Review from Right Now! magazine – March/April 2003

The Congress for Democracy is a cross-party, anti-federalist pressure group which publishes valuable research papers on European topics. This booklet’s authors are well known as Euro-sceptical economists and campaigners, and (in the case of Dr Burkitt) in the admittedly recondite field of monetary reform. So, despite its modest length, this is not exactly a light read - especially for those of us who find economics more soporific than stimulating.

But it nonetheless provides a useful outline of the Blair government’s ongoing attempts to "prepare and persuade" Britons to give up their fiscal independence whilst all the time telling them that Labour believes in "waiting and seeing". To this end, the government’s public relations machine lets us believe that one or other senior Labour figure is privately a Eurosceptic who will restrain any rash moves by hotheads like Peter Hain, or Blair himself, who has apparently already promised his EU counterparts that the UK will join after the next general election. Such snippets are obviously reassuring for conservative Eurosceptics, but seem to have little basis in fact. Although there are genuine Eurosceptics in the Labour Party (Dr Burkitt is one), they have little influence at senior levels - even less than Eurosceptics do now in lain Duncan Smith’s TorvLites. The machinery of preparation and persuasion moves on apace.

Mullen and Burkitt are at their most interesting when discussing how reports into political party funding, the publication of the National Changeover Plan, the creation of a new ‘enforcer’ post, changes in referendum administration and financing and the funding of Euro ‘information’ centres all have a tendency to pull in the same direction. It is only the lack of economic convergence with the Eurozone and the government’s knowledge that the bulk of Britons are against the Euro (thanks largely to some sections of the press) that have prevented Blair from holding a referendum already. We should be grateful to Messrs Mullen and Burkitt for having given us this subtle guide to the machinations of state.

Right NowI March/April 2003