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ON THE RECORD
INTERVIEW WITH SIR NORMAN FOWLER MP
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 1.5.94
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SHEENA MCDONALD: Now, lots to talk about, leadership
challenges, local elections, but let's start where that film left off, with
your people down in the South West. Margaret Daly has a problem, she's looking
for a positive assertive campaign, she's hearing negative campaigning and it's
of course because there is this division in the Party which means there is
nothing to unite on.
SIR NORMAN FOWLER MP: Well I don't agree with that and I
don't incidentally agree that I wish to finish the job, what I want to do is to
fight these elections and to fight them successfully, and that's what we'll do.
As far as a positive campaign is
concerned, I think your introduction is also inaccurate about the Conservative
Party Manifesto. There hasn't been a division on the Conservative Party
Manifesto.
MCDONALD: We'll come on to the Manifesto...
FOWLER: Ok, but it's an important point. I hope
you will come back to it.
MCDONALD: We certainly will, but I'd like to
address Margaret Daly's point, because she's worried she's not getting the
support she needs, she's hearing negative campaigning.
FOWLER: Well I don't think that that is the case
and in, and it's very difficult to divide the Manifesto from what she's saying,
but in the build-up to this campaign we have made it absolutely clear that this
will be a positive campaign. I know what Margaret Daly's concerns are, she's
expressed them to me, she's expressed them to others as well. We have had and
we have involved the MEPs in the European Campaign and we will continue to do
so. And therefore, we of course will be fighting a positive campaign. What we
will be fighting however, is a campaign which seeks to set out the differences
between where we stand, how we see Europe, and how the other parties see
Europe. That really is the battlefield. The battlefield is not internal
position of Conservative Party, the battlefield is between how we see Europe in
a decentralised free enterprise way, and in the centralised way in which both
the Labour Party and the Liberal Party see it.
MCDONALD: But what voters are seeing this week is
exactly the battlefield you're saying is not though, which is the one within
the Conservative Party, and it's being see by your colleagues. I mean Douglas
Hurd last week was giving a few hometruths to the Euro-sceptics, who he said
were out of touch, in fact indeed last month, you remember when he talked to
Conservative Central Council, and I'll quote, he talked about the "sour and
defensive attitude which concentrates exclusively on the negative things about
Europe". It's not just Margaret Daly it certainly isn't me, it's the Foreign
Secretary who see a split.
FOWLER: With respect, I mean both the Foreign
Secretary and I went to a backbench meeting, it has been reported. That
meeting consisted of all sides in the European argument, and I think what the
Foreign Secretary has said, and which...why I would entirely confirm, is that
the message that came out of that is what the party wants to do, is to unite to
fight a strong campaign on Europe, and above all to get the central differences
between the parties.
I'm sorry to come back to this all the
time, but you see when you listen, when you watched that film it is quite clear
that what the Liberal Democrats don't want is that it should be fought on the
issues of Europe. What we want is to expose the issues of Europe. The Labour
regulations for example, the Social Chapter, which we've got a recovery taking
place in this country, a very good recovery, the kind of issues, the kind of
things that the Liberal Democrats stand for, the Social Chapter adding costs to
business and industry, would stop that kind of recovery stone dead.
MCDONALD: Now, I'm sure you do want to present a
positive campaign, but in fact what is coming across is this division in the
party. Michael Heseltine this week, after the meeting that you and Douglas
Hurd held with the backbenchers, no doubt hoping to pre-empt what has happened
in the last week, said "the country is reeling with amazement at the
internecine, the fighting that's going on over Europe in this last week".
FOWLER: Well I don't think that Michael is
seeking to indicate that there's kind of..there's a gteat internecine of kind
of attack and counter attack, taking place. I think that what he is saying,
what Gillian Shephard is saying, what I am saying, is that what we need to do
is to get together, and we need to focus our attention and our fire on the
othersides.
MCDONALD: Well we'll come on to what Gillian
Shephard's saying, but you have been saying this for a long time, but it does
suggest, it does indicate what we have seen, which there is this split in the
Tory Party on Europe is there, it's drastic and it's unbridgeable, there is no
manifesto campaign, there is no manifesto, there's no campaign that Margaret
Daly at the moment can work with.
FOWLER: Well I don't think that's true of
Margaret Daly, and I also don't think that, I man I think you've got to be fair
on this, you see you've got papers like the Times. "The Tories Redraft Euro
Poll Manifesto". That is the lead story, anti Federalists claim two hundred
MPs support looser ties with Brussels.
MCDONALD: I'm glad you brought that up, that's
two hundred.....
FOWLER: Well that you see, that is., but (a)
that is inaccurate, it doesn't even, it isn't even justified by the story, but
the Tories redrafting the Euro Poll Manifesto, is simply not the case. I have
been in the Manifesto committee, I have been in it throughout and of course a
manifesto goes through the natural stages, but there hasn't been a division on
that. And I do think, you talk about divisions in the Conservative Party, I do
think it is fair to acknowledge this, that there are a number of newspapers,
not the press generally, but there are a number of specific newspapers, and The
Times is one of those newspapers, that is campaigning, if you like, on a
Euro-sceptic manifesto, they have been doing that, that is their right, it is
entirely up to them what they campaign on, but their news...their views are
now being expressed in their news columns. I do think it's fair and sensible
that the public should understand that.
MCDONALD: It's not my task to defend any
newspaper, althoughy notably all the Sunday papers which traditionally support
the Tory Party, are taking a Euro-sceptic line today as well. However, let's
look at the manifesto, now you say it's being redrafted.
FOWLER: No I say it's not being redrafted, that
exactly the point I don't make there, it's not being redrafted, all that's
taking, all that has taken place is that any manifesto goes through a number of
stages, but it isn't being redrafted in the sense that one, which is what The
Times have alleged, which is one draft has been thrown away, get on with it,
Prime Minister rejects the draft. Let's get on and produce another one.
MCDONALD: Let's leave aside the definition of what
draft means. Teresa Gorman and Bill Cash hope that it is going to be more
Europ-sceptical in hue, can you confirm that they are right in their hopes?
FOWLER: Well I don't know what that means, I
mean what we will set out, and I don't know what the question means, what we
will set out is where the Conservative Party stands on Europe. The argument
is not whether we are in Europe or out of Europe, we're obviously in
Europe, we're in Europe. The argument is, the debate is, what kind of Europe
that we want, that is the central debate. And the point is that the
Conservative Party stands for a very distinctive view of Europe, not internally
but between us and the Liberal Party. We want a decentralised Europe,
we want a free enterprise Europe, we want a deregulated Europe, that is the
kind of Europe that we're standing for and I think that John Major has had a
tremendous amount of success in selling that concept to the rest of Europe.
MCDONALD: Let me try answering the question
differenty, is the manifesto being whatever you might say, fine tuned in a way
that will be more acceptable to Bill Cash, Teresa Gorman and their
suppoprters, you say that there are not two hundred MPs who want looser ties, I
don't know what figure you would put on it, but the number of people, the
substantial number of people in your party.
FOWLER: No, no that is an allegation by one of
the people, one of our MPs who just takes..happens to take a different view, I
don't know of any scientific or any other process whereby he gets to that
particular figure.
MCDONALD: Let's stick with Teresa Gorman and Bill
Cash, who of course hoped to have some input in this process after the
Maastrich vote last summer, now will this manifesto be more acceptable to
them, following the fine tuning it's going through, or whatever you would call
it?
FOWLER: Well I hope very much that the manifesto
will unite indeed the Tory Party but that has been the aim throughout the whole
process and there has been no change in what we've been saying in the basic
message that has been set out throughout the whole process of the manifesto. It
obviously is intended to be a manifesto which the whole of the party - the
overwhelming majority of the party - can get behind and which we can take the
battle to Labour and the Liberals on issues like the Social Chapter.
MCDONALD: Let's look at specifics, what does it
say about European Monetary Union?
FOWLER: Well, what it says on that, I mean we've
already published what it said on the single currency and the European monetary
union we've actually published that in the document that has taken place and
this is really saying that this isn't...this is not an issue for now it will be
an issue for the future and we have got the ability to be able to decide for
ourself what that future is going to be. If you mean the single currency for
example that is the future that we have a decision on.
MCDONALD: Well the reason I ask is because Michael
Portillo, as you know has been talking about it already today, this morning,
and he says a single currency means the end of UK Government. Now, that...is
not at all government policy, whatever you have published so far is it, I mean
there is actually an opt-out or an opt-in provision.
FOWLER: Yes, but I haven't seen the interview
you're referring to.
MCDONALD: I can quote to you, what I have just
said is what Mr Portillo said this morning.
FOWLER: The position is that this is not a
decision that is remotely likely to take place over the next years and it is a
decision for the future and that decision rests with the British Government,
that is exactly what it is the Prime Minister has been able negotiate.
MCDONALD: That's not what Mr Portillo said this
morning, he said if we're dragged towards something we can't put up with, we
have the right of veto, a single currency would lead to political union which
would mean giving up the government of the UK, no British Government can..no
British Government can give up the Government of the UK.
In other words he is saying, EMU is
simply an non-starter now...forget....
FOWLER: I haven't seen the interview so there's
no point in going into the detail on that, but it seems to me that the kind of
points that Michael is putting are very similar to the kind of points that
we're already set out in the campaign itself.
MCDONALD: But you did hear Leon Brittan saying
that a single currency was possible by 1999, in his view, whereas Michael
Howard said he didn't think that any move, any significant move towards it
would be within his politial career. Now assuming he's not telling us
something about how long he expects to be in politics this seems to be a
division there as well.
FOWLER: I don't think..I don't...I actually
don't think it's an issue over the next years. We've made that clear, we've
set that out and as I say at the end of the day it is a decision for the
British Government.
MCDONALD: It's only two years til the next IGC,
when this is going to be debated, the debate is there, people are talking about
looser ties with Europe, Michael Portillo appears to allying himself with
people who go that way, that does not seem to be, as I understand it, the
government line at the moment, and Maastricht has been signed with the clause
the Prime Minister negotiated, there is a division on how we progress there.
FOWLER: I don't think, I think that that's
wrong, I mean the division, I keep on coming back to this point, the real
division upon Europe, not the kind...the points that you put to me, the real
division are the fundamental divisions, the fundamental division between how we
the Conservative Party view Europe. We view it as a de-centralised Europe, as a
series of sovereign states, with coming together obviously on issues of common
concern, that is very different from the kind of Europe that the Labour Party
and the Liberal Party are standing for. That is the real truth and Michael
Portillo, Michael Howard, myself and all the Tory Party would actually stand by
that kind of concept.
The Social Chapter, for example, which
both the other parties, I mean these are big divisions, these are not
nit-picking things, these are really major divisions. The Social Chapter, which
would add costs to industry, which would add costs to business, which would add
and lose jobs and which would in my view destory the recovery which is taking
place in this country. Those are the real issues....
MCDONALD: But, what could be more fundamental than
whether or not Britain is in or out of the European Union. Now, when Teresa
Gorman asked the Prime Minister in the Commons this week whether he endorsed
the speech that Lord Young made to the Institute of Directors where he said:
Europe was a waste of time, he said. The best thing the IGC in 1996 could do
was make a bonfire of the directive. 1996 is our last opportunity to-to wake up
before the world passes. In other words, to get out.
Now, the Prime Minister signally failed
to refute any of that and, basically, said: yes - he agreed.
FOWLER: But, the Prime Minister. I mean, I
don't think anyone has yet interpreted it as meaning the Prime Minister wishes
to refer...wishes to withdraw from the European Union, which he most clearly
doesn't.
MCDONALD: You're a politician, Sir Norman.
FOWLER: No, no..... That's a perfectly
straightforward statement of fact. I don't know- I don't think David Young,
actually, wants to do that. What the Prime Minister was agreeing with in David
Young's speech was, again, the point that I'm actually trying to put to you on
the Social Chapter and on the internal regulations which is: that what you
mustn't be is an internal-looking community.
What it must remember and take
cognisance of is that it is going to face competition from outside the Pacific
Rim, something which David Young specifically referred to. So, what the
Prime Minister was saying - which is entirely what the Party says - is that is
really what we should have account of. What we cannot have is a sort of
internal looking club which doesn't take any regard of what's taking part in
the rest of the world.
And, therefore, if you put regulations,
Labour restrictions - the kind of thing, again, that the Labour Party and the
Liberal Party actually want to impose. If you put that on your European
economy, the British economy, then, that is going to have an impact and it is
going to have a very bad impact on jobs, business and industry in this country.
MCDONALD: Lord Young's speech - and, I don't know
if you read it, or heard it - was the most Euro-sceptical speech you can give.
He said 1996 will extend the good Brussels principles of equal misery.
Otherwise know as harmonisation. What people heard in the Commons on Thursday
in Prime Minister's Question Time was the Prime Minister failing to refute the
gist of that argument.
FOWLER: No, you know, I-I-I dispute that.
MCDONALD: Now, it sounds as if he is appeasing the
sceptics in the Party.
FOWLER: No, no, no.
MCDONALD: The only way of uniting the Party is by
giving to the sceptics because-
FOWLER: No. I mean, David Young must speak for
himself, on what he means by his speech. I mean, I remember David Young when
he was taking us in and campaigning to kind of go in to the Single Market.
MCDONALD: Let's stick with the Prime Minister's
response to the question.
FOWLER: And-and - well-
MCDONALD: Teresa Gorman, arch Euro-sceptic, and he
did not refute the point.
FOWLER: Well, he did but-but you-what you're
saying - and, I think, it's not a sensible point, if you don't mind me saying
so - what you're trying to indicate is that some-some way the Prime Minister
wishes, to, actually, withdraw us from the European Union.
MCDONALD: I'm trying to-
FOWLER: I think, that is not the case but the
point that John Major was agreeing with - in that exchange - was the point that
David Young did make inter alia in his speech, which is: that we mustn't be an
inward-looking community, we must be an outward-looking community. That is
what Conservative policy is. It's always been Conservative policy.
MCDONALD: The point I'm making is that the Prime
Minister appears to be trying to appease the sceptics when he talks about
himself - not as a Euro enthusiast, not as a Euro sceptic but as a Euro
realist. Now, you know when the term was first used. It was used by Bill Cash
on September the twenty-third 1992, when he set up his group. Euro realist is
a-is a sceptic's term.
FOWLER: Now, well, I don't think it is a
sceptic's term. I think- I mean, what John Major wants to achieve, what the
Government wants to achieve as far as Europe is concerned is the kind of things
that I've been setting out. We've got a strong recovery, we've got low interest
rates in this country, we've got low inflation. What we wish to do is for that
recovery to continue. What we wish to do is to have a Britain in Europe and a
Europe itself which looks outwards to the rest of the world, that takes account
of the fact that you can't be an inward looking club.
You've got to look out to the other
competition that there is. That is the realism that the Prime Minister is
talking about and that is important that he- that that message gets over
because that is, actually, what we are fighting for. And, I think, we are
making quite a lot of progress in Europe in getting that concept over. And, as
someone who spents some of my life in business and industry, I do have to tell
you that that is of crucial importance to business and industry in this
country. If we have the kind of inward looking regulation-making Europe of the
Labour Party and the Liberal Party, that will be devastating for British
industry, that will be devastating for British jobs and it is something which
on the issues - and, that is why the Liberal Democrats don't want us to go into
the issues - that, on the issues, they will be defeated on. And, I believe, we
stand and we have the support of the British public on that.
MACDONALD: And, yet, Margaret Daly is confused.
You see, we listen to Mr Major. Two conferences ago, he tells us he's the
greatest Euro sceptic. One conference ago, he tells us that Britain should be
at the heart of Europe. Now, he tells us he's a Euro realist and you've given
a definition of that. Bill Cash has his definition of that.
It seems to me - I mean, I-my father
tells me that when he was in the Army there was a word for this and it's
'two-timing' and what happens to two-timers is that both partners drop them.
We're seeing a man trying to please everybody and effectively pleasing nobody,
and certainly not the people who were tapping on the doors in the South West
trying to hang on to their seats.
FOWLER: I don't think that's remotely accurate,
I think that's a grotesquely unfair description. What I would say about the
Prime Minister - and I've served with the Prime Minister, I served with him
during the election campaign and I've served with him since that - what the
Prime Minister has done is that he has taken this country from the position
where we had a recession, he has taken it to a position now where we have
recovery, where we have unemployment coming down, where we have low inflation
which he's had to fight for, where we've got low interest rates, where we've
got the greatest growth inside Europe, inside the European Community. I think
rather than actually making those kind of generalised allegations which you've
just repeated, I think you should look at the record of the man, the courage of
the man and the guts of the man.
MCDONALD: Don't...
FOWLER: And I really do think it is about time
that the discussion and the debate upon the Prime Minister and upon his
position began to recognise the achievements and the record and what he has
done for this country and for this Party and if you want something on the
Party, just let us remember that as far as the Party is concerned, as far as
Margaret Daly is concerned, as far as all our Members of Parliament in
Westminster are concerned, John Major was the man who won us the 1992 election
when all the media - doubtless including programmes like this - were telling us
we were going to lose.
MCDONALD: So why don't you, as Margaret Daly
suggests, tell the doubters to shut up? I mean why is it that Gillian Shephard
can say last night that only eighty per cent of the Parliamentary Party wants
the Prime Minister and the government to succeed. She's calling on the active
campaigners, she says, on behalf of potential rivals, so they may not know they
have these campaigns, they should call their dogs off. If they realise it she
has now told them that there is.. the canvassing is going on, there is a ghost
leadership challenge happening and the Prime Minister cannot depend on the
hundred per cent support of the Parliamentry party.. from according to somebody
who claims to support him.
FOWLER: As I saw- as I watched your programme,
as I watched your news, before this programme itself I saw Gillian say that
there was a small handful, I think, was the phrase that she used, inside the
party. Well that may or may not be true, but the other side of that coin is
that the overwhelming majority of the Conservative Party, whether it be in
Parliament, whether it be in the country, are solidly behind the Prime
Minister, are solidly behind his position as far as Europe is concerned and as
far as the goverment is concerned.
MCDONALD: But she said last night that twenty per
cent of the Parliamentry Party..
FOWLER: Well you're putting it the other way
round, I mean what she said was eight out of ten didn't she and in fact what
she also said there was that it was, and I quote "a small handful". I think
the small handful is the better description.
MCDONALD: But if two out of ten don't support the
Prime Minister...
FOWLER: But the other side of that coin is
surely that the overwhelming majority of the party are behind John Major. And
I go back to this point, the point is that, please, why don't we all, why
doesn't the media, why doesn't, you know in an interview like this, why don't
we go on to the issues, why don't we go on to the policies, why don't we go on
to what John Major has achieved for this country? And I think that when
history is written on this period the fact that he has brought this country
through.. out of recession into the strongest growth position in Europe - I
think that will be regarded by the historians and I think should be regarded by
some of the commentators now, as a tremendous achievement as far as the Prime
Minister himself is concerned.
MCDONALD: The media is bound to report on a senior
cabinet minister to suggest that two out of ten out of the Parliamentary Party
cannot support the Prime Minister and also confirms that there is a leadership
challenge going on, and that there are two different campaigns being waged in
the lobbies at this moment. Now telling me is one thing, but you should be
telling your people.
FOWLER: No-one's every accused me of not telling
my people.
MCDONALD: They don't listen.
FOWLER: Precisely those points. But we are
talking about a small handful. As far as the leadership campaigns are
concerned, I mean you know, I heard what Richard Ottaway said who was fingered
by one of the newspapers a week or so ago about this and what Richard said -
who is Michael Heseltine's PPS - is that he wants John Major as Prime Minister,
he wants John Major to lead us into the next election and he wants John Major
as Prime Minister in the year 2000.
MCDONALD: Of course.
FOWLER: And Richard, and I speak from experience
as a friend and colleague of him, is speaking from the heart when he says that,
so let us not exaggerate that particular issue.
MCDONALD: Well now we're looking at two elections
coming up. You've put the Prime Minister at the forefront of those campaigns.
All the predictions suggest that they are going to go very badly for the
Conservatives and you have left the Prime Minister very exposed have you not?
FOWLER: Well I think that that's a little
unrealistic. I think that you would expect the Prime Minister to take a part
and a good part in whether it's the local elections - particularly in the
European elections - and that has always been his intention and he has actually
written to constituencies to say precisely that particular point. You would
expect, if we had not done that, what you would have said is that the Prime
Minister goes to his bunker, the Party distances itself from the Prime
Minister. Frankly at times there are some things that one cannot win, but I
think that John Major leads from the front, he always has done and and he's had
a tremendous record tremendous success in so doing.
MCDONALD: Mr Norman Fowler, thank you for joining
us this afternoon.
FOWLER: Thank you.
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