Europe
by 'a Conservative'
there are many ways in which a major political decision can be presented for pub- lic consideration by the managers of the parliamentary system. It can be presented without fraud or equivocation and a decision made on the real issue that is under dis- ssion. Or it can be presented as a sub- lause while the real issue is slipped in in mall print as though it had been agreed treacly. Since the Common Market question being treated in the second way, it is ecessary from time to time to explain why e should question the unquestioned prin- !pie that entry in some form is desirable. Many reasons have been offered for with- rawing Britain's application. We have no reat confidence in any of them. It is my with infinite labour that we have cached the conclusion that entry should opposed because it would damage the litical structure under which we live at resent.
By this we do not mean that entry would pair Britain's sovereignty. British sov- reignty is always being impaired in ways .hich, if not irrevocable in theory, in fact move from British control many matters or which British responsibility has hitherto en complete.
Nor is it quite that we think the con- entions of French and German politics o different that new defects will be added
o our own as contact becomes closer. We ink it possible that France and Germany ill suffer extensive instability in the future, which case the benefits alleged to follow rom entry would be negligible. But we do of offer this as a major objection since it a matter of prudential calculation which ayes the principle of the present proposals tact.
The strongest argument in favour of entry that it is a devious way of resolving the oblems presented by the belief that the ritish economy is not competitive because bour, in all sense, is a threat. On this ew it is assumed that trade union leaders e unlikely to learn their lesson until rced to do so by direct competition within common tariff wall and that entry will eatly weaken the political power they ve at present. Our view is that this is an tempt to solve one problem by creating hers that will be infinitely more serious nen, in fact, the real problem is the one at needs a central place in political delib-t ation.
The real problem in British politics is to ow how relations should stand between e working-class political consciousness on e one hand and the politico-social leader- P which dominates both parties and all dustry and institutions on the other. This estion touches life at all points, impinges all activity in these islands, and is of nsequence even to those who are bored political discussion. What has happened over the last fifty s is that, with some change and con- mon and with infinite pain and labour, e success has been achieved in recon- mg working-class consciousness to the stence of a political and social authority leh fifty years ago it seemed likely to . In some respects the ruling authority less adequate than it was then; in many
ways it lacks the humanity which ruling authorities need. There is, nevertheless, something resembling an authority in Britain today. The problem for conservative politics is to know how to ensure that it is not destroyed, the difficulty to find ways of making it credible to the great body of the population.
One need not be a communist to feel that the ruling authority has little credibility and that much of what it says about Brit- ain's economic position in the world is unin- telligible to many of its citizens. We believe that many of those who control our insti- tutions feel at a loss when faced with this problem. Some of those who support entry most strongly do so because they see it as a strategy to reduce working-class power without attracting to themselves the odium of direct confrontation which they are con- scious of having too little authority to deal with.
If, of course, the first consequence of Brit- ish entry was a vast increase in Britain's prosperity, that would be a contribution to solving the central problem. We don't be- lieve this result is certain. Unless it was more certain than it is, it would carry little weight with us. Even if it did carry weight, that weight would not be decisive beside the prob- ability that entry will induce in minds which have no intuition about the strategy, the feeling that entry is a form of abdication.
It is true that, from one point of view, British entry would only be a recognition of the fact that, given her present power, there are many matters over which an iso- lated British government can have no real control. In politics, however, beliefs are facts also. In this case they matter in the sense that we have a well-understood political system which, when used with more imagin-
ation than is being used at present, will pro- vide ways of reconciling our people to the difficulties and disappointments they are likely to feel in the last quarter of the twen- tieth century. But if this is to be possible, our politicians must have power to decide something: they ought not to have been re- duced in advance to the status of a county council by adhesion to a supranational authority for whose decision they are only marginally responsible. Abdication is a tech- nical description of a proposal to make this happen. When the reason for making it hap- pen is a feeling that politicians cannot cope with our major problems, then the abdication is scandalous.
We, therefore, believe that, instead of attempting to destroy a political system that works, Mr Heath should now devote his considerable energies to the problem faced by all Conservative Prime Ministers in his lifetime—how best to achieve the social objectives which Conservatives want in a way which a majority of 30 million electors will accept.
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