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RADIO 4

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ANALYSIS Euroscepticism Uncovered

TRANSCRIPT OF A RECORDED DOCUMENTARY

Presenter: Edward Stourton Producer: Hannah Barnes Editor: Innes Bowen

BBC Room 1210 White City 201 Wood Lane London W12 7TS

(020) 8752 7279

Broadcast date: 17.10.11 2030-2100 Repeat date: 23.10.11 2130-2200 CD number: PLN142/11VT1042 Duration: 27’39”

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Taking part in order of appearance:

Tim Montgomerie Conservative Home

Douglas Carswell MP for Clacton

Maurice Glasman Of the political group Blue Labour

Mark Seddon Former editor of the Tribune newspaper and used to sit on Labour’s National Executive Committee

Clare Perry MP for Devizes

Norman Lamont Chancellor during the Maastricht negotiations and a veteran of the European debate 3

ANONYMOUS MP 1: For a long time Euroscepticism has had a bad name and it was seen as if it was the man on a bus with a sort of plastic bag shouting about Europe. I think that EU withdrawal is the love that dare not speak its name. And I would say that many, many Tories would probably be happy if we move towards a referendum on withdrawal in some way or another.

STOURTON: The Conservative MP who holds that view would only talk to us on condition that we concealed his identity – the voice you have just heard is that of an actor. It is the sort of technique we would use for an interview with – say – a dissident in a police state, and it’s a mark of how sensitive this issue is.

ANONYMOUS MP 1: The EU has gone far too far in disrupting our economic life… and I feel that we’re inexorably moving down one direction and it seems to be impossible to change it without fundamental reform… I think that you need to prepare the climate, you need to sound reasonable, you need to ensure that people don’t see you just bashing foreigners, because all that sort of thing is disastrous.

STOURTON: Many Eurosceptics complain that some mainstream newspapers and broadcasters – the BBC included - represent them as unhinged extremists even though their views have widespread public support.

Opinion polls consistently suggest a Eurosceptic British electorate; in one conducted by Angus Reid in July 57% of those interviewed said they believed EU membership had been negative for Britain and nearly half said they would vote to leave if there was a referendum on the question.

This programme will ask whether the views of politicians are moving closer to those of the public, and what the consequences of that could be. Some Conservatives are already expressing frustration at the way the party leadership has behaved in office. Where, they say, was that promised referendum on the Lisbon Treaty which introduced changes like a new EU President. This Tory MP has also asked to remain anonymous. And we have used an actor’s voice.

ANONYMOUS MP 2: I think the rhetoric that was first articulated by David Cameron in 2006 and 2007, which led to the foolhardy promise of a “cast iron guarantee” that we would have the Lisbon Referendum has not resulted in the actuality. We haven’t seen a robust approach. We’ve seen a pretty supine approach to the European Union. And the collateral damage from that broken promise is a bit of a black cloud over the government. Although people are mature enough to accept it’s a coalition government, they’re not even seeing the Conservative part of the coalition being robust on the European Union, and for many people that’s a concession too far.

STOURTON: There is, as they say, history here. The Conservative Party is still haunted by the memory of the civil war over Europe which dominated the final years of John Major’s government in the 1990s. 4

STOURTON: During the Thatcher-Major years many of the party’s most powerful barons, men like Chris Patten and Michael Heseltine, were EU enthusiasts. Today the picture is very different. Tim Montgomerie of Conservative Home.

MONTGOMERIE: The great problem that Margaret Thatcher has when she was leading the Conservative Party and wanted to take it in a Eurosceptic direction was that she inherited a party that had cut its political teeth during the Macmillan and Heath years when the Conservative Party’s belief in the European project was at its strongest. And that meant she had a large number of its biggest beasts opposed to what she wanted to do. Since they have retired, a lot of them have died, all of the new party’s candidates, almost without exception, have been Eurosceptic and there has just been a massive transformation of the Conservative Party’s outlook on the European question. David Cameron has sat behind him people who cut their political teeth during the Margaret Thatcher years. They came into Conservative politics because they believed in her view of Europe. Half of the parliamentary party are new MPs and they are overwhelmingly Eurosceptic. Nothing unites them more than their scepticism about what Brussels stands for.

STOURTON: Can you be a little bit more precise about what you mean by the term ‘Eurosceptic’ because it can cover quite a number of different opinions, can’t it?

MONTGOMERIE: Generally I think you can hardly find any Conservatives who believe that Europe should have more power. And then you I think roughly can divide the party up into thirds: a third want to manage the situation down, take a few powers back here and there, certainly not give up any more; a third want a fundamental renegotiation of our relationship with Europe; and probably a third want to come out of the European Union altogether.

STOURTON: There are currently 307 Tory MPs in the Commons. If there really are more than a hundred who want to come out of the EU altogether, a very large number of them are being very coy indeed. The Better Off Out group, which campaigns openly for withdrawal, counts only 10 Conservative MPs among its membership.

And withdrawal is of course the official party policy not of the Conservatives, but of the UK Independence Party. Douglas Carswell, an Essex backbencher, is one of those who has put his head above the parapet by joining the Better Off Out group.

CARSWELL: I would campaign for us to come out of the European Union. But I’m very much a member of the Conservative Party and I’m going to stay in the Conservative Party and I think it’s the Conservative Party that will, I hope, make these things happen and deliver on a referendum and deliver on the process of disentanglement that then needs to follow a referendum. I don’t think the United Kingdom Independence Party, with the greatest respect to them, can deliver on that. 5

STOURTON: So just to be clear, even though your position actually on Europe is closer to the UK Independence Party than it is to that of the Conservative Party, for reasons of realpolitik, if you like, you remain a Conservative?

CARSWELL: I don’t think that’s strictly true. I think my view on Europe is pretty mainstream amongst the Conservative Party now. It’s certainly mainstream amongst the activists, amongst the grassroots, amongst the membership. I think it’s becoming increasingly mainstream amongst the parliamentary wing of the Conservative Party in Westminster.

STOURTON: At the last European elections in 2009 UKIP actually won more support than Labour, but at last year’s General Election the party managed only 3.1% of the vote, and didn’t win a single seat. With our first past the post electoral system it is very unlikely to establish much of a presence in the Commons in the foreseeable future – so what really matters at the moment is the tide of opinion among Conservatives.

The flashpoint for the Tory war of the 1990s was the Maastricht agreement – the Treaty which transformed the old European Community into the European Union we have today.

Britain of course secured an opt-out from the single currency, but Eurosceptic Conservatives still felt the Treaty involved giving up too many powers. The Maastricht rebels, as they were called, tried to rally opposition around the banner of British sovereignty.

Today’s Eurosceptics say their focus is different.

CARSWELL: There’s a very, very different brand of Euroscepticism now. Previously I think a lot of Euroscepticism tended to be about trying to preserve an old order, a sort of 1950s idea of Britain. The real change there’s been in Euroscepticism is that it’s about allowing us to be self-governing in order to make the sorts of changes we need to sort this country out and put it back on its feet and allow it to compete in the world. It’s a very forward looking movement.

STOURTON: But that’s just the sovereignty argument put in a slightly different way, isn’t it?

CARSWELL: I don’t think it is. I mean I’m not a constitutional Conservative. I’m a constitutional radical. I think we need more direct democracy and we need to allow people to do politics for themselves rather than have it done for them on their behalf by this remote priesthood of MPs and mandarins in Whitehall. There will need to be cooperation, but you know at the moment we are bolshie, reluctant, disappointed tenants. I want us to have a relationship with Europe where we’re good, supportive neighbours. 6

MONTGOMERIE: The new Eurosceptic movement is different and I think it potentially is much more potent.

STOURTON: Tim Montgomerie agrees there are significant differences between today’s Eurosceptic and those, like the veteran MP Bill Cash, who fought their own government over Maastricht.

MONTGOMERIE: I think whereas Bill Cash would often appear on the television or radio to talk about the implications for British sovereignty of the latest European treaty, the new Eurosceptic movement will relate what is happening to Europe to how it affects prices in the shops, how it affects our ability to control our borders and therefore bring down immigration. They talk about the wastefulness of the EU budget. It’s a much more retail, a much more streetwise Euroscepticism. And part of the reason is the new generation of Conservative MPs have had to fight very hard for their seats. They know how to make arguments that convince voters to change their vote in a way that a lot of the old Shire Tories, who’ve always sat on safe seats, have never had to develop that kind of retail persuasive politics.

STOURTON: So it’s not really a new intellectual movement. It’s a movement that’s better at getting the message across in a more appealing way?

MONTGOMERIE: Absolutely.

STOURTON: I asked one of our deep throats from the Tory benches how he would compare today’s Eurosceptics with the older generation.

ANONYMOUS MP 2: Well Bill Cash and others, and I have great respect for them, they’re the kind of, if you like the St. John the Baptist type characters of the Eurosceptic movement, but it wasn’t John the Baptist that convinced the world to follow Jesus Christ.

STOURTON: You realise where you’re heading with that. You’re about to compare yourself with Christ, aren’t you?

ANONYMOUS MP 2: Certainly not me! But you understand what I’m trying to say. They were kind of John the Baptist and they spent all their lives on it, but nevertheless it’s good to have fresh perspectives.

STOURTON: There are signs that something is stirring on the Labour benches too. Here’s Ed Balls, now shadow chancellor, challenging one of the EU’s most cherished principles, the free movement of labour. Mr Balls, generally credited with a keen sense of where his party’s heart is beating, was speaking during last year’s Labour leadership campaign.

ED BALLS: I’ve always believed in migration, but I don’t believe in free mobility - I believe in fair mobility – what I’ve said is we should look at that free movement of labour directive to see whether or not it needs to be changed either to allow 7 transitional arrangements to be longer or also to prevent the practice where people can come and work in our country and then send benefits back to their own countries.

GLASMAN: Only someone who was crazy or an economist could think that Poland and Britain were part of the same economic space.

STOURTON: Maurice Glasman of the political group Blue Labour which wants to revitalize Labour’s traditional grass roots support. The newly- ennobled Lord Glasman – we spoke on the Terrace of the House of Lords - is a very influential figure in today’s Labour Party – he is said to have the leader’s ear.

GLASMAN: What it means is that it becomes a completely rational decision for people to leave their homes, leave their families and work for higher wages overseas, so the effect on the countries people are coming from is deleterious. And then it leads to a very strong competition on the low end of the labour market, which leads to bad relations, a lack of investment in people, in skills. People are not commodities.

STOURTON: Some people might listen to what you’ve just said and say that’s Little Englandism by another name.

GLASMAN: Not at all. Blue Labour is strongly internationalist. My position is pro-European. I want to see Europe get better. We’ve got to get away from the idea that if you criticise something in Europe, you’re automatically a Eurosceptic or anti-European. But I think that on the left there’s a mood I’m picking up is that we made a very big error signing up too early to the free movement of Labour in Europe. We didn’t think about it in terms of the good of our workforce. So it’s a very important conversation, but it’s equally important to say that it’s nothing to do with Little Englandism or xenophobia or even Euroscepticism

STOURTON: So if that sort of new relationship isn’t achieved, you would like to see a vote on whether we stay in or not. Yes?

GLASMAN: Sure, I’m democratic.

STOURTON: If it came to it and the relationship couldn’t be redesigned in a way that you’d like, you’d vote out, would you?

GLASMAN: If it was not in our interest to stay, then sure. But I don’t think we’re there. That’s a hypothetical position.

STOURTON: In March this year a cross party campaign was launched to push for a referendum on Britain’s EU membership - the People’s Pledge asks voters to support only those candidates for Parliament willing to work towards securing one. 8

STOURTON: The man at the helm is very much a man of the left; Mark Seddon is a former editor of the Tribune newspaper and used to sit on Labour’s National Executive Committee.

SEDDON: The point of the campaign is to put pressure on members of parliament and on candidates. We’ve had referendums in Britain on all sorts of things. But a referendum on the European Union, there hasn’t been one since 1975. Of course then it was an entirely different institution. It was something called the common market and people thought they were voting on issues of free trade. This has become a much bigger and more different institution and it’s changing before our eyes.

STOURTON: The traditional view of a Eurosceptic has been usually a Tory in a pinstripe suit, which you’re not. To what extent is the support for your position on the Left and in the Labour Party growing, do you think?

SEDDON: It’s a minority issue at the moment, but it is growing. And I think what we are seeing is that we are seeing trade unionists beginning to think about some of the issues that affect them that come out of the European Union and taking a very different view. They would regard the competition laws as being not particularly beneficial to their members. They would point to the recent Bombardier Derby rail works contract loss as being just.

STOURTON: If trades unionists do turn Eurosceptic that will represent a really significant change - in recent years most have been big supporters of the workers’ protection measures which the EU has introduced.

The Eurozone crisis has injected real energy into the public debate about Europe. Not even the EU’s most enthusiastic supporters have had much to say by way of praise for the EU’s institutions and leaders in recent weeks – its critics have been having a field day. Douglas Carswell.

CARSWELL: It’s absolutely key, and the reason why it’s absolutely key is because the justification for our membership of the European Union has always been economic. We’ve always been told in this country that being part of the European Union will involve a political price, but an economic reward. It’s clearly not the case now. When we joined the European Union in the early 1970s, we thought we were joining a prosperous trade bloc. Western Europe accounted for 36% of global GDP. By 2020 Europe will account for less than 15% of global GDP. Far from joining a prosperous trading bloc, we’ve shackled ourselves to a corpse. The economic rationale and justification for us being in the European Union simply isn’t so.

STOURTON: Listening to that you might reasonably conclude that there’s a real appetite for forcing the issue of a referendum on Britain’s EU membership onto the agenda now, whether the government wants it or not. 9

STOURTON: But many of the new generation of Eurosceptics are willing to play the long game. And the memory of the terrible damage done by the infighting of the Major years is still raw – even for the new generation of Eurosceptics like the two MPs who spoke to us anonymously.

ANONYMOUS MP 1: This is where I have real difficulties with my own mind because I’ve been a candidate for a long time and I saw what went on before and it destroyed the Conservative Party, and it is unfortunately an issue that whilst it is important, it is not the priority of most of the country at the moment because of the economic troubles that we face.

STOURTON: But is there a real appetite for pushing that up the agenda, that idea?

ANONYMOUS MP 1: There is, but there is also an appetite not to go through what we went through in the dark, dark days of opposition during the Major years.

ANONYMOUS MP 2: I don’t want to see division in the party, but I think there are two differences. I think that the settled view of the Conservative Party now is a reasonable approach of Euroscepticism - a feeling that the argument internally has been had. And I think on that basis there is a degree more civility and respect for different opinions in the party than there was then

STOURTON: If things are as civilised as you say they are, why are you reluctant to divulge your identity in giving this interview?

ANONYMOUS MP 2: Because I think it’s a moveable feast. I think it’s better to have a debate started about where your party is, and that means sometimes you have to keep your cards close to your chest. It’s an ongoing debate, but I think my views are very much in a majority.

STOURTON: But you can see that people will hear that you’re not willing for your identity to be broadcast and think that can only be because this is such a sensitive issue.

ANONYMOUS MP 2: Well they’d be right in concluding that. I have a position, albeit a reasonably humble position in the government. I would not be fully truthful if I said that you know… it is sensitive.

STOURTON: There was something of a consensus among the Conservatives we spoke to for this programme – the party’s Eurosceptics will be prepared to let the issue lie for a while… but not for ever. Tim Montgomerie of Conservative Home. 10

MONTGOMERIE: The government’s problems paradoxically will kick off as the economy recovers. So long as Britain is in an economic crisis with a deficit crisis and with a lack of growth, every Conservative MP knows that the focus must be on fixing. But when the crisis passes, all the kind of things the Conservative MPs came into politics for - and renegotiating Britain’s relationship with Europe is right at the top of the list - they will come back to the fore and David Cameron won’t necessarily enjoy economic peacetime.

STOURTON: Last month more than a hundred Conservative MPs met in – appropriately enough – the Thatcher room of the House of Commons to debate a strategy for the battle to come. The convener of the meeting, George Eustice, said they want to see “new thinking” on Europe. Clare Perry, one of the new intake of MPs at the last election and a former advisor to George Osborne, was among them.

PERRY: The fascinating thing has been that the debate has seemed to happen in a fact free vacuum over the last few years and you have all sorts of facts and figures thrown around: that our actual direct cost of membership has gone up 74% in the last year - it’s now costing every household £230 - but on the other hand, we know that 48% of our exports are going to the EU bloc and around 200,000 farmers are receiving three billion in farming subsidy. So I think what we want to see is a proper analysis of the true costs and benefits, a rational discussion about what can happen given the current parameters, what powers can we repatriate, and potentially a referendum to go into the Conservative Party manifesto at the next election to put this European question to the British people for the first time in 36 years.

STOURTON: And how would you frame that question?

PERRY: This is the critical point and I think this in or out discussion is a bit crude for the current level of analysis that seems to happen. I mean I, like the Prime Minister, am a sort of practical Eurosceptic. The question I think is the status quo or a renegotiation of the relationship,

STOURTON: Just on that point in terms of the timing. You think it has to be addressed in the run-up to the next election…

PERRY: (over) Well I think we’re if we’re going to have a serious manifesto commitment and we need to have a sort of intelligent analysis of the options, then that work does need to start.

STOURTON: This programme, ahead of the game as ever, has already done some of that work. Some time ago we broadcast an edition exploring what the most radical option, withdrawal, would mean, and you can find it on the Analysis page of the Radio Four Website. 11

STOURTON: The next election is due in the spring of 2015, so there are a couple of years to go before any decision needs to be taken on what goes into the next Conservative manifesto. The Prime Minister, however, has already made it clear that one thing won’t be there – not on his watch anyway.

CAMERON: It’s not our view that there should be a In/Out referendum. I don’t want Britain to leave the European Union. I think it’s the wrong answer fro Britain. What most people want in this country… (fades)

STOURTON: But that message may not be quite as unpopular with Eurosceptics as you might imagine. Despite what the polls show some of them have real doubts about whether they would actually win a straight vote on whether Britain should remain the European Union. Norman Lamont – Chancellor during the Maastricht negotiations – is a veteran of the European debate.

LAMONT: I’m not an advocate of withdrawal, but I do believe that if Britain did withdraw, the results would not be catastrophic, but I’m not sure you could convince the public of that because business would be very against it. I think businessmen exaggerate to themselves the importance of Europe economically and I think they would convince, frighten, instill fear in the public that withdrawal would have disastrous effects on business and employment. I know that polls firmly indicate people are pretty against our membership of the EU, but I think if there were actually a referendum that could well fade away.

STOURTON: So if not an In/Out Referendum, what about that other cause so dear to Eurosceptic hearts, a radical renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the EU? Tim Montgomerie argues that that too could be fraught with difficulties – even though he is himself a Eurosceptic.

MONTGOMERIE: The parliamentary party may want a fundamental renegotiation, but I think the leadership of the party understands how all consuming that would be. So much now of how we operate as a nation is tied up with European law and trying to extricate ourselves from that wouldn’t be something that ministers would spend half a day, a fortnight on. They’d be spending half of their time on it, and I think ministers on an incredibly practical level worry about how much the government would be distracted from bread and butter concerns like immigration and the National Health Service and crime by European renegotiation.

STOURTON: The politics of the issue could become very messy as the next election approaches. Mark Seddon believes that his referendum campaign offers a real opportunity to his allies in the Labour party. 12

SEDDON: I think there’s probably a fairly realistic proposition of this happening because there’s a lot of support for it. There’s the potential for the Labour Leader in particular to say it is time to make a decision on this, we should have a referendum. It gives him an enormous opportunity. We’ve got a Conservative Party that’s primarily Eurosceptical, a Liberal Democrat Party that’s very pro- European and I think that Ed Miliband could cause real problems for the coalition.

STOURTON: And the Milliband guru Maurice Glasman is perfectly comfortable with the idea of making common cause with Eurosceptic Tories if it will advance his pet project of changing the way Europe works.

GLASMAN: Speaking for myself - you know I’m Blue Labour, I really respect the Conservative tradition, I think that there’s much goodness in Conservatism. I don’t see it much in the parties. What you have with Conservatives here in parliament is simultaneously a very strange commitment to international free markets, on the one hand, and national sovereignty on the other, and that’s absolutely not where I am. But I definitely see that we’re part of the same national tradition and I’m not outraged or disgusted by the idea that there would be common good between the parties on many different issues. I’m very open to that.

STOURTON: The un-namable Tory MPs we have spoken to – one of whom is a junior member of the government – may not have plucked up courage to take to the dance-floor just yet, but they believe their day will come.

ANONYMOUS MP 2: No sensible politician can afford to be on the wrong side of public opinion for too long because that becomes a very difficult place to be. And I do think that public opinion is moving very fast - not from a hostile or xenophobic position but a very practical and pragmatic position to say we’re not getting the best that we can out of the European Union, it’s not serving our national interests, and there’s an argument, at least a debate to be had about life after exit from the European Union.

STOURTON: So just to be clear, or to get a sense rather of how far this thing has cooked, if you like, it’s something that you and fellow members of the government perhaps and backbenchers are talking about between yourselves but not something that you’re willing to bring into open debate at the moment?

ANONYMOUS MP 2: I think there will be a more open debate if there’s a substantive motion to have another bailout in say Greece or you know hopefully not Italy or Spain. People will not be willing to vote for that, and that will bring as a flashpoint all the issues I’ve discussed into the public domain.

STOURTON: So would you come out? I mean if that happened, would you then lift the cloak of anonymity?

ANONYMOUS MP 2: Yes, I mean… I would not vote with the government for any further bailouts. 13

STOURTON: You’d resign and speak your mind?

ANONYMOUS MP 2: Yes.

STOURTON: Almost everyone now accepts that the crisis in the Eurozone is bound to lead to changes in the way Europe works – certainly changes in the way members of the Eurozone itself manage their affairs. The Chancellor, George Osborne, has even suggested that Eurozone countries should integrate their economies even further in a fiscal union.

STOURTON: But what will that mean for us? Until a new order has been hammered out in Europe it is quite impossible to answer that question with any certainty.

Some, like Mark Seddon, argue it’s bound to force us to confront the so-called existential question – in or out.

SEDDON: When you have the Chancellor George Osborne talking about the likelihood of a new treaty in the next two years - I think it would be almost impossible for the political parties to ignore the demand for a referendum this time round. If the next stage is greater integration I don’t think governments can keep on ignoring what people want

STOURTON: Others, like Norman Lamont, can envisage a very different consequence.

LAMONT: I got in terrible trouble at a Conservative Party conference when I’d just ceased to be Chancellor and I made a speech saying that one day Britain might have to choose. If Europe became a federal Europe, we would not want be part of it and we would have to leave. People thought I had said we must leave, but actually I was just saying if Europe develops in this direction, then we would have to think about leaving. I think now if Europe went in the direction of full fiscal integration, perhaps you don’t have to do anything. You’re saying goodbye to them anyway because you’re not participating. This is a way in which you leave. They go off in a completely different direction and you have just an economic relationship to which you may have to make some adjustment. But the problem solves itself. You say goodbye, we’re not participating in this.

STOURTON: Which gets David Cameron off a very awkward hook?

LAMONT: Yes, yes. 14

STOURTON: In formal terms Britain will have a veto over any changes which need to be agreed by the full EU rather than just the Eurozone members. And in diplomatic terms Britain often has more clout than at first appears; it is just too big a player for other members of the EU to ignore altogether, and the opt-out from the Euro which Lord Lamont helped secure at Maastricht is a testament to that.

Europe will change after this crisis - Britain’s relationship with it will change too. And the Eurosceptic character of today’s Tory party is likely to have a big impact on the way that happens. But the one thing those reluctant rebels who dare not speak their names almost certainly won’t get is a knock-down fight over whether we stay in or come out.