WASHINGTON, April 20 (UPI) -- Walker's World for April 20
Just three weeks ago Britain's Minister for Europe, Denis MacShane, wound up the debate in Parliament with a pungent denunciation of the Conservative Party's demand for a referendum on the new constitution for the European Union. It always had been and should remain the role of Parliament to decide such matters, he said, and those who differed were "the gravediggers of parliamentary democracy."
But on Tuesday, Prime Minister Tony Blair picked up his spade and started digging, telling a packed House of Commons that there would indeed be a referendum that would "let the people have the final say."
"It is time to resolve once and for all whether this country, Britain, wants to be at the center and heart of European decision-making," Blair went on. "The question will be on the treaty, but the implications go far wider. It is time to resolve once and for all whether this country, Britain, wants to be at the center and heart of decision-making or not. Time to decide whether our destiny lies as a leading partner and ally of Europe or on its margins."
"Let the Eurosceptics, whose true agenda we will expose, make their case. Let those of us who believe in Britain in Europe, not because we believe in Europe alone, but because we believe in Britain, make ours," he concluded. "Let the issue be put -- and let the battle be joined."
And an uphill battle it will be. The latest poll on the matter, conducted by the YouGov organization for Rupert Murdoch's top-selling and passionately anti-EU tabloid The Sun, suggested that 53 percent would vote against the constitution, with only 16 percent saying yes and 28 percent not sure.
That is a formidable mass of anti-Europe opinion to be converted, and even while Blair can expect to the Liberal-Democrats and some pro-Europe Conservatives into a 'Yes' coalition, the bulk of the media is opposed. And the argument for Europe that has always worked in the past, that Britain's creaking economy needed the markets and vigor of the European Union, no longer applies now that the sprightly post-Thatcher British economy is outpacing its main EU rivals.
The GDP of the British economy has overtaken the French and is catching up the Germans. On current growth rates, Britain could be the biggest economy in Europe within the decade. The per capita GDP of Britain's 60 million people is already higher than that of the 80 million Germans.
So why did Blair make the biggest U-turn of his career? One answer is Iraq. His approval rating, after sticking with the unpopular war and the unpopular American president, stands at 32 percent. And the prospect of a general election campaign next year with the Murdoch press and the Conservatives all denouncing his "sell-out" to the new EU constitution was not attractive.
Moreover, the House of Lords is already in open revolt against Blair's bullying ways, and the new EU constitution could not have been ratified without them. They might not have voted it down; they were planning to insert a new clause demanding a referendum before sending the Bill back to the House of Commons, complicating Blair's re-election hopes even further.
The timing now is everything. Blair gave no date for the referendum, but agreed that Parliament must first review the new constitutional treaty in detail, and then vote on it, before the question is put to the people. The EU constitution is not yet complete, and will not be until after the EU summit in Dublin in June (at the earliest).
So the likelihood is that Blair calls an election for next Spring, with the referendum coming two-three months later, to give time for the referendum campaign. And that leaves the tantalizing prospect that, win or lose, Blair then steps down and makes way for his impatiently smoldering rival, Gordon Brown.
The most pro-Europe (and usually pro-Blair) newspaper The Guardian commented Monday the referendum decision reflected Blair's post-Iraq weakness. "A year ago, he had planned a bold step forward on the euro in the wake of a successful campaign in Iraq. Now he is reduced to a defensive plebiscite to keep Britain's place in Europe." It concluded.
It may not come to that. There is a strong prospect that Blair's decision will put pressure on some other EU countries, and particularly France, to give their own voters the chance to decide. At least seven countries (of the 15 current EU members) are already committed to holding a national referendum, and in two of them, Denmark and the Netherlands, the prospects are high for a No vote. French opinion polls show strong No majorities. And the new constitution has to be ratified by all EU member states before coming into force.
The new constitution is a complex document that goes a lot further than the "tidying-up exercise" that Blair's spokesmen have claimed. It extends EU decision-making by majority vote into some important new areas, and gives the EU powers of "economic coordination' which on past form look like an open invitation to the bureaucrats of Brussels to take complete charge of Europe's economic life. That would soon stifle Britain's post-Thatcher vibrancy.
An American academic, Irwin Stelzer, wrote in The Times this month that the reality of the new constitution was that "The next (British) prime minister will have the power of a local councilor in Brussels".
Stelzer is best known as the confidant and political counselor of Rupert Murdoch, and Blair's office has confirmed that Stelzer had been in "routine and regular contact" with the prime minister in recent weeks. Blair has always put great importance on the backing of the Murdoch press, the best-selling 'Sun' which two weeks ago broke the story of a referendum being under consideration, and the more sober 'The Times', will lead the media chorus for a No vote.
But by then, if Blair's timing works out, he could have won a third general election, with the EU referendum issue safely kicked down the road into the future, and maybe even rendered irrelevant by Dutch and Danish votes.
The key to Blair's decision was that he feared he might lose a general election of Europe were to become the central issue. With Europe off the table, and the venom of the Murdoch press momentarily appeased, he thinks he can win. And those grandiose speeches about the historic and constitutional role of the House of Commons and a referendum digging the grave of parliamentary democracy will be forgotten. This is not about Europe, nor even about the constitution. This is about Blair.
