The tabloid agenda
Gordon Brown is coming to town. Finally. Well, perhaps. A fortnight before Christmas, the prime minister is due in Brussels for the first time since he came to power in the summer. But don’t expect ho-ho-hos and a sack full of prezzies. Oh no, because the Yuletide Eurostar visitor is a grumpy and reluctant participant in Brussels politicking.
As British chancellor for a decade, Brown acquired some notoriety among EU elites for his regular absenteeism from the sessions of EU finance and economics ministers and he has inaugurated his premiership in a similar vein: his policies on Europe are more notable for boycotts, snubs, and criticism than any enthusiastic embrace. The result, in Brussels, is the return of that hoary old chestnut – what to do about Britain. One official, from a northern country usually sympathetic to the British view on Europe, has told his government that Brown is probably the most eurosceptic British leader since Mrs Thatcher was in her prime.
And it’s easy to see why. When Nicolas Sarkozy became president of France in May, he was in Brussels within days, a whirlwind of energy, statements, and bonhomie designed to wake up the rest of Europe and declare “France is back.” Ditto for the German leaders when they came into office. British officials are keen to point out that when Brown became prime minister in July, his first trips abroad were to Berlin and Paris, not Washington, as evidence of his Europhile tendency. But he has still not been to Brussels, and his new European policy adviser, John Cunliffe, is also keeping an extremely low profile in the European capital while combining the Europe brief with other functions. Not a lot of enthusiasm there.
The big European set piece of the Brown era has been Tony Blair’s final EU summit in June which agreed to draft the new European reform treaty replacing or replicating the defunct European constitution. From the sidelines in London, Brown railed against elements of the treaty and ordered Blair to confront Sarkozy. At least that’s what the Brown spin doctors said. The Brown premiership started with attacks on Europe and the rightwing papers applauded.
Then Brown went to Lisbon in October to another EU summit to sign up to the treaty. He waxed Churchillian in his assertion of “Britishness” with nary a good word to say about the treaty he was endorsing. All the emphasis was on Britain’s “red lines,” defending the “national interest.” If you are defending Britishness, it is presumably under attack from someone, somewhere. In Brown’s eyes, Europe.
The Sun, however, was not fooled. It delivered a broadside, a declaration of war on Brown’s Europe polices: “The PM transformed the lavish banquet [in Lisbon] into a sordid Last Supper for Britain as an independent sovereign state. It was an act of betrayal which will haunt the Prime Minister for the rest of his political days.”
Strong words, and a strong indication of Rupert Murdoch’s expectations of the prime minister. The warning came despite Brown’s best efforts to appease the red tops. We British reporters covering the Lisbon summit ran a sweepstake betting on how many times Brown would defend Britain. This reporter wagered on seven – and lost pathetically. At his post-summit press conference, the prime minister invoked the defense of British interests 20 times. You would have thought the Wehrmacht was at Dunkirk and closing in on Dover. But if the jingoism was meant to keep The Sun and The Mail happy, it clearly failed: “He will live to regret breaking his promise,” The Sun threatened.
The serial exemptions and exclusions Britain has obtained in the new treaty make the country more detached from a Europe of 27 member states than, arguably, it has ever been. Yet the tabloid-fuelled vitriol of the British Europhobes is unabating, generating a growing sense that eventually the UK will have to put up or shut up and decide properly whether it wants to be part of the EU or not; that a referendum, not on the merits or otherwise of the new treaty, but on Europe in-or-out, might be the best medicine for the UK’s Europeanitis.
Downing Street’s latest attempt to burnish Brown’s eurosceptic credentials with the tabloids came a few weeks ago when David Miliband went to Belgium to deliver the first big speech on European policy since becoming foreign secretary. The young cabinet minister is a bit of a closet euro-enthusiast, although his speech was measured and mildly critical of the EU. The Miliband machine leaked bits of the speech to The Guardian in advance.
The Brown machine responded the next day by bragging to The Sun and The Times, both Murdoch papers, how the prime minister had tamed the foreign secretary’s euro-zeal and toned down the speech. Indeed, bits of the Miliband speech were rewritten after Brown intervened. That is fair enough. The prime minister is quite entitled to review the first big exposition of his government’s policy on Europe. But the briefing and the counter-briefing to selected journalists appeared unnecessary and was clearly intended by the Brown entourage to keep the eurosceptic papers on side.
Next week, Brown will again be isolated in Europe. While the heads of state and government from some 80 countries convene again in Lisbon for the first EU-Africa summit in seven years, Brown will stay at home because the summit is sullied by the presence of Robert Mugabe, the ageing Zimbabwe dictator.
The red tops will applaud. And Britain will have missed another chance in Europe.
Ian Traynor is Europe Editor of The Guardian based in Brussels
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