The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : Europe is the real issue

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Tuesday, May 10, 2005

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Opinion - News Analysis

Europe is the real issue

Peter Preston

Britain can be a huge player in Europe's future — or a hugely self-destructive force.

VE DAY, and London's Trafalgar Square is full of remembering. We remember war and the long haul back from European ruin. We remember Winston Churchill's dream, then building his settled peace in unaccustomed unity — and the respect for human rights our lawyers penned for constitutional export to Strasbourg. We remember decades of phenomenal, unimaginable progress from the pits of 1918 and 1945.

But then how swiftly, how grotesquely swiftly, we forget. Twelve months from now, give or take the odd let or hindrance, Britain faces a choice to put last Thursday's in the shade. A choice of national and international direction barely mentioned these past six weeks. Simply, 60 years on, have the European dream and project turned to dust?

You can see great dust storms blowing out there on the horizon. Will France, come May 29, translate boredom with Jacques Chirac and distaste for a continent run out of Paris's control into a no to the constitutional treaty? Will the Netherlands go the same way a few days later? If so, the crisis will arrive sooner rather than later. But it is a crisis that, either way, neither Tony Blair nor Gordon Brown can duck. It won't be happening east of Calais. It will be happening to the U.K.

Step back for a moment and contemplate the debris of the week just past: a Prime Minister gravely weakened because he chose to follow Washington, not Brussels, in a crunch; a party of Opposition doomed to 13 wasted, wilderness years because of the fault line that has ripped it apart. We didn't discuss the fundamental problem, or even think about it much, as we voted. But that's crazy, because it conditions every shred, present and future, of our political life.

What kind of relationship with America do we seek? (There's no point ranting about George W. Bush if you don't know.) Are we part of a tolerably cohesive Europe or a spare part drifting somewhere in the mid-Atlantic? Do we make our security here, near home, or leave it to whoever wins the Iowa caucuses? How do we save our planet?

These aren't snarling questions, but something seeking calmer consideration. They don't enforce stark choice — but they do invite self-analysis and self-knowledge. They are the necessary precursor of a decision-making moment that affects the whole course of British society. Yet see how easily any such a prospective decision can be pushed to one side.

The Tories didn't want to discuss it last week because even mentioning Europe turns them wild-eyed and unhinged. The Liberal Democrats fell silent because they were keener on decapitating the Conservatives. The government preferred schools and hospitals and policies that can either be touted as "better than the European average" or justified as aspiring to reach that norm.

No back to basics there. Nor next May, by the sound of it. The new Conservative leader will see any constitutional vote as a prime chance to drive a stake into Labour's heart. Instant credibility, with no instant reckoning. The Liberal Democrats will fall strangely silent, muttering amid some wider alliance. And Labour? Blair-haters straining for closure may grasp this as the chance to junk him for good. To hell with national interests, let's give him a shove!

Douglas Alexander is the new Minister for Europe because he's exceptionally bright, a coming force, and because he's Mr. Brown's mate. He is the best testimony we have that prospective Prime Minister Brown, for all the euro doubts and sorrows, knows where his future lies. We are where we are, what we are.

Where we are makes us a European nation. What we are makes us a huge player in Europe's future — or a hugely self-destructive force. Is the constitutional treaty consensually perfect? Of course not. The French don't like it because they think it an Anglo-Saxon sell-out.

The Tories don't like it because — like the Sun and the Mail — they haven't read it, let alone tried to understand. But it is the treaty that exists, and if Britain gets to vote, we shall be ratification 24 out of 25.

Mr. Brown and Mr. Blair swung it for Labour this time round. For all their squabbles, they knew where duty and self-interest lay. Mr. Brown will need that same partnership next May, as reinforcement of his growing authority and defence against solo failure.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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