Roger Liddle sees himself as an evangelist for Europe. This book’s target reader, he says at the beginning, is ‘the genuine sceptic, in the true meaning of the Oxford Dictionary of English – “a person inclined to question or doubt accepted opinions”’. But, however much Liddle tries to cast himself as an outsider, this is essentially an establishment book, albeit an old pro-European Foreign Office establishment, as the accolades from Stephen Wall, Peter Riddell and Julian Priestley at its front tell you.
Nevertheless, the book is written against a backdrop of increasing anti-European rhetoric from the Tories, the rise of the United Kingdom Independence party and David Cameron’s promise of a referendum in 2017.
Liddle left Labour in 1981 to join the Social Democratic party and came to be a huge fan of Roy Jenkins. He returned to Labour in 1994 under Tony Blair, who, Liddle relates, tried to persuade him to stay with the Liberal Democrats. And he describes himself now as a ‘committed New Labourist’.
He is intimately knowledgeable about Labour wrangles over Europe. We are reminded that Labour saw itself as an internationalist party: Clement Attlee believed his greatest achievement was Indian independence, and Labour was more interested in being head of the Commonwealth and a leading backer of the United Nations. Liddle recounts Herbert Morrison’s refusal to sign up to the Schumann Declaration, giving Europe control over mining and steel, because ‘the Durham miners won’t wear it.’ We are reminded of Hugh Gaitskell’s refusal to support entry into the common market, Harold Wilson’s U-turn on Europe in 1971, and the divisions over Europe which led to the formation of the SDP. Although the right of the Labour party has traditionally been more sympathetic to the European project than the left, it has also been drawn to the United States. Blair had flashes of Euro-enthusiasm, but when push came to shove he was firmly and instinctively on America’s side over Iraq.
Despite these betrayals, Liddle is a firm believer. His recipe for the future includes the possibility of joining a euro mark II, apprenticeships to a German standard, climate change controls, more regional sharing, and a European digital strategy. He also suggests Britain should have a secretary of state for Europe and a new mechanism for reviewing decisions taken in Brussels.
As a pro-European I am conflicted about this book. The great emotional argument for Europe was that it would stop war. Yet those leaders who remember the second world war are mostly dead. The world has changed out of all recognition since the fall of the Berlin Wall: Europe has expanded massively eastwards, Brussels has become less powerful and Berlin more so. The euro crisis is still playing out. We have lots in common with our neighbours, and have many more social rights than we would otherwise thanks to European Union membership, but the Jenkinsite Europe of building Europe from the Berlaymont outwards is over. Labour has still to work out its position. This is a timely contribution, but not yet the whole answer.
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Sally Gimson is a former news producer at Deutsche Welle TV in Berlin
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The Europe Dilemma: Britain and the Challenges of EU Integration
Roger Liddle
IB Tauris | 256pp | £14.99