The Accidental Constitution

"This is a book for people who really want to understand Europe. It’s a tough book, because it’s a tough subject. It’s really the story of the European Convention, which created – and, he argues, by accident – the European Constitution. Then came the constitutional bill, which was initially rejected by the French and the Dutch, and despite the promise of all three parties that we would have a referendum on it, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown refused to have a referendum. So I thought it was best to go right back to the start and understand this strange process that you create a sort of gathering – it’s very European – and try to achieve a consensus. But you actually appoint an arch political manoeuverer like [Valéry] Giscard d’Estaing to be its chairman, who appointed as secretary John Kerr, who was permanent secretary at the Foreign Office and one of the most astute manoeverers within the diplomatic service, and indeed the civil service – he served for a while as private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer – and you see the interplay of different members of that convention. And of course we had two quite interesting participants from the British side – Gisela Stuart [Labour MP for Birmingham] and David Heathcoat-Amory [Conservative MP for Wells]. Gisela Stuart, on the face of it, being initially German and German-speaking, and a very strong European, I think, more or less during the process became highly critical of the constitution. David Heathcoat-Amory went in there, certainly, as what you might call a classic Conservative Eurosceptic. I’m always worried about that term Eurosceptic. I’m not a Eurosceptic – I have a great many criticisms of the current Europe, but I’m in favour of the concept of the European nations trying to get together as member states. But I’m totally and utterly opposed to a federal Europe. Yes, you will want to get into this book, but he is a very good writer who wrote for The Times , The Wall Street Journal , the Financial Times . One of the great strengths of the Financial Times is that there is a seriousness about it, it is genuinely trying to get out the truth. He’s trying to understand the process. And I don’t think it’s easy to understand this European Union that we’re in, and you can’t really grapple with the issues around it unless you understand almost the ideology that lies behind it and the process of pushing European integration relentlessly. These are people who know where they are going to go: they want a federal Europe, they want a United States of Europe. They want the different countries of Europe – over 30 of them – to be like California or New York State or Texas in the United States. But they never admit that that’s what they want. They work by stealth, they work slowly, they are prepared to accept certain things, which on the face of it they object to, because they think they can change it, shift it and manipulate it. And they have an extraordinary record of achievement."