Political Commentary
Setting the stage for the referendum
Patrick Cosgrave
A great deal of nonsense has already been talked about the manner of the Government's commitment to a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Community. The nonsense matters especially in the prevailing idea that the referendum will do violence to the fabric of the constitution; in the supposition that there is something bizarre in allowing individual Cabinet Ministers to campaign as their conscience and judgement dictate, with the corollary belief that a 'No' vote will destroy he authority of the Prime Minister and the majority of his Cabinet who are supposed to want to stay in; and in the view increasingly propagated by pro-Europeans, to the effect that the authority of Parliament itself is undermined by the holding of a referendum at all. Most of this taradiddle is, of course, got up by the pro-Marketeers, and it causes no end of amusement to students of the politics of other European countries, many of whom have had the principle of referendum built into their constitutions for ages, who have held referenda without bother and with efficiency, and who are everlastingly entertained by the sweat which the British have worked themselves into over this one, especially as they have been compelled to listen for generations to the British boasting of their own effortless superiority in pure democratic politics, based as it has been supposed to be on an unwritten constitution readily adaptable to all and every circumstance. One thing is not, however, amusing: it is the blatant hypocrisy of such as Mr Heath who, having striven might and main to reduce the independence and the decisionmaking power of Parliament, now deplore the handing over of a major decision to the people whose will, after all, justifies and sustains the authority of Parliament. Ah, of course, we have had to come at some stage to the question of those wretched people who may, given the chance, repudiate the decisions already made on their behalf by their masters, the politicians, the Foreign Office and the elite. An increasingly unpleasant strain has recently become evident in pro-Market arguments to the effect that the wretched electorate might, in ignorance of high politics and in proletarian folly, disrupt the well-laid plans of those who decided that the country's future lay in Europe. Pro-Marketeers, like Mr Hugo Young in the Sunday Times, are "fearful of a low poll of indifference matched by irrational chauvinistic fervour". The bloated figure of Sir Christopher Soames regularly appears on our TV screens and he is heard, too, on the wireless (all doing wonders, incidentally, for the anti-Market cause, so I ought not to complain too much) telling us of his fear that what has always been described as politically the most sophisticated electorate in the world, might in a fit of pique, throw out a policy which he himself has favoured for so long.
Who do these people think they are? All pro-Marketeers have asserted for years that the question of United Kingdom membership of the EEC is the supreme issue of our age, and that the development of the Community they wish for is of a federal nature. It is a 'development enshrined in the Treaty of Rome and pursued, through much frustration, by Marketeers for many years. It is nothing if it is not, and if it is not intended to be, a fundamental alteration in the political character of each of the member countries and, in the particular case of this country, one that will end the independence of Parliament. From Monnet and Halstein to George Brown and Edward Heath, all the European ideologists have believed that. Nor are their aim and purpose and philosophy ignoble. One can see the appeal there is for many men of imagination, spirit and enterprise in creating a new form of European civilisation, knitting together the strands of a mighty history, revivifying the fortunes of the Old World to make it a balancing element to the New. Other men, of course, have honourably found their grandeur in a totally .opposite vision of the world, and they, too, are worthy of respect. It is the very size of the issue which justifies the appeal direct to the people. If the Marketeers are right, if the EEC is to be the first stage in the transformation of British history, the transformation of political life in this -country, then surely it is the people who must decide whether they want that transformation made or not. It would be another matter if the Marketeers were saying in public what some say in private, to assuage opposition – that the EEC is a mess, that the experiment has failed, that support of our opposition to it should not be allowed to create division among men and women who are agreed on other things. But they do not say that, and clearly they do not believe it either.
Because, however:of the divisions within all three political parties, it is impossible to give the people their opportunity to pronounce judgement outside the device of a referendum. It was this which justified Mr Powell's decision to campaign for the Labour Party in the elections of February and October – not because the Labour Party would take Britain out of Europe, but because, on this supreme issue, the Labour Party was the only party prepared to give the people the choice. We no longer live – whatever the mandarins of Europeanism may think – in a sixteenthor seventeenth-century world in which parcels of people and their destiny can be swopped around between one prince and another, or in which the fate of nations can be decided by the choice of an elite. If the people endorse the verdict of that elite I, for one, will accept their verdict: I wish I could say as much for some of my opponents.
It is the magnitude of the issue, too, that justifies morally a choice forced upon the Prime Minister by expediency, by the fact that he could. not have led a united Cabinet either way in the .referendum campaign. We are likely, I think, to see some unexpected developments both by the Prime Minister and by the Foreign Secretary before this matter is settled either way. For the moment, however, no sane person could doubt that there is a very real, very deep, and very honourable division of opinion and uncertainty of mind within the Government, between, let us say, to exclude converts in either direction, Mr Shore and Mr Jenkins, or Mr Foot and Mrs Williams – Tour people who have never changed their individual views on the' merits of Market membership. When such division exists, it is right and healthy that the drama of the debate should be played out on the national stage: for one thing the courtesy which colleagues would attempt to make prevail amongst themselves may influence the argument as a whole, and help raise its tone.
There is something to be said for the belief that Mr Wilson, if he and the majority of his Cabinet favour continued membership, would find it somewhat more difficult to govern after a negative referendum verdict. But, whatever truth there lies in the argument, it is not the business of any member of Labour's 1964-1970 government, nor of the Conservative government of 1970-1974, or any, of their supporters, to articulate it. For both of these Governments set new records in the betrayal of pledges, the abandonment of principles, the utter ignoring of every major undertaking on which they were elected; and they both demonstrated a staggering insouciance in carrying on their new policies – even those they had sworn never to adopt – by denying that there had ever been any serious change. I hardly think any of them would find great difficulty in continuing in office when a higher authority had given them new marching orders. It is, however, worth observing that such propensity as there is to distress politicians, such propensity as might be shown in a referendum vote which disregards their injunctions, has its seeds in the deplorably dishonourable conduct of government by both major parties in the last decade.
However, the stage is now set for the greatest and most important political debate ever to take place in this country; possibly, the most important public debate ever to take place, publicly, in any country. Of course, there are still many technical details to be settled — about expenditure of money, about balance in media coverage, about many other things – and these no doubt will provoke a great deal of important and passionate argument in the next few, weeks. But the anti-Market forces, and those who would deal with this matter in a straightforward fashion, are probably strong enough inside the Labour Government to ensure that that kind of dishonesty, censorship, and arm-twisting which the Europeans would clearly like to go in for is not allowed to take place.
I have a very strong feeling that whatever happens, however things are organised, there will be a high poll on the day, and that defeatist mutterings in the past few days which have predicted apathy will come to nothing. I have a very strong feeling, furthermore, that the people will give a clear verdict – though, at the moment I am by no means certain on which side that verdict will fall. It has been a fashion for some years to assure that what is palpably the greatest issue in our politics has aroused little public interegt, but I suspect that that lack of interest has been more apparent than real. The European issue has lain like a shadow behind everything else we have done, left undone, or attempted to do. It has been at the back of our minds, and at the edges of our hearts. Until it is settled, nothing else will go. Let us, then, settle it.
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