A DANGEROUS
GAME
I
am going to quickly deal with a conspiracy theory that will come
up almost automatically. The idea is that Schroeder would be awkward
as long as he was under threat, the French Socialists had information
that could relieve the pressure, and so they used that to help
Schroeder. This is unlikely. Although the focus is on Germany,
the source is still the late President, M Miiterand. This scandal
is so large that it cannot be turned off like a tap. The French
Socialist Party was the creature of Mitterrand (it welded together
four left leaning factions to support his repeated challenges
on the Gaullist order). Like Kohl in the CDU, no one could breath
in the Socialists without Mitterrand’s permission. Most of the
people now in the Socialist Party therefor were close to Mitterrand,
and it is unlikely that a few Socialist scalps will not be taken.
Not even Socialists are stupid enough to so blatantly play with
matches in the woodpile.
THE GROWING
WEB
It
is not just in Germany that French corruption has caused problems.
The Israeli President Ezer
Weizman is under
criminal investigation over payments made to him by a French
businessman. The son of the corrupt former Italian Prime Minister,
the late Bettino Craxi, has justified
the behaviour of Kohl, Mitterrand and his father because they was
building a European superstate. The European
Commission has resigned
on mass (sort of). The most memorable case centred on the
former French Prime Minister and mistress of M Mitterrand, Edith
Cresson, employing her dentist to carry out Aids research.
In France itself the Parisian
mayor is being probed for corruption, with the former mayor
Jacque
Chirac being none other than the President. The behaviour
of the French elite seems to have neither respected parties or
borders. As Pat
Buchanan pointed out, an elite without roots will become an
elite without morals.
THE BRITISH
DIMENSION
The
British political class seems to be blissfully unaware of what
is going on. However, if M Mitterrand saw fit to prop up his colleague
in Bonn, why should the English Channel stop him? The obvious
target would be the Conservative
Party, which during the 1980s was permanently in power, needed
to be influenced and were
bribable. What would M Mitterrand have gained? Apart from the
Channel Tunnel (which the British were keener on anyway), the
French seem to have gained little. In fact, the British
Conservative Party started their slow and painful journey to realism
on Europe during this time. If they were bribed, it was not
with great effect. Similarly if French money was funding the centre
party Alliance, it was wasted as these parties were for the political
losers; they were fine for council by-elections but terrible for
winning real power. They may have been easily bought, but they
were not value for any money.
THE MYSTERY
ON THE LEFT
So
what could have happened to the Labour
Party? What could Gallic Gold have possibly bought there?
Well a clue is the U-turn that the party made on Europe during
the 1980s. In the General Election of 1983 the Labour Party (including
a young Anthony Blair) stood on a platform of withdrawal from
the European Union. In the period after that it started to move
away from that position. By 1987 the Labour Party was still a
recognisably left wing party but its leader Neil Kinnock, the
present European Commissioner, had moved them in a more moderate
direction. One of the changes he made was a reluctant acceptance
of the European Union, coupled with a greater scepticism. Then
the Labour Party became the Party of Europe. It advocated membership
of the Social Chapter, which guaranteed worker rights. It pushed
for membership of the disastrous Exchange Rate Mechanism. And
its paymasters in the Trade Union Congress were wowed by the head
of the European commission (and former Finance Minister in the
Mitterrand government) Jacques Delors. But why did the Labour Party
change?
THE ALLURE
OF EUROPE
There
are a number of fairly convincing explanations to explain the
sort of motivations that led the Labour Party to embrace Europe,
but there is no central direction. The desire for respectability
definitely moved Labour from a lot of unpopular policies, on Unilateral
Disarmament and higher taxes, but they did not move it to an unpopular
policy. A natural desire for big, bureaucratic and corporatist
government would definitely show Europe in a good light. The belief
that many of the Thatcherite reforms could be reversed on a European
level may have appealed. A sincere bloody-minded opposition to
any Tory ideas (even if a couple of years ago they were your
ideas) would appeal to some activists. A new generation of
Polenta scoffing, Chianti quaffing baby boomers may explain the
party’s internationalism, although the same generation has produced
a global outlook on a previously provincially European Conservative
Party. The end of the cold war may have made the EU less identified
with the West, making it more attractive to the left and less
useful to the right. A general drift to the right may have taken
the wind out of the advocates of a Socialist siege economy, but
the most effective pro-Europeans joined a breakaway party in the
early 1980s; the anti-Europeans had been boosted on the
right of the party. All these reasons have some validity, but
none of them to me has the feeling of an essential explanation
to the whole mystery.
THE CORRUPTION
HABIT
The
Labour Party has proved itself amazingly corrupt. Of the items
in the public domain (there are more to come out – believe me),
we have had one minister
getting preferment through a loan to one minister, hospitality
to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and a holiday home for the
Prime Minister. We have had a
former neighbour of, and personal donor to, Tony Blair being appointed
to head the state-broadcasting corporation. A minister got
the government to reverse its stand on Genetically Modified food
for a cool two
million pounds. Policy on tobacco sponsorship has been reversed
in one sector due to a million-pound
donation to the Party. A prominent
Labour supporter offered exclusive access to the New Labour
inner circle for substantial fees. The accountants Arthur
Andersen are removed from a fraud blacklist due to their work
for the Labour Party and the jobs for prominent Labour politicians.
Questions about links of the Mitterrand scandal to the Labour Party
itself have been raised by non other than the New Labour journalist,
Rachel Sylvester. The question is not whether the Labour Party
was for sale, but whether the customer was aware of it.
I’M NOT
CONVINCED
After
piecing together the means (Gallic Gold), the motive (a U-turn
on Europe) and the opportunity (a corrupt party leadership), I
remain unconvinced. Perhaps it’s being an Englishman but I can
not believe that a fellow Englishman would betray his country
for something as vulgar as money. I also do not believe that the
French would think perfidious Albion as worth the money, as they
would a pliant Germany. However, what is certain is that we have
not heard the last of this very international corruption scandal.
Come to think of it, has Al Gore been making any calls to Paris
recently?