the
pathologically optimistic the hopes that, with a second landslide in his
pocket, the old timidity will be overcome. The second new Labour government
might just redeem some of the disappointment created by the first.
