TORIES STAY DIVIDED ON FEDERALISM

by Nigel Dudley

(The European, 14-20 October 1994)

British Prime Minister John Major is coming under intense pressure from his party to adopt a tougher anti-federalist line as the government prepares its proposals for the next stage of the EU's development.

Ministers hope to put forward their ideas for the 1996 intergovernmental conference early next year. They are determined to avoid the tactical mistakes made in the run-up to the Maastricht treaty, when Britain found itself responding to proposals made by other countries rather than setting the agenda.

But any ideas likely to be seriously considered by Britain's European Union partners are certain to be unacceptable to the increasingly confident anti-federalist wing of the party.

Their growing strength within the party was demonstrated at the annual Conservative Party conference this week. Employment minister Michael Portillo was rapturously received when he told party workers that "it was time to stop the rot from Brussels" and that "if there was ever a conflict between jobs for Britain and toeing the line in Europe, jobs in Britain would win every time".

Ministers would not have used that sort of language earlier in Major's premiership when he was trying to improve Britain's relations with its partners in the aftermath of the Thatcher years.

The split between Tories who want Britain to remain at the "heart of Europe" and those who oppose any further moves towards political and economic union, was brought into the open when speeches by two former Conservative ministers were enthusiastically received.

In a scathing attack on the Union and Major's European policy, Norman Lamont, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, raised the possibility that Britain could leave the Union. He said that if the government did not reject the idea of a European superstate, the issue would poison Tory politics for years. The prime minister was, he said, deceiving the public into believing that the British view was winning the argument in Europe. Major was guilty of "wishful thinking" over the single currency.

Even though Lamont is personally unpopular in the party, because he appears to have acquired his doubts about Europe only after being sacked from Major's Cabinet and times his interventions to cause maximum embarrassment to the prime minister, his views did strike a chord with Tory activists.

Another former minister, Norman Tebbit, called for Britain to declare its opposition to a single currency. He said there should be "a massive change from the centralised Europe of Maastricht, with the ambition to complete the transition from Common Market to superstate, to a Gaullist Europe of nation states, some of whom may wish to integrate, others of whom may wish to disintegrate".

The enthusiastic response of the 500-plus people attending this meeting demonstrated the extent to which the mood in the Tory Party has turned against the Union. Meetings addressed by pro-Europeans, who look increasingly isolated, were badly attended and generated little enthusiasm.

The anti-federalists are determined to sustain their offensive throughout the autumn. Their aim is to get the government to take some decisions, such as abandoning the single currency completely, before the 1996 intergovernmental conference begins. They believe it is necessary to pre-empt debates on certain issues because once Major gets embroiled in these negotiations, he'll be forced to make some concessions to the centralists.

Nigel DUDLEY