What Did They Mean By That? The Gove-Johnson Riddle
I could easily have kept this to myself if I had wanted to ��� but I did not think that either Michael Gove or Al ���Boris��� Johnson would support the campaign to leave the EU.
And, as the facts have changed, I must change my mind. But how to change it? Am I to assume that a cause I have embraced for years, to the yawns and giggles of almost everyone, has suddenly mysteriously become popular and is embraced at the highest levels of our national life?
Experience of the world tells me things aren���t likely to be that simple.
I don���t think Mr Johnson would trouble to deny or discourage the widespread belief that he is possibly motivated more by ambition than by principle. He has more sense than to moan. It would be, as Enoch Powell once said of politicians who complain about the press, like a sailor complaining about the sea. He is ambitious in the way that he is blond. It is just so. We cannot and should not hold it against him.
But Mr Gove is a very different character whom I have never been able to fathom fully. Let us take a look at both of them, and their possible motives.
I once, long years ago, spent hours trying to persuade Mr Gove that the key to leaving the EU was the open support of major, respected political figures for that policy. I said that, as long as they didn���t, the public would assume that the elite knew something they didn���t, and be scared of leaving. He didn���t seem moved.
As for Al ���Boris��� Johnson, I am one of many who began by seeing him as an active ally in the struggle for independence, only to be seized by a growing apprehension that he didn���t really support that policy. Brilliantly, he gave the impression that he did. But Mr Johnson is, ultimately, too devoted to his plan to be ���World King��� to hang such a political millstone round his neck. And anyway, he isn���t, despite the Wodehousian bluster, terribly British. He���s an outsider, as most who have lived and worked abroad are.
So the nagging voice of doubt continues to plague me. What did they really mean by what they said?
Both men have, after all, been prominent ornaments of a Tory Party which has for many years been dishonest and evasive on the National Independence question and which only last year, in the shape of the European Arrest Warrant, needlessly handed a great power and liberty to the EU which we could have kept for ourselves had we wished to do so.
It has perfected the ���Eurosceptic��� position, of seeming hostile to the EU at election times, and then accepting its demands whenever they are made. Any member of it must therefore be asked ���Why, after all this time, are you suddenly so concerned about an issue which you have brushed to one side for decades?���
The answer, of course, is that the growth of UKIP (now a shrivelled memory) scared David Cameron into offering a referendum on the subject which he has, thanks to unforeseen circumstances, been forced to hold. Whoops Number One! And Tories who, hitherto, had been able to swivel about on the fence according to the needs of the times, can no longer do so. They have to say yes or no this time. Whoops Number Two!
Mr Gove���s declaration is the more trustworthy of the two, a standard Thatcherite Tory view of the EU, complete with clich��s about an ���unelected commission��� (of course it is unelected. It wouldn���t be any better if it were elected ��� look at the EU ���Parliament���, which *is* elected, or the European Council, whose members are all heads of elected governments) . It also contains absurd claims about our allegedly dynamic��� economy (three fathoms deep in debt and balanced there on top of a great wobbling housing bubble) and the ���best armed forces of any nation���, which I wish were true but is actually laughable, especially after the repeated cuts made by the government of which Mr Gove has been part since 2010.
As for our ���soft power��� and global leadership, I suppose we can just be glad he didn���t mention the ���special relationship��� or the ���independent deterrent���. Anyone in serious politics who believes in such things is destined for the locked ward. The next thing you know, he���ll be babbling about the excellence of BBC Radio 4 Comedy, or the Great British Bake-off, whatever that is.
If he���s so worried about the terror threat to Europe, why has he been so supportive of the aggressive foreign policy of this country (not influenced by EU power in this case) towards Iraq, Libya and Syria, the policy which has created the swamp in which terror flourishes?
I���ve also seen no sign that he has distanced himself from the fact-free hostility of the political establishment towards Russia, a country whose enmity successive British governments have pointlessly sought for many years. After 1990, Britain had no reasons for conflict with Russia at all. It is only our EU and NATO involvement which brings us into conflict with Moscow, thanks to the EU���s continuation of German eastward expansion by other means.
Mr Gove���s explanation of his decision is also very understated about the question of immigration. Does Mr Gove , a declared Blairite, want to halt the mass immigration so essential to Blairite social and economic policies? I am unsure.
I can see two possible explanations for Mr Gove���s decision, which he certainly didn���t need to take and could have dodged if he had wanted to. One is that he is more ambitious than he likes to let on, is a bit bored by being Justice Secretary, and would like to climb higher than the second-echelon ministries he has been given by his friend David Cameron. If he can���t do that, then the delights of the post-politics world ��� in which he would certainly do very well in one shape or another - must beckon.
I know every major salary is now judged on the basis that ���X is paid more than the Prime Minister��� but the truth is that the Prime Minister is not paid that much for a job of such status, and Cabinet Ministers are even less well-rewarded, especially when they compare their salaries with those of their friends in the law, the media or business.
Gordon Brown was a puritan and David Cameron is rich, and so both men kept Cabinet pay low, winning virtue points as they did so, while their less puritan or less wealthy cabinet colleagues silently ground their teeth, fearing to protest in case their careers are ended by accusations of greed.
A few years in a Cabinet job may be fun. But there���s a lot of slog and far too many boring meetings involved, which would sap the will of anyone with a voice and a pen and the willingness and talent to use them, such as Mr Gove has.
A lively mind such as Mr Gove���s will feel constrained by the Cabinet���s rules and burdened by its incessant red boxes and the tedious silence imposed by collective responsibility. I think, for him, the gamble works both ways. If we actually do vote to leave, Mr Gove will get preferment under whoever succeeds Mr Cameron.(Note: I do not necessarily assume that a vote to leave will be followed by an exit and nor should you ��� but it would definitely be followed by Mr Cameron���s resignation). How about Foreign Secretary? If not, there is the great world, beckoning with all its delights.
Al ���Boris��� Johnson is another matter altogether. His statements on the European Union issue suggest to me that he seeks to stand amidst the ranks of the ���Leave��� campaign largely to guide it towards an ultimate compromise later on. He said only a few weeks ago that he wasn���t an ���outer���, and I myself still think he isn���t one.
In his carefully-arranged, yet apparently chaotic press conference outside his home (a typical Al Johnson touch, though note how much more serious the hair has become), he summed up his position thus :
'I will be advocating vote "leave" ...because I want a better deal for the people of this country to save them money and to take back control.'
That���s not actually incompatible with continued membership, especially if the EU goes for a ���two-tier Europe��� a couple of years hence, which it almost certainly will.
It is remarkably like David Cameron���s position before his ���negotiations���. It���s not really an absolute case for exit. There isn���t the concentration on the powerlessness of Britain within the EU spider���s web, which Michael Gove describes and complains about.
Then, look at the summary of Mr Johnson���s position in his own newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, today. This notes:
��� Unlike some of those backing a "Brexit", Mr Johnson raises the possibility that Britain may not ultimately leave the EU in the event of an Out vote. He calls for Britain to have a deep and cooperative relationship with the EU "on the lines originally proposed by Winston Churchill: interested, associated, but not absorbed; with Europe - but not comprised".���
The Telegraph also noted
something I haven���t seen much mentioned
���Mr Johnson yesterday said he will not play a prominent role in the campaign and will not debate against Conservatives backing the ���In��� campaign.���
Really? That could be awkward to arrange for four whole months. But it means that Mr Johnson���s ability to woo Tories in a future leadership campaign will be at least partly protected from accusations of disloyalty or splitting.
Meanwhile I draw to your attention the poll (Survation talked to 1,004 people by telephone on Saturday) published in the Mail on Sunday yesterday. Taken after the Prime Minister���s trip to Brussels it showed that most people were not much influenced by events in the EU Capital
It showed 48% answering ���No��� to the question ���Should Britain Leave the EU���, and only 33% answering ���Yes���. Another 19% didn���t know. If they don���t want to leave by now, what will make them? Al Johnson? Not everyone lives in London, not everyone is as beguiled by Mr Johnson as are the media, not everyone reads conservative newspapers. The ���Leave��� campaign would do well to bear this in mind. An amazing 35% thought Mr Cameron did well in his talks, despite almost universal derision heaped on his head by the ���Eurosceptic��� media. While the talks had made 18% more likely to vote to leave, it had made 15% more likely to vote to stay. Most were unmoved.
Most may well stay that way. In which case a decisive vote to leave is far from certain. Professionals such as Mr Gove and Mr Johnson will have known all this before they decided what to do. It is as well to bear that in mind when you wonder why they did it.
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