WELCOME back, Kenneth Clarke. As a pro-European, I rejoice at his return to frontline politics. A fortnight ago, William Hague elbowed aside George Osborne to use the word “never” about our membership of the single currency. The Shadow Chancellor is nominally in charge of opposition policy on matters to do with sterling. However, so dominant is Hague’s position in the increasingly anti-Europe Tory Party that he felt able to pronounce on Britain and the euro.
But Ken Clarke has been a consistently pro-euro politician, speaking up for the single currency when Tony Blair dared not mention its name and finding good things to say about Europe at the time when the anti-euro Treasury briefed against it.
In fact, since Edward Heath left the House of Commons it is hard to think of a more pro-Europe politician of Clarke’s seniority on the Tory side. As a smooth, clever lawyer who hides a keen intellect behind his rough-and-ready Nottingham bloke persona, he will have plenty of patter to deal with the likes of Jeremy Paxman as they tease him over his pro-European views in a party that remains solidly hostile to the EU.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats have their share of Eurosceptics, ranging from the downright hostile to those cautious and suspicious. But hostility to Europe among Tory MPs who have been elected since 1997 is a constant. So here are some of the questions about Tory policy that Clarke might be asked:
- Does he support breaking all links with other centre-right parties in Europe after the European elections?
- Does he agree with David Cameron’s pledge that a Conservative government “will hold a referendum on any EU treaty” even though Parliament has ratified it?
- Does he agree that Britain should rule out euro entry in perpetuity?
- Does he still hold to his view expressed on the BBC’s Politics Show that Cameron needs to “decide that being a more extreme Eurosceptic than any of his predecessors is not the best way to launch himself on the international scene”?
- Does he agree with President Obama’s view that Cameron is a “lightweight”, expressed after the Tory leader ranted against Europe in his meeting with Obama last summer?
- Does he support the Tory Party’s refusal to expel or discipline candidates, MPs, MEPs and councillors who make unpleasant remarks about Europeans?
- Does he think Hague’s xenophobic jibes at France and Germany are good preparation for an incoming Foreign Secretary?
- Does he welcome the return of a fellow pro-European, Peter Mandelson, to British politics? Mandelson is a low-tax, pro-business, anti-protectionist, pro-EU politician, so why attack him?
Clarke’s comeback gives Labour an opportunity to highlight the bankrupt isolationist nature of current Tory international thinking. For 20 years, ever since Margaret Thatcher’s Bruges attack on Europe, the Conservatives have become increasingly hostile to the EU.
Shortly before his election as Tory leader, David Cameron told me:“I am much more Eurosceptic than you imagine.” I have no reason to doubt his word.
The Tories are currently in alliance only with Vladimir Putin’s lapdog party in the Council of Europe. This time last year, they were trying to install an ex-KGB staffer as president of Europe’s main human rights body. The modern Conservatives are the most isolationist and anti-internationalist of any mainstream global centre-right party.
Bringing back Ken Clarke adds experience to the Tory front bench though his brutal handling of teachers and doctors when he was in charge of education and health is still resented. But on the core dividing ideology of European and international politics, Clarke and Cameron are hardly in the same book, let alone on the same page.
Denis MacShane is Labour MP for Rotherham
