The final Blair–Brown battle

16 June 2007

Fraser Nelson says that Tony Blair’s swansong summit next week is fraught with danger for Gordon Brown. The last thing the next Prime Minister wants in his in-tray is a new EU constitution that he has to sell to the British public

There may be a fudge of nomenclature: an EU ‘International Spokesman’ rather than a foreign minister. But this would matter little in practice as Romano Prodi, the Prime Minister of Italy, has conceded. ‘As long as we have more or less a European Prime Minister and a European Foreign Minister, then we can give them any title,’ he says. The end result is that, should this treaty be passed, the EU would finally be able to flex its muscles on the world stage as a distinct constitutional entity.

Perhaps the most controversial suggestion, however, is the new voting structure that would make it harder for individual states to block legislation. In addition, opting out has served Britain well over the years: the Department of Trade and Industry estimates our exemption from the Working Time Directive (the 48-hour working week) is worth £9 billion a year. ‘This opt-out is pivotal to Blair and Brown,’ says one adviser. ‘If Blair can make this permanent, he will.’

But what of preserving Britain’s policy-making independence in the future? The EU’s voting methods are wrapped in such Byzantine complexity that it has taken a study by academics at the London School of Economics to decipher what the proposed changes would mean for Britain. Their conclusion? µ[D27]/ µ[N’27] is 0.719. Or, in other words, the UK will lose just under 30 per cent of its ability to block legislation. It is the classic EU manoeuvre: disguise a straightforward power grab in the most mind-numbing formulae and protocols.

And here, should Mr Cameron miss it, is the bit where Britain hands over powers. Simply put, the streamlined Euro voting system means the British government would be forced to enact more laws sent from Brussels. It would need more allies to avoid measures like the Working Time Directive. Mr Blair sees this as a small threat: Europe, he believes, is moving in his direction. And wouldn’t it be great, he reasons, to force through a single market in services? Mr Brown, however, takes a bleaker view of the negotiations ahead.