Reported rift turning into British crisis

Press, 23 July 1986, Page 12

Reported rift turning into British crisis

NZPA-Reuter London Widespread reports of a rift between the British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, and the Queen, are turning the South African crisis into a British crisis. The reported rift over sanctions and the Commonwealth has swept away interest in Britain in the broader issue of South Africa and replaced it with talk of a constitutional crisis and a plot to unseat Mrs Thatcher. Unusually for royalist Britain, there is also talk of the Queen overstepping her mark, with suggestions that she may be straining her subjects’ loyalty by putting the Commonwealth before her own country. The row stems from newspaper reports that

the Queen is alarmed that the Commonwealth, of which she is also the head, could break up over the issue of sanctions against South Africa. “The Sunday Times” went further and quoted unnamed advisers of the Queen as saying she was not only critical of Mrs Thatcher’s stand against sanctions but was also dismayed at the latter’s “uncaring, confrontational and socially divisive” approach to domestic politics. Despite an unqualified denial by the Queen’s press secretary, Mr Michael Shea, “The Sunday Times” story has taken on a life of its own, spawning front-page stories and editorials in newspapers and comment on television and radio. “The Times” suggested

that the story was leaked as a plot to get rid of Mrs Thatcher. But other newspapers said that if the reports were true the Queen and her advisers were on dangerous ground. The reported row between the two was set against the backdrop of a boycott of the Commonwealth Games, which are due to start in Edinburgh tomorrow. The Queen will try to patch up the row in the Commonwealth when she gives a dinner for Government leaders at a minisummit meeting in London on August 2. In contrast to Mrs Thatcher, who is dismissive of the politics of many of its members, the Queen is known to place great importance on her role as head of the Commonwealth.

The editor of “The Sunday Times,” Mr Andrew Neil, stuck to his story yesterday and said his Palace sources were "unimpeachable ... people who are without question in a position to know what the Queen thinks.” Some politicians said Britain had the makings of a constitutional crisis, a view reflected by several newspapers. The mass circulation “The Star” said the Queen' and her. advisers had no right to interfere in politics. * The conventions of Britain’s unwritten constitution give the monarch the right to be consulted, to encourage and to warn. The perceived attempt by the Queen’s advisers to undermine Mrs Thatcher over the Commonwealth was interpreted as interference. "Unless something is

said authoritatively by. the Queen, then there could be a constitutional crisis,” said a Conservative member of Parliament, Anthony Beaumont-Dark. “I do not always agree with my own Government on the conduct of policy but whoever the Prime Minister is has the right, until replaced by the people, to govern without interference by the head of State. “It would be insufferable if the Crown now thought that the Commonwealth was more important than England,” he said. Reflecting the delicate divide between the Queen’s dual roles, letterwriters to the “The Times” and “Daily Telegraph” emphasised that Britain’s interests came before the Commonwealth.

“If the sovereign should now support the Commonwealth against the advice of the British Government an intolerable strain upon one’s loyalty could result,” one wrote to "The Times.” Few people appeared willing to believe that there was no disagreement between Mrs Thatcher and the Queen. Some noted that the form of the Palace denial — “Reports purporting to be the Queen’s opinions of Government policies are entirely without foundation” — did not actually say what the Queen thought A veteran politician, Enoch Powell, said he was convinced that the reports of the split between Mrs Thatcher and the Queen were an attempt to discredit the Prime Minister.

“It is an inside job. I’ve not the slightest doubt from the way the story was originally planted with the press,” Mr Powell said, adding that he believed the Queen was not to blame. ' “You might if you were a dirty dog try to get your object by suggesting a difference between the sovereign and her Ministers. But only a dirty dog would do that.” His views were echoed by “The Times,” which said Mrs Thatcher’s opponents inside the Conservative party had seized upon an opportunity to discredit her. “They hope that by using the extraordinary tactic of appearing to make Mrs Thatcher the target of Her Majesty’s scorn they can persuade the Conservative party to jettison her,” “The Times” said.

One of Mrs Thatcher’s former Junior Ministers, lan Gow, said he could not rule put the possibility that Conservative grandees had clubbed together with someone at the Palace to put across the story of the rift “That such grandees might have been in touch with a certain person at the Palace is something which I cannot exclude,” he said. But Mr Powell and anbther well-known constitutional expert, Norman St John Stevas, both denied suggestions that the Queen would ever seek to undermine one of her Prime Ministers. “This is one of. the silliest and most fabricated stories I have ever seen,” Mr St John Stevas said. “The Queen knows her constitutional position very we 11... the monarch never tries to leak in-

formation, half-private, half-public. That would make the Queen a partisan figure and gravely weaken the monarchy,” he said. Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative party is consistently trailing behind the main Opposition Labour party in opinion polls. In the latest test in a byelection last week the Tories were beaten into third place by Labour and the Centrist Social Demo-cratic-Liberal Alliance. Mrs Thatcher has until June, 1988, to hold elections. She indicated recently that she might go almost up to the post in a bid to string out her, second term, which has been marred by a succession of political crises. Despite her party’s poor rating, an opinion poll last week said the majority of Britons still believed she would win the next election.