unique and thus a referendum was required. I said:
To use the referendum device at all is to ask the question: to what category of measure should referenda apply? Presumably the answer would be: in cases of constitutional change. But it is hard to define such a change in the British tradition because so much depends on convention and precedent.
A referendum may, however, become acceptable if given a proper constitutional foundation — that is to say, if the conditions under which it could be used were defined. But that would mean, like many other democratic countries, going as far as a written constitution or at least part of the way. The implications for parliamentary sovereignty are profound. But if our sense of constitutional rules and conventions is weakening, there may come a time when some such course should be considered.
Although there are some other passages of that speech with which I would not now agree, these assertions still seem a good starting point for consideration of the case for a referendum on, say, the Maastricht Treaty or a single European currency.[43] What I had not grasped at this time, though some others had, was that the conditions for a referendum which I had outlined had more or less already been met. The subordination of UK law to European Community law, which flowed from accession to the Treaty of Rome and which both successive treaty changes and the practices of Community institutions would accelerate,
The Commons passed the proposal for a referendum by 312 votes to 248. But it was the outcome of the debate on Wednesday 9 April on the substantive issue of continued EEC membership which was a foretaste of things to come: Ayes 396, Noes 170. From now on until Thursday 5 June, the day set for the referendum, the formidable power of business, the leaderships of both parties and the wider, respectable establishment combined to extol the merits of Community membership, to elaborate fears of job losses, to warn of a third world war originating in intra-European conflict and to ridicule the odd combination of Labour left-wingers and Tory reactionaries which constituted the ‘No’ lobby. The ‘Yes’ campaign was well organized and very well funded — not least as a result of the efforts of Alistair McAlpine, whom I would shortly recruit to be Conservative Party Treasurer. For all the talk of a ‘great debate’ it was really a contest between David and Goliath, which Goliath won. The substantial issues often went by default.
Most distasteful of all to me was the patent opportunism of the Labour leadership. The ‘renegotiation’ of Britain’s terms of entry, which had been concluded in March at the Dublin European Council where a special ‘Financial Mechanism’ had been agreed to prevent Britain shouldering too heavy a financial burden, was simply not serious: the mechanism was never triggered and so never yielded a penny piece. Yet the booklet distributed to all households by the Government abandoned all of the Euro-sceptical rhetoric which Labour, particularly the Foreign Secretary Jim Callaghan, had employed at the general election. It contained such assurances as:
As a result of these negotiations the Common Market’s agricultural policy (known as CAP) now works more flexibly to the benefit of both housewives and farmers in Britain… Under the previous terms, Britain’s contribution to the Common Market budget imposed too heavy a burden on us. The new terms ensure that Britain will pay a fairer share… There was a threat to employment in Britain from the movement in the Common Market towards an Economic and Monetary Union… This threat has been removed… To say that membership could force Britain to eat Euro-bread or drink Euro-beer is nonsense… It is the Council of Ministers, and not the Market’s officials, who take the important decisions.
I duly launched the Conservative pro-Market campaign at the St Ermin’s Hotel, at a press conference presided over by Ted Heath, even describing myself as ‘the pupil speaking before the master’. I spoke in my constituency and elsewhere. I contributed an article on the eve of poll to the
Missing: one Tory Leader. Answers to the name of Margaret Thatcher. Mysteriously disappeared from the Market Referendum Campaign eleven days ago. Has not been seen since. Will finder kindly wake her up and remind her she is failing the nation in her duty as Leader of the Opposition?
Some of this was undoubtedly being fed to the press by people who had other axes to grind at my expense. But Alistair McAlpine, a supporter soon to become a friend, was sufficiently concerned to tell Willie Whitelaw that I should take a more active role. Unfortunately, on the prearranged day for me to hold a press conference at Central Office as part of the campaign, Edward du Cann, the 1922 Committee Chairman, came out with a call for a ‘No’ vote in the referendum. I learned about this shortly before I had to face the press. Caught between Edward Scylla and Edward Charybdis, I had to weave and tack rather than steer directly towards Brussels.
The referendum result itself was no surprise, with 67 per cent voting ‘Yes’ and 33 per cent ‘No’. Less predictable were the effects on the political scene as a whole. The result was a blow to the left of the Labour Party; and Harold Wilson, whose cunning tactical ploy the whole exercise had been, used it to move Tony Benn from Industry, where he had proved a political liability, to Energy where his scope for mischief was more limited. For the Conservatives, it was naturally Ted and his friends who won most of the plaudits. I myself paid tribute to him in the House. He made no response. That came later.
Soon the press was full of accounts of Ted’s earlier meeting with me at Wilton Street, but given in such a way as to suggest that I had not made a serious offer to him to join the Shadow Cabinet. These stories were accompanied by suggestions that he now intended to use the position gained through the referendum campaign to make his way back — presumably at my expense — to power. Ted’s ambitions were his own affair. But at least the real facts about the Wilton Street meeting should be known. Consequently, I told them to George Hutchinson of
No doubt Ted’s hopes were buoyed up by two other things. First, I could not fail to be aware that all sorts of well-informed commentators were predicting that my tenure of the leadership would not last; indeed, that I would be gone by Christmas. Secondly, the deepening economic crisis into which a combination of the Heath Government’s earlier financial irresponsibility and the Wilson Government’s present anti-enterprise policies were plunging Britain might conceivably lead to that National Government on which Ted’s prospects were deemed to ride. And perhaps too, the introduction of proportional representation might keep a centrist coalition in power — and people like me out of it — permanently.
In fact, the chances of any of this happening were less than the commentators imagined. It was not just that I had no intention of relinquishing the leadership, nor even that Tory backbenchers were unprepared to tolerate Ted’s return. Neither was there any prospect of a shrewd, self-assured politician like Harold Wilson stepping aside gracefully to allow the sort of self-important figures he despised a free hand to sort Britain’s problems out. If he went he would do so on his terms and at his timing: this of course is what subsequently occurred.[44] A further aspect not widely grasped at the time was that, for all the criticism levelled at me for my alleged failure to beat the European drum with sufficient vigour, I emerged from the campaign as a unifying figure for the Party. The anti-Market Tory MPs felt no bitterness towards me. The majority of backbenchers also felt very much as I did about Europe, viewing it as a framework within which Britain could prosper rather than a crusade. The issue of whether Britain should or should not be a member of the European Community had been settled for the foreseeable future. But the real question now was what
Two short foreign visits which I made in the course of the European referendum campaign provided me with food for thought. At the end of April I visited Luxembourg and attended the European Assembly, which was already demanding to be termed a ‘Parliament’. A lacklustre debate on some trivial issue was in progress, after
