Labour ‘divided’ over euro
The Labour Party is deeply divided over the issue of Britain’s possible membership of the single currency, the former Conservative prime minister John Major has claimed.
Speaking in a radio interview this morning, Mr Major said that the Conservative Party was not the only political force with internal strongly opposing views on monetary union.
His comments come after Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted that there was an ’emerging consensus’ within the Cabinet over the issue of potential British membership of the single currency.
Addressing journalists yesterday, Mr Blair said that on-going trilateral discussions between individual cabinet ministers, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor were proving ‘serious and detailed’.
Each member of the cabinet had made clear their support for the principle of joining the single currency, but agreed on the need to ensure that the UK economic conditions were right for entry, he said.
And he insisted that the UK would continue to push for a central role in driving ahead economic reform within the European itself.
However, speaking this morning on BBC Radio Four’s ‘Today’ programme, Mr Major cast doubt on his successor’s assurances.
‘The European Union has always been a very divisive subject, but the great fiction in politics over the last 10 years has been that it is only the Conservative Party who were divided on the issue’, the former MP for Huntingdon remarked. ‘That has never been the case.’
‘Now the Government are coming to the point of making decisions rather than just making friendly sounding noises about Europe. It is becoming clear about how very deep the divisions are in the Labour Party as well – from the very top right through the party.’
The former Prime Minister said that his own views on the euro during his time in office were now shared by Chancellor Gordon Brown.
And he suggested that division between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor on the issue of the euro ran much deeper than some may think.
‘My view in the mid 1990s was that the case was certainly not proven and that we needed an economic cycle to find out. I suspect that my view then, much derided at the time by the Labour Party, is almost precisely the view that the present Chancellor of the Exchequer has’, he maintained.
‘My view has always been that my gut instincts are not to like it very much but intellectually I can see that the euro might be in the net interests of the British economy – once we are clear how it is going to work and once we have been through a complete economic cycle.’
‘If it is in the net interests of the British economy, then any British government will have to consider very seriously joining it, and probably join. My feeling is that one day we will join the euro but I don’t think it would be wise to do so at this time’.
He stressed: ‘I am certainly not a fundamentalist who says we should never join.’
Mr Major’s comments come after former minister Peter Mandelson claimed earlier this week that Mr Blair had been ‘out-manoeuvred’ on the euro by what he described as an ‘obsessed’ Gordon Brown.
The former Cabinet Minister also warned that a failure to hold a referendum on the single currency would be ‘damaging’ for Mr Blair.
The Treasury’s assessment on the five euro tests is due to be unveiled in the Commons on June 9th.
The Chancellor is widely expected to deliver a ‘not yet’ verdict, though debate remains rife over whether or not he might also rule out a the option of a referendum later in the parliament.
