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RADIO 4

CURRENT AFFAIRS

ANALYSIS

MAKING OUR MINDS UP

TRANSCRIPT OF A RECORDED

DOCUMENTARY

Presenter: Bob Tyrrell

Producer: Chris Bowlby

Editor: Nicola Meyrick

BBC

White City

201 Wood Lane

London

W12 7TS

020 8752 6252

Broadcast Date: 08.07.04

Repeat Date: 11.07.04

Tape Number: PLN426/04VT1027

Duration:

2740

Taking part in order of appearance:

Alan Sked

Founder of UKIP

Former Head of European Studies Programme at London

School of Economics

Simon Buckby

Former Leader of Britain in Europe

Sunder Katwala

General Secretary of the Fabian Society

Ruth Lea

Economist and Head of Centre for Policy Studies

Alison Park

Head of Social Attitudes Research at National Centre for

Social Research

Thomas Kielinger

London Correspondent of Die Welt

TYRRELL:For at least twenty years British

governments have given a passable impression of wishing Europe

would just go away. Prime Ministers would return from long and

frequently tedious European negotiations bruised and battered, but

proclaiming game set and match or declaring red lines still intact.

Where they were not greeted by apathy, they found many in their own

parties and large sections of public opinion cynical and suspicious. As

withdrawal from the EU becomes a seriously debated option, Europes

really going to start to matter.

SKED:Its now coming out that you know

this is something that resonates with a large part, if not the majority,

probably the majority of the British people. Now in a democracy, if the

elite is stupid enough to ignore the wishes of the majority, the majority

will get rid of the elite.

BUCKBY:This is an argument that needs to

be a complete clash where one side is going to win and the other side is

going to lose, so I imagine that the Prime Minister is scared to death.

This is the biggest political issue not just in Britain but across Western

Europe, and probably the developed economies, of our era.

TYRRELL:Advocates of withdrawal like Alan

Sked and pro-Europeans like Simon Buckby eagerly anticipate a debate

about Britains future in Europe with all options on the table. Within a

couple of years the British may have the chance to vote in a referendum

on the recently agreed Constitution for Europe. How we vote could

determine our place in Europe and the world for a generation. What will

influence our decision? How much will developments elsewhere

actually determine our future in Europe? Europe is now 25 rather than

15 and the old coalitions and alliances may not be as predictable or

stable as they once were. All sides hope that this time our debate will

make up our minds about Europe more decisively than in the past.

Sunder Katwala is general secretary of the Fabian Society and a pro-

European.

KATWALA:When we did join, it was from a

sense of our illusions having been shattered. It happened after Suez and

then in the 1970s we realised we had to be part of this because there

was a real sense of Britain in decline and going to the dogs, the country

being ungovernable, and Europe was the sort of last throw of the dice,

something you had to do. And even the most ambitious version of that

I think was the progressive idea that if we could just turn ourselves

into Germany things would be so much better.

TYRRELL:So what consequences have

followed for that for the Euro debate in the UK and the popular image

of Europe in the UK?

KATWALA:So Europe stands for other people

telling us what to do, being part of a club where you dont shape the

rules and being part of something that you dont really know if its

really you or not. Is Britain European remains a question.

TYRRELL:The negative mindset about

Europe and the constant prevarication about whether we are or are not

European was something Simon Buckby had to deal with when he was

running Britain in Europe, the body set up to lobby for British

membership of the single currency.

BUCKBY:Part of the historic failure for the

pro-Europeans is having made that argument and won it in 1975, they

all thought that that was the argument won in perpetuity, so rather than

re-winning it day after day and nurturing support among new

generations of people, they let the argument go by default. Then in the

1980s something very interesting happened, which is that Europe

became something more than what Britain had signed up to back in 73.

After many years of relative political stagnation among political

leaders, the early 1980s youve got big figures in France and big figures

in Germany who wanted to give the European Union a slightly more

rounded dynamic, so you got the single European market on the one

hand, which is of course what the Conservatives in the early 1980s

supported, but on the other hand you also accompanied that with a as it

were political project which was largely social Europe, which was

something the Conservatives didnt like. And, therefore, that

somersaulting, I think, has confused the British debate, so that people

now dont know as it were which side theyre instinctively supposed to

be on.

TYRRELL:Europe has always defied neat

classification as a left versus right issue. As long as it was seen as an

essentially economic and social project, views about Europe could be

expressed in relatively technocratic terms. As the ambitions for political

union have grown in some quarters, so opinions are now being shaped

by more visceral reactions to threats posed to our national sovereignty.

Ruth Lea is an economist and heads the centre-right think tank, the

Centre for Policy Studies.

LEA:I think its very true that in the

1970s it was the business class that were so very, very keen on the

European communities because of what they saw to be the huge

advantages of trade; and of course they basically saw Europe equals

trade, and so thats not surprising, and I think it is absolutely true that

for the left this nasty capitalist club was not what they wanted. Now as

Europe has clearly developed towards political union, I think its true to

say that people who are on the right who are perhaps more concerned

about sovereignty, they began to see that actually Europe is not just

about trade; it is about political union, it is about the loss of national

sovereignty. And that is why you see, I now believe, a majority of the

voices from the right actually objecting to where Europe is going. But

its still interesting that if you look at the left, there are still some very

vocal people against European political union.

TYRRELL:One of the great ironies of the

various political somersaults people have performed over Europe is that

the man who launched UKIP, the UK Independence Party, advocating

British withdrawal from the EU, would once have described himself as

a full-blooded euro-federalist. Before his period as leader of UKIP, Dr

Alan Sked was head of the European studies programme at the London

School of Economics.

SKED:As head of that programme, I had

to meet regularly with European politicians, European civil servants,

people from the Commission who came to the European Studies

research seminar; and, frankly, the more I read about it, the more people

I met involved in the Commission, the more I thought this whole idea is

mad. It was like one of these Heath Robinson contraptions you used to

see in the cartoons and sort of a German professor beside him who used

to say Ah Herr Professor Doktor, it looks very impressive, but whats

it for, what does it do, whats it meant to do?

TYRRELL:Public opinion hasnt moved quite

as dramatically as that. But recent European election results have made

politically visible a view of the European project as something remote,

unaccountable and progressively less in tune with the mood of the

British. Alison Park is the head of social attitudes research at the

National Centre for Social Research.

PARK:Throughout the early 1980s and

really up until about 1991, the view that you got if you looked at our

annual surveys was that the British public were gradually becoming

more accepting of and more accustomed to Britains place in Europe.

And then in 1992 something changed and theres all sorts of reasons it

might have been to explain that in 92. It could have been the ERM

fiasco, which was that year; it could have been the very highly

publicised Conservative party splits on the issue; it could have been the

rise of the Referendum party; BSE. Theres all sorts of reasons. And

then really from 1992 onwards, the trend that wed been seeing towards

increased acceptance reversed, so you got an increase in the proportion

of people who would either like to withdraw from the European Union

altogether or who would rather weaken its power, and you got a

decrease in the proportion of people whod like to work towards a

stronger union.

TYRELL:And are there some groups who

have always been more anti or who have become more anti in recent

years, whereas some have remained more loyal to the idea of Europe?

PARK:The interesting thing about Europe

is it is the best issue that distinguishes between the middle classes and

the working class. If youre looking at one issue that will really

distinguish between those two camps, Europe strangely is it. Its very

much something thats associated with the very well educated people

working in professional occupations, whereas if you turn to groups

working in more manual professions thats where youll find

Euroscepticism at its highest. Its a very, very clear distinction between

those two groups.

TYRRELL:As well as that socio-economic or

demographic differentiation, are there any other attitudes that tend to

correlate with pro or anti-Euro views?

PARK:Yes, there are a few. I mean one

of the most intriguing that we found last time we looked at this was that

people who are very proud of being British tend to be the most

Eurosceptic and the least in favour of joining the Euro so amongst

people who say Im proud to be British, this is something thats really

important to me, amongst that group Euroscepticisms particularly

high; amongst those who arent really that bothered about their

Britishness or who indeed say Im not British, I wouldnt call myself

British, Euroscepticism is far less common.

TYRRELL:At first sight the data seem to

confirm the stereotype of the Eurosceptic as an older, flag-waving little

Englander trying to cling on to a childhood past when Britain was great,

in contrast to the pro-Europeans who come from younger, more self-

confident and progressive forces in society. But its not that simple.

PARK:People often assume that

opposition to Europe is focused particularly amongst older groups. In

fact theres quite a curious curve when you look at peoples attitudes

towards Europe where the most opposed tend to be the youngest and

the oldest and the most pro-European people tend to be people in their

late 30s, 40s, early 50s. And the jurys out really on whether or not

thats a generational issue to do with when those people were growing

up or whether there are sort of life cycle factors that might actually

intervene and influence the way people think about Europe as they get

older.

TYRRELL:If young adults are more

Eurosceptical than those in middle age, then it wont simply be a case

of waiting for an older generation to die off before we all become

committed Europeans. The presence of the likes of Bob Geldof, Rick

Mayall and Harry Enfield on the anti-single currency platform

underlines that pro-Europeans have no monopoly of the cool classes.

Nor is our increasing everyday contact with Europe itself changing

opinions as many might have assumed.

KATWALA:We are much more European. We

see it in supermarkets our foods much better, we know about

different types of pasta; our football is incredibly European; we get low

cost flights; we are relaxed and comfortable with difference and with

Europeanness. Many of us are. We dont connect that to European

politics.

TYRRELL:Some may question whether

European politics actually have that much to do with our increasingly

European lifestyles after all, we have acquired American economic

and cultural habits without politics intervening. But Sunder Katwala is

one of the young thinkers anxious to rejuvenate the pro-European

cause.

KATWALA:What goes on in the Brussels

labyrinth remains for most people a far away muddle of which we know

little. And when you go out to vote say in a European Parliament

election, its really not clear to anybody whats really at stake and so

the disconnection between leading more European lives and being

pleased to be so and not really understanding at all what this political

system called Europe is, is difficult. I think its more difficult too for

the British because we have no tradition of politics as power sharing

and as negotiation. We have politics as sporting contests, horse races

winning or losing, and European politics is very much about having a

seat at the table and thrashing out a deal.

TYRRELL:So what is the positive case for

Europe?

KATWALA:It will be about a case for politics,

democratic politics being about the right to make choices over the

things that affect your lives. If we want to do that about the economy,

about business, about the environment, were going to have to do it

above the nation state. Its about the benefits of a single market and

trading but its about much more than that, and I think if we make a

narrowly economic case for Europe well turn a lot of people off.

TYRRELL:Sunder Katwala is conscious of

the need to provide a motivating and even an inspiring case for Europe.

If his approach advocates using the carrot, Simon Buckby, after his

experience trying but failing to swing opinion on the euro, is more

conscious of the need for the stick.

BUCKBY:I dont think many people in the

end are going to go skipping into the voting booth and voting for the

European dream. Thats not the way this is going to be. Even many

yes voters will go in kicking and screaming, wishing that the issue

hadnt arisen, hoping that it goes away, but now finally being forced to

confront do you want to be isolated and on the margins of Europe or

do you want to accept, painful though it may be, that Britain cant stand

alone any more; and weve got these two big neighbours in France and

Germany and these other neighbours who are in an alliance with them,

that we could cash in on that to support our economic prosperity and

our political voice in the world.

TYRRELL:So, we need to grow up, accept

our limitations and cash in on the opportunity represented by Europe.

Simon Buckbys view would carry more conviction if Europe looked

as attractive to Britain economically as it did in the 1970s. But Britains

economy has been growing continuously for more than ten years and

we have an unemployment rate around half the EU average. Maybe the

pro-Europeans just need to wait for the economic cycles to shift and

Europes economy to come good. Ruth Lea thinks it would be a very

long wait.

LEA:I would like to think that the

continental countries will actually be resurgent economically because it

would be good for our trade and it doesnt help us in the slightest if

Germanys in recession, but I And a lot of other economies actually

look into their crystal balls and see that what is happening in

continental Europe is almost a trend relative decline in the world

economy. You dont just have the United States pulling ahead and

pulling away, but if you look to China, you look to India, you look to

other parts of the Far East, then its almost as if the tectonic plates, the

global economy are shifting, and Europe is being left behind.

TYRRELL:Ruth Lea is hardly the greatest

friend of the pro-European cause, but even New Labour, which talked

of being a positive pro-European party when it came into power, signals

by its actions that it believes theres not a lot it can learn from Europe.

Sunder Katwala.

KATWALA:When people say why do British

politicians always get their ideas from America, why does Gordon

Brown always go to Cape Cod and come back with lots of ideas, its

because America has a political system that is a real fizzing laboratory

of ideas. It seems to me the ability of the European Union to operate in

a similar way could be an immensely creative thing where we could get

lots of policy ideas that fizz around Europe and that we challenge each

other with. People have talked about doing this and it would take an

immense cultural change in the European Commission.

TYRRELL:And pigs may fly? It may be easy

to imagine the European Commission fizzing with champagne but new

ideas are a tougher challenge. It all begins to look like the future for

Euroscepticism will be plain sailing. But what does Euroscepticism

now mean? Last months elections for the European Parliament dealt all

Britains main political parties a slap in the face, with UKIP taking one

in six of the votes cast. Europe is no longer a sleeping dog of British

politics and the subject of withdrawal, previously barely mentioned in

polite society, is now on the agenda. Alan Sked, whos no longer in

UKIP but still favours leaving the EU, remembers all too well what it

was like when he first advocated withdrawal a few years ago

SKED:It was as if you know I had cancer

or something and you know it was a great hush, you know it was

something dreadful that you just didnt bring up over the lunch table.

But I mean its now coming out that you know this is something that

resonates with a large part, if not the majority, probably the majority of

the British people. Now in a democracy, if the elite is stupid enough to

ignore the wishes of the majority, the majority will get rid of the elite.

But the elite will respond; its just a matter of how and when. Tony

Blair in a by-election in 1981, in the General Election 1983 issued

election addresses calling for Britain to come out. Since then hes

called me an extremist for saying exactly the same as he said in 1981

and 1983. But the majority of the people, Im afraid, have now decided

that you know that theres nothing positive, there are no benefits

coming from Europe. And as that opinion solidifies and hardens as it

will then to ignore that majority seems to me to be suicidal for any

political leader.

TYRRELL:The idea that the British now have

a settled view that Europes a bad thing overstates the case, but there is

no doubt that moderate Eurosceptics could be outflanked unless they

address those who simply see no benefits in EU membership and

believe that the EU has set its course towards a European superstate.

So, its imperative for politicians to confront these questions, but even

if they belatedly discover the virtues of candour, will we now believe

what they tell us? Alison Park.

PARK:One of the things we found when

we last looked at this on the British Social Attitudes survey was that

Eurosceptics were among the least trusting of politicians. Theyre a

group who dont trust what politicians have to tell them and so theres a

very clear message there about the difficulties that government will

have in trying to persuade people of the need to come round to a pro-

European cause. People will clearly take their cues from other sources.

I mean one of the most obvious would be the newspapers that they read

and there is very clear evidence of a complete division between

broadsheet and tabloid readers in terms of their views on the euro, in

particular, with tabloid readers being the far least enthusiastic and

broadsheet readers, irrespective of which paper interestingly, being far

more enthusiastic.

TYRRELL:If newspapers are pivotal in

reflecting and reinforcing peoples views, its their ability to link

Europe in readers minds to explosive issues like immigration that

makes politicians really nervous. Thomas Kielinger is the London

correspondent of the German newspaper, Die Welt, and has been

watching the British have their peculiar debate about Europe for years.

On one hand he sees the current, potentially more open debate as a new

opportunity.

KIELINGER:Suddenly theyre working out that

there is a subtext, there is a different agenda. They are federalists on

the continent - people who do want to create a Europe which is

governed centrally and collectively. People have finally come to the

point where they feel they are coerced, and its a good job they are, to

make up their mind if thats exactly the route they want to go.

TYRRELL:On the other hand, as the reality of

the choices we face in Europe becomes starker, the consequences of

being on the winning or losing side appear more serious. In a climate of

suspicion and distrust, conducting the debate becomes a potentially

hazardous enterprise.

KIELINGER:I loathe this sort of xenophobic

rhetoric that comes out of the Eurosceptic press or individual people

who support it. Frankly, I think it demeans the case of Euroscepticism

which can be made intelligently and rationally.

TYRRELL:But do you think it may be that

because politicians in Britain havent been honest enough about it that

its encouraged in certain quarters an association of Europe with some

of these more reactionary forces?

KIELINGER:Well its probably a breakdown in

leadership. For too long both issues Europe and immigration and the

open society, multi-racial society has been lying dormant as it were,

unattended by the main players and so its become a field day for fringe

forces.

TYRRELL:But for moderate Eurosceptics

trying to resist this whilst maintaining their critique of Brussels, there is

another danger. How do you reconcile a sense of the fundamental

historical and other differences between Britain and the rest of Europe

and still maintain the logic of being part of the EU? Ruth Lea.

LEA:I think theres a fundamental

incompatibility between ourselves and Europe and the idea that you

know we Britain, on our own, with perhaps one or two other people

behind us may change a little with enlargement, its difficult to say,

difficult to say. But the idea that we can go in there and tell the French

and the Germans, who basically still run the show which is perfectly

understandable after all they were there from the beginning, werent

they, and they built it up in their image to tell them that really

somehow we really know better, I just dont think will get us very far.

TYRREL:Is the case youre describing then

inexorably one of rejection of membership? Is it rejectionist or is it still

a sceptical position that allows us to be in in some respects?

LEA:This is not a matter of completely

getting out of Europe and breaking all loose with Europe. Theres no

need to do that because, after all, we trade with Europe, they trade with

us. Thats not going to change theyre still wanting to buy our goods,

we want to still buy their goods but I think what it is saying is that the

way that the European Union is going, especially in the light of the

constitutional treaty, is something that I am not keen on clearly. And

what is interesting is that now we have the referendum and theres a

possibility of a no vote but only a possibility, its not definite, people

shouldnt think its definite then if we vote no, then at some point

after that we will be in a position to renegotiate our relationship with

Europe.

TYRRELL:So you would see a future ideally

in which certain elements of policy that are currently dominated by, if

not wholly determined in Brussels, repatriated to Westminster?

LEA:

I dont see any reason why parts

of the acquis shouldnt be put on the table for negotiation if they get to

a situation where we voted no but particularly the other twenty-four

countries or the majority of countries want to push ahead with the treaty

because it would be at that point where if those countries wanted our

signature on the treaty, there would have to be opt outs a la Maastricht

but Maastricht with knobs on, if you like, before they could get our

signature.

TYRRELL:Renegotiate parts of the acquis,

the body of common rights and obligations that bind EU member

states? Repatriate policy responsibilities back to Britain from Brussels,

and all without a murmur from the French and Germans? Ruth Leas

scenario assumes that we can push Europe and that at most the push

back is some stern words which anyway are useful domestically to

appease the generally Eurosceptic press and public opinion. Alan Sked

has a different scenario. It starts with a British government led by either

Tony Blair or Michael Howard holding a referendum on the

constitution

SKED:If we then said no and we were

also outside the single currency, Im sure Europeans would turn round

and say well, look, why dont we renegotiate the British position. The

Tories came in in the election you know before a referendum. The

Tory position is that they cant accept any kind of constitution. Then it

would be really interesting because the Tories are also against the

European single currency or British membership thereof. Now if you

had that, then you should immediately and it would put immense

pressure on Michael Howard because he doesnt really want to talk

about this as much as he might but he would immediately be faced as

Prime Minister. I would have thought the first priority to make clear

what he was going to do vis--vis Brussels because if he said no to any

constitution and no to the euro, then the idea that you know you could

just co-exist with the rest I think would be pie in the sky.

TYRRELL:Both Labour and the Tories

premise their case for Europe on their ability to change what it means to

be part of Europe. The Tories say we can stay in but opt out of the

move to greater political union Maastricht with knobs on. Labour is

anxious for us to believe that Gordon Brown will succeed in convincing

these Continentals that our economic model is the one to which they

need to adapt. If both these views strain credulity, then we may be

forgetting that with enlargement comes a New Europe with a new

dynamic and the potential for new alliances to counter the sway that the

Franco-German axis has held for so long. And just as we are being

challenged to update how we think about Europe, the same is true in

every other European country. The Prime Minister believes his

optimism about the opportunities the new Europe presents was proved

right during the recent Brussels negotiations over the Constitution.

Thomas Kielinger saw echoes there of a curiously old-fashioned British

approach.

KIELINGER:Mr Blair made a fascinating

remark when he said this is a continent of varying alliances and Britain

is very much at home there. Thats the classic postulation of the

imbalance of power policy. You enter into various alliances to contain

the likely emerging threat France, Germany or the axis between the

two that would spoil your need for independence.

TYRRELL:But, well have to watch our step.

Push too hard now and we might just find that our bluff, if thats what it

is, is called. The push back has already started.

KIELINGER:Theres envy, admiration and yet

bewilderment and also anger building up about this technique and, yes,

in future some countries might band together and say we cannot allow

the degree of integration to be determined by the most sceptic nation,

we have to find a way to go ahead and forge our own. In fact President

Chirac has already made noises to that effect.

TYRRELL:Its beginning to look like we cant

have our European cake and expect to eat it. The sceptics will say this

shows the EU will never change at root, and nows the time to make

clear, whatever the consequences, that were not following the road to

further integration. Pro-Europeans, however, say this is precisely the

time to embrace a Europe thats changing to Britains liking. Simon

Buckby acknowledges its going to be exciting and alarming.

BUCKBY:This isnt a way you can rig the

question or try to do it on the back of some other election so that they

wont notice the decision that theyve taken. This is an argument that

needs to be a complete clash where one side is going to win and the

other side is going to lose. I suspect most pro-Europeans would wish

the whole thing would go away and Im sure the Prime Minister is one

of them, but the worlds not like that, so I imagine the Prime Minister is

scared to death. This is the biggest political issue not just in Britain but

across Western Europe and probably the developed economies of our

era and Blair has an opportunity that no Prime Minister has had since

Edward Heath to make his mark not only on history in Britain but in

history in Europe. So scared to death, but when it comes I have no

doubt hell relish the challenge.

TYRRELL:I doubt that relish quite

describes what Tony Blair feels about a full-blooded European debate.

But he wont be able to avoid one. The options we face are now wider

than they have been for a long time and politicians are racing to catch

up with the changes in Europe and the rapid evolution of public

opinion. The debate thats just started may at last answer the question

thats divided us for so long.

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