One thing has changed with Tony Blair’s Commons statement announcing the national change-over plan on preparations for the euro. From now until polling day, we will live with the clash of armies locked in incessant and noisy strife. The airwaves will resound to the twitter of speculations masquerading as certainties. There will be no room for doubt. One side will predict apocalypse if we join, the other Armageddon if we do not. We will talk ourselves deeper and deeper into our adopted positions. The guillotine of the referendum makes a fact out of every supposition, a definitely out of every maybe.
In the wake of Blair’s Commons appearance, I lunched with the chairman of a major company who, unlike me, is in favour of British entry at the earliest possible date. Neither of us is likely to change sides, but we both admitted that we did not really know how the single currency would work, or indeed what kind of creation it would turn out to be. It might be stringently managed by the hatchet-faced bankers of Frankfurt but, equally, governments might well endanger its stability by using it as a crude tool against unemployment.
We courteously admitted the strengths and weaknesses of our respective arguments. I had the melancholy feeling of having enjoyed a civilised but covert tryst. Meanwhile, back in the echo chamber of public debate, we are all obliged to shout our views louder than the next person. As all but the monomaniacal must surely concede, EMU’s tendency to reduce us all into fog-horning pros or antis is enervating, even at this safe distance from referendum day.
It may well be the secret strategy of the government to bore us all into submission. One can no longer get through social, never mind political, life without encountering that euro debate at every turn. After a week of poring over polls, Hansard reports and Treasury documents on the subject, I prayed that a dinner party would bequeath me a neighbour uninterested in the single currency. Some hope. The merchant banker to my left kicked off with, “I really do think that Britain is missing a big opportunity on EMU, don’t you?” To which my honest answer would have been: “No. Can we talk about something else please?” Once started, however, this argument, like all such disagreements, is impossible to conclude. We were still arguing about convergence criteria when the port came round. In future, I shall adopt the ruse of an acquaintance who, asked what her views on Europe are, drawls a la Eurotrash: “Well, it all depends where you go.”
Even the cliches – the shrapnel of the euro-war – are invariable. It is mandatory for any speaker opposed to the currency to revisit Hugh Gaitskell’s “thousand years of history”, as William Hague did in his response to Blair. Not a day will pass without the pro-EMU side telling us that the single currency represents the future, facing reality or going forward, while staying out is being stuck in the past, not being “in the real world” (Blair), moving backwards. These meaningless, repetitive metaphors will be elaborated until we cry out for the epidural of an immediate referendum to get the agony over with.
Come to think of it, why did Blair not address the Commons last week calling for a referendum straight away? It is, after all, a little unusual and not that democratic to instigate a changeover plan to be followed at some as yet unspecified date by a vote on whether the British people want to do any changing. The mystery of the referendum that dare not speak its date merits examination. Since his election, the Prime Minister has had his ear bent by people who want him to announce the Great Leap Forward and cannot understand why he havers. What can be holding him back from the final charge? The answer is the state of the polls and focus groups.
Alastair Campbell has sounded the loudest note of caution about the potential of a botched referendum to upset the Blairite apple cart. He insists that the Prime Minister should wait for a turn in public opinion before committing himself to a timetable for euro entry. Bob Worcester, the director of the polling firm MORI, believes that Blair’s decision to present the changeover plan himself will have a significant impact on public opinion: “All the polling concludes that people have difficulty understanding the detail of the arguments and want to be led by someone they trust.”
The smallest change in the wording of poll questions on EMU can, however, have a disproportionate effect on the outcome. The recent Guardian/ICM polls showed a decisive margin against entry. Yet the Times/MORI poll last week found the pros and antis finely balanced. Clearly, both can’t be right. But look more closely: ICM found between 12 and 19 per cent undecided while MORI found nearly half the sample “persuadable”. Describing yourself as “persuadable” (open to reason, undogmatic) is much better for the self-image than admitting to being a “don’t know” (ill-informed, confused).
A referendum is not only a test of arguments, but of the people putting them. Supporters of British entry believe that, as in the 1975 vote, the higher-quality “faces” associated with the pro argument will sway waverers. The big-beast alliance of Blair/Brown with Clarke/ Heseltine is a clear advantage for the pros. Indeed, Blair exploited the dramatis personae when he referred in the Commons to opponents of the project as a “Thatcher-Portillo-Benn” axis, thus associating the sceptical cause with the right and left extremes of opinion and with ousted and eccentric political figures. The typical Eurosceptic is stereotyped as middle-aged, Tory, male and xenophobic.
Yet there are such beings as centre-left sceptics. They have it tough, since voicing doubts on the subject is deemed a hostile act towards Blair and all his works. Labour resistance is associated with Old Respectables such as Peter (now Lord) Shore, who opposed EEC entry in 1975, and with the rump left, such as Dennis Skinner who, in the only good crack of last week’s debate, referred to a “genetically modified currency”.
But this is hardly the kind of company today’s centre-left sceptics like to keep. This week, they got a new organisation, called New Europe, and a new figure at the helm in the form of David Owen. He puts the EMU-sceptic case in the context of a reformed and more flexible European Union. It should appeal to those who do not identify with the jingoism of Norman Tebbit or the anti-capitalism of the old left.
New Europe boasts a sophisticated list of supporters from the media, the City and business. The journalist Mary Ann Sieghart, who is on the steering committee, says: “We are modern and internationalist, forward-looking and constructive about the EU but very dubious about the case for EMU membership.” Bob Worcester sounds a cautionary note about this sweet-and-sour combination: “It is hard to campaign effectively if you are sending out two messages – that you’re opposed to the currency, but in favour of positive involvement in Europe.”
All groups seeking to sway mass opinion need a broader range of prominent supporters than just opinionated London. Hip EMU-sceptics, like the designer Katharine Hamnett and the Big Breakfast presenter Johnny Vaughan, are prize catches for the “no” camp. Liam and Noel Gallagher are rumoured, in their more lucid moments, to be unconvinced by the merits of economic integration.
New Europe will inevitably soon have a rival: Britain in Europe, under the auspices of Lord Hollick of United News and Media. The traditionally Eurosceptic Express, which he owns, has already adopted a tone of unrestrained enthusiasm for the single currency.
Blair presents business as being overwhelmingly in favour of the euro. The truth is more nuanced. The CBI is in favour, the Institute of Directors against. Small and medium enterprises are often far more sceptical than large ones because they will gain little from the introduction of the euro after being forced to spend considerable sums on becoming euro- compliant. Nick Herbert, the chief executive of Business for Sterling, which is co-ordinating the entrepreneurial Eurosceptic campaign, says: “The CBI’s policy has been captured by a handful of multinationals. They are not speaking for British business as a whole.”
Then there is us – the media. Nobody knows what impact the stance of newspapers will have on the referendum. The fiercely sceptical messages of the Sun, Mail, Times and Telegraph are offset by largely uncritical coverage on BBC television and the telegenic superiority of the pro-camp (Lord Owen is something of an exception). Blair never underestimates the impact of the press. He is unhappy about getting such bad headlines last week from the Sun and Mail – the very papers he courted assiduously in order to win power.
The Sun‘s phone-in poll showed 121,764 against British entry and only 8,153 in favour. It is questionable whether this really tests much more than the organisational efficiency of the warring pressure groups who are able to commandeer volunteers to phone the hotlines.
But such polls do tell us that the campaign machinery of the antis is running well. The most efficient organisation at targeting popular opinion so far is the Democracy Movement – as the heir to James Goldsmith’s Referendum Party, it has the benefit of inheriting the structures he set up and has concentrated on regional campaigning.
The European Movement and Conservative supporters of EMU are faring less well. They have just suffered the first bout of friendly fire from the Tory-turned-Lib Dem Hugh Dykes, who wrote in a letter to the Independent that “pro-euro Tories are too weak to do other than extensive silent hand-wringing. They have no clout left at all. The feebleness in official circles and among the Tory Europhiles is sadly mirrored in the total deafening silence of the European Movement.” It is often thus in war. The most dangerous enemies are on your own side.
The writer is associate editor of the “Independent”
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