The Old PM and Maastricht
A drawn-out battle with Tory rebels over Maastricht Treaty ratification — facilitated by Labour — leaves John Major rotting in the political shallows.
Shark fishermen will tell you that getting the beasts to take the hook is relatively easy. They inevitably slip up and take a hook-laced bait. But what the fisherfolk does next determines whether a shark will end up mounted on a basement wall or continue to dominate at the top of the food chain.
Then he will turn and swallow it, he thought. He did not say that because he knew that if you said a good thing it might not happen.—Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
When John Major returned from the Maastricht summit in December 1991, he was jubilant. After 14 hours of negotiations, the 12 member nations had reached an agreement over an economic, monetary and political union for Europe.
Major had secured two major opt outs for the UK. The UK would not join the monetary union, thereby retaining the pound, nor would it sign on to the Maastricht Treaty’s social chapter that enhanced workers’ rights. As leader of a party divided over European integration, Major hoped the opt outs would appease his right flank, thereby preserving Tory unity in the run-up to the April general election.
Tempting his political fortunes, he declared at the close of the conference that the negotiations had been “game, set, and match for Britain.”
If he had moved to ratify the treaty before the general election, it would have likely passed with minimal fuss. There was a Conservative parliamentary majority in favour of the treaty as Major had negotiated it. But, believing the European Communities (EC) bill wouldn’t meet fierce resistance, he delayed the vote until after the election, deciding to focus on other legislative priorities in the first months of 1992. “Plainly, that was a mistake,” he would later recall.
The 1992 general election, which saw Major’s parliamentary majority slimmed to 21 and a new intake of Thatcherite Eurosceptic MPs, put Maastricht’s future in more troubled waters. The first sign of trouble came just a month after the election when 22 MPs voted against an amendment on the bill’s second reading.
It was to be the first in a string of bad signs. That summer, Danish voters voted “No” in a referendum over Maastricht and French voters gave only the narrowest of endorsement, with around 51 percent of voters backing Maastricht. Tory Eurosceptics, led by Margaret Thatcher now ensconced in the House of Lords, seized on the referenda results to argue that UK voters should also get a say over Maastricht.
I could make the line fast. But then he could break it. I must hold him all I can and give him the line when he must have it.—Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
Labour Leader John Smith famously broke the whip as a new MP in 1971 to vote for Britain’s entry to the European Economic Community (EEC) and was a supporter of European integration. Opposing ratification outright would have run counter to Smith’s political objectives. He wanted to derail the Conservative party — not the whole European experiment by sinking the Maastricht bill.
Similarly, backing the Tory movement for a referendum would have delivered no positive outcomes for Labour. It would have meant Smith siding with Major on the campaign trail for vote “yes”, limiting his ability to apply pressure to the government. It would have given the Tories an easy-out by making the European issue a national debate, instead of a uniquely Tory rift.
Smith and Labour’s European Spokesperson George Robertson crafted a strategy to give the Conservatives enough line to tire themselves out in their thrashing over Europe. They would push for the inclusion of the social chapter, which would genuinely benefit UK workers, but would also draw out the legislative process. They would table amendment after amendment, with each vote giving Eurosceptic Tories the chance to rebel. The hope was that by creating a platform for Tory dissent, Labour would embolden the rebels to vote Major down in a confidence vote and trigger an early general election. Simultaneously, they would push for the inclusion of the social chapter, which would genuinely benefit UK workers.
There were potential pitfalls to the strategy. Labour had as many potential Eurosceptics as the Tories and in giving the Conservatives a platform for dissent, Labour might have invited its own Eurosceptics to speak up. To keep internal divisions under control, Smith took the unusual step of allowing a series of debates among Labour MPs before the shadow cabinet took a firm position. Over three weeks, MPs aired their views and voted for the best course of action.
John Smith’s former head of policy, David Ward, told IFTC, “because of that, the rebellion was quite limited.” In the end, the Parliamentary Labour Party endorsed the front bench position. “I remember at the end of that process, as we were leaving a meeting Peter Hain, who at that time was a leading member of the Tribune Group of MPs and cautious about Maastricht and the single currency, and I ended up at the door at the same time. He said, ‘oh well, you’ve got your way. The most important thing is our voice has been heard.’”
It was an hour before the first shark hit him.—Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
As the European Communities bill entered the committee stage, tensions were high in the Conservative ranks. As the amendments were debated, Tory rebels openly colluded with Labour whips to frustrate Major’s ratification. Tory Eurosceptics hoped that by backing Labour’s attempt to sign on to the social chapter they could force the government to go back to Brussels and renegotiate, incurring long delays and offering more time to rally opposition to the bill. A minor amendment covering the election of members to the advisory Committee of the Regions, for example, led to an embarrassing 314-292 government defeat, as 26 Tories sided with the opposition.
“Our party could break itself over Europe – with consequences which would deeply damage Britain and give comfort only to our opponents”—Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, Conservative Party Conference, 1992
In what would become the most consequential move of the Maastricht legislative process, Labour introduced an amendment that required the government to put the social chapter to a Commons vote before ratification. After 23 days of gruelling committee stage debate, and many months of internal fratricide, the government accepted the amendment to avoid yet another defeat. Parliament would have the final say.
On May 18, 1993, Danish voters went to the ballot box in their second referendum over Maastricht. This time, the government included an opt-out on the single currency. The Danish electorate was swayed and a 56-44 “yes” victory left Britain as the sole holdout.
He did not want to look at the fish. He knew that half of him had been destroyed.—Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
While it wasn’t Labour’s intention to sink the bill, there was a very real concern in Europe that Labour would thwart Major’s ratification attempt. David Ward recalls that John Smith was summoned to the Elysée Palace to meet with François Mitterrand. “Mitterrand wanted reassurances that Labour wasn’t going to sabotage the ratification. John gave him these assurances but couldn’t resist mentioning that calling a referendum in France had been a huge gamble with ratifying the treaty.”
Following the bill’s passage through the House of Lords in mid-June—after fending off a late push for a Maastricht referendum (defeated by 445 to 176 votes)—the Commons vote on whether to adopt the social chapter was taken up on July 22.
In a nerve-biting finish, the Commons vote came in tied at 317 votes for and against. Speaker Betty Boothroyd cast a deciding vote against the social chapter to endorse the government’s position.
Then came the second vote of the evening on a government motion to reject the social chapter. Major was defeated by 324 votes to 316. Running out of options, the Prime Minister threatened to trigger a general election and called a confidence vote for the following morning.
Well behind in the polls and concerned a general election would be, as John Smith warned, “electoral suicide”, the Tory rebels backed down. The social chapter was rejected with a 32 vote majority and the Conservative benches awarded Major a confidence victory of 40 votes.
“What’s that?” she asked a waiter and pointed to the long backbone of the great fish that was now just garbage waiting to go out with the tide. “Tiburon,” the waiter said. “Shark.”—Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
After 160 hours of Commons debates and 64 votes, the UK added its signature to the Maastricht Treaty and deepened its integration into Europe. Major stressed the importance of putting the stalemate behind him. “I am not prepared to let it poison the political atmosphere any longer.”
But it wasn’t up to him. The Maastricht ordeal propelled the careers of several key Brexiteers, including Iain Duncan Smith, who voted with Labour 11 times during the Maastricht ratification process; John Redwood; Liam Fox; David Davis; and Boris Johnson, whose coverage of the events helped propel his career at the Daily Telegraph.
Maastricht wrecked Major’s ability to govern. Labour’s Smith and Robertson had towed him through the legislative seas while his own party had ripped chunks out of his most-important legislative goal for 15 months. At the end of The Old Man and the Sea, after facing down his prize, the aging fisherman hauls what remains of its shark-eaten carcass into shore where it rots in the shallows. It didn’t matter that Major had averted an election. He was left bleeding and impotent in the political shallows for the rest of his time in office, waiting to go out with the retreating Tory tide.
Before you go…
Friend of IFTC David Ward has a new piece on the Mile End Institute blog in which he reassesses John Smith’s tenure as Labour party leader and challenges the mythology of ‘one more heave’. It is well worth a read.