MR WILSON AS STRATEGIST PARTY FACTIONS, PUBLIC OPINION IN E.E.C. VOTE

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33775, 22 February 1975, Page 14

MR WILSON AS STRATEGIST PARTY FACTIONS, PUBLIC OPINION IN E.E.C. VOTE

I By

KEITH OVEN DEM

Many people in Britain who have demanded a coalition Government in the last year have overlooked a simple fact. They already hate one.

The Labour Party can best be understood as a restless coalition of different interests and purposes. Mr Wilson, at least, lias never had any doubts about this.

i His long and sometimes 1 ' i amazingly skilful balancing act on the pinnacle of the party can be attributed to this understanding. Nowhere can it be better observed than in his handling of the. tricky problem of Britain’s I membership of the European I Economic Community.

Mr Wilson’s enthusiasm for membership of the E.E.C. in 1966 contrasts wildlv — as his critics I never tire of pointing out — with his deep opposition to it in 1971, and this in turn seems in contradiction to his cautious approval of membership at present. ; These changes in attitude. ; reflect shifts in the coalition he leads, and leadership re- < mains his principal object. All the manoeuvres of the! last 12 months can be; I understood if they are seen in this light. Fundamentally,, IMr Wilson probably still ; ’wants Britain to remain a full member of the E.E.C. •Unions opposed

Some of the leading figures in the trade unions that are an organic part of the Labour Party are deeply opposed, as are some of Mr Wilson’s senior colleagues, without whom his government would be impossible: Mr Peter Shore, at the Board of Trade, for example Mr Anthony WedgwoodBenn at the Department of Industrv, and Mr Michael Foot, at the Department of Employment, along . with about 60 of their followers on the back benches.

Against this, others of Mr Wilson’s government team are equally strongly committed for membership. The Home Sacretary (Mr Jenkins) resigned as deputy leader of the party to ex- , press his view in 1971. Mrs Shirley Williams, Minister for Prices and Consumer Atfairs, threatens to leave public life altogether if Labour pulls out of the E.E.C.

The Minister of Education (Mr Prentice) and Mr Roy Hattersley, who is responsible at the Foreign Office for the renegotiations in Brussels, were both active in the Labour Committee for Europe during the years in Opposition. They, together with 60 or so back-bench • followers, defied the party (Whips in 1971 to vote with the Conservative GovernIment on European member-. ship. The- balance in the party is a fine one. I Opinion polls

Added to this there is the (view of the public. Mr Wilson is almost painfully aware of public opinion. The M.0.R.1. organisation conducts opinion polls regularly, and privately tor Transport House (the Labour Party headquarters), and Mr Wilson is the first to see their reports each week. In both of the 1 97 f,,.® !ec * tion campaigns Mr Wilson relied heavily on these polls and was guided in their interpretation by Mr Bernard Donaghue, then a senior lecturer in politics at the London School of Economics, and a prominent historian of the Laborr movement.

Mr Donaghue now directs a “think tank” that works directly for Mr Wilson mi side 10 Downing Street, and concentrates mainly on j party affairs and public (opinion. ■ The evidence of the polls is that a majority of the British people does not feel all that sanguine about the E.E.C. Rightly or wrongly, most people think that membership of the Community is largely responsible for inflation — now running at around 22 per cent a year — and even those who declare themselves in favour of membership often do so in spite of perceived economic disadvantages. Mr Wilson does not ignore public opinion if he thinks it ; is strong enough to lose him the next election. He likes ; being- Prime Minister more than anything else. I It is tc meet these problems of party and public that the Prime Minister has ! devised his strategy. First, (public opinion must Be as'suaged, if not changed,' by I improving the terms of membership negotiated under Mr Heath. Mr Wilson’s detractors argue that this process is purely ' for(mal, that the renegotiated terms will be hardly any different, but that Mr Wilson wiF. proclaim them to be a

great triumph, and thereby,: .hoodwink the public intob , I acceptance. Such arguments reveal a'' > profound ■ misunderstanding : ot the Labour coalition in i , government. Renegotiated , terms will have to get i through the Cabinet, and: Messrs Shore. Benn and Foot i ( , will make quite sure that any . alterations in the terms have (to be meaningful. Hence the ! I protracted nature of the < q Brussels meetings. They are '; a very serious business in- , deed. i Second, the question of 'membership will be put to. 1 tbe test of a referendum.. Again, the nature of the coa-b lition is illustrated. Mr Wil-! son probably does not like the idea of a referendum. In 1 last year’s elections he promised either a referen- .1 dum or an election, and hep would personally prefer the latter. But his Cabinet is divided, and if he was to keep < the coalition together, a, referendum it had to be. 1 This most public of polls J pis to take place/ after the 1 renegotiations are completed, j' I probably some time in the I second half of June. It willi I be a one-off affair, requiring! i a special Act of Parliament : Ito give it effect, and ap White Paper before that to I' I spell out the procedures for p | holding the ballot and|; icounting the votes. ’ h (Result not binding . The result of the referen- , dum will not be binding, but] (Mr Wilson has already told t , I the House that he does not imagine that members will . feel able to go against the i ; expressed will of the people. ( [The prob.em now is that noone quite knows what this , ! means. Suppose that only 40 per cent bother to vote? Orb 'the turnout is very large. , (but splits, say, 52-48 against membership? Or the turnout ( (is moderate, say 66 per cent, , and splits 60-40 for member- i ship? Further, Mr Wilson has ■ | indicated that the rule of • Cabinet responsibility requir- ' ing all members to support i Jin public the pronounced t (policy of the Government < i will be placed in abeyance < for the duration of the de- < ■ bate leading up to the refer t ,'enduns. There will, therefore, be no “Government policy” on the issue in the normal , meaning of the term. There ( will be several policies: one j against (Mr Shore is so c • deeply antagonistic that . . even the most successful of , , renegotiations would still | leave him on the side of re- j jection); one in favour j ’ (those who were prepared to vote for the Rippon/Heath , . terms will surely support ; the new ones, whatever they < are); and one populist, that!) it is for the people to de- 1 tide, and for the Government to give effect to their ? wishes. < Will not this referendum f become a precedent for fut- j ure ones, on, say, national i (devolution for Scotland? r (What will become of the < I constitutional convention of j [ collective Cabinet respon- v

isibility if it is breached so j completely on this occasion ’ iWhat will be the status of the constitutional theory of (the supremacy of Parliament if the House of Commons chooses to be guided by a referendum rather than by jthe beliefs of a majority of ■ its members? There are answers to •these questions, although ; they vary in the degree of satisfaction they give Other referenda Referenda are not new: several have been held in (Northern Ireland (which is Jan organic part of the (United Kingdom, as the J loyalists never tire of telling us”) in recent years. Collective Cabinet responsibility has been frequently breached in the past by the judicious (use of the leak, or the swift publication of memoires and diaries. In 19€9 it was a poor i commentator who did no< know exactly which Cabinet Ministers were for. and (which against, Mrs Castle’s | ill-fated trade union legistaition. ’ It is well known that 'some members of the Commons slavishly follow public opinion on issues where (they have a free vote, but (anyway, has not voting (behaviour in the House failed to conform to the i principle of Parliamentary sovereignty ever since the rise of powerful party machines in the late nineteenth century? There are gaps in all of these arguments, but they do help to show that the issue of a referendum is not as revolutionary a step as might be thought. As far as Mr Wilson is (concerned most of this is not central. The referendum is not until June, perhaps even later, and the dissension in the Cabinet has been staved off until then. His main purpose remains to (preserve .he coalition and to i stay on as Prime Minister. [Thus, if the public pronounce a resounding “no” in the referendum he will no doubt turn his back on Europe for the time being, and set about building an alternative set of trade alliances. Prospect for N.Z. It is here that the recent warm reception in London for the New Zealand Prime Minister (Mi Rowling) takes on its significance. If Britain leaves the E.E.C towards the end of this year, then every ounce of produce from New Zealand will-look good in Britain. But if the public seems to want to bury the hatchet, and stay in the European Community, then Mr Rowling’s recent reception will be neither here nor there. The New Zealand Prime Minister should “be quite clear that if Mr Wilson ever finds it necessary or expedient to throw him to the wolves, then he will. You do not stay 12 years at the top of British politics, or any ’politics for that matter, without knowing that.

Dr Keith Ovendea. the writer of this article, recently joined the political science department at the University of Canterbury as a senior lecturer. Before that he was a lecturer in politics at the University of Essex and a regular contributor to English newspapers.