Memory and Power in Post-War Europe: Studies in the Presence of ...

116 Anne Deighton
celebrate the diversity which subsidiarity brings.’ 38 But what is striking
about this speech is that it is nevertheless permeated by the desire to
change and to lead. The European Third Way is presented as a project to
lead Europe in a new direction, and to change the EU with a new agenda,
new priorities and the creation of a people’s Europe. Indeed, the guru
of the Third Way, Anthony Giddens, explicitly ‘reinvented’ the EU as an
instrument to deal with globalisation, which is a novel interpretation of
the Communities. 39
New Labour can argue with good reason that there has been a real
shift in Britain’s priorities. 40 But the desire for leadership and the need
to change Europe to fit Britain’s interest has remained a central part
of the rhetoric, if not the practice, of European politics. 41 The caution
surrounding the economic and monetary union (EMU) project is the
clearest example of this. In the run-up to the election it was clear that,
in private, many senior members of the Labour Party felt that the EMU
issue would evaporate. After all, a project for economic union had been
proposed in 1970, for completion by 1980. The British gut reaction was
that this continental initiative would not run, much as was thought about
the Messina talks in 1955, which set up the EEC. Yet the EMU question
has starkly exposed the gap between the rhetoric of leadership and the
inability to carry this out while outside the system. There remain grave
doubts about the EMU project, but the government has been forced
to try to move closer to membership, and to persuade British opinion
that this is the right thing to do, as it is clear that broader ‘leadership’
arguments will otherwise founder. Ironically, it has once again set up
conditions for membership, although it could be argued that all except
one – the convergence of British and continental economies – are devices
for domestic consumption, rather than ‘real’ conditions.
New Labour now sees the EU as a means for projecting military power
out into the wider world. During the air strikes over Kosovo in 1999, and
the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Blair’s personal role was dramatic –
and was dramatically presented to the domestic as well as world press
as an exercise in global leadership in war which also required his skills
of leadership of both European and global allies. He was portrayed as
38 Speech by Tony Blair to the French National Assembly, 24 March 1998; http://www.
fco.gov.uk
39 Anthony Giddens, The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy (Cambridge: Polity
Press, 1998), 141–2.
40 For a full account of EU policy during Blair’s first term see Anne Deighton, ‘European
Union Policy’, in Anthony Seldon (ed.), The Blair Effect: The Blair Government, 1997–
2001 (London: Little, Brown, 2001), 307–30.
41 Charles Grant, Can Britain Lead in Europe? (London: Centre for European Reform,
1998), 1.