The woman who could electrify the debate on Europe
BACK in the early Nineties when John Major was prime minister, I was a junior political reporter. At the time, along with the majority of those in the Press, I regarded him as a very weak man and not up to the job.
Practically every day, we unleashed a fresh volley of damaging headlines. With the benefit of hindsight, I feel rather ashamed. I have since come to believe Mr Major wasn’t that bad.
He left the economy in a very good shape — only for his successors at No 10, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, to wreck it over the following ten years.
Mr Major’s time in Downing Street, though, was ruined by toxic civil war in his party over British membership of the EU.
Many Tory MPs — stirred up by Right-winger Norman Tebbit and his protege Iain Duncan Smith — were convinced Major was hell-bent on betraying Margaret Thatcher’s legacy.
They were furious that he seemed willing to sign up to the idea of a Brussels-run EU superstate rather than to Thatcher’s famous vision of the Europe of sovereign nations.
As a result, Major’s last few years as PM were marred by bitter battles — he famously described his Tory enemies as ‘bastards’ — which destroyed his government and have left deep personal scars.
Not surprisingly, 20 years later, John Major believes the debate about the EU in the run-up to the referendum on Britain’s membership offers a long-awaited opportunity for him to wreak revenge on the Tory Right.
This is the background to Major’s fascinating interview with Jim Naughtie on the Radio 4 Today programme this week in which he sneered at Thatcher’s cherished notion of parliamentary sovereignty and declared that Britain must stay in the EU.
With breath-taking arrogance, he even suggested the British people must vote ‘Yes’ even if David Cameron fails to obtain any ‘ fundamental and far- reaching change’ that the PM promised he would get from his negotiations with fellow EU leaders.
MAJOR’S intervention was carefully orchestrated, I’m convinced, as part of an unsubtle PR campaign by the pro-Brussels lobby. Over recent years, Major has been scrupulously careful never to speak out publicly, unless he gets explicit approval from David Cameron.
Like a ventriloquist, Cameron was cynically using Major on the eve of this week’s Brussels summit to argue the case for Britain to stay in the EU.
It should not be forgotten that Cameron and George Osborne served, as young men, in the Major government as special advisers — and at one point Cameron reported directly to him. This means that they, too, were scarred by the Tory civil war of the Nineties — and share a desire to settle scores with the Eurosceptic Tory Right.
It has to be said that Cameron does not regard people such as archsceptic Iain Duncan Smith with the venomous loathing that Major has even to this day.
Nevertheless, Cameron and Osborne are wary of Duncan Smith and his friends — believing that they do not fit their vision of a modernised 21st-century Conservative party.
Like John Major, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister therefore believe the EU referendum offers the opportunity to consign the Tory Right to history.
At the moment, they think their plan is going smoothly. Conservative Party headquarters is in the hands of Cameron cronies such as beleaguered Lord Feldman, while Osborne has seized personal charge of the negotiations with the EU. Meanwhile, Eurosceptic Cabinet ministers cannot argue in support of the ‘No’ campaign.
As a result, the ‘No’ campaign feels increasingly neutered.
It also suffers from being hampered by the position of the Labour Party. Though pro-EU (despite its leader Jeremy Corbyn having a long personal history of Euroscepticism), Labour has not made any constructive renegotiation proposals.
This is why I believe it is vital that Cabinet members who want Britain to leave the EU — and who have been silent — speak their mind.
This brings me to the position of Home Secretary Theresa May.
As a rising politician in the Nineties, she made her reputation as a Eurosceptic — on the same side as the ‘bastards’ whom John Major hated so much. Over the past five-and-a-half years, she has built a reputation as Britain’s longestserving Home Secretary — and the most tricky subject in her in-tray is immigration.
And this, of course, is the policy area that lies at the heart of Cameron’s bitter argument with European leaders.
AT TORY conference in October, Mrs May made it clear where she stood on mass immigration, speaking passionately about how it damaged social cohesion and of the need to control Britain’s borders.
Mrs May is well aware, however, that she has failed catastrophically to restrict immigration to Britain — and the reason for her failure is EU laws that allow free movement for workers between member states. Thus, if she publicly supports Britain’s continued membership, she will look hypocritical and ridiculous.
Alternatively, she can intervene powerfully in the debate by setting out in clear language what David Cameron must demand if Britain is to genuinely regain control of its own borders and thus reduce the number of migrants.
Such an intervention would electrify the referendum campaign.
But she needs to do this now. Any later — and John Major will, indeed, secure his revenge over the ‘ bastards’ he believes ruined his premiership.
Much more important, the country will sleepwalk into remaining part of an utterly unreformed and sclerotic EU.
That would be a disaster not just for Britain — but for all of Europe and the rest of the world.