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Gordon "Two Jobs" Brown
The "Governor General" hears the Empire's call
Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown is off to Lisbon to batter out a final text for the EU Reform Treaty. Before leaving, he answered calls from the opposition and members of his own Labour Party for a referendum on the treaty, which everyone except the PM, the Foreign Secretary and the leader writers of the Independent admit is identical to the Constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.
It's beginning to sink in that the "red lines" Brown has pledged to defend are being revealed as "red herrings" by sharper Eurosceptics. In what seems like a desperate attempt to stem criticism in Britain, Brown has launched the European Council meeting in the time-honoured fashion by bashing the French.
The PM fired off a letter to the Portugese Prime Minister José Socrates, who hosts the conference, calling for a "competitive and dynamic single market for the EU", which will "promote free trade and openness, with the EU leading by example in breaking down barriers to create a free and fair multilateral trading system.”
Brown writes that he wants to see an end to navel-gazing "institutional debate" and instead have the EU and governments concentrate on "the issues that matter most to the future wellbeing of Europe - economic growth, jobs, the environment and security."
The letter has been copied to all 26 of the other heads of government attending the Council this weekend.
The Times says that the letter is sure to be seen as a provocation to the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, who in June stunned other EU governments by having the reference to "free and undistorted competition" struck from the treaty text. Sarko's move was designed to play to left-wing Euroscepticism in France, where the EU is increasingly viewed as a Trojan Horse for "neo-liberal" policies; it also demonstrated how the dynamic new President could, at a stroke, reverse 50 years of European policy which was unpopular with the French. Sarkozy's predecessor, Jacques Chirac, had little success in influencing policy in his 12 years as President, despite his much-vaunted relationship with Germany's Gerhard Schröder.
Obviously, Sarkozy isn't going to back down on this without a fight. The French President might argue that with his hard line on crime, immigration and (yes) Europe, he's more in tune with British public feeling than the UK's own Prime Minister. The idea that all Britons are unquestioning supporters of globalisation is a dangerous exaggeration, and Brown is a fool if he believes it.
Moreover, with an impending divorce and the Trade Unions threatening civil breakdown, Sarkozy is likely to be a foul mood. What better than an Anglo-French ruck to show it's business as usual in the EU?
French diplomats are prepared for a scrap, reports say; Eurosceptics in Britain, too, aren't convinced, with Open Europe claiming the PM is trying to cook up a "fake row" smokescreen "to distract from the enormous transfer of powers Gordon Brown is about to sign up to.” The Guardian sees the same trick, though is less critical of the PM's intentions.
Brown is desperate to avoid a referendum. He says the red lines on taxation, justice, human rights and foreign policy are safe; critics argue that this too is a distraction from the real transfer of powers to the EU the treaty represents. The EU Referendum Blog argued persuasively in September that Brown is likely to go for the "short-term pain" of facing down calls for a referendum, rather than the endless grief he'll get from Labour Europhiles and the "colleagues" of the EU itself if he allows the British to reject the treaty.
He'll sign up to it; he has little choice. Brown goes to the European Council as the head of a democratically-elected government, charged with coming up with policy which reflects and guides the mood of the nation. However, he wears another hat: The plumed hat of a colonial Governor-General, a figurehead in charge of a regional outpost of the EU empire.
The majority of British legislation comes from Brussels; in the past decade-and-a-half, the British constitutional process has been undermined. The publication and discussion of "White Papers" which used to dominate the news headlines in the seventies and eighties has been replaced by statements leaked to the press by junior ministers. The passage of bills through both houses, which inevitably led to revision and reform of government policy, has been replaced with three-line-whips and policy passed on the nod. And above all this, Brussels churns out endless directives, almost entirely with the complicity of the political classes.
For Brown to call a referendum would be like a colonial governor handing in his resignation. It won't happen.
