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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 27.09.92
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JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Well with such disaffection in the
ranks, what course will the Labour leadership steer in trying to hold the line
in favour of Maastricht? Last night I went to Blackpool where their conference
is about to start to find out from the Shadow Foreign Secretary.
Jack Cunningham, in your Party there are
sharp divisions of view about Maastricht, are you in favour or against the
Maastricht Treaty?
JACK CUNNINGHAM MP: I personally am in favour of the Treaty
and we made our position clear that the Conservative Government was in our
judgement wholly wrong to negotiate opt-outs on the Social Chapter and on
progress towards a single currency. That's why we couldn't vote for the Treaty
on Second Reading when it came before the House of Commons. But of course
there's a much bigger question mark against the future of the Treaty now and
that's the Danish rejection of it in their referendum. The French Yes
certainly doesn't erase the Danish No and before we can proceed with the weeks
of legislation in the House of Commons that position will have to be resolved.
DIMBLEBY: I come to the Danish question in just a
moment but you said we couldn't vote for the Treaty in the Second Reading, you
chose also not to oppose which I presumed was on the assumption that a Labour
Government, if it came to office, would be able to say we're going to opt back
in to those areas of the Treaty from which the Conservative Government opted
out.
CUNNINGHAM: Yes of course if Labour had won the
General Election we would have had a Bill before the House of Commons now to
approve the Maastricht Treaty but we should have wanted to include the Social
Chapter and Britain's involvement in progress towards a single currency. Now
of course we didn't win but the general arguments across Europe are for the
provisions of the Maastricht Treaty remain.
DIMBLEBY: Then if you are so committed to the
principle of the Treaty why say we're going to wait to see what the Danes do,
why not do what the Germans are doing and the French have done and saying we're
going to show where we stand. Why isn't that your position?
CUNNINGHAM: Because our position is that there's
simply no point in months of argument and debate in the House of Commons over a
Treaty which is frankly on a life support machine. John Smith and I have had
the advantage of long talks with several democratic colleagues in Denmark, it's
not at all clear that they or the Danish Conservatives have any idea of how
they're going to negotiate some appropriate means of Denmark ratifying the
Treaty. Since the Treaty of Rome can only be amended with unanimity there is
certainly a hiatous in this whole process.
DIMBLEBY: Does that mean that the French were
wasting their time with the referendum, that the Germans are about to waste
their time - by putting it through the Bundesbank?
CUNNINGHAM: No they must make their own decisions,
France has provision, constitutional arrangements to hold its referendum as do
the Irish - we don't. We and the Conservative Government made this decision
but Labour endorsed it at the time, decided to proceed by Parliamentary
scrutiny of the Bill and certainly that's the only way I believe we can
proceed, if indeed we are able to proceed at all.
DIMBLEBY: Now if you are able to proceed which I
presume from what you've said you very much hope you are able to proceed and
the Danes say we want a renegotiation - would you go along with that?
CUNNINGHAM: The Danes are trying to seek an
accommodation, I don't think there's going to be any renegotiation of the
Treaty after all the Germans and French have made it quite clear they're
against any renegotiation. All the Socialist Parties in Europe want the
Maastricht Treaty endorsed and put into practice, so I don't see any support
for renegotiation either coming from Conservative Government's in Europe or
Socialist Government's in Europe.
DIMBLEBY: But then that strikes me as extremely
confusing because you say you don't think there'll be any renegotiation, you're
in favour of the Treaty in the same way as the Germans are, they're going ahead
and making it clear and your saying "oh but no we don't want to waste our time
doing that we're going to wait and see what the Danes say".
CUNNINGHAM: Well I'm sorry if you find it confusing
John and I think the opposition is quite clear which is that until the Danish
problem is resolved the Treaty has no future. The Treaty of Rome requires
unanimity, there's clearly not unanimity. The Danish people have made a
decision and until that can be resolved - if indeed it can, I don't see any
argument, for as I've already said tying the House of Commons up in long
involved debates over a period of months when the whole thing might be
completely redundant.
DIMBLEBY: You see I have what you would probably
regard as a disreputable lurking suspicion which is that you're only too glad,
given the divisions in your Party, to allow the Danes to carry the can for you
not wanting to have to fight it through the House.
CUNNINGHAM: You say that but the National Executive
Committee has recently very clearly demonstrated its intentions in these
matters and the Shadow Cabinet has decided that we remain in favour of managed
exchange rates within the European Community. We don't support arguments for a
referendum although I've no doubt that will be debated again at conference this
week and we stick with our commitment towards a single European currency but it
wasn't us who derailed the Treaty in the first place.
DIMBLEBY: I'll come onto the referendum later, do
you agree with Roy Hattersley who said that from his point of view like you,
very much a pro-European, that he would not dream of allowing the defeat of the
Bill if when it comes before the House.
CUNNINGHAM: I'm not in favour of the defeat of the
Bill myself, I want to see the progress in the European Community as set out in
the Maastricht Treaty, which incidentally contrary to what's been said about it
in Article 2 gives a fundamental commitment to sustainable growth across the
Community, to improvements in standard of living and the quality of life of the
peoples of the Community, to major work on environmental safeguards and social
policy safeguards and safeguards for people who are employed. It has a whole
range of fundamental commitments which will be of major benefit.
DIMBLEBY: All these things you love and yet you're
letting the Danes four million..two million of them say well because we're not
happy with it we the great British Labour Party is prepared to say we don't
want to have it discussed in Parliament.
CUNNINGHAM: That's not fair, you're saying we are
letting the Danes, the Danes have the opportunity the same as every other
country to express an opinion on the Maastricht Treaty. They chose to do it
through a referendum which their Constitution provides for and it was rejected,
now that wasn't our decision.
DIMBLEBY: You said in passing just now that you're
in favour of the single currency still. You are unwavering given the
conditions which the Labour Party has set out before, unalterably in favour
of a single currency which means inevitably that you are in favour of the ERM
which is the mechanism by which the nations of Europe would reach a single
currency.
CUNNINGHAM: We reiterated this week our commitment
to manage exchange rates. I don't believe that the pound can survive, that we
can have a strong economy on our own outside the important developments which
are inevitably going to take place with the support of our European partners.
Of course we've put down our qualifications about the essential need for
economic convergence but you know there are some myths around about the
Exchange Rate Mechanism and some of them are being repeated by people who are
interviewed in your programme. Interest rates were at fifteen per cent before
the pound went into the ERM two years ago in October, the economy was already
in the deepest recession we've seen for sixty years so these claims that the
Exchange Rate Mechanism caused the recession or caused high interest rates
frankly fly in the face of the facts.
DIMBLEBY: Well the architect of the view that you
say flies in the face of the facts in your own Party is, he said in the film,
was of course Bryan Gould. Now he said that Britain went into the Exchange
Rate Mechanism at an over valued level, an "unsustainable rate" he's called it
and he says Labour would have been well advised to say so, what's your retort
to him on that point?
CUNNINGHAM: We've made it clear and John Smith made
it clear some weeks ago that the solution to that problem was a general
realignment of currencies within the Exchange Rate Mechanism. What emerged
tragically and astonishingly in the debate in the House of Commons this week
was that John Major and his Chancellor flatly rejected any consideration of
that option - it was a disastrous error on their part.
DIMBLEBY: You say that the Labour Party made
this all so clear. September the eleventh, Gordon Brown, Shadow Chancellor
now, let me report what he said - "Our policy is not one of devaluation, nor is
it one of revaluation or realignment".
CUNNINGHAM: John Smith and Gordon have made it clear
again and again that a managed realignment of all the currencies in the
Exchange Rate Mechanism offered a way out of the difficulties we faced.
DIMBLEBY: Forgive me on this Jack. One of the
things - just let me carry on....
CUNNINGHAM: Well, it's no good saying forgive me.
I'm trying to answer the question and if you want to ask another one you can do
so in a moment or two. What Gordon's ruling out, and what we've always ruled
out, is changes in the parity of Sterling alone. We didn't want that to
happen, we didn't believe it would solve the problems.
DIMBLEBY: But I'm sorry. Gordon Brown wasn't
saying that. He went on to say "One of the things the Germans may wish to
propose". This is the eleventh of September, only a few days before day zero.
"One of the few things the Germans may wish to propose is whether a realignment
of the currencies will bring interest rates down, there's no guarantee that
that would happen", says Gordon Brown, and - hang on - "it is not our policy".
CUNNINGHAM: It was an obvious way to deal with the
problem which the Conservatives rejected. Gordon was quite right to say there
was no guarantee that such a managed change within the Exchange Rate
Mechanism...
DIMBLEBY: And it was not our policy?
CUNNINGHAM: ...would bring interest rates down.
DIMBLEBY: And it was not our policy? Was he right
to say that?
CUNNINGHAM: It was an obvious option which was
available to John Major and Norman Lamont. They rejected it. They said one
week that there would be no change in the parity of Sterling, that Sterling
wouldn't leave the Exchange Rate Mechanism, they ruled out that option.
Sterling is out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism, in free-fall for a few days,
and there has been a significant devaluation.
DIMBLEBY: Okay. Let me ask you, from what you've
said is that those in your Party who you heard talking in the film, who you
don't, whose views you don't greatly care for, are not getting a lot of comfort
from what you are saying are they? You're still going to go down the ERM
single currency route, you still want to have Maastricht. You're saying to
them "lump it".
CUNNINGHAM: The National Executive's made its
position clear, so has the Shadow Cabinet. People are bound, as I have always
been in the ten years I've been in the Shadow Cabinet, by collective
responsibility. There have been occasions when I would not have been
recognised or described as wholly in favour of some of the policy decisions
that were taken, but I made my position clear. I accepted that the collective
responsibility which not only has to operate of course in Shadow Cabinets, but
would inevitably have to take effect in Government too.
Now, this week in Blackpool, Conference
will debate these issues. I hope it endorses the decisions of the Executive
and of the Shadow Cabinet. We shall have to wait and see. But if it does, as
I believe it will, then there's no avoiding the consequences of that for the
policy position of the Party and those who will be bound by it.
DIMBLEBY: So if Bryan Gould wants to say again
things like "that those who've supported the position of the Sterling in the
ERM at two point nine five, owe a massive apology to those who lost their jobs,
lost their homes and lost their businesses" he'll have to say that outside the
Shadow Cabinet from now on?
CUNNINGHAM: Well, Bryan's position is a matter for
him. I don't want to see anyone outside the Shadow Cabinet. I don't want to
see anyone resign from the Shadow Cabinet ....
DIMBLEBY: So long as he toes the line.
CUNNINGHAM: ...over these issues. Well, that is
what being part of a team is about isn't it? That's what collective
responsibility is being about. I'd make two further points. It's a curious
view of politics, particularly the politics of the Labour Party, that we should
always expect or anticipate complete unanimity on every major policy issue. I
think that's a rather bizarre approach to the whole idea of democratic
politics.
DIMBLEBY: ...I don't think anyone's had any doubts
about that.
CUNNINGHAM: But secondly, secondly, if people want
to be part of a collective team, then they have to accept that majority
decisions prevail.
DIMBLEBY: And that they put up or shut up?
CUNNINGHAM: Indeed.
DIMBLEBY: Now, given that the back-benchers have
rather strong views, if our polls reflect - it's a proper NOP poll - reflects
attitudes in the Party, are you, if, as you hope, it comes to the House - and
as the Prime Minister's indicated it will come to the House - are you going to
let them speak their minds freely and vote freely? Would that be your own
view?
CUNNINGHAM: That decision hasn't been taken. The
last time the Bill came to the House for its Second Reading, as I've already
said, we decided to abstain. I believe that was the right decision then. We
certainly couldn't endorse a Bill in support of a Treaty which had two major
and fundamental defects. The lack of our commitment - or the British
Government's commitment, the Tories' Commitment - to the Social Chapter and to
the developments towards a single currency. I don't see any argument now for
changing our position.
DIMBLEBY: That's interesting. You'd still go for
the same position, but given that you've got - I'm right last time - something
like sixty back-benchers who opposed and given these kind of figures, a lot
more who would like to oppose - will you be putting a three-line Whip on them.
In your mind, would you put a three-line Whip on them in order to secure the
Treaty, even though you abstain on it, or would you say go your own way guys,
it's a free vote on a major constitutional issue?
CUNNINGHAM: I think that decision remains to be
taken by the Shadow Cabinet and the Chief Whip...
DIMBLEBY: What would your own view be?
CUNNINGHAM: My own view is that we should not
consort with Thatcherites, right-wing Tories, who really are just completely,
fundamentally anti the European Community, nor do I believe incidentally
there'll ever be sufficient of them around in the lobbies when it comes to the
crunch to defeat their Government.
I think the best example of how
spineless most Tory back-benchers are is the Poll Tax, the most controversial
issue recently in domestic politics. They were always talking about defeating
the Government on the principle of a Poll Tax, on some detail of the Poll Tax.
Whenever it came to the crunch they were never there.
DIMBLEBY: And you hope that the Labour
back-benchers who might want to vote against when it comes to the crunch aren't
there voting against either.
Anyway, let me go on to the, to the
referendum which you said you, at the moment, oppose. You think it'll be
debated at Conference. Let me put it to you - that a referendum would do you
an awful lot of political good. It would get you out of a hole with your own
Party, and it would give you a tremendous favour with the bulk of the
electorate who want a referendum.
CUNNINGHAM: I don't agree with that analysis at all
Jonathan. I think it's a misreading of history. In a referendum the question
would be determined by the Conservative Government, the Cabinet would unite
behind that, all the finance, all tax-payers money to send leaflets to every
one of us in our own homes, would be in the control of the Government.
Labour may well be seriously divided in
the course of a referendum campaign and, what's more, think of a referendum
campaign going on perhaps for three, four, five or six months. The perfect
smokescreen for the Tories in the middle of the worst crisis in the British
economy people can remember for fifty or sixty years. I don't want to let
the Tories off the hook and spend my time campaigning in a referendum when it's
the state of the British economy, the unemployment we see, the balance of
payments deficit, the massive public expenditure cuts which are coming this
Autumn - those are the matters I want to see at the top of the agenda for the
Labour Party in the coming months.
DIMBLEBY: Now, that was a true political answer.
But implicit in it is this money that the Tories have spent, and the Government
spent, and the establishment have spent and all of that, and you think the
British people are too stupid to see through the propaganda of a Government?
CUNNINGHAM: No, I don't think the British people are
stupid ....
DIMBLEBY: Well, let them have a say then...
CUNNINGHAM: I think that the proper way to make
these decisions is in the House of Commons. I'm not myself committed to the
idea of deciding things by a referendum. We had a referendum on the
fundamental question of whether Britain should joint the Community or not. I
think that decision has been made. Part of the problem we face now - and this
is true of Labour but certainly true of the Tories - is we've still got people
around who've never accepted that decision of the people; that Britain should
be in the European Community.
DIMBLEBY: Has the Shadow Cabinet closed the door
finally against a referendum or is it still on the table?
CUNNINGHAM: The Shadow Cabinet's made its decision,
the National Executive Committee has made its decision - this week, I believe
Conference will make its decision, and I expect that to be the end of the
matter.
DIMBLEBY: Jack Cunningham, we'll see. Thank you.
CUNNINGHAM: Thank you.
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