THE TWAIN SHAN'T MEET:

Ambivalent? Moi?: Tony Blair thought he could change Britain's relationship with Europe. It's not his fault he's failed (Bagehot, Apr 1st 2004, The Economist)

A FEW months after the last election, Tony Blair outlined what he described as the four strategic priorities for his second term. The first was to maintain a stable economy. The second was to reduce social division and inequality. The third was to improve public services. The fourth was to settle the argument over Europe in favour of constructive engagement and against Tory “isolationism”.

There are few complaints about the government's macroeconomic management and it has had some success combating poverty, if not inequality. Albeit slowly and patchily, public services are responding to a lot of money and a little reform. But, by his own lights, it is Europe that has to go down as the prime minister's greatest failure.

In the House of Commons this week, as he delivered his report on the European Council meeting in Brussels, there were hints of the old evangelism. However, what fired him was not the summit he had just attended or the prospect of reaching agreement on the constitutional treaty (it's a while since Mr Blair referred to it as a constitution), but the ferocity of Michael Howard's attack. Mr Blair's contempt for the Tories' position on Europe is genuine. He believes that Mr Howard is a peddler of dangerous myths and his promise that a future Conservative government would renegotiate the treaty is a fantasy.

What is somewhat harder to gauge is the state of Mr Blair's own enthusiasm for Europe these days. For someone who has often enough declared it his intention to resolve once and for all Britain's historic ambivalence towards Europe, the prime minister these days sounds pretty ambivalent himself. He still believes that a final resolution of Britain's place in Europe is entirely desirable, but he no longer knows how to achieve it or whether it is even possible.

He should have known better than to think he could govern to the Right but reconcile with Europe.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 7, 2004 1:49 PM