Andrew Rawnsley, The Observer  --  Arab News

LONDON, 26 April 2004 — 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.”

The prime minister was being overoptimistic. 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 up to him for many months to come. Blair has had to force down his throat a 10-course banquet, a menu dégustation of his own words. At the same time, 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 to himself as a defining achievement of his leadership — was to be a vote on the single currency which 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 relation ship with Europe in more than a quarter of a century. That could now be the paradoxical feat and perverse achievement of the most pro-European prime minister to occupy No. 10 since Ted Heath. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with politicians doing a volte face, even when the reversal is as stunning as this one. Blair’s headstand does at least conform to 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.

Here is how the referendum was pushed 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. Europe — these were the reports from the focus groups — 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 phobic press. That was a price worth paying to neutralize Europe as a negative election issue for Labour.

It is plausibly argued by those who know Blair 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 Tony 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 would normally 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 incredibly inelegant way in which the reverse has been conducted by a prime minister once noted for his great suppleness. Michael Howard 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 a negative. One senior Blairista MP looked on at those exchanges in absolute grief: “It was Tony’s Ron Atkinson moment. 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, as Blair and Straw have variously suggested that there will be just the one referendum or there might be multiple ones or there could yet be no treaty to vote on after all. This spectacular muddle emphasizes that the road the prime minister has chosen demands a very high toll.

Being cast as enfeebled is the inevitable penalty paid by the prime minister. He has exposed himself to the mockery of his enemies. He looks like a victim of events who has been overwhelmed by forces mightier than himself. Tory Euroskeptics and Euroenthusiasts have not been, as he hoped, divided. They have united in contempt for him. And worst of all, he has spread deep dismay and great anger among his most loyal friends.

The pro-European Blairites have bitten on their tongues in public. In private, it is the prime minister’s closest allies who are most intense in their fury with him for what they see as the most abject retreat of his premiership. Some believe, Blair presumably among them, that the hostility to the European constitution that is overwhelmingly expressed in opinion polls can be shifted in order to secure a positive vote in the second half of 2005. And 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 Twin 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, that is because he is, massively so.

The most menacing noise in the ears of Tony Blair 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.