Martin Kettle: Rupert Murdoch May Be the Man Who Saved Europe

Martin Kettle, in the Guardian (6-14-05)

Most of the time I don't buy into conspiracy theories. I no longer believe, for instance, that anyone shot JFK from the grassy knoll. Deep down I don't really think that Harold Wilson was the victim of an MI5 coup either. And I certainly don't believe the only reason why Gerry Adams isn't part of a power-sharing government in Belfast today is because the Special Branch will stop at nothing to prevent it.

In general, I hold more to the view of the historian AJP Taylor that, especially in times of great crisis, politicians stumble forward like generals in the proverbial fog of war. Where they emerge when the fog clears is often a complete surprise to them, though they will quickly claim the credit if things have gone well. Taylor made his remark about Disraeli's handling of the 1866-7 parliamentary reform crisis, but it applies just as readily to Tony Blair's handling of Europe, a policy that is now every bit as improvisatory as Disraeli's was on the franchise, and with scarcely more foreseeable consequences.

There is, though, one modern conspiracy theory that cannot be so readily dismissed. This is the suspicion that, in spring 2004, Rupert Murdoch made it clear to Blair that unless there was a British referendum on the European Union constitution, the Sun would switch support to the Conservatives in the 2005 general election - and that Blair, at one of the lowest points of his premiership, agreed to pay Murdoch's price to retain his paper's prized support.

Murdoch's emissary Irwin Stelzer has always denied that he made such a vulgar threat on behalf of his master. Well he would, wouldn't he? But you do not have to believe in a grand-guignol version of the encounter - with a devilish Stelzer peremptorily instructing a cringeing Blair to change the policy or else - in order to suspect that some sort of mutual understanding to this effect took shape when Murdoch's man visited Downing Street last year.

There are several compelling reasons for insisting on this. The first is that Blair had always previously been so absolutely adamant that there would not be a referendum. A second is that the referendum would (and may yet be) so politically lethal to him that Blair would naturally wish to avoid it. A third is that shortly after Stelzer's visit, Blair nevertheless carried out his extraordinary U-turn. And finally there is the abject conduct of the Sun during the 2005 election, suppressing every opportunity and instinct to humiliate a vulnerable Blair.

It is a powerful case. Certainly things could not have turned out much better for such a conspiracy. The EU constitution is out for the count. What is more, in an unanticipated triple bonus, the Chirac government is in crisis, the EU is in budgetary turmoil and there is the possibility of fractures in the eurozone...

...Quick as ever to scent the political opportunities of a new situation, Peter Mandelson turned up in London last night to deliver a Fabian lecture that attempted to define the elements of what he somewhat prematurely dubbed a "new consensus" for Europe. Mandelson's speech deserves respect though, not least because he went out of his way to distance his "social justice economy" model of Europe from the Gaullist (and old left) charge that Britain is promoting a transatlantic Anglo-Saxon model aimed at Americanising Europe.

Britain's EU commissioner is entitled to deny this lazy nonsense. It is high time that Blair's critics (including some of his Labour critics) faced up to the fact that New Labour's blueprint is quite distinct from any US model. It is far closer to Ludwig Erhard's postwar social market economy than it is to any modern American neoliberal model.

Mandelson was also right to warn Labour ministers against playing to the Thatcherite gallery over the EU budget. Yet the fact that he needed to do so was a reminder that the vaunted strengths of Blair's current position rest on fragile foundations. Post-Iraq, Blair has far less credibility as Europe's saviour than the current British tendency to talk him up implies. That he has so many of the right prescriptions for Europe but that he now lacks the authority to secure them is his self-inflicted tragedy.

The European debate, though, has rarely been as dynamic and interesting as it is today. Only good can come of this process in the end. It is by no means impossible that the anti-EU conspiracy may in the end have the unintended consequence of preserving the European project in a much more realistic shape than it would otherwise have had. Rupert Murdoch the man who saved Europe? AJP Taylor would have enjoyed that.