Interview with Peter Hain MP, Secretary of State for Wales

25 May 2003

Please note "BBC Breakfast with Frost" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used

PETER SISSONS: Well Peter Hain is the Cabinet Minister leading Britain's delegation to the European Convention. He's in our Swansea studio now. Good morning Peter.

PETER HAIN: Morning Peter.

PETER SISSONS: Giscard would be very pleased if we had a referendum, and he certainly doesn't think it a bit of tidying up, what do you say?

PETER HAIN: Well, I don't know if he said exactly that. Half the countries in Europe will be having a referendum. Half, including ourselves, Germany and others, have parliamentary democracies and constitutional procedures where that is not the case. Actually we are the only government, labour government, that's ever had a referendum on Europe, to stay in Europe, in 1975. We will call a referendum on the Euro if we decide to go for it. The Tories have never had a referendum on anything. And their hypocrisy, Michael Ancram for example, voted against a referendum on the Euro in 1993 when parliament decided whether it wanted to endorse the idea of Europe having a, Europe¿ So I think what's important is we just concentrate on the facts and not the fiction. The facts are that we are making good progress in this negotiating process which will take probably a year to go still. The facts are we've achieved over the last few days a lot of the things which we thought we would but which the Tories and their friends and the media said we wouldn't. For example, they said we'd lose our seat on the Security Council of the United Nations. We got to keep it, we've Britain's position protected. They said foreign and security policy would be decided by Brussels. It isn't. Britain's veto remains there. They said we'd have a European diplomatic service - we won't, and I can go on and on.

PETER SISSONS: OK, but you really got up the noses of a lot of people last week when you so flatly ruled out a referendum. Not only that you said to the protestors you might as well put away your placards and stop wasting your time. The Daily Mail called it the per blind arrogance of Marie Antoinette urging people to eat cake. Did you regret the strength of your language - a little touch of arrogance that may have crept in?

PETER HAIN: One of the things I've always done in my political life is to tell it straight. And I think people appreciate, Ministers especially in this government, who tell it straight, because there's a lot of concern and a lot of cynicism about politicians and about spin and all the rest of it, and if there's a criticism to be made of me it's that I answer questions directly and I tell it straight. We do not think that this constitutional treaty reform of the European Unions institutions of the kind that there've been for many such reforms over the last 30 years of our membership of the European Union, we do not think that that should be subject to a referendum. It's best dealt with in parliament, as all other changes have been, including under Mrs. Thatcher when she introduced the single market to allow our businesses access to trade with Europe on an equal footing. And the single currency, a much much bigger enterprise under John Major, they didn't have a referendum, because these matters are best dealt with (interruption by Peter Sissons). Can I just add one other brief thing. This will take another year to negotiate. There's a lot of work to do over the next few weeks and the convention when that ends it goes into the government process, into the government conference, the inter-governmental conference, where Britain will have a veto, so let's just calm down and see how this goes. So far we've made very good progress, there's still some tough issues to negotiate but I'm confident we can get a good result for Britain in the end.

PETER SISSONS: You lay claim to being a politician who always tells it straight. Were you telling it straight eight years ago in the book that you wrote then, in which you described Europe as a vast conspiracy of corporatists and bureaucrats and giving up the pound would consign democracy to the scrapheap. They were the words of Peter Hain eight years ago.

PETER HAIN: What I was talking about and in fact you've taken that our of context, because if you look at the rest of the chapter in my book you'll see that I thought a single currency was, it was actually the logical extension of the single market and would be sensible for Europe to do. I was concerned then about such things as the structure of the European Central Bank and the convergence criteria and the stability and growth pact. Exactly the issues that there's now a common consensus across Europe that they should be reformed. And of course the single currency is with us. In that stage it hadn't happened yet. We have to decide whether we're going to join something or stay isolated. So I've been perfectly consistent, perfectly consistently pro-European. I have changed my attitude on the Euro of course, because it's here, it's a fact, and it needs reform and we will help to reform that if and when we join it.

PETER SISSONS: What about another story in the Sunday papers Peter, today, that there is now a road map to the Euro. Road map seems to be quite a fashionable expression. But that Tony Blair has won his battle with Gordon Brown for the option to be kept option to be kept open for a Euro referendum before the General Election. Any truth in that

PETER HAIN: Well it's a bit like the discussion on the convention in this new constitutional treaty. The discussion on the Euro is surrounded by so much hype, so much media spin, I was in a meeting with the Chancellor and the Prime Minister last week to discuss my views on how we should move forward. It was very amicable. I think we're all agreed that what we must never do is rule out joining the Euro in the foreseeable future. That would be disastrous for Britain. That's the Conservative policy which would consign Britain to a role of being isolated from Europe, and maybe what they really want to do, as we're seeing now the pressure coming through the Tory ranks from people like Bill Cash, is actually pull out of Europe, that's their real objective I think. Or to adopt a position on the Euro and on Europe generally, where we take it slowly and carefully and we do it in a sensible fashion as the government set out in 1997 and we're now at the end game of that process and I'm very happy that we are in a position where we move forward and discuss the right economic circumstances in which we should join.

PETER SISSONS: Just one final opportunity for you to recount on what you said on people with placards. You were one of the most famous political activists of his generation and to you, 20 years ago, the notion that people who are pushing at a closed door shouldn't demonstrate - well you would have laughed at that wouldn't you/

PETER HAIN: I'm not saying that people shouldn't demonstrate. Of course not.

PETER SISSONS: You did say put away those placards they've got no hope of getting a referendum.

PETER HAIN: My advice was that the government is not going to call a referendum and that remains the case. But the idea that you could suggest that our campaigns 30 years ago to give Nelson Mandela the vote and to get him out of prison when he spent 10,000 days of his life there was equivalent to the process of modernising, and yes, tidying up the constitution of Europe, because three-quarters of the clauses in the new treaty are actually transposed from previous ones, and modernising reforming and the other quarter of the clauses to equip Europe for enlargement, for ten new countries coming in. The idea that this is equivalent to that situation is just, I find it absolutely astonishing. So by all means, people put their arguments, protest if they like, but in the end what you should concentrate is on the facts, not the fiction. What we're designing is a new structure for Europe to make it fit for enlargement of the European Union.

PETER SISSONS: Peter Hain, thank you very much for joining us this morning.

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