POLITICS: Who wanted to leave?
The first in a series on the doing-in of William Hague by the Tory press
Unlike journalists, most people don't read 'other' newspapers, they tend just to read the one, if indeed one at all. On any given day, close to half the public simply don't read a paper. Therefore what seems commonplace for both readers of a particular newspaper, and for journalists grazing on them all, is of course unfamiliar to everyone else. For every Telegraph reader who nods with recognition when one alludes to the wisdom of say TE Utley, there remains a far wider group for whom the reaction can only be, 'who?' This applies even to giants like Matthew Parris, but do stick with me since he has done the state some service. Or at least he has done the state as embodied by the present Labour government some good by his relentless championing of John Major. In the last parliament he — against some stiff competition — did the most damage any aspect of News International managed to do to William Hague and the Tory party. And he did this by making a very big mistake about Europe, while saying it in a very reasonable voice.
In The Times Mr. Parris had set himself the task of speaking up for all those moderate, sceptical Tories, who were in danger of being left behind by the Powellite agenda William Hague allowed to become the party's. Making this all the worse was that the then sketchwriter’s no Ken Clarke. Old Thatcherites like Matthew Parris, in favour of membership but opposed to the Euro, apparently found themselves in danger of being ‘outflanked on the right by a new breed who are seriously weird’. The only problem is that none of the charges Mr Parris made were even remotely plausible: the Conservative politicians he attacked were those who agree with him, and the thing he said he feared most isn't (or at least shouldn't be seen as) at all fearful.
To start with the last first, what Matthew charged lay beneath Mr Hague’s Tory policy on Europe — renegotiate treaties, use the word 'never' as regards opposition to the Euro and so forth - was the desire to withdraw. We'll come to whether that urge was there, and if so, how many subscribed to it in due course, but let's take the proposition at face value to begin with. In which case we have to ask, why, alongside advocating repatriation, sending your children to a state school or marrying a deceased wife's sister, has this become the taboo of the last hundred years for Tory MPs? It's difficult to say, in fact it's impossible to say, for in all his writings on the subject - ‘degree by degree, the current beneath the Conservatives is bearing the party towards the group who think Britain must leave Europe’ [my italics) - Mr Parris never named names. He couldn’t ever cite a single Tory MP who believed this, let alone one who had actually himself said it.
However, since this is in part a conspiracy we're examining, this absence of evidence is proof of nothing. We need to be much more subtle, we need to consider Tory attitudes to the Euro to see the truth about their actual intentions towards the EU. Matthew Parris contended, having carefully studied the speeches of fanatics like (then shadow Chancellor) Francis Maude, that the Tory Party trembled on the edge of a praemunire under William Hague, of being always about to issue an edict that Britain would never, under them, join the Euro. This, obviously, elides into being pro-withdrawal, but as I've said we'll come back to that, let's just consider the word 'never' at the moment. This is a truly terrible, harsh and ugly word for any civilised sort of chap to have to hear. John Major never used it. Yet that's the funny thing: it's inexcusable when used by Eurosceptics about the Euro, but when moderate men like Matthew and Mr. Major address themselves to our membership of the EU it's used all the time. For instance, when Matthew Parris says that the anti-Marketeers have to be confronted, the clarion call is to be, ‘Britain's place is permanently in the European Union’.
So, over EU membership we can use the word permanent since, come what may, we'll never leave. But for sceptics, having ruled out the Euro for the 2001 parliament, to shade towards (and they did no more than that — Mr. Parris couldn’t find anything to prove otherwise) using permanent (i.e. 'never') about not joining the Euro is unacceptable.
For once in the last 15 years however it wasn't really the Euro that was causing the fight. In this instance of fratricide it served only as a cudgel in the debate about membership of the EU. Matthew Parris saw this as being at stake. Before going on to see whether it was (or for that matter, is) at issue, and if so, how many are against Brussels, it does seem to me puzzling that British membership of the EU is deemed by quintessentially moderate men like Matthew Parris, unquestionable. So doing lacks the governing, questioning tone of the man, and, although I wish to avoid psycho-babble, I begin to wonder if it, the charge that Eurosceptics have an agenda for withdrawal, was not in fact a form of displacement activity, covering a far deeper, more hurtful charge? We'll come back to that too.
The grim irony is that the people he was busy attacking (on the whole, the then shadow cabinet) for saying the thing they weren’t (advocating withdrawal) which isn't anyway such a heinous thing to say, are the Tories politically closest to Matthew Parris himself. ‘I think the Tory anti-Europeans are a determined and ruthless gang’. Well, doubtless they would be, if they existed, but assuredly they don't, otherwise Matthew Parris would have supplied us with a few names by now. What small number of anti-marketeers there were and are, are amiable duffers, about as ruthless as Mo Mowlam fighting terrorism.
In truth the truly dreadful people in the Parliamentary Tory Party are those who, with tin ears to the fore, most vocally urged the position Matthew claims as his own — the sceptical, but let's-still-make-our-membership-work one. All the stuff that puts Mr. Parris into a flap when he hears others saying it ('honestly, I'm for the EU, just against the Euro') was spouted by Ultras like . . . John Maples, our then shadow Foreign Secretary. To put this as politely as I can, John Maples' credentials as a headcase were about as impressive as 95-97 era Malcolm Rifkind's are as a self-proclaimed hardline sceptic.
Further, saying you're against the Euro, as leader-loyal Tories did under Mr Hague did not inevitably mean that you wished to see Britain's withdrawal. Inevitable, like irresistible, is one of those lazy words people use when they either wish to avoid thought or argument. It also has a handy secondary role when ones wants to smear someone; after all only an extremist would seek to resist something, like the Euro for example, that was 'inevitable'. This is why, despite his certainty he's not, Matthew Parris ended up being Tony Blair's handmaiden. Only the Prime Minster benefited by the Hague-era Tories being painted by one of their most talented followers as ‘extremists’. It's all the more annoying when the thing they were being wrongly smeared with is not in itself extreme.
After all that you might be forgiven for wondering, did one journalist, in one newspaper matter? This one does, he's a proven player. John Redwood's credibility was destroyed by his depiction in Matthew Parris's sketches as a Vulcan. This set in train the events whereby Mr Major scraped home in the 1995 leadership contest, thus setting up everything that happened thereafter. Mr Redwood's slogan, 'no change, no chance' was borne out by the 1997 General Election. The thing fanatical Majorites will never allow for in contemplating the 1995 leadership election is that John Redwood's defence is exactly the same they use for John Major about November 1990. Then too a massively unpopular leader was taking the party to certain electoral calamity. Only, an in himself unfit challenger emerged and cast Her down, and, Dei gratia, a saviour came forth. And there I fear is what lay beneath the patently absurd and unsupported charge that - God, if only! - William Hague's party had become Powellite. For how else could the Tory party but have been extreme when it was by then no longer led by poor, suffering John, what otherwise would his crucifying suffering have been for?
John Rugby, September 14, 2002 11:15 PM