We now face an agony of indecision about our destiny.
4 min read
As Britain leaves the EU, lifelong europhile Lord Heseltine reflects on the challenges ahead
Of course it is flattering to be invited to share my diary with so august an audience as their Lordships and Members of the House of Commons. In the best of all worlds, I would not have been available because my wife and I had planned to escape the worst of the English weather a long haul away in foreign climes. A new knee intervened. Anne went through the extraordinary experiences I had first undergone four years ago. Good progress in both cases but holiday postponed.
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I am delighted Big Ben has been spared the humility of tolling our departure from the European Union. “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” I could have done without the tawdry mugs on offer that I received as a member of the Conservative Party. I may have lost the whip but who knows what goodies I may be offered in the future in return for the “help” I never contributed.
"I am delighted Big Ben has been spared the humility of tolling our departure from the European Union. 'Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.'
Much press interest in the day we are told to “get Brexit done”. Of course Brexit is not done at all. All we have achieved is the ability to negotiate new relationships with both our European colleagues and the wider world. There are widely different views as to the possible outcome. Only when that is established will we know what the future may hold. In the meantime we are back to the agony experienced by Harold Macmillan, and the Tory government of the early 1960s, when the old Empire was coming to a close. Britain’s economic performance fell far short of its European neighbours and the old certainties of Edwardian England had been replaced by an agony of indecision about our destiny. In 1973 I was the first minister to speak in the US after we joined the European Union. I spoke with pride of a new destiny. I revisited the subject in 1986, after my resignation from Mrs Thatcher’s government, with a speech to the American Chamber of Commerce in London entitled, “An alliance not an empire”. It did not go down that well. British influence and participation in the European Union enriches and enhances the Atlantic partnership not threatens it.
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Boris Johnson now has about three months in which to show by deeds whether there is anything of meaning to the words about devolution in the recent election. The Budget, the reshuffle and associated speeches will define his premiership. There are no short term ways to demonstrate a rebalanced economy, not just of the North-South but of London and provincial England. We need more conurbation authorities. Leeds, Nottingham, Derby, Southampton, Portsmouth. The drive to unitary counties is a job half completed. It is just as important for our free standing towns and cities as is the emphasis on the North. Left to themselves, the baronies of Whitehall will never surrender their power to local authorities whom they do not believe are up to the task. A restructured government must have one person to drive the devolution process with full prime ministerial authority. The necessary changes are structural and require investment. Five years is the bare minimum to secure the evidence which the electorate will expect.
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At home, in our garden in Northamptonshire, we have 900 different varieties of snowdrop. It is, of course, a sort of mania. They are bursting with the mild weather and there is nothing we can do to ensure they will survive sufficiently for the open days over the next couple of weeks. How intriguing to explore the new world of social media as we try to encourage visitors to our website and our open days. This is a real agenda and more urgent than trying to dream up catch phrases for the voracious appetite of Fleet Street.
What satisfaction is to be derived – as I reflect on Robin Day’s famous remark about the “here today, gone tomorrow” nature of politicians – when I know that the snowdrops and the trees above them will be around for centuries ahead.
Lord Heseltine is a Non-Affiliated peer
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