Elections fail to douse Eurosceptic fire

Date: 09/05/1996

By Geoff Meade

IF the British prime minister thought the governing Conservative Party's dismal showing in the local elections last week would silence the Tory Eurosceptics, he had, as the saying goes, better think again.

The scale of defeat was not enough to threaten John Major with an early departure from the Tory leadership. But that will be little comfort to a beleaguered prime minister whose party's anti-European faction is now launched on a new and seemingly unstoppable bout of hysteria.

The sceptics firmly believe their tactics are an election winner in a country newly fired-up with anti-EU sentiment because of the continuing row over the ban on UK beef exports, while Major believes he avoided wipe-out at the polls despite - and not because of - the rabid anti-

European feeling in his party.

Now is the time to bury divisions, he warns, before the Tories are swept away by a tide of rhetoric over Europe. And he has made it clear there will be no more concessions to the Eurosceptics in the run-up to the next general election, due in April or May 1997 if his current administration survives its full term despite its precarious hold on power with only a one-seat majority in the British parliament.

The local elections results were little short of devastating for the government and the only comfort for Major was that he had expected an even worse showing - allowing ministers to portray the results as a sign that the relentless fall in the government's popularity had “bottomed out” and claim a comeback was now on the cards.

Major's difficulty now lies in assessing whether losing 567 out of 1,016 local council seats across England last week is evidence of a British electorate crying out for domestic political change after 17 years of Conservative government, or whether Europe - which has already claimed one Tory leader since the UK joined the Union - is about to claim the entire party.

Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine has appealed to Conservative MPs to end the “political madness” and “lunacy” which is splitting the party. Continuing rifts over Europe are tantamount to political suicide, he has warned.

Heseltine might as well be talking to himself: the world-wide ban on British beef has given the hard-core Eurosceptics just the excuse they needed to lead a wholesale campaign for the UK to pull out of Europe. And it is an issue on which they believe they can carry a majority with them.

Concepts such as a single currency, the social chapter on workers' rights and a maximum 48-hour working week 'imposed' by Brussels are one thing: their merits can be and are argued backwards and forwards in the UK across party and cultural divides.

But a devastating all-out trade blockade on an entire sector of industry without any obvious justification (in the eyes of most British people) is something for which few can evince a cogent pro-EU case.

It has been a gift to the Eurosceptics and one they have unwrapped with delight.

The local elections have not put them off their stride - far from it.

Heseltine has warned them that if they continue to pour fuel on the flames of the debate within the Conservative Party over Europe, they will hand the Labour Party an election victory and pitch the UK into the kind of social Europe that the sceptics claim they are fighting to avoid.

French European Affairs Minister Michel Barnier agrees. He warned this weekend that anti-Union rhetoric would lead to more electoral defeats for the Conservatives and urged Major not to allow “the desire to protect oneself or to please a few ultras” to carry the day.

But the rebels, now in full battle cry, are even less likely to listen to a foreigner than they are to their own party - and at the moment they are listening to no one.

Instead, they continue to insist they are the party's real saviours.

John Major may have held on to the leadership despite the local election rout because he did not lose that battle as decisively as many feared.

But now he is in serious danger of losing the war.

The question remains: is Europe an election loser for the Tories, or just an irritating side-show?