Just before he crashed into the reverse gear that he was not supposed to possess, British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted to a close ally: "I'm going to have to eat shit for a few days."
Blair was being too optimistic. The dish that he has consumed over the past week has been much less savory than honest old shit and opponents will keep serving it to him for many months to come.
ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
Blair has had to force down his throat a 10-course banquet of his own words. He has had to swallow the remains of what was once a great strategic ambition of his premiership.
The referendum that the prime minister had promised to the pro-Europeans -- most of all, the goal that he promised himself as a defining achievement of his leadership -- was to be a vote on the single currency that would secure Britain's future at the heart of Europe.
Instead, he finds himself capitulating to a plebiscite that he never wanted on the European constitution. Losing that vote would very likely ignite the most serious convulsion in Britain's relationship with Europe in more than 25 years. That could now be the paradoxical feat and perverse achievement of the most pro-European prime minister to occupy No. 10 Downing Street since Ted Heath.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with politicians doing an about-face, even when the reversal is as stunning as this one. Blair's headstand does at least conform to Labour former minister Denis Healey's old rule, which states that politicians are all right doing a U-turn as long as they are turning in the direction desired by the public.
Pragmatism
The two Cabinet members most vigorous in pressing the prime minister to throw himself into reverse were Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Health Secretary John Reid. Both are characterized by cunning pragmatism. They don't go much for the vision thing; they are operators. No one in government bothers to deny that this was driven not by high principle but low politics.
Here is how the referendum was pressed on the prime minister. Refusing a vote played into the attack on him as arrogant and elitist. It had become impossible to argue on the issues. The reports from the focus groups said Europe was toxically combining in much of the public mind with hostility to immigration.
There would be a lot of immediate pain from a humiliating climb down, including the admission by the most fluent communicator of his political era that he had been outgunned by the Tory party and the Europhobic press.
That was a price worth paying to neutralize Europe as a negative election issue for Labour.
One Cabinet minister supportive of the reversal argues that voters were not going to listen to what politicians were saying about the economy or public services until "we burst the bubble" about a referendum. Against the risk of not winning the third term, any other gamble was worth taking.
On top of that, it is plausibly argued by those who know him well that the prime minister is racked by a sense of guilt and failure that he hasn't been able to do the euro. Here was a substitute way of proving to himself that he could win the European argument.
That combination of politics and prime ministerial psychology provides a lot of the explanation for the decision, but not quite a complete one. I don't believe -- more importantly, neither do those close to him -- that Blair would have made this capitulation but for the Iraq war.
"The Tony Blair I knew pre-Iraq would not have done this," says one extremely disappointed pro-European who normally would be counted as one of the prime minister's greatest allies. "It's a sign of him being defensive and weakened."
Illustrative of that is the inelegant way in which the reverse has been conducted by a prime minister once noted for his suppleness. Michael Howard, the leader of the opposition Conservative party, found it easy to impale Blair on the question of whether there will be more than one referendum if the first answer from the people is negative.
One senior Blairista member of Parliament looked on at those exchanges in absolute grief: "I stood there thinking: Did I just hear him say that?"
Harold Wilson, with whom Blair has now invited comparisons that he will absolutely loathe, summed up his readiness to sacrifice reputation to expediency with the observation that a week is a long time in politics.
The last seven days has been more like an eternity, a hellish one for those who still wish well for the prime minister. Blair and Straw have variously suggested that there will be just the one referendum, or there might be more than one, or there could yet be no treaty to vote on after all.
This muddle emphasizes that the road the prime minister has chosen demands a high toll. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown saw the price. Though widely reported as an enthusiast for the referendum, I'm reliably told that the chancellor was actually wary, even though it might suit his primary purpose of ensuring that the prospect of British entry into the euro is kicked into even longer grass. The chancellor has a general objection to referendums as the last resort of weak leaders.
United in contempt
Being cast as enfeebled is the inevitable penalty paid by the prime minister. He has exposed himself to the mockery of his enemies as a victim of events who has been overwhelmed by forces mightier than himself. Tory Eurosceptics and Euroenthusiasts have not been divided, as he hoped; they have united in contempt for him. Ministers who have slavishly fought the referendum for months have been made to feel ridiculous, if not shafted. And worst of all, he has spread dismay and anger among his most loyal friends.
The pro-European Blairites have bitten their tongues in public. In private, it is the prime minister's allies who are most intense in their fury with him for what they see as the most abject retreat of his premiership. Their view is accurately summarized by one former Cabinet minister as "It's a huge blunder."
Some of them try to smother their anger for long enough to look on the bright side.One of the prime minister's allies, while furious with him for the decision, argued to me that he might have the "last laugh on Straw and Brown," along with everyone who believes this decision will finish Blair. "A successful referendum campaign could give a third wind to his premiership."
I report that as a minority opinion at the moment. The more common view among Europhile Blairites is that he has made an titanic error of judgment. If the referendum is lost, this most pro- European of prime ministers will have achieved almost the opposite of what he hoped for his leadership.
Some believe, Blair presumably among them, that the hostility to the European constitution that is overwhelmingly expressed in opinion polls today can be shifted in order to secure a positive vote in the second half of 2005. Yet even some of his most ardent pro-European allies don't regard that as much of a comfort.
What they see is more vital time squandered. The Blair second term was derailed the moment the planes went into the World Trade Center towers. The first six months -- at least -- of a third term are now set to be consumed by a referendum campaign.
One Blairista groans: "We'll wake up on the Friday after the election to spend the first crucial months of a Blair third term tramping around the country again trying to convince people to vote for the bloody European constitution. If you look at the big picture, this has got everybody thinking that it's Blair's exit strategy, and you've got a massive distraction at the beginning of the third term." If this fervent Blairite sounds despondent, he is.
The most menacing noise in Blair's ears is not the hoots of derision and snarls of triumph from enemies who believe they can smell the blood of a prime minister on the run. Much the more deathly sound is the quiet despair of those who are his friends.
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