Tony Blair’s love affair with Europe will not win votes for Labour
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Version 0 of 1. The condor is back, wheeling dark overhead. Far beneath, the villagers shudder and lambs rush to their mother’s side. The shadow of Tony Blair brings with it memories of past wars and pestilences, of slick and spin. Why does he come back? They cry. Why not leave us in peace? Blair’s efforts to rehabilitate himself remain half-hearted. A paltry £1,000 for each marginal Labour candidate hardly buys a poster site. Today’s offering, from the tentative safety of his one-time Durham homeland, is about Europe. It is Blair the globalist, Blair the peace-maker, Blair who has seen the world and “knows”. The old platitude torrent is not addressed to any pressing question. Blair merely loves Europe and promises there will be “chaos” if we don’t. Related: Blair backs Miliband and warns of EU chaos if Tories win election Down on reality street, Europe may not be a grand election issue, but it is a niggling one. Voters are sceptical of the virtues of EU membership. It sees the eurozone, which Blair wanted to join, in desperate straits. It sees a political elite constantly promising referendums and then reneging on them. Ukip, currently the third largest party, is a direct result of this. It is stupid to pretend that politics can brush aside such gross evidence of cynicism. Last summer Labour debated whether to advocate an immediate in-out EU referendum on coming to power, but felt that was too great a risk. But it accepts, as do the Lib Dems, that a new treaty needed to rescue credible governance for the eurozone would trigger such a referendum. As for Cameron, he cannot turn turtle a second time. He knows his promised “renegotiation” looks desperately implausible, but he is trapped. So there seems certain to be a referendum on Europe sometime in the next parliament. The irony is it will almost certainly spell the end of Ukip, since whatever the outcome, it will be definitive for a generation. Smart neo-sceptics, such as the economist Roger Bootle in his revised book, Why the EU isn’t Working, now argue against Blair’s chaos thesis. They point out that the euro must be reformed and EU treaties redrawn – perhaps tighter for some and looser for others. For Britain there would always be life after renegotiation, in or out of the EU. Its economy is essentially robust. Anti-EU politics are not exclusive to Britain. The wind is changing across Europe and requiring inevitable reform. The continent faces another Bretton Woods moment, as after the second world war. This is really rather important. Perhaps when the election is over all parties might see that a joint approach to Britain’s future in Europe must be found by one and all – and the condor can fly on by. |