“Thank god that’s over” is the only possible verdict on the European component of the election campaign. In mid-contest the Conservatives seemed poised to benefit from a rich vein of electoral xenophobia, and the only reason they were unable to tap it more successfully was that they dragged Labour disconcertingly far in the same direction. Let us hope this was nothing more than an electoral spasm, and that sanity can now be restored.
Not only sanity, but bravery too. One of Tony Blair’s key pledges, one by which he has asked to be judged, is that under his premiership strong leadership will replace political drift. Europe will be his prime testing ground, and the single currency its most menacing element. Sometime this summer the camouflage of the “wait-and-see” policy, solely designed to get the main parties past 1 May intact, will have to bite the dust. But what can or should replace it?
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