Interview with Michael Portillo




       
       
       
 
 
 
 
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                                 ON THE RECORD 
                      
 
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1                                 DATE: 15.10.95
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JOHN HUMPHRYS:                         Good afternoon. Only one Minister rocked 
the boat at the Tory Conference ... and it's still rocking. He was Michael 
Portillo and I'll be asking him about that rhetoric ... and the reality of his 
vision for Britain. That's after the news read by Moira Stuart. 
 
NEWS  
 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Kim Catcheside reporting.  Well earlier  
this morning I spoke to the Defence Secretary Michael Portillo and I asked him 
first whether the Conference had supplied a vision of Britain? 
 
MICHAEL PORTILLO:                      I think it provided principle and vision 
and policies to be applied at a moderate pace.  You must remember that we're 
not a government that's just starting in Office.  Now, take something like the 
Welfare State.  Everybody knows that action has to be taken over a period of 
time to make sure that it is affordable and directed to those most in need.  
We're not starting that process today.  We have encouraged people into 
occupational and personal pensions and they have pension funds - private ones - 
worth five hundred billion pounds for their own future, which is more than the 
total of Pension Funds in the rest of Europe.   
 
                                       So, these policies - you can call them 
radical, if you like - but they have to be applied over a long period of time 
and we've been about that.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But, didn't it sound a bit more like a 
whole series of policy announcements, some more important than others.  Rather 
than this vision that we were - as I say - we were rather led to expect.   
 
PORTILLO:                              But, you have to remember that we have 
been in power and the policies that we have been pursuing have been proved to 
be right.  Socialism has collapsed.  The reforms that we have brought in, in 
Education and Health, have been proved to work, Tony Blair now says that he 
accepts many of those reforms.  So, we are not having to reinvent ourselves in 
the way that other Parties are.  What we do need to do, however, is to show the 
next step forward.  For example, how we can extend the very successful idea of 
grant-maintained schools, how now that the recession is over we can return to 
the policies that we have always believed in, of reducing the Tax burden on 
people.  And, how, in particular, we can build an economy and a people who are 
going to be competitive in the wide world. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Perhaps, we can pick up some of those 
things later but let's look instead, for the moment, at the speech that you 
made about Europe, that's caused a considerable stir, I think, it's fair to 
say. Was the tone that you used the tone that you believe the Government ought 
to be adopting? 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, I stripped away all the waffle 
and fudge and any Euro-speak and I said very plainly that a Conservative 
Government is not going to allow Britain to be drawn into a European super 
state, where very important decisions about our daily lives could be taken 
by a majority vote of Ministers in the Council of Ministers; or, perhaps, even 
by the Commission.  What I did was to state Conservative Party policy.  I made 
clear a distinction between ourselves and the Labour Party.  I sought to 
inspire my Party, both in the hall and sitting at home watching television and 
to show to other people, who, perhaps, had not taken such an interest in 
politics, the importance of that issue. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              And, you did all that in a particularly 
robust way.  My question, really, is whether you think the Government ought to 
be adopting that robust approach?  That more robust approach.  
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, not every day of the week.  
Ministers are very often accused of losing themselves in their Departments, 
making decisions that may be very good decisions in themselves, appearing on 
the international stage and forgetting that they're politicians.  Now, 
sometimes, you do have to remember that in order for the sort of Britain that 
we want to see to be continued you have to reach out to people who are not 
generally aware of politics and touch something in them.  And, that is part of 
the purpose of the Conservative Party Conference.  It is to reach out to the 
public. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But, if the speech was appropriate for a 
Conservative Party Conference, you're suggesting, are you, that it's 
appropriate for other things, an Election rally, perhaps?  That, you know, if a 
young MP, or would be MP comes to you and says: how ought I to approach this 
subject?  You would say: do it with a bit of vim an vigour and the kind of 
robustness that I showed last week.   
 
PORTILLO:                              My feeling is that the public hate 
humbug and fudge; that they want to know what are the issues, they want to know 
what people think.   Sometimes, people get confused about what I think but 
I don't think I can be accused of failing to express myself robustly and 
clearly.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              And, you were, clearly, speaking for 
yourself.  But would it be helpful - this is the point of the question really  
- if the Government, as a whole, took this rather firmer approach; this more 
robust approach?  
 
PORTILLO:                              The Prime Minister made his approach 
very clear in his speech.  The phrases he used, for example: if Europe goes 
Federalist, Britain will not follow, I think, is just about as clear cut a 
statement of this position as there could possibly be.  So, I believe, we were 
entirely singing from the same hymn sheet.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Using rather different volumes, though, 
weren't you? 
 
PORTILLO:                              Yes, I would accept that. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              It was fortissimo, perhaps? 
 
PORTILLO:                              I was fortissimo and, I think, that was 
right.  I wanted to put across to people an impression of the difference 
between the Parties and the importance of the issues that lie ahead.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But, there are - you might accept - a 
number of risks in employing those sorts of tactics.  One of them - and, we've 
seen it happening - is that you risk re-opening the split within your own Party 
over Europe - a split that many people thought had not been healed - those 
things aren't healed - but, at least, patched over. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, I believe, that that split has 
been put behind us and I don't think the speech has actually re-opened it. It's 
true that I've had my critics but nobody has actually said that the 
Conservative Government's policy towards Federalism, or towards the question of 
political control over our military.  Nobody has said that that is wrong, or 
that they disagree with it and I don't think anybody will.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But, lots and lots and lots of people 
have said that you were wrong to express yourselves the way you did.  
 
PORTILLO:                              Yes.  But, your question was whether it 
had re-opened the issue of Europe and I believe that it has not-  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Well but it has. 
 
PORTILLO:                              - 'cos I don't think that people are 
doubting the rightness of the Conservative Government's policy.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                               Well, are you sure about that? 
 
PORTILLO:                               Yes.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                               Listen to what some of your supporters 
are saying.  You heard Mr Bottomley there.  You've heard lots of people, in the 
last few days, saying: Michael was quite wrong to adopt this tone, to adopt 
this approach.  
 
PORTILLO:                              But, John, I'm addressing your point. 
Has it- 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              About the tone, as opposed to the 
content. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Has it re-opened the split in the 
Conservative Party, absolutely not. There is no division within the 
Conservative Party about resisting Federalism and one Minister after another 
said it from the platform.  One speaker after another said it from the 
floor.                   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              I take that point.  I take that point 
but to the public it looks like a split because as soon as you've got MPs 
popping up on television and in the newspapers, slagging off one of their 
Ministers, they say: oh, God, here we go again!  Don't they?  That's the 
trouble and that's what you've caused. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, I don't feel I caused it.  I 
expressed Government policy robustly.  I poked fun at the European Commission.  
I think, one is entitled to do that. They are a powerful body in our lives.  
They should not be above having a little fun poked at them.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Some of them appointed by the 
Conservative Government, of course, but anyway.   
 
PORTILLO:                              All of them appointed and I am an 
elected minister in an elected government and that's why I feel that I should 
be free to voice my view and to speak on behalf of the government which is what 
I do. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But you would accept that you have 
stirred up the debate again, you have stirred up the debate,  if not about 
Europe per se, and I'll come on to the substantive issues in a minute but about 
Michael Portillo's role in that. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well that is a very different issue, I 
mean people can have different views on Michael Portillo and they're entitled 
to, but I stick to my point and I feel you now agreeing with it, that it hasn't 
actually opened up the question of Europe which is a matter that I think the 
Conservative Party... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But that's a bit of a distinction 
without a difference in the minds of many people watching the debate who may 
not be quite as sophisticated as you are.  What they see is a spectacle of 
Conservative Members of Parliament shouting at each other, criticising each 
other, attacking each other and that you don't want do you, in these last 
sixteen/eighteen months before the next election you've got to be seen to be a 
united party. 
 
PORTILLO:                              That is one thing that they may have 
seen but the other thing they saw was a very clear expression, not only 
from me but from other ministers as well and the Prime Minister, of our 
complete determination, the Conservative Government, not to be dragged towards 
a United States of Europe, towards federal arrangements, not to surrender vital 
powers concerning people's daily lives to institutions in Europe.  Now that 
message did come over loudly and clearly and that I believe is of great 
significance and of electoral advantage because I think it tones in very well 
with the majority opinion of the people of this country who have been happy as 
I am with the development of the Single European Market, who would be happy, as 
I am, to fight alongside our European allies, as we've been doing for example 
in Bosnia, but who don't wish to see political control lost from Parliament and 
the British Government. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              What you have been doing, and this is 
perhaps another risk in that speech, and you used fairly moderate language in 
that last answer but you certainly didn't use moderate language on the stage in 
Blackpool last week, is presenting yourself to the country - the Conservatives 
that is - not as the patriotic party necessarily, which is absolutely fine and 
acceptable but as xenophobic, jingoism. 
 
PORTILLO:                              That I fine an extraordinary suggestion. 
I am myself from a multi-national background.. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Indeed 
 
PORTILLO:                              I have a good understanding of two 
cultures and to histories and two countries and I appreciate how much can be 
achieved by those two countries and others, working alongside each other.  But, 
I also see the impossibility of those countries being merged together into a 
single entity in the United States of Europe.  Now in making that point, 
there's nothing xenophobic, indeed my vision, and I believe the Conservative 
Party's too, is a global vision.  In other words, we don't want exclusive 
arrangements in Europe, we want to see free trade in Europe as a stepping stone 
to free trade with the world. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              If no jingoism intended, where does Hugh 
Dykes get his crude jingoism and xenophobia which he attaches to you, George 
Walden "infantile nationalism, demeans his office, his party, his country and 
for what it's worth me.  Where do they get that from? 
 
PORTILLO:                              You really must ask them about that.. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              I can ask you.... 
 
PORTILLO:                              If you look at the speech, much of the 
speech is devoted to a eulogy of alliance and partnership, there's a tribute 
there to the Americans, to the NATO alliance, to the French and to the Dutch, 
who have been fighting alongside us, have superb armed forces who have taken 
great risk and suffered casualties in Bosnia.  But the essential thing is this, 
although we are prepared to fight alongside people, indeed prepared to put our
troops under the control of officers from other countries, as indeed they are 
in Bosnia and have been elsewhere, although we are prepared to do all those 
things, we're not prepared to surrender the political decision making about 
when Britain is going to fight and when not to fight.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Can I return to that in a moment. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Surely. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But let me just put you another 
thought, on this impression that you are making, that you are creating as a 
result of what you've been doing.   We've got the positive European group, 
Conservative members of parliament many of them, going to see Malcolm Rifkind, 
the Defence Secretary, this week and apparently their message, so we are told 
by them, their message is going to be "Portillo's got to calm down." Are you 
prepared to do that? 
 
PORTILLO:                              I think I'm prefectly calm, but you 
can't exclude a Defence Minister from talking about European Defence, it is a 
rather important issue. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But it depends on the kind of language 
he employs, that's the thing isn't it? 
 
PORTILLO:                              Yes and I don't regret any of the 
language that I've used.  I have tried to illustrate vividly to people.  You 
see you talk about a federal Europe, you talk about losing control over your 
decisions, that may not mean very much to the people watching this programme or 
reading their newspapers, but when you describe what that really means, what 
could ultimately a common defence mean, it could mean having a majority vote in 
the European Community as to when we would fight, and when we would not fight.  
And indeed, one of the political parties that fought the last election, for the 
European elections, put forward a proposal that our defence should come under 
majority voting and that is precisely what I was dealing with in my speech. 
 
HUMPHRYS                               Okay and I do want to deal with that, 
but let's look and I said there were risks involved in your speech, and let me 
deal with the third of the risks as I see it anyway, and that is that this kind 
of rhetoric, overblown according to many people, risks actually eroding 
Britain's position in Europe because we are taken less seriously. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well there's a great debate about that 
and Malcolm Rifkind addressed it in a speech recently, the balance between 
interest and influence. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              That's slightly different isn't it to 
what I'm talking about here. 
 
PORTILLO:                              No, I don't think it is entirely 
different.  There is a view that if we always speak very softly and don't make 
our positions too clear.. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Speak softly, carry a big stick... 
 
PORTILLO:                              That we can then be in the majority 
opinion in Europe and that that will carry more influence.  There's also a view 
that sometimes if you stand out on a subject, that will increase your 
influence. I'll give you an example of the latter.  We have stayed out of the 
Social Chapter, we have been happy to be aside from what the others have been 
doing, but the consequence of that has been that the Social Chapter has not 
developed in Europe in the way that many people imagine, they have held off 
from developing the Social Chapter because they didn't want to take burdens on 
their own industries that Britain wasn't going to take upon hers. 
 
                                       Now that is an example where, actually 
remaining to one side increased our influence and it must be for the Prime 
Minister and the Foreign Secretary, on each subject, to decide whether being in 
the middle and using influences is in the best British interest or whether 
standing aside and setting a distinctive position, is in the best British 
interest.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But it's your view clearly then that 
that sort of robust approach that you adopt helps Britain's interests even 
though somebody like Jacques Santer might agree with the critics who say it was 
and I quote "grotesque and deplorable".  
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, I think that when you're holding   
a conversation with people it's best that they should know where you're coming 
from.  I don't think that you make the best agreements where there is 
ambiguity.  But, to help resolve ambiguity let me make it clear again that I am 
delighted to work towards European Defence co-operation, I'm delighted with 
the allies that we have in Europe, and who have been very brave allies indeed.  
But, what I'm not prepared to do ultimately is to move towards what is hinted 
at in the Maastricht Treaty, which is to move towards a common defence. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Alright, let's talk about the reality 
then, rather than the rhetoric.  And, you say you're not prepared to move 
towards a common defence and let's look at that.  But, a general view from you 
first about how you want Europe to look in the next millennium.  I mean, let's 
take an arbitary date, two-thousand-and-two, doesn't matter what it is.  How do 
you think Europe ought to be seen. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, I think the two fundamental 
conditions is that it should remain a Europe of nation states, where very 
important decisions are taken by parliaments and governments; and, secondly,
that it should be outward looking.  It shouldn't be a cosy club that excludes 
the rest of the world because ultimately the rest of the world cannot be 
excluded.  We're going to have to compete with America and Korea and Japan and 
Taiwan and India.  And, therefore, all that we do must prepare us for global 
competition and not lure us in to a sense that global competition doesn't exist 
or can be avoided. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Do you share the view that's been 
expressed by a number of people recently that Britain should take a somewhat 
less slavish attitude towards the various regulations and directives that come 
out of Brussels, that we should be should be just - hold back a little bit from 
them, before we rush to implement them? 
 
PORTILLO:                              I'm very concerned if we ever 
over-implement, if we're ever guilty of taking a European directive and adding 
to it, and Michael Heseltine has conducted a campaign to make sure that that 
doesn't happen.  But, there is another consideration here.  One of the great 
things about Britain is that the rule of Law is absolute.  Nobody is above it.  
Regulations are actually applied, people obey laws, and many people do business 
in Britain because they can be so certain that our laws are applied 
even-handedly, and it would be a great mistake to give up Britain's reputation 
for being law-abiding and everyone having fairness and equality under the Law. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Even if we're the only one out of the 
whole lot that actually does respect that particular bit of the Law, and 
however daft that bit of the Law might seem to be, and you think lots of bits 
of it are daft. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, I certainly poke fun at things 
that I think are daft.  The thing is, the lesson I draw from this is we must be 
extremely careful about what we sign up to, because when Britain signs a bit of 
paper it says what it means and means what it says.  We intend to apply that 
which we sign up to, and that's why we need to be so cautious.  That's why when 
people say to me: you know, you're exaggerating, these things aren't going to 
happen, nobody's planning this, that or the other, I always say to myself: 
well, read what the text says, read what the Maastricht Treaty says.  Have a 
look at that because that is an indication of direction, and we need to make 
sure that we have some firm positions, so that Europe develops in a way that is 
acceptable to us, and not in ways that lead us in a direction we don't want. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Well, as it happens, I've been reading 
the Maastricht Treaty - not something I always do every weekend, it has to be 
said.  But, there it is, and what it says quite clearly is, we are moving 
towards what we accepted in this treaty, a common defence policy which might in 
time lead to a common defence. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Correct. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Now, nobody listening to you last 
Tuesday afternoon, last Tuesday, would have thought that's what you were 
talking about. 
 
PORTILLO:                              I can't imagine why not.  I mean that is 
what I was talking about, and the expressions that have been made by European 
political parties and by other European Ministers.  But, the Maastricht Treaty 
says precisely that, and of course this might move, might in time lead to a 
common defence, was a fudge if you like.  It was an arrangement between those 
who wanted to move towards that and those who did not and Britain is a country 
that will not wish to see defence decision making made by a majority vote of 
Ministers in Europe. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              It would be absurd to merge our defence 
co-operation into the European Community? 
 
PORTILLO:                              Yes. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Your words. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Yes. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              I don't quite see how they fit with 
those other words from that Treaty that says common defence. 
 
PORTILLO:                              I think we will find at the next 
inter-governmental conference that there will be those who will want to say 
that the Western European Union, which is a broad body of European countries 
who co-operate together on defence matters, should in time be merged into the 
European Union.  I am sure that that is a proposal that will come forward and 
that will be one of the great issues for discussion on the defence side at the 
inter-governmental conference. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So that Treaty, that clause was 
meaningless, completely meaningless.  We signed up to something in the 
knowledge that we'd absolutely no intention of going along with it because it 
didn't mean anything. 
 
PORTILLO:                              No, we signed up to something which 
included the word "might" and we are making it clear that that is not the way 
in which we will proceed. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              The word "might" didn't appear in front 
of Common Defence Policy, it appeared in front of "might in time lead to a 
common defence.." 
 
PORTILLOR:                              Exactly.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                               But a Common Defence Policy, suggests 
to people common defence.  The logic of that is fairly impressive, isn't it? 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, read my speech again.  What I say 
is that the essential element in the defence of Europe will continue to be the 
Atlantic alliance.  It remains for me unimaginable that we should think about 
the defence of Europe without considering the interests of the Canadians and 
the Americans in that defence of Europe.  I do think though it's very important 
that European nations should play their part - another thing that I said in my 
speech.  And, we will want to build up the practical ways in which European 
nations can operate together. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              The sort of thing we've been doing for 
years and years, in truth. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Yes but we want to go further because 
for the moment it's not clear that European nations, their armed forces, could 
even mount peacekeeping operations together.  Now, we need to put that right. 
If NATO is going to be strong, European Countries need to be able to do their 
bit.  That's one of the things that the French and the Dutch and the British 
have been doing near Sarajevo with the gunfire that we've been directing at the 
Bosnian Serbs, proving that European nations are willing to do their bit.  But 
want I can't conceive of is moving from an alliance which is based on an 
Atlantic alliance into an institution which is synonymous with the European 
Union and that is what the whole discussion is about.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So, no common defence, you envisage no 
common defence in Europe in the terms that it was expressed in the Maastricht 
Treaty at all, that's a dead letter.  
 
PORTILLO:                              What I envisage is co-operation between 
European countries.. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Which has always been going on. 
 
PORTILLO:                              The continuance of the Atlantic 
alliance but the political decisions remaining with the nation states, with the 
governments of the European Community. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              In short, what it is now. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Yes, although I would like to develop 
European co-operation from where it is today. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But within that framework, under the 
NATO - within a NATO framework.  
 
PORTILLO:                              Yes, but also developing the defence 
co-operation of European nations under the Western European Union, as I say  
European nations must be able to demonstrate what they can do together. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But not integrating? 
 
PORTILLO:                              Correct.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              ..the Western European Union.   
 
PORTILLO:                              .into the European Union - correct.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So to come back to what the Maastricht 
Treaty said: anybody reading that Treaty and saying: ah, Britain signed that 
Treaty, therefore we now know what Britain's policy is towards common defence 
in Europe would be quite wrong because we have no intention of working towards 
- to use the words of the Treaty - common defence. 
 
PORTILLO:                              We would have no intention of allowing 
the political decisions about when we were to fight and when we were not to 
fight to be taken by a majority vote of the Council of Ministers, which is 
precisely the point I made in my speech. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              We might as well have had an opt-out on 
that, mightn't we?  We had an opt-out on other things.  Why shouldn't we have 
an opt-out on defence? 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, there is more to be done on 
defence but the more that is to be done is within bounds and limits.  And it 
cannot be taken with British consent, it cannot be taken to the position of 
establishing commond defence, in the way that, today, we have a Common 
Agricultural Policy, or in the way that the others have established a social 
dimension - a Social Chapter in Europe. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But, you reminded me a minute ago that 
Britain means what it says and says what it means. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Correct.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              In this case:   We said something.  We 
didn't mean it! 
 
PORTILLO:                              I think, you're flogging a dead horse 
there.  What the Treaty says is: might in time lead to a common defence.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              And, we are saying: under no... 
 
PORTILLO:                              And, we are saying:  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              ....circumstances would it lead to a 
common defence policy. 
 
PORTILLO:                              We are saying in no circumstances will 
we allow the political decisions, about when Britain fights, or doesn't fight 
to be taken by a majority vote in the European Community.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Flogging a dead horse it may be but just 
to conclude this there is absolutely no question of us going down that route.  
We signed a Treaty and we did not intend that Treaty to be observed ultimately. 
 
PORTILLO:                              No, John.  That is just such a 
misrepresentation of the position.  The Treaty says that it might, in time, 
lead to a common defence. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              And you have told me categorically this 
morning that under no circumstances whatsoever will it lead to common defence, 
in your terms. 
 
PORTILLO:                              If common defence means bringing it 
within the main part of the Treaty of Rome of the European Union, where there 
is majority voting, the influence of the European Court of Justice, the 
influence of the European Parliament that is what a Conservative Government 
will stand out against.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Alright.  No single European army, 
then.  Clearly, you're not very keen on a single European army.  You're not 
very keen on a single European currency either.  So, therefore - and I 
understate it there - therefore, why do you not rule it out, make a manifesto 
commitment to say: there will not be a single European currency.  Britain will 
not sign up to a single European currency, in the lifetime of the next 
Parliament.   Then, you'd have real, clear blue water between you and the 
Labour Party. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Back in July, the Prime Minister offered 
his leadership for a contest and he won the contest and during the course of 
that contest, the issue was put forward: should the Conservaties rule out 
joining a Single European currency, or should they continue with the Prime 
Minister's formula - which was to say that this was an issue that need only be 
addressed at the time that it was put forward?  And, by the way, at the time at 
which it was put forward seemed to be receding into the distance. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right, he won a Leadership Election on 
that, it's a question of whether you can win a General Election on that 
position.  That's the point because a lot of people out there say look: if you 
don't intend to go into the damn thing, then, say so. 
 
PORTILLO:                              I believe the issue is completely 
settled. The Prime Minister stood on that question, he won on that question and 
therefore the policy is as he puts it forward.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right so there's nothing between you and 
the Labour Party is there because Mr Blair's position is: it is Single European 
Currency, at the moment, inconsistent with the nation State.  If it is 
consistent with the nation state, we'll have it; if it isn't, we'll reject it.  
So, there is not a cigarette paper between you and Mr Blair on this issue - an 
issue where you had hoped to draw some clear, blue water. 
 
PORTILO:                               Well, Mr Blair has said that he could 
never imagine Britain being isolated in Europe.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              He's also said: no way to a Single 
European Currency, unless... 
 
PORTILLO:                              And that means to me that he would never 
use the veto, never stand up for vital national interests, never be willing to 
stand alone.  And we know from his policy - he's told us - that on Day One he 
would join the Social Chapter.  So he's told us that from Day One, he's willing 
to take upon British.... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              That's not the Single European Currency 
which is what we're talking about at the moment.  
 
PORTILLO:                              No but you're talking about there not 
being a cigarette paper of difference.... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              On this particular issue- 
 
PORTILLO:                              ...between Labour and Conservative and 
there is an enormous difference.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              On control - of sovereign control - over 
Britain's currency, which is the thing that may matter more to many people than 
anything else.  On that particular issue, there's nothing between you. 
 
PORTILLO:                              But the Prime Minister has never said - 
and I don't believe he ever will say - that you couldn't imagine Britain ever 
being isolated in Europe.  I mean, the Prime Minister has been willing to take 
a stand.  For example, on the Social Chapter, he's been willing to take a stand 
on having the option to make up his mind about a Single Currency.  That is not 
an option which is enjoyed by the vast majority of the other Member States of 
the European Union.  Therefore, the Prime Minister has demonstrated that he is 
willing to take a stand as he calculates it.  There is no evidence at all that 
Mr Blair would be willing to take a stand on anything.  He has signed up to 
everything and he says, as a matter of principle, he could never imagine 
Britain being isolated.   Therefore, there is a world of difference.  And when 
the Prime Minister says that he will make up his mind, at the time, we have 
every reason to believe him.  And, when Mr Blair says he'll make up his mind, 
at the time, we have every reason to look at his record and see that he has 
never stood out for a distinctive British position on anything and therefore 
his mind is not really open on the question. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But yours is?  What you're saying is: it 
might be and this is going to surprise some people - bearing in mind the things 
you've said in the past - it might be that we could go into this thing because 
we're not prepared to rule it out. That's what you're saying. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, what I'm saying is that the 
Government is led by the Prime Minister.  The Prime Minister has really made a 
point of putting this issue to his Party and the line has been decided and 
settled.  The Prime Minister won, fairly and squarely.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              You've sounded quite moderate this 
morning.  We've not heard any of the ranting and raving that we're told you 
were guilty of last week.  But hasn't that damaged you politically within your 
own Party.  The kind of thing that went on, that you did in Blackpool last 
week.  Hasn't it...doesn't it worry you a bit, the reaction there's been to it? 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well the reaction at the time was a very 
warm and kind one from the audience.  The reaction from people who've written 
in to me - people who weren't even necessarily Conservatives - has also been a 
very warm one.  Now, we're in the business of attracting supporters to our 
point of view for the next Election. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              I was asking about your own particular 
position? 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, I'm not in the business simply of 
getting good articles by very intelligent people in very expensive newspapers.  
 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Or winning the support of your own 
colleagues? 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, I would hope to have the support 
of my own colleagues, you can't have it all of the time for everything that you 
say.  But I do believe that putting forward the distinctive Conservative 
position, resisting a Federal Europe is something that attracts voters to the 
Conservative Party. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Je ne regrette rien? 
 
PORTILLO:                              It doesn't repel them.  That's right and 
I'm happy to say it in French. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Do, so.  
 
PORTILLO:                              Je ne regrette rien.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Michael Portillo, thank you very much, 
indeed.  
 
PORTILLO:                              Thank you.   
 

 
 
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