The Growth of Euroscepticism - Professor Vernon Bogdanor

ladies and gentlemen this is the last of six lectures on britain and europe but before beginning perhaps I can make just a couple of announcements before if anyone wants some small punishment I'm giving another series next year on general post-war general elections of significance series of six lectures the first one will be on 1945 or in the lame party of course defeated Winston Churchill and there's others in this series we'll finish in May 2015 with a lecture on the 2015 general election which I'm sure will be very exciting and the next week I'm giving a single lecture at the same time Tuesday at 6 o'clock on Britain and 1914 on why we went toward I hope people will come to that of course it is the centennial of that war and a lot of things have been said about it many of them I think not very sensible but I'll be taking as my text a comment made by Lloyd George the prime minister from a part of the war who said the nations slithered over the brink into the boiling caldron of war without any trace of apprehension or dismay and I shall be dealing with that comment so I hope you'll be able to come to us a single lecture on 1914 and why Britain went to war but today I'm talking on on Britain and and Europe since 1945 the last lecture and those of you who attended the one before will remember that I described the 1975 referendum which resulted in a resounding victory for staying in Europe by a majority of two to one and you might think well perhaps then the European issue would disappear from the agenda of British politics perhaps it would cease to be divisive and would become plain sailing but if you attend that lecture you'll realize it's a mistake to interpret the 1975 referendum as an endorsement of the European idea and as I said last time it's partly a matter of bad luck that we entered the European community as the European Union then was at a bad time just when the post-war boom was coming to an end and we'd hope to benefit from the prosperity of Europe but that did not occur and we'd also hoped for other benefits from Europe which did not occur in - in particular firstly the benefit of trade with the continent resulting from the opening up of markets and secondly from the creation of new European policies which would benefit Britain which of course the agricultural policy didn't but new policies as for example regional policy but neither materialized and the reason the first didn't the reason we didn't benefit very much from the opening up of competition was that British industry wasn't particularly efficient and people talked about opening up British the continent of British industry but of course it also opened up Britain to continental industry and in particular German industry which proved more efficient than our own and indeed you may argue entry into Europe highlighted the problems facing British industry the outdated structure the reliance on declining export staples coal cars the docks and the nationalized industry and the system of Commonwealth preference protecting British industry previously from competition had encouraged lakhs management practices and helped with trade union restrictive practices especially in the nationalized sector and so all this made it very difficult for British industry now as regards the second to hope for benefit which was new policies regional policy there was a problem there because what we wanted of course was a policy which would bring more money from the European community but if Britain had more money it meant that another country or countries would have less money and you may not be surprised therefore if other member states resisted new policies which would benefit Britain so it proved very difficult for Britain to create a coalition in support of her own interests and that was due ironically to a policy which Britain supported and perhaps still supports the National veto britain had been keen like france under de gaulle but there shouldn't be majority voting in europe that it should remain a Europe of nation-states but if you wanted other countries to provide more money you might have to overrule them and for that you would need majority voting the truth is that when we entered the European community it had been frozen by the French who pressed for the National veto and frozen but the French after they'd secured common policies which benefited them the Common Agricultural Policy in particular and also the Common Fisheries Policy after that be difficult to formulate new common policies now Britain also wanted reform of the Common Agricultural Policy which was a drain on Britain's budget but again why should other countries help because reform meant that Britain would pay less but this of course meant also that other countries would pay more so our early experience in Europe proved disappointing now the pro Europeans claim nevertheless that although Britain was one of the largest net contributors to Europe the level of contribution was comparatively small just over 1% of total public spending it's now about 1.5 percent of total public speaker sometimes people sometimes exaggerate how much we give and pro Europeans then said we should see the contribution as a membership fee enabling us to obtain benefits in terms of the opening up of continental markets and if we got benefits and if growth improved that would more than compensate for our contributions they then added it was not the fault of the European community if British industry was inefficient it was the fault of British industry the fault is it were they not in our stars not in the European communities that were but in ourselves and was a sign that we ought to reform our industrial structure our outdated practices and put our industrial house in order but the Euroskeptics replied in the following way they said British governments would have no objection to spending public money on education or defense which they believed would directly benefit the people of Britain what they did object to was spending money to sustain the Common Agricultural Policy which did not benefit Britain because our farming sector was small and comparatively efficient but benefited less efficient French and Italian farmers that that was a policy which didn't seem to be in our interests secondly Euroskeptics asked why should Britain pay a membership fee when other countries such as for example France and Italy did not those countries were net beneficiaries of the community they received more than they paid out and this Euroskeptics argued in the 1970s was particularly unjust since at that time France was wealthier than Britain and Europe skeptics accepting that perhaps British industry was uncompetitive but then they said so was French agriculture ardent competitive yet Europe protected inefficient French agriculture but not inefficient British industry and the Common Agricultural Policy the whole aim was to protect an inefficient agricultural sector so it's not surprising that shortly after we entered Europe and after the referendum euro skeptism began to grow and this took root first not amongst the Conservatives as it does now but on the left in the Labor Party now a majority of the labor cabinet had favored Britain remaining in the European Community in the 1975 referendum but a majority of labour NPS had been against but by small margin admittedly in the country of the whole labour party was strongly hostile and most European socialist parties had opposed both the Coal and Steel community and the common market because they said it was a threat to socialism and to planning in one country would interfere with national planning they saw it on the continent as a Christian Democrat and liberal project and the Labour Party in the 1970s shared that view it was business and finance was Pro Europe as indeed it still is so at that time Europe yes or no meant Europe left right or left if you on the right would be pro Europe if you on the Left would be for Europe but labour was defeated in the general election of 1979 in opposition it moved even further against Europe particularly after 1980 when Michael Fox was elected leader the thought had been in the minority in the cabinet in 1975 in advocating a no vote and under his leadership labour moved to a policy of leaving the European community without a further referendum and that was to be the policy of the party in the 1983 general election manifesto leave Europe without a referendum it was a major cause of a split in the labour party in 1981 when for pro Europeans led by senior ministers ex-ministers Roy Jenkins and David Owen left the Labour Party to form a breakaway called the Social Democratic part of the SDP and this new party formed an electoral pact with the pro-european liberals at first they were electorally successful in 1983 this new alliance as it was called got 25% of the vote in 1987 23% of the vote but this grouping was a victim of the electoral system and gained very few seats and after 1987 the new party faded away a bit and then merged with liberals to become the Liberal Democrats which of course they still are and this new merged party is now fighting the European elections on Thursday as the most Pro European party in British politics though I don't think they're expecting to do particularly well on Thursday now meanwhile of course the Conservatives were in government under Margaret Thatcher and Margaret Thatcher had been in Heath's pro-european government from 1970 to 1974 was a strong supporter of Europe those who came to the last lecture would have heard her speaking about the 1975 referendum for a pro-european position and she might have been expected to be as pro-european as Heath and certainly more pro-european than Labour and indeed in 1979 in the first direct elections to the European Parliament Margaret Thatcher attacked the Labour Party for what she called its frequently obstructive and malevolent attitude towards Europe and for refusing to take Britain into the so-called Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European community the erm now this was set up in January 1979 and was a system by which the countries agreed to fix their exchange rates on a common European basis it was a prelude to a monetary union it wasn't a Europe the Euro but it was a step towards it of fixed exchange rates and when Labour refused to participate in that Margaret Thatcher said it was a sad day for Europe so she began as a pro-european but nevertheless her strategy was naught was not the same as a debatable Heath because she stressed much more than Heath had done Britain's national interests Heath tended to stress the broader European community interest but Margaret Thatcher adopted what you might call a goalless strategy didn't go quite as far as to goal who in 1965 and six had boycotted European institutions for six months until he got his own way on a particular policy threatened to break down of Europe didn't go as far as that but she went quite far and her main aim was to get a rebate on Britain's budget contributions which because of the dominance of the agricultural policy were very very heavily weighted against Britain and this began a long battle and Margaret Thatcher refused to agree to an increase in European farm prices until the other member states agreed to reopen the question of Britain's budgetary contribution it was not I think at the time that she was hostile to Europe but she felt that if it was to secure popularity in Britain it was no good pointing simply to the general political and diplomatic benefits you might get from being in Europe you had to have specific economic benefits that people could appreciate especially since the trade and competition benefits have not been realized now there were five years of very difficult negotiations which frustrated the other governments a great deal at one point the then Greek Prime Minister said it would be a great relief if Britain left the community but eventually in the so called Fontainebleau agreement of 1984 the Europeans accepted a new principle which was that any member states sustaining a budgetary burden which is excessive in relation to its relative prosperity may benefit from a correction of the appropriate time and this meant a British rebate according to a complex formula which I won't attempt to summarize but it got us an annual refund of 3.6 billion euros a year and if you take the recent year 2010 for example our gross payments into Europe were eighteen point five million so eighteen point five billion euros our receipts for six point six billion euros we were deficit about 12 billion but we got a rebate of 3.6 billion reducing the deficit to about eight and a half billion now a time when Margaret Thatcher negotiated that rebate Britain was the poorest of the net contributors with just 90 percent of the average community GDP per head now we are one of the richest with 110 percent so the other member states are arguing that the rebate should be reduced or even abandoned or reformed and this is an ongoing issue at the moment in Europe now Margaret Thatcher argued for something else less successfully she argued for the need to ensure that legislation did not burden small businesses she said they were over regulated from Europe and she said I should know I once worked in a firm that employed only three people and senior Andreotti the Prime Minister of Italy said sotto voce but it was overheard by Margaret Thatcher I wonder what happened to the other two side picked up now the result of the Fontainebleau agreement was that pro Europeans could say this showed that Europe could work in British interests that where there was an injustice to Europe Europe was flexible enough to make the adjustment more flexible than opponents believed to work in Britain's interests and that was Margaret Thatcher's view at the time and Margaret Thatcher then moved on to the next British interest that could be satisfied in Europe the creation of the so-called internal market and that is the removal of non-tariff barriers because there were different national standards and regulations in Europe which had the effect of increasing that costs of trade and in particular we were excluded at that time from the German insurance and financial services market and also transport now these policies would benefit Britain enormously particularly in the city because of our strength in financial services if you could remove non-tariff barriers that would be a great help to Britain and this was done in what was called a single European act in 1985 which I think is the most important amendment to the Treaty of Rome Margaret Thatcher achieved it but at a price and a price she was willing to pay and the price was to end the National veto on policies and that was necessary in Britain's interests because you had a huge number of non-tariff barriers around 300 and if one country could veto any removal of any single one you would never get them removed so you needed majority voting to achieve that and this therefore was an integrationist policy which Britain supported and which was in the British interests and Margaret Thatcher therefore signed it an addition the preamble to the single European Act it had no legal effect but it was an aspiration the preamble referred to the progressive realization of European monetary union that is the eurozone the Margaret Thatcher and other euro skeptics like Norman Tebbit signed that perfectly happily they made no objection now in her memoirs the Margaret Thatcher does not take the easy way out of saying she was misled or misled by her civil servants she's absolutely straightforward about it she says is I had one overriding positive goal this was to create a single common market the price which we would have to pay to achieve a single market with all its economic benefits was more majority voting in the community there was no escape from that because otherwise particular countries would succumb to domestic pressures and prevent the opening up of their markets it also required more power for the European Commission but that power must be used in order to create and maintain a single market rather than to advance other objectives but the leaders of Europe did have in mind other objectives and in particular of monetary union and the creation of the euro and that was that view was held particularly strongly by the influential president for European Commission during 1980s probably the most influential president was being wrapped in law and he became an imam at Thatcher's bet and was but Jacques de lor said that a logic has a single market which article Margaret Thatcher had supported was a single currency and that Margaret Thatcher did not accept now the first step as I mentioned a few moments ago was the Exchange Rate Mechanism tying the currencies together and that was designed to create a zone of monetary stability in Europe now Margaret Thatcher was a though she'd attacked labour 14 1979 didn't want that either but many conservatives did as a means of controlling inflation particularly Margaret Thatcher's Chancellor Nigel Lawson the foreign sector Jeffrey how Michael Heseltine her industry secretary and later John Major they say this was the way it said locker Sims and manager discipline and contain inflation how in has all time wanted to go further they were sympathetic to the single currency Lawson and major were not they favor the Exchange Rate Mechanism but not monetary union they said disaggregate the stages but commit to the first stage to avoid any further commitments Lawson incidentally now believes as a Margaret Thatcher does that we should leave the European Union but he didn't then in the 1980s now Margaret Thatcher was against both the euro and the Exchange Rate Mechanism she favored floating the pound and one of her favorite sayings was if you try to buck the market the market will buck you and that is something perhaps the Greeks and Italians are now discovering now the proposals of the European Commission and adapted law for monetary union were moving Margaret Thatcher in a Euroskeptic direction but her euro skepticism came much later than many think and first came to public attention in her Bruges speech of 1988 and we hear an excerpt from that in a moment but first the context the Bruges speech was delivered and a reaction to a speech by Raptor law in 1988 to the T you see conference now the law before being a European Commissioner have been Minister for finance in the socialist government of France for a meteoroid in France he was a figure of the moderate left and he thought it important to convert the Labour Party which as I said had moved into a euro skeptic direction back to support of Europe so he told that tea you see they could get advantages from Europe which Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government was denying them in particular protection at work other social benefits contributing to the social dimension of Europe he said it is impossible to build Europe only on deregulation the internal market sure be designed to benefit each and every citizen of the community it is therefore necessary to improve workers living and working conditions and to provide better protection for their health and safety at work now this as you can imagine annoyed Margaret Thatcher who thought as an interference and British domestic debate and I think it was a tactical mistake by the law because it was more important to keep the Conservatives on a pro-european stance than to convert labour which was an opposition and in my view labor would probably in any case have become more pro-european under the leadership of Neil Kinnock and I think all this led to the Bruges speech from which the IT people will now give us an excerpt mr. chairman you have invited me to speak on the subject of Britain and Europe perhaps I should congratulate you on your courage if you believe some of the things said and written about my views on Europe it must seem rather like inviting Genghis Khan to speak on the virtues of peaceful coexistence our links to the rest of Europe the continent of Europe have been the dominant factor in our history but we know that without the European legacy of political ideas we could not have achieved as much as we did from classical and medieval thought we have borrowed that concept of the rule of law which marks out a civilized society from barbarism the European community is one manifestation of that European identity but it is not the only one we must never forget that east of the Iron Curtain peoples who once enjoyed a full share of European culture freedom and identity have been cut off from their roots we should always look on Warsaw Prague and Budapest as great European cities nor should we forget that European values have helped to make the United States of America into the valiant defender of freedom which she has become the European community belongs to all its members it must reflect the traditions and aspirations of all its members and let me be quite clear Britain does not dream of some cozy isolated existence on the fringes of the European community our destiny is in Europe as part of the community that is not to say that our future lies only in Europe but nor does that of France or Spain or indeed of any other member the community is not an end in itself nor is is it an institutional device to be constantly modified according to the dictates of some abstract intellectual concept nor must it be ossified by endless regulation willing and active cooperation between India pendens sovereign states is the best way to build a successful european community to try to suppress nationhood and concentrate power of the center of the european conglomerate would be highly damaging and would jeopardize the objectives we seek to achieve Europe will be stronger precisely because it has France as France Spain Spain Britain as Britain each with its own customs traditions and identity it would be folly to try to fit them into some sort of identical european personality and the first to say that on many great issues the countries of europe should try to speak with a single voice i wanted he has worked more closely on the things we can do better together than alone europe is stronger when we do so whether it being trade in defense or in our relations with the rest of the world but working more closely together does not require power to be centralized in Brussels or decisions to be taken by an appointed bureaucracy indeed it is ironic that just when those countries such as the Soviet Union which have tried to run everything from the center are learning that success depends on dispersing power and decisions away from the center there are some in the community who seem to want to move in the opposite direction we have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain only to see them reimpose to the European level with the European super-state exercising our new dominance from Brussels certainly we want to see Europe more united and with a greater sense of common purpose but it must be in a way which preserves the different traditions parliamentary powers and sense of national pride in one's own country for these have been the source of your vitality through the centuries let Europe be a family of Nations understanding each other better appreciating each other more doing more together but relishing our national identity no less than our common European endeavor let us have a Europe which plays its full part in the wider world which looks outward not inward and which preserves that Atlantic community that Europe on both sides of the Atlantic which is our noblest inheritance and our greatest strength you can see that is not as is sometimes suggested an anti European speech what she is saying is that the character Europe had changed she thought for the worse since the Treaty of Rome had been signed in 1957 she said that treaty had been intended as a charter for economic liberty but that philosophy was being undermined by the development of monetary union proposals for a common currency and through social Europe concentrating powers of the center and she made his famous remark we have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain only to see them reimpose at a European level with the European super-state exercising the new dominance from Brussels and she said in another part of the speech we haven't defeated socialism in the front door and Britain to see it coming in through the backdoor from Brussels but she didn't fist as you will have seen that she was not anti European that Britain does not dream of some cosy isolated existence on the fringes of the community Britain's destiny is in Europe a part of the community and hearing it now in these more Euroskeptic days it seems quite pro-european in its call for a stronger European defence and foreign policy but the impact it made was this it was the first major attack on the so-called community method the Jomon a method of a Shuman method if you like of the sharing of sovereignty and supranational government she said instead that Europe should develop through intergovernmental cooperation as she said willing and active cooperation between independent sovereign states that nation-states for intractable political realities which it would be folly to seek to override or suppress in favor of a wider but as yet theoretical European nation hood she was offering if you'd like a goalless - model of Europe a Europe of nation-states Europe de Patri and not an anti European posture and that in a way was prescient because the euros recent eurozone crisis has been resolved in exactly the way Margaret Thatcher might have predicted by governments working together and the supranational elements in the community but Commission and the European Parliament have been put very much into the background now this is a very important speech politically in Britain because until the Bruges speech as I said Europe yes or no meant York meant in Britain Europe right or left that was no longer so and the 1989 direct elections the European Parliament were fought by the Conservatives on a Euroskeptic ticket and their main slogan was don't vote for a diet of Brussels but in the short term this speech damaged Margaret Thatcher's leadership because it put against her her foreign secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe it was a strong ProLiant and he says in his memoirs that hearing that speech was like being married to a clergyman who had suddenly proclaimed his disbelief in God he said I can see now that this was probably the moment at which they began to crystallize the conflict of loyalty with which I was to struggle that perhaps too long and he called his memoirs conflict of loyalty on the last page of his memoirs he says I wanted to change the policies not the leader but if that meant the leader had to go then so it had to be Europe however was the occasion of her downfall I think not the cause now in the late 1980s other put great pressure on her to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and they really insisted that she make a commitment against her own instincts in just one month before she was removed from office in October 1990 Britain joined the erm shortly after that there was a summit a European summit at Rome at which did law and Andreotti the Prime Minister of Italy pressed hard for the Exchange Rate Mechanism to be a means towards monetary union and then some form of political union and eleven states agreed with them but only Britain objected and in the House of Commons Margaret Thatcher said Britain would never join the euro and we can hear what she says on the second the power and influence of this house and not to denuded of many of the powers I wonder what the right honourable gentleman policy is what he have agreed to a commitment to extend the community's powers to other supplemental centres of economic integration without having any what hey because you're the 40 what from what he said one of them was of the Commission wants to extend and extend his powers and confidence into the area of health we said no we weren't going to agree to those things and what he says he sounded as if he would for the sake of agreeing for the sake of being little sir echo and saying me too but he have agreed to extending qualified majority of voting within the council to delegating implementing brothers to the Commission to a common security policy all without any attempt to divine or limit them the answer is yes he hasn't got a clue about the definition of some of the things he is saying never loves occurring a definition of others yes the Commission does want to increase its powers yes it is a non elected body and I do not want the Commission proposed the Chairman or the president of the Commission list of the law said at press conference the other day that he wanted the European Parliament to be the Democratic body of the community he wanted the Commission to be the executive and he wanted the Council of Ministers to be the Senate No No perhaps the Labour Party would give all those things up easily perhaps they would agree to a single currency to total evolution of the pound sterling perhaps being totally incompetent with monetary matters then be only too delighted to hand over the full responsibility as they do to the IMF to a central bank the practice they have no confidence on money no confidence on the economy so yes the right honourable gentleman would be glad to hand it all over I'm trying to get elected to Parliament only to hand over your sterling and to hand over the powers of this house tree well that speech led to the resignation of Sir Geoffrey Howe who said that the Prime Minister perceived attitude towards Europe is running increasingly serious risks for the future of our nation and with his resignation he encouraged a leadership battle which Michael Heseltine stood and it resulted in John major becoming Prime Minister Europe I think was the excuse for her removal rather than the course she'd simply I think been there too long and made too many enemies but she remained defiant at the end as we can see from the final excerpt from her from the House of Commons which I hope the IT people have gotten can operate this is after she's said she'd resigned as Prime Minister most grateful to the Prime Minister when she tell us whether she intends to continue her own personal fight against a single currency and an independent central bank when she leaves office no she is going to be the governor [Applause] Oh Prime Minister what a good idea I have sort of it but if I were dead we know European Central Bank accountable to no one least of all to national parliaments because the point of that kind of European Central Bank is no democracy taking powers away from every single Parliament and being able to have a single current of monetary policy hundred interest rates which takes all political powers away from us and my right honourable friend said in his first speech after the proposal a single currency a single currency is about the politics of Europe it is about a federal Europe by the back door so I'm enjoying this [Applause] oh I love office I suppose anything I say now is going to be an anticlimax but some out of office Margaret Thatcher became more Euroskeptic and in her book statecraft published in the mid-1990s she said that British membership had been a political error of historic magnitude and that Britain should leave the European Union she said that in the 20th century all Britain's problems have been caused by Europe but resolved by anglo-saxons amongst whom she included the Americans and Nigel Farage has recently said that if Margaret Thatcher was still alive one would not need UK but this is a hindsight view she did not take the view we should leave while she was in office not till sometime our she was in office now in retirement she made life almost impossible for her successor John Major even though he'd been her chosen successor and he immediately struck of any different note from Margaret Thatcher saying my aim for Britain in the community can be simply stated I want to be where we belong at the very heart of Europe and John Major negotiated the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 which extended the competence of Europe into new areas but it was by no means as great a transfer of power as the single European Act which Margaret Thatcher had signed and major one an opt-out on monetary union which means that entering the euro zone would depend on a vote in Parliament there's no legal requirement on Britain to join and also on the social chapter which conservative backbenchers would not accept now when John Major returns from Maastricht it seemed at first he'd have no trouble getting ratification he was greeted with great applause in Parliament and he said that the outcome had been game set and match to Britain because she'd got the benefits of Europe without having what he thought of where the disadvantages like joining the eurozone but he from that moment on he had a lot of bad luck because in 1992 his majority was reduced from around a hundred to simply 21 and that meant that any 11 euros sceptics could derail him and John Maeda was Tom of saying that obvious majority of 21-13 were completely mad and then the Danes rejected Maastricht in a referendum and the French government proposed a referendum for internal reasons so this led to pressure on the British government to have a referendum and the uncertainty about the outcome in the French referendum which had a very narrow yes margin calls financial instability in Britain and four days before the French referendum Britain suffered so-called black Wednesday when interest rates went up to 15% and but we were nevertheless forced out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism temporary it was said but in practice it turned out for good and Britain lost over 3 billion pounds in foreign currency reserves and that was terrible damage to the Conservative Party it's opinion poll ratings fell rapidly from 43 percent to 29 percent and they never recovered and of course in 1997 the Conservatives suffered a heavy defeat now leaving the Exchange Rate Mechanism did not have the catastrophic consequences which some would predicted inflation far from rising fell to two and a half percent and remained low throughout the 1990s and have fallen the value of the pound did a lot to help Britain's export trade so although it was regarded as a humiliation to be pushed out the economy improved whether the improvements a consequence of withdrawal is still disputed amongst economists but what can't be disputed is that 1992 marked the end of a long period of fluctuations in the rate of economic growth and output the end of a period of high unemployment for many years and the end of a period of high inflation since then we've had low and stable inflation now he called the euro skeptics said these things occurred because we left we were out of the erm and they said it wasn't Black Wednesday it was white Wednesday but the support of the erm said that it had squeezed inflation out of the system and locked low inflation into the economy thereby paving the a for a long period of economic stability perhaps the argument was best summed up by Sir Alan Budd who was chief of our Economic Advisers the Treasury from 1991 to 1997 he said the period of membership of the erm was not a very worthy episode a slightly cruel summary of it would be to say that we went into the erm in despair and left in disgrace nevertheless we are still enjoying the benefits of it but there's no doubt whatever your judgment about the economy no doubt it was a political catastrophe for the major government because the strongest cards Conservative government's have traditionally had they were very competent at running the economy that although the Labour Party might perhaps have it ha its heart in the right place it was no good economic affairs no good at running the economy and let generally left the economy in a mess but of course now people said well this is what the Conservatives have done left the economy in a mess and one of the reasons their long period of opposition after 1997 taxies had to be raised when we left the erm and that got the Conservatives not labour tagged as a party of high taxation and for the first time since the 1970s the Labour Party was seen as more competent in economic affairs than the Conservatives further it had a crucial effect on Europe in the Conservative Party because it D legitimized whether rightly or wrongly the pro-european calls and strengthened the Euroskeptics and the euro skeptic said we've been lucky that we were able to leave the Exchange Rate Mechanism because if we've been in the Euro we could never have devalued have left we've been stuck there as of course the Greeks and Italians are finding so we'd be locked into something that might not be suitable for Britain and it's of course perfectly understandable leaving the erm or being pushed out of the erm fuelled euro skepticism and the aura skeptic said that the European commitment was just a policy left over from the failed days of Edward Heath and Harold Macmillan the sort of thing that Margaret Thatcher had repudiated and that a true conservative must be a euro skeptic Margaret Thatcher herself said that Maastricht was a treaty too far and in her maiden speech in the House of Lords said there should be a referendum on Maastricht and that she would vote against ratification John Major refused a referendum but he later said we would not join the eurozone without a referendum and Tony Blair the opposition leader endorsed that commitment now major faced problems throughout his Premiership it was arguably ruined by Europe because the right had supported him in 1990 against Douglas Hurd and Michael Heseltine for the conservative leadership thinking of him as the son of Margaret Thatcher as it were and Margaret Thatcher had also supported him and so the right-wing felt betrayed and they felt guilt of having removed Margaret Thatcher and John Major in a very difficult position squeezed between the Euroskeptics and the diminishing number of Pro Europeans the Labour Party was extremely lucky because labour by then was even more strongly committed to the Exchange Rate Mechanism than the Conservatives and the then Labour leader John Smith backed by the Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown said it was a mistake for Britain to leave and to devalue that they should have stayed in and John Smith said the Conservatives had the opt-out mentality of opt-out government and it may be that Browns strong support then for the Exchange Rate Mechanism helped cost him the Labour leadership for it in Stanford in 1994 when Smith died and his perhaps responsible for his hostility to the euro when he was Chancellor now the succeeding government under Tony Blair was in theory much more pro-european and Blair in principles in favour of the euro but he couldn't join after two reasons firstly the opposition of brown and secondly the commitment to the referendum because not one opinion poll has shown a majority in Britain for joining the Euro so in practice Blair could do very much more than John Major in Europe though his attitude was much more positive but after the long period of Labour government in 2010 David Cameron became Prime Minister and under him I think we've seen the greatest shift in the stance of any British government on European matters in the whole history of British membership I think it's one point or another historic now Gordon Brown wanted Britain to be a presence in the euro zone even though we weren't members he thought we should be there where the decisions are taken and he pushed his way as it were into the eurozone summits he insisted that Britain should be there at the top table to gain influence David Cameron did not seek to do that and he withdrew the Conservatives from a very large European People's Party group in the European Parliament on a much smaller group with much less influence and in 2011 the coalition government passed an act saying that any future transfers of power such as had occurred at Maastricht would require a referendum and what Cameron hoped to do was to lead the non eurozone members who wanted a looser arrangement with Europe the difficulty with that was that all the other members except for Britain and Denmark are legally required to join the euro and see themselves not as members of the outs but as members of those about to go in but in any rate what Cameron wants is to see at two-speed or to tear Europe with Britain being one of the leaders in the Outer Ring now the Conservatives throughout their period of opposition had moved very strongly in the euro skeptic correction it didn't help them in the election because although the British public agreed with their euro scepticism it wasn't a very salient issue and therefore didn't a much influence people's voting behavior until recently the issues that people were concerned about or not Europe but the bread-and-butter issues of crises jobs serves his health education and so on so anti European cans didn't do well when the conservancies did as Cameron once put it bang on about Europe as William Hague did in opposition people thought they were slightly weird and in the 2001 election Haig Haig slogan was 24 hours to save the pound which people really regardless rather remote from their concerns and Euroskeptics did not do well electorally until recently take one extreme example shortly after 1997 general election there was a by-election at Oxbridge and in that by-election you keep gained just 1/10 of the votes gained by the monster raving loony party in the general election of 2001 the referendum party got just 1.5 percent of the vote now what has made Europe salient and has made it an issue is immigration because immigration for many people is a salient issue an important priority which Europe on its own is not and the figures for gross immigration with the admission of the ex communist states into the European Union are of a different magnitude from previous waves of immigration one looks for example at immigration the post-war period immediately Britain or from the Caribbean and from South Asia about a quarter of million people from each of those Aires quarter million in the Caribbean quarter of million from South Asia came to Britain the ugandan Asian refugees in the early 1970s about 30,000 Keenen refugees in the late 1960s about 20,000 but people from other parts of the EU since 1997 the gross figure is 2.25 million and the net figure is 800,000 there are present two to 2.8 million people from other European Union states living in Britain so that is a very large issue compared with previous waves of immigration and whereas of course Britain could control immigration in the Commonwealth by statute it's not possible to control immigration from the European Union because of the principle of free movement of people's now none of this was thought seen it's fair to say in the Treaty of Rome which was signed between six countries of Western Europe at roughly similar standard living I think no one foresaw the ex communist countries some of which the national income per head is 1/4 or 1/5 fete in Britain and for that reason primarily that Britain that Europe has become an issue once again in British politics after a period of quiescence and David Cameron again grasped the bull by its horns in his Bloomberg speech in January 2013 in which he promised a rare an in/out referendum and what he said was this he said that Democratic consent for Europe in Britain was now as he put it wafer-thin he said if you don't consult the people that would make more likely our eventual exit and he made the case for a referendum and some of you may remember my comment about the referendum in 1975 that one of Harold Wilson's advisors said that Edward Heath had taken the establishment into Europe but it needed Harold Wilson to take the people into Europe you may now say the establishment the City and Finance and businesses only remains on the whole in Europe but many people are not and so I think this is what David Cameron was saying he did not contrary to what a lot of the press have said he did not use the words repatriation or renegotiation he used the word reform and he did not speak of opt outs or exceptions but of a new general settlement in Europe because he appreciated that any idea of opt outs for exceptions would not work with the other countries because they would say well if Britain wants exceptions on things she didn't doesn't like France Italy every other country want exceptions on things they don't like and the internal market would collapse but Cameron's argument was that the European Union is changing as a result of the eurozone crisis and the eurozone member states are moving towards banking union and perhaps disco Union and perhaps towards ever closer Union in the preamble to the Treaty of Rome which the British people almost certainly reject and so he said the Europe of 2017 will be very different from the Europe of today and the negotiations will be needed to ensure the rights of the non eurozone member states are protected and in Cameron's view this will be an opportunity to secure an improved relationship with the European Union but these negotiations will be on a collective basis rather than being concerned with securing a special relationship for Britain so he spoke of making Europe work better he's and he said I want the European Union to be a success and I want a relationship between Britain and the European Union that keeps us in it and he concluded by saying if we can negotiate such an arrangement I will campaign for it with all my heart and soul because I believe something very deeply that Britain's national interest is best served in a flexible adaptable and open European Union and such a European Union is best with Britain in it and he said he wanted that debate for the future of my country and for the success of the European Union so what he's saying is get the relationship right then have a referendum to endorse our membership it's a strongly pro-european speech if you read it which think many in the press did not and I think many did not realize that particularly many conservative back benches perhaps they're not bright enough to realize it was a chronometer but I think it was how many people in business said we're worried by the years of uncertainty before the referendum and Cameron said they'd be greater uncertainty if anti-eu feeling was allowed to grow unchecked and to fester so what Cameron wants to do is to achieve the same success as Harold Wilson in 1975 when he to held a renegotiation culminating a referendum with a two-to-one vote of remaining in Europe his difficulty is that he was very unspecific in relation to the reforms he wanted and he set the bar rather low he said what he wanted was greater competitiveness deep in the single market greater flexibility in European Union institutions more decisions taken at lower levels of government more democratic accountability and protection for the non eurozone members now who could disagree with that there very general principle they can probably be achieved but his difficulty is that many conservative backbenchers even the pro Europeans wants a lot more than that and in particular repatriation of social and employment powers which is unlikely to be achieved because that would turn the European Union into a free trade association which not many leaders of Europe want to do and indeed Britain was already in a free trade association when we joined the European Community Survey different body so there's a great difference between the wish lists of the average conservative back-bencher and Cameron's principles and then a question of whether the changes that are required need treaty change which other members around happy about because that requires ratification in 28 different countries some of which need referendums to ratify treat each age and you may remember that Harold Wilson deliberately not did not see treaty change in the 1970s and Wilson relied on conservative and liberal votes in Parliament to get his policy through Cameron may well have to rely on labor and Liberal Democrat votes to get his policies through but Wilson secured only really cosmetic changes and I suspect such changes would not satisfy the day's euro skeptics who demand something much more radical and I suspect the probably less could win on the continent to Britain and there was in the 1970s on the key issue of immigration if you wanted to alter the free movement of labor that would treatment of people robbed that would almost certainly require treaty change it's one of the basic principles of the Treaty of Rome the main problem that he faces is that the outcome of the process of renegotiation which he'd opened lies outside his control largely and if even if he succeeds in a successful renegotiation it'll be difficult to unify the conservative party around a yes recommendation a referendum the likelihood is a significant minority of conservative MPs would favor exit and the provisions on you would be reopened and of course the British public are much less deferential much less willing to take the advice of their leaders than they were in the 1970s so they might ignore leaders who said vote yes and vote to leave now in mind you Cameron's speech marks a great turning point in our relations with Europe because since 1975 governments have succeeded sometimes with difficulty in riding twin horses keep this in Europe and getting what they believe are the benefits of Europe with accommodating themselves to domestic who euros skepticism and the question is whether that can continue because Europe I think is now the issue on which is the greatest gulf between the people and the political elite that all three party leaders want Britain to remain in the European Union but all opinion polls showed that a large minority and some polls say a majority won't Britain to leave and Britain remains the only one of the 28 member states we're leaving the European Union is on the political agenda and Cameron put it there though he doesn't himself favourite but he's put it on the agenda as a respectable issue to be discussed politically now in the early 1970s one wreath lecturer on the BBC gave the title to his lecture Europe journey to an unknown destination and the destination is still unknown perhaps it's also unclear whether the British will be continuing towards that destination those of you who attended the early lectures may remember the Schumann plan when Robert Schumann the French Foreign Minister made a comment about Europe and spoke of a destiny shared in common the question remains now as it was then and so whether we do share in that common destiny do we now I find it difficult enough understand what happened in the past so don't ask me to predict the future but it seems reasonable to suggest that Europe will remain on the political agenda for many years to come and I want to end with a couple of concluding reflections first is I hope nothing I've said will deter anyone from voting on Thursday whatever way you decide to vote but secondly it seems to me that Europe has been the poisoned chalice for so many British Prime Minister's Harold Macmillan abled Heath Margaret Thatcher John Major perhaps even David Cameron and Europe I think also was a major cause of the split in the Labour Party in the 1980s Europe you could argue prevented Roy Jenkins Michael Heseltine and Kenneth Clark from becoming leaders of their respective parties only Harold Wilson I think and possibly Blair have triumphed over Europe have managed and not to be scarred faithfully by Europe almost every other political leader who touched it has been scolded sometimes fatally and it's worth considering how different the post-war history of Britain would look if the European community had never been invented right the history of Britain assuming there was no Europe it's come back again again to haunt British political leaders when they thought they'd put it to bed but finally looking at how many politicians have been broken by Europe it's difficult not to recall to mind Ernest Bevins comment in 1950 when he said that Britain should not be part of the Schumann plan the Colin Steel community he said if you open that Pandora's box you never know what chosen horses will jump at thank you I will now report on the we've had our own opinion survey very scientific much more so than the BBC unsure and I'll tell you the result right now 93 people replied 67 said Britain should remain in the European Union and 26 said shouldn't and then the second question if David Cameron were to negotiate a new general settlement which he said was in Britain's interests would you support but remaining the European Union yes 68 no 24 had these lectures altered your view of the European Union yes 25 50 no and if the answer question 3 is yes in which direction I am more sympathetic to Britain's membership of the European Union 13 I am less sympathetic 12 well that shows I've been impartial thank you thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: Gresham College

Views: 64,959

Keywords: british politics, constitution, david cameron, european union, margaret thatcher, international politics, politics, political negotiation, politics lecture, politics talk, international politics lecture, european politics, european history, european political history, european history lecture, european community, euroscepticism, eu, the european union, xenophobia, labour politics, conservative politics, liberal politics

Id: LiyNr_LALlU

Length: 63min 15sec (3795 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 17 2014