Dare to Be a Daniel (22 page)

The consequences of a resignation have to be thought out. If a minister who resigns finds, as a backbencher, that he is required to vote on a motion of confidence in the House of Commons, does he then vote for the government he has just left? And if that government is defeated in Parliament and there is a General
Election
, should he stand again as a parliamentary candidate to secure the re-election of the government whose policy he has specifically rejected by resignation? These are real questions and I concluded that it was right to stay and argue my case, winning some arguments and losing others – and then explaining in public what the decision that had been reached was, and why, even though I had taken a contrary view.

In the end, crude though it may be, those who vote and those who serve as ministers have to decide whether they still believe that the party to which they belong remains the lesser of two evils.

The freedom of action of a minister is not limited to the prejudices of a Prime Minister or the traditions of the department, but is imposed by a whole series of powers that lie quite outside parliamentary control: by treaty, by the imposition of international rules of finance, by the exercise of powerful influence by other countries (mainly the United States of America).

These cannot easily be brushed aside, but unfortunately ministers are reluctant to admit it, because they do not want to be thought of as not in charge, and they fear that if the truth were told, they would be revealed as puppets in the hands of others – which in a sense they are.

Unofficial restrictions include the ability to criticise mistakes made by the security services, so long as the power of those services is never challenged.

It is all right to criticise mistakes made by the Common Market or EU, but to question British membership is not permitted.

It is all right to comment on some absurd behaviour by a member of the royal family, but the legitimacy of the monarchy cannot be questioned.

It is all right to attack the excesses of the press, so long as the
right
of the proprietors to control the press is never brought into question.

I personally suffered because I was not prepared to accept these limitations.

Of course the satisfaction of ministerial office is enormous, because ministers do have powers to deal with problems that no backbencher has; and I can think of nothing more rewarding than to take decisions that really help people, particularly if the decision involves a battle with colleagues to get that decision agreed.

The limitations of collective Cabinet responsibility make it much harder to speak out, but I devised various techniques for bypassing it, which were just about within the rules although they were not popular with Number 10. For example, it was permissible to make a speech saying that in the years ahead – well beyond the life of the present Cabinet – the government would have to think of this and that, a method that put items on the agenda of public discussion, which would have been impossible if such proposals were made for immediate action.

Today, if even the most modest policy changes were made that involved any conflict with the IMF, the Central Bank in Frankfurt or the European Commission, or which angered the American President, Britain would be classified almost as a rogue state, with very serious consequences for those who had elected the government. This situation is not easily understood by electors and backbenchers who have never held office. It is one of the greatest single challenges to progressive governments in the future.

If there are criticisms to be made of Labour governments, it is not that they have betrayed the ideals of socialism, but that they have so often failed to fight for the people who elected them and to take action that would safeguard their interests.

3

The New Roman Empire

FROM THE TIME
when Julius Caesar landed in 55
BC
and brought us into a single currency with the penny, up to the signing of the Treaty of Rome, Britain’s relations with Europe have been central to the political debate in this country and still divide both parties in a way that has threatened their unity.

The immediate issue is the euro and whether Britain should join the European single currency; a secondary, but more important, question is whether we should accept a new European constitution drawn up under the chairmanship of the veteran French politician Giscard d’Estaing. The constitutional implications of European enlargement – which has brought in many Eastern European countries and produces a union of twenty-five, four times the size of the original six – are huge. A third question relates to whether or not Europe should have a common defence and foreign policy, in order, it is argued, that Europe is more united and can act as a counterweight to the United States.

At the outset of the Common Market I opposed it as a rich
men’s
club; subsequently, as a minister, I concluded that it was probably the only way of providing political supervision and control of multinational companies that were bigger than nation states; and I have now moved to the position where I see the EU’s present form as representing a threat to democracy in Britain and throughout all the member states of the Union.

Harold Wilson changed his view on the matter, having first been against and then coming out in favour; and so did Mrs Thatcher, who was passionately in favour of Britain’s membership in 1975 and signed the treaty that introduced the single market, but later, when out of office, opposed the Maastricht Treaty, the euro and all forms of European integration.

By contrast, Roy Jenkins, Michael Heseltine and Jo Grimond were united in support, as was Ted Heath, who signed the Treaty of Accession in 1972 without the authority of a referendum.

Talking to Ted Heath about this over the years, I have always found his arguments both simple and plainly political, for I have heard him say, ‘Europe has had two major wars costing millions of lives and now we have got to get together.’ And his fierce opposition to the Afghan, Iraq and Yugoslav wars confirmed my view that his position on Europe was based partly on his resentment of America dominating our continent.

That is an argument that has to be taken seriously, but since it raises constitutional questions, it would be intolerable if any steps taken to achieve it were slipped through Parliament without referenda to confirm them. Because these are all huge constitutional matters that involve taking away powers from the electors and transferring them into the hands of those who have been appointed.

Over the centuries Europe has seen many empires come and
go
: Greek, Roman, Ottoman, French and German, not to mention Spanish, Portuguese and British. Many of the conflicts between European states have arisen from colonial rivalry between imperial powers.

The concert of Europe after the fall of Napoleon, in which countries would negotiate alternatives to war, gave way after 1919 to the League of Nations, dominated by the old imperial powers, and broke down in part because Mussolini’s Italy launched a colonial war against Abyssinia in breach of the Charter of the League.

After the Second World War, western establishments had to consider how best to cooperate in rebuilding the continent and, as the Cold War began almost immediately, one of their objectives through NATO was to provide armed forces to prevent the Soviet Union from launching a military attack. It could therefore be argued that the EEC was set up to rebuild Europe on safe capitalist lines, and that NATO was set up to arm the EEC against the military threat that we were told was materialising.

Indeed, a few years ago I heard the former American Ambassador in London speaking at a reception in Speaker’s House about the Marshall Plan, which, he openly declared, was an investment to prevent the spread of communism.

As Minister of Technology in 1969, facing the massive multinational corporations and wondering how a nation state could cope with them, I did begin to wonder whether the existence of the EEC might offer some opportunity for political control and ought to be considered for that reason. Such a huge step required popular consent, and that was why in 1970 when we were in opposition and I was free to speak, I argued the case for a referendum to seek the consent of the British people. I discovered that the idea of a referendum was absolutely unacceptable to the
establishment
, which was totally opposed to giving the people direct say in any decisions, least of all one that might frustrate their dream of a Europe controlled by the political elite.

The referendum itself, held in 1975 after Heath had lost the 1974 election, was fought in a way that revealed the imbalance of money and influence on the two sides – the pro-Europe campaign having the support of the establishment and every single newspaper except the
Morning Star
, and able to command enormous resources; while the anti-campaign even had to struggle to find the cash to hold press conferences and meetings.

Wilson moved me from Industry to Energy immediately afterwards and I found myself on the council of energy ministers, where I served until 1970 and had the opportunity of seeing how the Common Market mechanism worked.

During the British presidency in 1977 I was the President of the Council of Energy Ministers. It is the only committee I have ever sat on in my life where as a member, or even as President, I was not allowed to submit a document – a right confined to the unelected Commission, leaving ministers like some collective monarch in a constitutional monarchy, able only to say Yes or No.

The Council of Ministers is of course the real parliament, for the directives and decisions take effect in member states without endorsement by the national parliaments. Because it is in effect a parliament, I proposed during my presidency that it should meet in public, so that everyone could see how decisions are reached and what arguments are used. This sent a chill of horror through the other ministers, who feared that it would bring to light the little deals that were used to settle differences, and I lost.

I also came to realise that the EEC – far from being an instrument for the political control of multinationals – was actually
welcomed
by the multinationals, which saw it as a way of overcoming the policies of national governments to which they objected.

For example, I was advised by the Energy Commissioner that the North Sea oil really belonged to Europe and was told by my own officials that the 1946 Atomic Energy Act in Britain, which gave the then government control of all atomic operations, had been superseded by Euratom (the European Atomic Energy Community) and that we no longer had any power of control.

I was warned that national support for industrial companies was a breach of the principle of free trade and was threatened with action if I disregarded their rules.

It became clear over the succeeding thirty years that the European Union, as it became, is a carefully constructed mechanism for eliminating all democratic influences hitherto exercised by the electors in the member states; it presents this as a triumph of internationalism, when it is a reversal of democratic gains made in the previous hundred years.

Now, with the Maastricht Treaty, the Single Market and the Stability Pact, the Frankfurt bankers (who are also unelected) can take any government to court for disregarding the Maastricht Treaty, while the Commission is now engaged in pursuing cases against the elected German and French governments for breaking the strict limits on public expenditure under the Stability Pact.

If the new European constitution comes into effect, other powers will pass from the parliaments we elect to the Council, Commission and Central Bank, and people here and everywhere in Europe will come to realise that whoever they vote for in national elections cannot change the laws that they are required to obey.

This is the most deadly threat to democracy and, if qualified majority voting removes the current veto system, any government could be outvoted and overruled and the people it was elected to represent would have no real say. Moreover, if the development of an independent foreign and defence policy takes place, we could be taken to war by decisions made elsewhere than in our own parliaments.

Not only is this a direct denial of democratic rights, but it removes the power of governments to discourage revolution or riot, on the grounds that a democratic solution is possible. Then the legitimacy and the stability of any political system come into question.

I am strongly in favour of European cooperation, having presented a bill for a Commonwealth of Europe that would include every country in our continent, as the basis for harmonisation by consent of the various parliaments, just as the UN General Assembly reaches agreements that it recommends should be followed.

The case for a European constitution and currency is also presented as a move beyond nationalism, which has brought such anguish to Europe. But I fear that it will stimulate nationalism when angry people discover that they are forced to do things they do not want to and are tempted to blame other nations, when the fault actually lies with the system itself.